Swedish opposition leader calls for changes to gun and social media laws after country’s worst mass shooting – Europe live

Germans bitterly divided on voting with AfD, worry about ability to form future coalition government – poll analysis

Jakub Krupa

Earlier this week, I told you about new polls looking at potential changes in voting intentions in Germany (9:54 yesterday) as a result of the CDU/CSU’s hardline stance on immigration and its move to vote together with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

Today’s ARD-DeutschlandTREND by infratest dimap, published just moments ago, suggests the Union may have actually gained one percentage point, with 31% of Germans declaring they will vote for them on 23 February. The AfD is second, at 21 (+1%), leaving Olaf Scholz’s SPD well behind at 15% (no change).

But these are all changes within the margin of error, so let’s not draw any conclusions from it, at least for now.

But there is more interesting nuggets in the poll: the party’s seeming acceptance of using the AfD votes to pass the migration proposals is seen as deeply divisive, with 50% Germans against, and 43% in favour.

Crucially for CDU/CSU chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, 62% of those intending to vote for his party are supportive of the approach. But 28% feel uneasy with accepting the AfD votes, even if they support the proposals. 7% reject both the proposals and the idea of using AfD votes to pass it.

The poll also asked Germans how they think about a potential government coalition involving the far-right party. The result suggests that the firewall arrangement is still holding up: such suggestion was outright rejected by two-thirds of voters, with just 28% seeing it as an acceptable outcome.

Among the SPD and the Greens voters, the 97% and 99% are against any such coalition, but curiously among the Union voters it’s down to 77%, with 19% actually considering this an option.

When asked who would be the best chancellor, the respondents showed little excitement for any of the candidates, ARD noted, but ultimately pointed to Merz (33%), followed by the Greens candidate Robert Habeck (26%) and the current SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz (25%). The AfD’s Alice Weidel was the choice of 18% of voters.

But in a data point that tells us most about the growing polarisation, more than two-thirds of the public are worried or very worried about the parties’ ability to form a new coalition government on the back of tensions over migration, a jump of 10 percentage points compared to last month’s poll.

Expect lots of volatility in the final weeks of the campaign, but we will bring you the latest every step and you can always follow our poll tracker, too.

Former Swedish PM calls for changes to gun, social media laws after Örebro attack

Miranda Bryant

Our Nordic correspondent Miranda Bryant spoke with Sweden’s former prime minister and the leader of the main opposition Social Democrats, Magdalena Andersson, about the mass shooting in Örebro.

Andersson told the Guardian that the school in Örebro was known for having a diverse student body.

“We have to wait until the police investigation is finished to know anything about motive and also when they can say who this person was,” she said. “But what is well known is that this is a school with students from many parts of the world.”

Without the fast reaction of police, witnesses told her when she visited Örebro on Wednesday, the death toll could have been considerably higher.

The election in 2022 of Sweden’s Moderates-led coalition government, which depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, has led to increased anti-immigrant policies in Sweden, contributing to racist rhetoric and social polarisation.

Andersson said:

As a Social Democrat I have spent the last two years arguing that we need to keep together in our society. We have nothing to win from more division or more polarisation in our society. When we have done best in our country is when we have been able to stick together, work together and take care of each other.

She called for immediate reconsideration of gun laws. “What we already know is that there are too many guns that are available in our society, so we have to do something about that.”

She also called for EU action to curb social media platforms that she said served up far too much violence to young people and children.

Not only in Sweden but all over the world, there is too much materials on social media platforms that are romanticising violence. And the way the algorithm works, too many of our children, young people and others meet violence every day when they open their telephone.

As protests in Serbia continue, Adriana Zaharijević, a philosopher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade wrote a comment for Guardian Europe on how she sees the importance of the movement behind them.

The students have managed to rock a government that had for years either bought off the dignity of people or gagged and belittled those who dared speak truth to power.

All of a sudden, no “leader” can be found to be bribed, maligned or otherwise discredited with some vague insinuation of being a foreign hireling.

Crucially, the students’ response to violence is unmistakably nonviolent, something that profoundly destabilises the entire value system developed in Serbia for more than a decade.

The Finnish government wants to ban foreign citizens from countries waging a war of aggression or presenting a threat to Finland from buying real estate in the country, under a draft bill presented today.

But the country’s defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, was very clear that it is Russians who are the primary target of the new legislation.

In a press release published by his ministry, he said:

“The objective of this bill is to restrict the possibilities of Russians to buy real estate in Finland.

Russia poses a persistent security threat in Europe, and real estate can be exploited to exert hostile influence. Such activities can target the Finnish economy, infrastructure, businesses and security of supply or Finland’s capacity to provide security for its population.

We made this bill because we want to restrict all possible risks to the security of people in Finland.”

The ministry noted that the ban would not apply to people holding on permanent residence permits, as they would be covered under other procedure.

It also said that it will intensify checks to spot any suspicious transactions and attempts to circumvent the ban.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) eastern border with Russia last year blocked several real estate acquisitions by private individuals and companies linked to Russia, citing threats to national security, AFP notes.

The bill is expected to be progressed later this spring.

The European Union told online fashion giant Shein to hand over information on risks linked to illegal products on its site, paving the way for a second probe into the Chinese-founded firm, AFP reports.

The European Commission announced the request a day after confirming it was investigating the low-cost e-commerce platform for not abiding by the bloc’s consumer protection rules.

My colleague Jennifer Rankin has this report on the original investigation:

Yesterday we reported on a shooting in Anderlecht, Brussels and the police’s hunt for two suspects on the city’s underground network.

