Europe ‘in most difficult and dangerous situation since second world war,’ Danish PM warns
Frederiksen also says that Europe is “in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the second world war,” saying it’s worse than during the cold war.
“I think it is serious. I think the war in Ukraine is very serious. When I look at Europe today, I think we are in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the end of the second world war – not the cold war.”
Asked about drone incursions, she says that she is generally in favour of shooting them down, but caveats it that “it has to be done in the right way.”
And that ends her briefing.
Key events
Situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant ‘under control’, Russian-installed operator says, after Zelenskyy warning
The Russian-installed operator of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has claimed the situation at the occupied facility was “under control”.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned the nuclear plant had been off grid for seven straight days, warning of the potential threat of a “critical” situation.
It is the longest outage at Zaporizhzhia since Russia invaded and seized the nuclear plant, which is Europe’s largest.
Zelenskyy said Russian shelling was preventing restoration of a power line needed to cool the reactors and prevent a meltdown.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, said it was working with both sides to restore the external power line. Rafael Grossi said there was no immediate danger as long as diesel generators remained in operation, providing emergency power for the facility.
“The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is under control,” the operator said on social media, adding that it had enough fuel to keep backup electricity generators running.
France investigating Russia-linked tanker for ‘serious offences’
French president Emmanuel Macron said it “was a good thing” that France was investigating a suspected infraction by the oil tanker Boracay for what he called “serious offences”.
The vessel is suspected of belonging to the so-called “shadow fleet” involved in the Russian oil trade. Macron said the assessment is that between 600 to 1,000 vessels form part of that fleet.
Macron also addressed the idea to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, highlighting the importance of respecting international law. He said he was aligned with Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever, who has been critical about the EU Commission initiative.
“When assets are frozen, one has to respect international law. This is what the Belgian Prime Minister also recalled,” Macron told reporters.
The French president was speaking as he arrived at the informal meeting between EU heads of state in Copenhagen.
Europe will not let Russia ‘sow division and anxiety’, says von der Leyen
Europe will not allow Russia to “sow division and anxiety”, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said before the talks in Denmark and highlighted a “pattern” of behaviour after a spate of drone sightings across particularly Denmark.
“It’s a pattern, and this pattern is coming from Russia,” von der Leyen told reporters as the defence talks kicked off in Copenhagen. “Russia tries to test us, but Russia also tries to sow division and anxiety in our societies. We will not let this happen”.
Meanwhile, the next round of talks between the US and Russia aimed at improving relations will take place before the end of autumn, the Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday, according to the state TASS news agency .
EU working as fast as possible on Ukraine reparation loan, Kallas says
The EU is working as fast as possible to reach an agreement on using Russian assets to finance a reparation loan for Ukraine, said the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, even though not all member states are supporting the plan
Kallas insisted on the need to use the seized Russian assets to finance the war reparations to be paid ultimately to Ukraine rather than use taxpayer funds. “If we don’t take these [Russian] assets into account then it is on our taxpayers, that’s for sure,” she told reporters in Copenhagen.
Finland backs using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine
Finland supports the proposed use of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, the county’s prime minister Petteri Orpo said.
“We need a strong and sustainable, long-term package for Ukraine and [achieving that] via frozen Russian assets is a very good idea and I think that we have to go forward with that,” Orpo told reporters at the EU summit.
EU leaders stress need to cut red tape in business side meeting before Copenhagen summit
Jennifer Rankin
in Brussels
Ahead of the European summit, several EU leaders have been meeting business leaders in Copenhagen.
The main message was to speed up efforts to cut red tape, but each intervention had a particular national flavour.
In remarks that ranged widely over the economic agenda, French president Emmanuel Macron highlighted France’s longstanding goal of prioritising European companies.
“European preference… was still recently an awful word, totally impossible to be pronounced in a business meeting. But this is a necessity because we are the unique crazy place where we don’t protect our domestic players. In the US, you have a US agenda. In China, it’s no more Chinese preference, it is a Chinese exclusivity sometimes.”
He said Europe was “the only place where you put regulations on your players, but at the same time you negotiate the lifting of barriers with non-European players with a double standard”. This is almost certainly a reference to the EU trade deal with Mercosur, which France argues disadvantages European farmers.
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk, who has argued for a review of some Green Deal regulations, said the EU should be easing demands on companies to allow them to compete with more lightly regulated competitors elsewhere in the world.
He recounted his “blunt” exchanges with Polish steel companies, who he said wanted deregulation, rather than simply state aid, i.e. subsidies or tax breaks.
“This is why we have to think about our real acceleration when it comes to the deregulation process. Our ambitions cannot mean that we continue to impose new burdens on companies, it cannot mean that because of Europe, companies lose competitiveness vis-à-vis the world.
