Holy work in hollow ranks

Despite Europe being one of the most secular regions in the world, many people in countries like Denmark, Belgium, and the UK choose to attend church services on major holidays like Easter and Christmas, making these the busiest times of the year for the clergy. But for priests, the hustle and bustle neither starts nor ends with the holiday celebrations.

In Denmark, as in the rest of Europe, the difficulty of attracting enough new students makes it impossible to ensure a stable turnover within the pastoral profession. Overworked priests, layman-run services, and even delayed funerals are the consequences local communities in Denmark feel as the number of ordained priests declines. Almost 10% of priestly job vacancies are re-advertised.

One temporary fix for the shortage is to bring back retired priests, but as Ireland has shown, this solution has a high risk of burnout. Working more isn't sustainable either – in Lithuania, the decline in numbers comes on top of inadequate pay, which forces priests to cover multiple parishes. A 2020 study of French priests found that depression and burnout are often the consequences, and are particularly common among rural priests who juggle multiple parishes.

Gang criminals everywhere – including in Swedish welfare

Imagine hiring a social worker for your relative to help with the cooking or groceries. And the mafia boss shows up to bring them their potatoes.

That's what's happening with the Swedish care assistance industry, which is swarming with gang criminals and their family members. More precisely, the 62 largest care assistance companies in Sweden have employees with links to organised crime, according to a government report revealed earlier this week. These 'linked individuals' are either active members or people associated with gang networks.

The analysis shows that between 2022 and 2023, the criminals abused the welfare system through assistance payments, with a total of over SEK 300 million (over €2.7 million) in debts to the Social Insurance Agency.

Even more worryingly, this means that four out of ten people who used assistance services have come into contact with personal assistants who are linked to or active in organised crime.

On the surface, the providers often seem legitimate, with accurate accounting and good finances. Yet, they engage in a variety of criminal activities, from not providing the promised assistance, to forcing employees to repay their wages, and even forging documents from doctors and other care professionals.

Commission proposes new (not so) safe countries

What do Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco, and Tunisia have in common? They are all on the European Commission's new "safe countries of origin" list, expected to apply from 2026. This means asylum claims and, in some cases, subsequent returns to these countries can be fast-tracked.

With this move, the Commission assumes that people from countries with low protection rates – meaning those whose nationals are rarely granted asylum in the EU – are "likely not in need" of international protection. It excludes nations at war, such as Ukraine, countries under EU sanctions, or those with asylum acceptance rates above 20%, and is described as "dynamic" – with the potential for countries to be added or removed.

The EU list does not prevent member states from keeping their own national lists of safe countries in addition to the EU-wide designation. For example, Germany currently considers several countries "safe" that are not on the EU list, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Senegal.

NGOs such as Amnesty International warn that the proposal could lead to discrimination against refugees, particularly political opponents, queer individuals, journalists, and human rights defenders. The organisation stresses that the "safe country" label may unjustly deny protection to people still facing real danger. The Commission, however, emphasises that "safe" doesn't mean safe for everyone: those facing persecution can still argue their case.

Whaling season cancelled – again

It's going to be a quiet summer in Icelandic waters. For the second year in a row, Iceland's largest commercial whale hunting company, Hvalur hf., will stay in the docks. The company has cancelled the season on its own initiative: it's a bad year for whale hunting business, they say.

According to its CEO, unfavourable product prices in Japan, where the overwhelming majority of Iceland's whale meat is sold, and global economic uncertainty have made whaling unprofitable this year.

The rest of the market remains small – there is very little interest or demand for whale meat in Iceland itself, and commercial whaling was banned in most of the world in 1986, with Norway the only remaining country besides Japan and Iceland.

Is it the end of the story for whale hunting as we've known it in Europe? Probably not. At the end of 2024, Hvalur hf. was granted a five-year whaling license, which leaves the option open of restarting whaling in the summer of 2026, if the company deems it suitable.