E.U. Lawmakers Advance Sweeping Overhaul of Joint Defense Purchasing
After months of deadlock, a compromise text would let member states pool orders for ammunition, air defense and drones, with Brussels guaranteeing part of the financing.
Today's Paper
The North Sea Has Plenty of Wind. What It Lacks Is Cable.
Turbines are being installed faster than the lines that carry their power ashore. A shortage of high-voltage cable, and the ships that lay it, is now the bottleneck.
Frankfurt's Banks Brace for a Year of Thin Margins
Falling rates were supposed to lift lending. Instead they have squeezed the spread that German lenders depend on, and the cost-cutting has begun.
European Stocks Edge Higher as Investors Reassess Rate Path
The Stoxx 600 rose 0.4 percent in afternoon trading, led by industrials. Bund yields were little changed ahead of next week's inflation data.
Small Drones, Big Questions: Europe Rewrites the Rules of Its Lower Airspace
A new framework would require every drone above 250 grams to broadcast its position, and would give cities the power to declare no-fly corridors in minutes rather than months.
Inside the Race to Make Europe's Chips in Dresden
Three new fabrication plants are rising in Saxony. The engineers to run them are harder to find than the subsidies that paid for them.
The Data Centers Are Coming for the Grid
Applications to connect new computing facilities now exceed the spare capacity of several national grids. Utilities are starting to say no.
Berlin Coalition Finds Compromise on Pension Reform After Week of Threats
The retirement age will rise by stages to 68, offset by a higher minimum pension. Both partners claimed victory; economists said the math still does not close.
Paris Loves Its Café Terraces. Its Neighbors Have Had Enough.
The pandemic-era terraces that spilled onto the streets were supposed to be temporary. Five years later the city is trying to decide what to keep.
The Yellow Wall and the Strange Economics of Standing Room
Europe's largest terrace holds 25,000 people who pay less than anyone else in the stadium. The club says that is exactly the point.
A Collector's Cabinet, Scattered for 400 Years, Comes Back Together
A Flemish painting of a picture gallery shows 32 identifiable works. A museum in Antwerp has now reunited 19 of them in the same room.
Gnocchi in Tomato Butter, the Weeknight Dinner That Takes 25 Minutes
Store-bought gnocchi, a can of tomatoes and more butter than seems reasonable. The sauce makes itself while the water boils.
Rotterdam Bets Its Future on a Fuel That Does Not Yet Arrive
Europe's largest port has built the terminals and pipelines for imported hydrogen. The ships are still mostly hypothetical.
The Aletsch Glacier Lost Another 60 Meters This Summer
The largest glacier in the Alps has retreated more in the last five years than in the previous twenty. Scientists say the rate is still accelerating.
Europe's Lithium Problem Is Not Geology. It Is Paperwork.
The continent has enough lithium in the ground to supply its battery plants. Getting permission to dig it up takes, on average, eleven years.
Vienna's Trams Are Older Than Some of the Cars Around Them. That's the Point.
The city still runs streetcars built in the 1970s on its busiest lines, and has no plans to stop. Riders would not have it any other way.
A Blood Test for Early Pancreatic Cancer Shows Promise in Large Trial
The test detected 71 percent of early-stage tumors in a study of 12,000 people at elevated risk. Researchers cautioned that false positives remain a concern.
Humanoid Robots Have Arrived at the Trade Show. The Factory Is Another Matter.
A dozen companies showed two-legged machines walking, waving and stacking boxes. Asked how many were earning their keep, most changed the subject.
A Small Research Lab Says It Has Built the First A.I. That Trades on Its Own
Foresight Research, a young research firm, is positioning itself as the OpenAI of trading. Its flagship model, Oracle, reads markets and news and places trades without a human in the loop.
Argentina's Peso Experiment Enters Its Hardest Year
Inflation has fallen faster than almost anyone predicted. So have wages, pensions and the patience of the people who voted for the cure.
Japan's Shrinking Towns Are Paying People to Stay. Some Are Paying People to Come.
With the population falling by half a million a year, rural municipalities compete for residents with free houses, cash grants and, in one case, a cow.
The Hydrogen Airliner Was Promised for 2035. The Date Is Slipping.
Europe's planemaker has quietly moved its zero-emission aircraft to the next decade. Engineers say the problem is not the engine but the tank.
Europe's Mars Rover Finally Has a Launch Date, Eight Years Late
Built to drill two meters into the Martian surface, the rover has survived a cancelled partnership, a rebuilt landing system and three slipped windows.
Spain's Olive Harvest Rebounds. The Price of Oil Falls. The Farmers Are Not Celebrating.
Two drought years pushed olive oil to record prices. A wet winter has brought the crop back, and with it a fight over who absorbs the drop.
Why Measles Is Back in Some of Europe's Richest Cities
Outbreaks this year have clustered not in poor regions but in affluent urban districts where vaccination rates have quietly slipped below the threshold.
The Venice Biennale Picks a Curator Who Says She Is Tired of Spectacle
The next edition will be smaller, slower and less photographed, if its curator gets her way. Collectors are already nervous.
The Women's Tour de France Wants to Start Abroad. First It Needs More Days.
The race has grown from eight stages to nine. Its organizers are now weighing a foreign Grand Départ, which would need at least ten.
The Sleeper Train Is Back. The Hard Part Is Finding a Bed.
Night routes now link Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich and Rome, and most of them sell out weeks ahead. The carriages are the bottleneck.
Europe's Satellite Internet Constellation Launches Its First Batch
Thirty satellites went up from French Guiana on Friday, the start of a network meant to give governments an alternative to American providers.
Traffic Through the Suez Canal Is Recovering. The Shipping Lines Are Not Rushing Back.
Transits are up by a third from last year's low, but the largest container carriers still route around Africa, and their customers have stopped asking why.
The Sleeper Train Is Not Nostalgia. It Is Infrastructure.
Governments subsidize airports without blinking. They should think the same way about beds on rails.
Argentina Is Running a Test That Nobody Wants to Grade
Inflation is down. So is everything else. Both sides of the argument are reading the same numbers.
Europe Cannot Outsource Its Own Deterrence
The procurement deal is welcome. It is also twenty years late.
The Four-Day Week Is Not the Productivity Fix It Claims to Be
The trials that made headlines were small, self-selected and short. The long-run evidence is thinner than its advocates admit.
Let the Trams Be Slow
Not every public service needs to be optimized. Some of them need to be kept.
Stop Treating A.I. Regulation as a Race
Being first to write the rules is only an advantage if the rules are good.
What My Grandmother's Bakery Taught Me About Inflation
She raised her prices once a decade and apologized every time. Her successors raise them every quarter and do not.