Look at the world around us: we Europe are responsible for only 6% of the world’s emissions, we cannot constantly be the ones who reduce emissions at the pace that no company can bear. We cannot constantly increase our ambition when others do not.”
While the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted that she had made six proposals to cut red tape in different areas, the so-called omnibuses, which she claimed added up to an €8bn reduction in bureaucracy for business.
She highlighted that none had been agreed by the EU’s co-legislators, i.e. the Council of Ministers and European parliament. And in a not-so-subtle dig at where she saw the blockage, she said she wished MEPs had been at the business summit in Copenhagen.
“I would like to see the European parliament here too because we need them also to move the whole ship forward.”
Luxembourg has doubts about EU proposals on using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine
But not everyone seems to be on the same page when it comes to the use of frozen Russian assets.
Luxembourg’s prime minister Luc Frieden tells reporters that the commissions’s proposal raises many legal questions, as “you can’t just take over assets that belong to another state so easily,”
“All proposals are welcome, but we must first ensure that they work in practice and that we know who will ultimately bear responsibility for them,” he said.
Poland’s Donald Tusk skips the doorstep, joking with reporters:
I will be much wiser tomorrow.
Siliņa says the EU should move on drones very quickly, as she rejects some criticism that fully developing the bloc’s “drone wall” could take up to three-four years.
“We don’t need three years, and I believe we can do it in a much shorter time.
It just depends on the leaders [if] we can agree on a much shorter time, because with drones, how they’re developing so fast, three years is too long.”
She says the necessary capabilities can be developed within 12-18 months.
‘Timely meeting’ to agree on how to respond to drone incursions, Latvian PM says
Latvian prime minister Evika Siliņa tells reporters that the meeting needs to help the EU “coordinate even more what we do in Nato, and what we can do at the European Union level.”
She says it’s a “timely meeting” as “the Russians are not stopping those drones … flying over our borders and our cities,” naming Poland, Latvia and Denmark as some of the countries affected.
She says the Baltics are a bit ahead with previous experience of drone incursions, having spent some money on “sensors” and following up on lessons learned by Ukraine on how to detect drones and protect civilian airports.
She also welcomes the proposal to use Russian immobilised assets for Ukraine, saying “we really need to see what’s in the details.” “We have been asking for quite a long time to use those immobilised assets for Ukraine,” she adds.
In her earlier comments in Danish, Frederiksen was asked to elaborate further on her comment about the interwar period and the current level of threat.
She said that there were some parallels between the interwar period and now.
While the past won’t offer solutions to the future, she said, there may be some lessons to be drawn there, pointing to the need for Europe to reindustrialise and step up its arms production “so that democracies can defend themselves against those who don’t want freedom.”
Europe ‘in most difficult and dangerous situation since second world war,’ Danish PM warns
Frederiksen also says that Europe is “in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the second world war,” saying it’s worse than during the cold war.
“I think it is serious. I think the war in Ukraine is very serious. When I look at Europe today, I think we are in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the end of the second world war – not the cold war.”
Asked about drone incursions, she says that she is generally in favour of shooting them down, but caveats it that “it has to be done in the right way.”
And that ends her briefing.
We have to leave national perspective behind and unite to take Russia on, Danish PM Frederiksen says
The Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen is now speaking to reporters on arrival to the main summit venue in Copenhagen.
She says the main job for the leaders is to “discuss security and defence deterrence, including drones and help to Ukraine,” with a side conversation on migration.
She also backs the European Commission’s proposal for a reparation loan for Ukraine, secured on frozen Russian assets.
In a very stark message to other leaders, he says:
“Let me be very clear: there has to be a common European goal on this, otherwise we will be divided, and that is not the right way forward for Europe.
I think we have to leave our national perspective talking about security in Europe, and look at the pattern. With the hybrid war going on, and look at the war in Ukraine, not as a war in a European country Ukraine, but as a Russian attempt to threaten all of us. …
I hope that everybody recognises now that there is a hybrid war, and one day it’s Poland, the other day, it’s Denmark, and next week it will probably somewhere else that we see sabotage, or we see drones flying …
So I see this from a European perspective. There is only one country that are willing to threat us, and it is Russia and therefore, we need a very strong answer back.”
But she warns:
“I want us to rearm. I want us to buy more capabilities. I want us to innovate more, for example, on drones.
But at the same time, we have to be very, very transparent and frank. In a hybrid war, you cannot defend yourself against all different kinds of activities. That’s the whole idea of a hybrid war to do many different things at the same time.
So yes, we have to do more, but we will. I don’t think we will ever reach a conclusion where no drones are flying into Europe or no sabotage will be seen. So, yes, we have to do more, but we also have to be frank, that this is hybrid war is about, you know, threatening us all.”
