The illegal narcotics trade is fuelling a surge in gang violence across the continent

Why is this in the news?
Last week, a Dutch court convicted three men of the murder of Peter R. de Vries, one of the Netherlands' most famous reporters, who was shot dead on a busy Amsterdam street in 2021. It was a brazen attack that shocked the nation, and is thought to have been related to the huge "Marengo" trial, in which a drugs kingpin, Ridouan Taghi, and 16 others were convicted of six murders and four attempted murders. De Vries was killed, it seems, because of his role as official "confidant" of Nabil B, a former member of Taghi's gang who turned witness against him; Nabil B's brother and his lawyer had also been killed. These killings were seen as a major assault on the rule of law; during the Marengo trial, which concluded in February, it was alleged that Taghi's gang were also plotting to kidnap the prime minister, Mark Rutte, and to target the country's royal family. Amsterdam's mayor, Femke Halsema, warned that the Netherlands was at risk of becoming a "narco state", swamped with criminal money and violence. Similar problems have been seen across western Europe.

What sort of problems are occurring?
"Some EU member states are currently experiencing unprecedented levels of drug market-related violence, including killings, torture, kidnappings and intimidation," reported Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, in March. In Belgium, Brussels has become a hub for drugs coming from Antwerp, and shootings between rival gangs have proliferated. Drug-related homicides in Marseille, France, rose by 50% from 2022 to 2023; last month, two prison guards were shot dead when a prison van carrying Mohamed Amra, a convicted criminal reportedly linked to a Marseille drug gang, was ambushed near Rouen. In Sweden, cities have been blighted by gangs waging turf wars against each other; 11 people were killed in shootings last September alone.

What's behind the violence?
Most of it is linked to attempts to control the EU's growing illegal drugs market. It has grown rapidly in recent years, and is now worth an estimated €31 billion annually, according to EU agencies. The illicit cannabis market alone is worth €11.4 billion a year. Of a similar size, but more profitable and more violent, is the cocaine market – worth €11.6 billion annually in the EU. Five of the ten largest cocaine seizures in Europe took place last year. Today, cities such as Lisbon, Brussels and Amsterdam have some of the highest per capita rates of cocaine use in the world. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, people in Europe accounted for 21% of all global users of cocaine in 2021, despite making up just 9.3% of the world's population. Analysis of waste water shows that cocaine use has shot up in many EU cities since 2016.

Why is drug use surging?
Partly because supply has increased. In Colombia, the world's largest cocaine-producing country, the area planted with coca bushes reached a record high in 2023, with production capacity up by 24% on the previous two years. The same pattern has been seen in Peru and Bolivia; globally, coca production has more than doubled since 2014. With the US market saturated, cartels have increasingly turned to Europe to sell their cocaine, lured by the relative ease with which they can smuggle drugs through major ports such as Antwerp and Rotterdam, and the higher prices at which they can sell: a kilo of cocaine bought for $1,000 in Colombia is worth more than €35,000 in Europe, about twice its price in the US.

How does the trade work?
Cartels and drug trafficking gangs fight for control of cultivation regions in the Andes, and use smuggling routes to ports such as the crime-ravaged city of Guayaquil in Ecuador. Shipments are sold to crime syndicates in Europe, such as the Dutch-Moroccan "Mocro maffia" in the Netherlands and Belgium, in which Taghi played a major role, the Yoda and DZ Mafia gangs in Marseille, as well as Serb, Albanian and Kosovan gangs, and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta. Authorities say that the gangs' methods are becoming more sophisticated. Historically, Spain was the main entry point for Latin American drugs. Now, though, the trade centres on the big ports of the Netherlands and Belgium, and other major container ports, where drugs can be smuggled in among legitimate goods.

How violent are the drug gangs?
Very. About half of all homicides in the EU are linked to drug trafficking. Europol said in a report in April that some 821 dangerous criminal gangs are now operating in the EU; about half of these are involved in drug trafficking. Police have noted, with concern, levels of violence usually associated with Latin America: in the Netherlands, they have found "torture chambers" hidden among shipping containers; the severed head of a rival was left outside an Amsterdam shisha lounge; in Marseille, youths have used Kalashnikov assault rifles to assassinate their enemies.

What are the authorities doing?
The EU has launched a "European Ports Alliance" to improve coordination between European ports and law enforcement. Cocaine seizures have risen sharply, thanks in part to new technology, such as drones and thermal cameras. But the sheer number of containers makes it hard to stop entirely; only 10% of shipments from South America are checked in ports such as Antwerp. Refrigerated containers, which must be processed quickly, are particularly useful for smugglers. Europol's chief, Catherine De Bolle, recently warned that traffickers are chipping away at the rule of law, not just by co-opting socially excluded youths into their gangs, but by corrupting logistics workers, and even the courts and police. In one port, which she didn't name, she claimed "everyone was corrupted". "We are in a very difficult situation," she said. "We are behind."

