The general strike called this Wednesday in the Spanish state is expected to gather thousands of people to protest the cost of living, with special emphasis on the price of housing. But the unrest behind it is shared beyond the border. The feeling of suffocation in the face of an unexpected bill, the race against time to save faster than inflation rises, the frustration before a supermarket shelf with soaring prices, and the uncertainty of a truncated future run through all of Europe. And this unrest has crystallized into mobilizations across the continent.

When in 2016 the British voted in favor of separating from the European Union, the decision fell like a bucket of cold water on all the capitals. A net contributor to the bloc was leaving, one of the great economic and military powers and one of its most influential members. A decade later, the British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has opened the door to the possibility of the United Kingdom turning back. But would the European Union want to accept them?

New push by the EU against TikTok. Brussels suspects that the platform's algorithm infringes the Digital Services Act (DSA) because it traps users in a bottomless pit from which it is very difficult to escape. It considers that its content personalization design drags users into a spiral of harmful content that can damage their mental health and even encourage eating disorders. For this reason, it threatens the company with a multi-million euro fine if it does not remedy it.

Belgium hardens its anti-immigration stance. After ten hours of heated debate, the Belgian Parliament has approved a law that will allow the police to conduct raids on homes if they suspect undocumented immigrants may be living there. The controversial measure will require a court order and will only be applied in cases where immigrants have previously ignored a deportation order. The visits will be permitted between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., and the police officer will be able to request the assistance of a locksmith.

"I am an owl," joked Pablo Hernández de Cos in a session of the Círculo Ecuestre de Barcelona colloquium series held in April 2024. The question invited him to take a stance between the two positions traditionally known in monetary policy: the hawk, which opts for more restrictive policies, and the dove, which opts for looser ones. De Cos, however, dodged the dilemma and opted to mimic the response of the person he aspires to have as his predecessor, Christine Lagarde: "President Lagarde was asked this question and said she was neither a hawk nor a dove, that we are all owls.".

European capitals woke up this Wednesday to headlines about the Democratic wave in the United States Congress. Despite the euphoria and hopes this may have generated in some offices, institutional statements have been rather watered-down and have opted for caution. A caution that shows that despite the Republicans' electoral setback, no major changes are expected in foreign policy.

The way of approaching tourism is also starting to shift in Brussels. If until now the incipient European guidelines revolved around the competitiveness and resilience of the sector, the community executive now speaks of "growing pressure" on certain destinations that have difficulties managing the influx, especially in summer, and points to low wages as a widespread problem.

The wave of cyberattacks against supermarket cooling systems continues to spread and, after affecting chains in Portugal this Tuesday, it now counts eight affected countries. Faced with this scenario, the European Union has argued that they should not be treated as isolated events and that a joint response must be prepared.

Dozens of supermarkets in Belgium and Sweden were the target of a large-scale cyberattack early this Monday. Similar, smaller-scale incidents have also been recorded in Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland, and Estonia. According to local media reports, freezers suddenly heated up—some reaching temperatures of 50 degrees—and the food they contained has spoiled.

Starting this Sunday, receiving a package from companies like Shein, Temu, or AliExpress will cost two euros more. On November 1st, the two-euro (2.5 dollar) tax that Brussels has imposed on all shipments from countries outside the European Union comes into effect to try to curb the influx of Chinese products. The new customs management tax arrives on the eve of particularly intense commercial dates, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Christmas shopping fever.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has celebrated Canada becoming "the first associate member of the European Union." At a summit with representatives of European institutions, who traveled to Montreal, he rescued the label proposed by Ursula von der Leyen –which caused a stir among the capitals–, but has given himself until June 2027 to fill it with content. "We will determine the full substance, scale, and scope of this new form of membership," he said.

The tragic collision of two trains in Urda, in the province of Toledo, which has already left more than 70 people dead, has put the Spanish railway network in the spotlight and reopened the debate on infrastructure maintenance. With the data at hand, a surprising conclusion is reached: Spain is the European country that has allocated the most money to expanding the high-speed network, but investment in the conservation and improvement of existing lines has a much lower weight than that of its major railway neighbors.

Ursula von der Leyen wants to make it clear that it is she –and not the member states– who holds the reins in the European Union. The day after European capitals, at Germany's initiative, dismissed the "new associate member" label for the new alliance with Canada, the President of the European Commission has used this designation again from the summit being held this Thursday and Friday in Montreal, to reach out once more to Mark Carney.

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced this Thursday that it is maintaining interest rates at 2.5% in a context of uncertainty due to the energy crisis, which has caused energy prices to soar. The institution warns that this situation could put pressure on inflation and slow down growth in the eurozone, and has therefore opened the door to raising the price of money again in December.

Spain is the fourth largest economy in the eurozone, the second largest country in terms of square kilometers, and the fourth in terms of inhabitants in the European Union. And it is also the country with the most kilometers of high-speed rail lines in community territory. In fact, it is the second in the world, only behind China. The tragic train crash in Toledo—which has caused at least 68 deaths—has put the Spanish railway model in the spotlight. Above all, it has raised doubts about investment priorities, the use of the network, and the maintenance of infrastructure.

During her State of the Union address, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, announced with great fanfare that Canada would be a "new associated member" of the European Union. The rapprochement between Brussels and Ottawa was evident, both by the presence of Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, in the chamber and by the previous talks to strengthen ties. But the announcement caught the member states off guard, as they did not expect the initiative to be presented with that label.

Brussels wants to give more powers to Frontex, the European Union agency in charge of border management. The European executive proposes to strengthen the body's role in deportations so that it can return immigrants to their country of origin from non-EU territory. Thus, for example and according to the planned reform, the agency could return a person from Mali who is in Morocco. To carry out these operations, however, it will be necessary for the third country in question to have previously signed a specific agreement with the EU.

Europe is facing uncomfortable climate forecasts: with current policies, the global temperature will rise by 1.5°C by 2030, about 2°C by 2050, and up to 3°C by 2100. On the Old Continent, where the speed of climate warming is even higher, temperatures could reach 4 or 5 degrees higher by the end of the century. Faced with this scenario, the European Union warns: it is necessary to move from prevention to adaptation. For this reason, the European Commission presented this Tuesday a proposal for a climate resilience law that will require member states to assess climate risks and adopt a national plan to address them. Governments will have to identify public authorities responsible for each climate risk and will have to designate an official to oversee the plan. And behind the proposal lies, above all, an economic argument.

Aleksandar Vučić, the man who had been at the helm of power in Serbia for more than twelve years, has acknowledged defeat. The overwhelming triumph of the Students' List in this Sunday's parliamentary elections, which has obtained 52% of the votes and won by an absolute majority, puts an end to a period marked by highly personalistic power, a lack of freedom of the press, and good rapport with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping. The elections, which had become a referendum on the continuity of the Serbian former president, saw participation levels not seen since the disintegration of Yugoslavia and a very high mobilization among electors residing outside the country.

The Cold War is a distant memory and a ghost is once again haunting Europe. At least, Western Europe. That of a hot war or, at the very least, a hybrid one, which manifests itself in many ways: sabotage, drones, cyberattacks, the use of immigration as a tool of destabilization... "We have entered a new era of deterrence," predicts security and defense expert Juraj Majcin. Eighty-one years after the defeat of Nazism, the outbreak of a widespread conflict, extending beyond what is now being fought in Ukraine following the invasion by Vladimir Putin's Russia, no longer seems an improbable scenario, and this will be, precisely, one of the topics of the new edition of Enfoquem, next Monday.