Oktoberfest site temporarily closed as police investigates explosions in residential flat
Separately, I am also keeping an eye on the events in Munich, after police said they discovered explosives in a residential building in the north of the city that caught fire and sparked explosions, leaving one person dead, Reuters reported.
Police said the residential building had been deliberately set on fire in a family dispute and one person who was found there had died and another was missing, but not believed to be in danger, Reuters added.
Special forces had to be brought in to defuse booby traps found in the building, according to police, the agency said.
Following the incident, the Oktoberfest said it would remain shut on Wednesday until 5 pm in connection with the explosion.
Munich-published Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted the city’s mayor Dieter Reiter as saying there was a credible threat against the Oktoberfest, which required further investigation.
Poland extends border checks with Germany, Lithuania until April 2026
In other news, Poland says it will extend controls on borders with Germany and Lithuania until 4 April 2026, the Interior Ministry told Reuters.
Poland introduced temporary controls along borders with Germany and Lithuania in July, echoing several other European Union countries in reimposing frontier checks to stem illegal migration.
Copenhagen sees largest security operation since COP15 in 2009 as EU leaders meet amid drone threat
The Danish media are reporting that the security operation in Copenhagen is the largest seen in the capital since the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, with a large exclusion zone around Christiansborg Palace where the leaders meet.
A number of drones are also reportedly up in the air, but don’t worry: these are controlled by the police to spot any potential issues.
Gaza flotilla sees approach by patrol vessels, submarine as it nears ‘critical zone’
Lorenzo Tondo
in Palermo
A flotilla seeking to break Israel’s aid blockade of Gaza said on Wednesday that several of its boats had been approached by patrol vessels and a submarine, as crews braced for an Israeli raid.
The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), carrying around 500 pro-Palestinian activists – among them the climate campaigner Greta Thunberg – says its mission is to establish a humanitarian corridor into Gaza.
The convoy, which also includes humanitarian supplies, is currently being shadowed by a Spanish naval ship providing cover in case of drone attacks.
Until Tuesday, the flotilla was also escorted by an Italian warship that, according to organisers, offered participants the chance to abandon their vessels before entering what has been described as a “critical zone”. The activists rejected the offer, denouncing it as an attempt to sabotage the mission. Italy has since withdrawn its frigate.
In recent weeks, the Italian government and the president of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, had repeatedly urged the flotilla to avoid confrontation with Israel and to deliver aid instead via Israeli or Cypriot ports.
Activists, however, insist their operation is not about the aid – which they describe as largely symbolic – but about breaking Israel’s “illegal siege” of the territory.
“Our mission stays true to its original goal of breaking Israel’s illegal blockade and delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged population of Gaza,” said four Italian opposition MPs on board the vessels in a joint statement.
The flotilla was attacked last week by drones that dropped stun grenades and itching powder, causing minor damage but no injuries.
Israel’s navy has said it is preparing to seize control of the more than 50 vessels now within its interception range. The elite Shayetet 13 naval commando unit is reportedly on standby for the operation, which could involve towing ships to the port of Ashdod or sinking some at sea, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.
In a post on X, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said the flotilla’s rejection of the Italian proposal to unload aid in Cyprus proved that “their real purpose is provocation and serving Hamas”.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has also called on the flotilla to halt its mission, warning that any attempt to break the blockade could jeopardise a recent US-brokered peace initiative between Israel and Hamas.
Morning opening: Things can only get worse
Jakub Krupa
The Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen warned that the recent drone sightings in Danish airspace warning are “only the beginning; it will get worse and it will get more serious.”
In two major interviews, with the Danish newspaper Berlingske (£) and with the Financial Times (£), Frederiksen urged Europe to discuss “more deeply” what the new security situation means for the continent and how it should respond to counter the threat.
In a stark remark, she said that the situation in Europe reminded her of that in the interwar period in the 20th century, as the continent faces the threats arising from the “real war” in Ukraine, and the new, broader hybrid war waged against it.
“The idea of a hybrid war is to threaten us, to divide us, to destabilise us. To use drones one day, cyber attacks the next day, sabotage on the third day. So this will not end only by [boosting] capabilities,” she told FT.
Her comments come as EU leaders meet in Copenhagen for an informal meeting of the European Council, which will be largely focused on security and Ukraine, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining via a video link. It will be followed by a larger meeting of the European Political Community tomorrow.
But the build up to these events was overshadowed by the recent drone sightings and major disruption they brought on Denmark and the Nordics more broadly, bringing home the seriousness of the situation. A number of countries – including France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the UK, Ukraine, and the US – have offered their support to ensure the events can take place without problems.
I will follow the events unfolding in Copenhagen today and bring you all the key news lines coming from the leaders’ meeting, starting from their doorstep late morning to the press conference in late afternoon.
It’s Wednesday, 1 October 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