The threat from fentanyl
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids like it now kill some 75,000 people a year in the US. That's more than double the figure of 2019, and more Americans than died in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. To date, fentanyl – which is about 50 times stronger than heroin – has largely spared Europe: about 137 people died of drugs of its ilk in 2021, and seizures of the drug are rare. But there are fears that Europe's immunity may not last much longer.

About a million Europeans use opioids, with most of the supply historically coming from Afghanistan; but in April 2022, the Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppies. Areas under cultivation duly shrank by some 95% last year, hindering the supply of heroin to Europe, thus encouraging cartels to start supplying heroin mixed with fentanyl and other opioids.

There is a consensus among experts that fentanyl will hit Europe sooner or later. For now, there are still some reasons for optimism: Europe's welfare state is far better equipped than America's to cope with a synthetic opioid epidemic; and its governments, having seen the effect on the US, are at least prepared for the dangers fentanyl poses. Whether the continent can avoid a US-style epidemic remains to be seen.

"Another day closer to the general election and I'm at my daughter's prep school in Oxfordshire," said Arabella Byrne in The Spectator. Once again, "I'm having a 'VAT chat' with a fellow mother". We've known about Labour's plan for months – stripping the VAT exemption from private school fees. But as the election draws near, the reality is starting to sink in. It will lead to a likely 20% rise in fees, which for many parents, including me, will be unaffordable. "I will have to take my daughter out of the school that she loves."

This is an appalling policy, motivated by "the politics of envy" and "simple spite", said Martin Stephen in The Telegraph. The success of independent schools has always been "an embarrassment" to Labour. The policy will be a "hammer blow", ensuring that in future they are only for "the super-rich".

This "niche" issue has been given an amazing amount of coverage by the right-wing press, said Catherine Bennett in The Observer. There are endless "sob stories" about this "formerly obscure minority of a minority": private school parents who now "face the brutal prospect of state education". We hear about all the sacrifices they've had to make to pay fees, driving old bangers, denying themselves West End shows, and so on. But let's not forget that Labour's policy is actually a moderate "compromise": private schools are not being abolished or stripped of charitable status, they're just having their VAT rules changed.

Most services, after all, have to charge VAT, said Daniel Freeman on CapX. And I am unconvinced that this policy will lead to a "mass migration" from the sector. Private schools have provided clear evidence that parents aren't sensitive to fee hikes. Since 1997, average fees have more than doubled in real terms. The effect? "Essentially none." Besides, there is little reason to believe that schools will pass on the full cost of VAT, at least in the short term. They're more likely to cut the lavish facilities they provide.

Bigger, richer schools will be able to take the hit, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper. Others won't. For example, Downham Preparatory in Norfolk, which gives a third of its places to autistic children, says it will not survive the VAT hike.

Admissions to private schools have already fallen by nearly 3% in the past year, said Mike Harris in The Guardian. Labour says the policy will raise £1.6 billion to pay for more state school teachers. But every child who leaves a private school, so their parents can avoid £3,000 of VAT, will cost the schools budget £8,000. So Labour's plan risks being "counterproductive".

When Eve Gilles was crowned Miss France last year, it parachuted her into a culture war, says Julia Llewellyn Smith in The Times. Gilles, 20, has Tamil Indian ancestry, but what angered many of her compatriots was not the colour of her skin, but the length of her hair. A student of maths at the University of Lille, she was the first Miss France in the contest's 103-year history not to have long bouncy tresses. "There was once a finalist with short hair," she says, frowning. "Maybe in 1980? But she didn't win."

On social media, trolls said it was a triumph for "wokeism", carping that she was "ugly", too androgynous and insufficiently curvy.

Gilles tries not to take it to heart. "I have to just let [the trolls] do what they want to do, because if I focus on them I won't be focusing on what I want to do. In any case, according to them, no woman is good enough: your hair's too long or too short. Whether your eyes are blue or brown, there's always something that doesn't work."

Since winning the contest, she has spent much of her time touring schools, encouraging girls to share her "passion" for maths. That, she says, is the privilege being Miss France has bestowed. For one year, "I have a voice and people listen to me. Everyone knows who Eve Gilles is. Next year I'll pass on the crown, like a fairy godmother, and another Miss France can speak about what she wants."