Belgian newspaper Le Soir has reported today that there were two further fire arms incidents in the city, with another shooting in the same area of Clémenceau metro station at around 3:35am last night.

One person was shot in the leg. A spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office told the paper that the person had initially life-threatening injuries, but later stabilised in hospital.

Unlike Wednesday’s incident, metro traffic was not disrupted, though one entrance to the station has been closed, Belga news agency said.

The investigation is looking at whether there is any link between the two shootings in the same area within 24 hours, but they are all believed to be linked to drug trafficking.

Our latest report on mass shooting in Örebro

Miranda Bryant

Nordics correspondent

People of several nationalities were among the 11 killed at a school in Sweden’s worst mass shooting, police have said.

Anna Bergkvist, who is heading the police investigation, told Agence France-Presse that people of “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” were among those killed by a lone gunman at Campus Risbergska, an adult education centre, in the city of Örebro on Tuesday.

Here’s what we know:

Spanish police investigating an online gang, which swindled prospective puppy-buyers out of more than €150,000 (£125,000) by duping them into paying for nonexistent dogs and fictitious vets’ bills, have arrested six people and frozen 14 bank accounts.

Officers from the Policía Nacional began looking into the gang – which was based in the Basque province of Biscay but operated across Spain – and discovered it was fraudulently advertising mobile phones as well as pets.

After analysing 72 bank accounts and poring over information gleaned from 25 phone lines, officers identified 100 victims of the fraud across Spain, and learned that they had been cheated out of more than €150,000.

Sam Jones is in Madrid and has this story.

The Greek daily Kathimerini reports this morning that tremors continue in Santorini and neighbouring islands, with the strongest earthquake yet, of 5.2 magnitude, reported late last night.

Earlier, a burst of eight earthquakes occurred within 20 minutes.

But experts who met with the country’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insist that residents should remain calm, even if they are likely to continue to experience tremors a bit longer.

Not everyone is keen on the risk, though, as many people continued leaving the islands for the mainland.

Italian president Sergio Mattarella warned last night that Europe needs to step up its activities and assert its values or it risks being squeezed by “oligarchies and autocracies” of the new emerging world order.

Speaking to students at the University of Aix-Marseille, he warned about the aggressive nature of Russian invasion on Ukraine, and the return of protectionism.

He said that “economic crisis, protectionism, distrust among global players” alongside “a dark resurgence of nationalism” led to the rise of nazism, fascism, and the second world war.

He warned against appeasement of aggressors, pointing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pointedly saying it had not worked in 1938 as it failed to prevent the war.

And talking about the future of the European Union, he said the bloc faced the choice of asserting its values and becoming a global superpower, or risking a fall into irrelevance and “being crushed between oligarchies and autocracies.”

“Europe appears to be at a crossroads, divided as it is between smaller states and states that have not yet full understood that they, too, are small in this new global situation,” he said.

He pointedly quoted the famous 1979 speech by the first woman to be the European Parliament president, Simone Veil, in which she said: “The frontiers of totalitarianism have spread so far that the islands of freedom are surrounded by regimes in which force prevails. Our Europe is one such island.”

“We need new ideas, not the application of old models to the new interests of a few,” he said.

The French parliament on Thursday finally adopted the state’s 2025 budget following a tumultuous months-long process that saw the previous government toppled and the current administration survive multiple no confidence votes, AFP reports.

The upper house Senate, dominated by the right and centre-right, approved the budget with 219 votes for and 107 against. Prime minister François Bayrou forced the legislation through the lower house National Assembly earlier this week without a vote but then defeated ensuing no confidence votes.

Jakub Krupa

Let’s take a brief look at events elsewhere in Europe.

We will return to Sweden if we get any further important updates.

Representatives of local authorities are now speaking at a separate press conference in Örebro, talking about their response to the incident.

They are still in early stages of looking at their actions. There is no timeline for reopening the school where the shooting took place to students.

Separately, a medical update was published in the last half hour with details on the six people hospitalised after the attack. Two of them are still in intensive care in “serious, but stable” condition.

Anna Bergqvist, who is heading the investigation, told AFP news agency that there were “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” among those who died Tuesday at an adult education centre.

• Swedish police said the scene of mass shooting in Örebro resembled “inferno” when officers arrived on scene within five minutes from the first report, with heavy smoke and casualties.

• There has been no change to the death toll, with 11 dead, including the attacker. No update was offered on the six people hospitalised after the attack.

• Police believe they know the attacker’s ID, but are finalising the DNA checks and won’t name him before that’s completed.

• The attacker was founded dead with three weapons next to him and a “large” amount of unused ammunition. A fourth gun registered in his name was seized from another location. ‘Nothing to suggest’ there was more attackers.

• Investigators refuse to speculate about the attacker’s motives as they continue their investigation.

Speaking to reporters, local police chief Lars Wirén confirms there has been no change to the death toll, with 11 dead, including the attacker.

The Syrian embassy in Stockholm said in a post on Facebook that it wanted to “extend condolences to victims, including Syrian citizens.”

Public broadcaster SVT says it has confirmed with the Syrian ambassador that at least one victim was Syrian.

We have approached the Swedish police for comment, but after the press conference they pointedly declined to respond to any questions on the identity of victims, saying that ID verifications are still on-going.

Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Örebro police chief Lars Wirén reasserts that police “do not know the motivation [of the attacker] yet,” and seeks to “get an answer through the investigation.”

Pushed that they may have an early idea about the motive, he says: “We are not going to talk about it yet, because we are not sure.”

Lead prosecutor Elisabeth Anderson told SVT that the focus of the investigation is on establishing as much as possible about the circumstances of the attack to be able to present a detailed picture to the public and the relatives of victims.