MILAN (AP) — Ash spewing from Sicily's Mount Etna has forced the closure of the Italian island’s largest airport for the fifth consecutive day, stranding hundreds of summer holiday travelers during the busiest travel week of the year.
Catania’s airport will remain closed until Saturday afternoon, which falls on the Ferragosto holiday that marks the height of the Italian summer holiday season when millions flock to the sea and mountains, deserting Italian cities.
While Etna’s activity often interrupts flights at the airport, located 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the volcano, this is the longest emergency since 2002.
“Volcanic ash can be a great risk for aircraft,” said Boris Behncke, a researcher at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology’s Etna Observatory. “It can be sucked into the motors, and force them to stall. This is why everyone is so very cautious with aircraft when there is a volcanic ash emission."
Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe. The latest activity has been unusual for its persistence and sustained ash emissions. Northerly winds have spread light amounts of ash to Malta and northern Africa.
“There have been many shorter interruptions — and stronger eruptions — over the past few decades, but this event is different because the ash emission from Etna’s summit has been much more persistent,” Behncke said.
The closure has forced planes to be rerouted to other airports on the island, which has pushed up taxi fares and car rental prices, according to the Corriere della Sera daily. The Codacons consumer association has announced it will file a complaint with Italy’s competition authority following complaints about price gouging.
The SAC airport operator said 36% of nearly 2,000 flights scheduled to arrive in Catania from Aug. 6-12 had been canceled, while more than 600 were diverted to Palermo, Trapani and Comiso in Sicily and Lamezia Terme in Calabria. Flights were able to depart Catania over the weekend, but the airport was officially closed to both incoming and outgoing flights Monday. Comiso also was briefly closed.
The Italian train company Trenitalia has added six trains along the Palermo-Messina-Catania route to help ease the travel pressure.
Italy's federation of travel agencies and tour operators has called for a task force to coordinate responses to disruptions caused by Mount Etna and said it would ask for a review of how airlines handled the cancellations and passenger assistance.
“Operators are working around the clock to provide assistance, cancellations and alternative travel arrangements, but they cannot bear the burden of structural shortcomings and the management responsibilities of others," FIAVET President Gian Mario Pilieri said in a statement.
Eruptive activity continues on Mount Etna, where lava flows continue to descend on the slopes of the volcano, as seen from Mareneve near Catania, Italy, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)
Eruptive activity continues on Mount Etna, where lava flows continue to descend on the slopes of the volcano, as seen from Serracozzo near Catania, Italy, early Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Simone Genovese)
Eruptive activity continues on Mount Etna, where lava flows continue to descend on the slopes of the volcano, as seen from Serracozzo near Catania, Italy, early Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Simone Genovese)
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will deliver a major state of the European Union speech on Wednesday setting out her priorities for the next year and her vision for tackling the challenges faced by the world’s biggest trading bloc.
The content of von der Leyen ’s address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, has been kept under wraps. Political groups in the assembly have lobbied to get their priorities and pet projects included.
But the speech is likely to touch on AI, climate change and the fires that have swept Europe this summer, as well as protection for children online, Russia’s war on Ukraine, conflict across the Middle East and international trade tensions.
Last year, she warned that Europe must stake out its independence as the continued to impose tariffs on the world and members if the Trump administration criticized the bloc’s migration policies, warning of “civilizational erasure.”
“Europe is in a fight,” von der Leyen said. “A fight for our values and our democracies.”
“Battle lines for a New World order based on power are being drawn right now,” she said, adding that the EU “must fight for its place in a world in which many major powers are either ambivalent or openly hostile to Europe.”
The event has become an annual ritual modeled on the State of the Union addresses to Congress by U.S. presidents, but it won’t be broadcast widely and few of the European Union’s 450 million citizens across 27 member countries are likely to tune in.
It’s a carefully crafted communications exercise in front of often applauding lawmakers that is appreciated most by EU insiders. Von der Leyen tends to conclude with what has become her rallying cry: “Long Live Europe.”
Routinely, its themes are aspirational. They touch on von der Leyen’s hopes and plans for the commission — the EU’s increasingly powerful executive branch – over the coming year but often lack detail. Critics say the commission’s work is opaque.
Eric Maurice, an analyst at the European Policy Centre think-tank, warned against her using it “to placate political groups” or “to raise the Commission President’s profile and extend the Commission’s political and institutional domain.”
“The EU is facing the crumbling of all the premises on which it was built. The rules-based order with benevolent free-trade and U.S. friendship and support is disappearing,” Maurice said.
The commission proposes laws used across the 27 countries and watches to ensure that those already in place are not being broken. It negotiates trade on behalf of all its members and is Europe’s top antitrust investigator.
At its helm stands the 67-year-old former German defense minister, who has become a prominent figure at summits with leaders around the world, despite being a political appointee who hasn’t been elected to Europe’s top post.
Von der Leyen is hard to ignore. She has accumulated influence over 7 years in office by securing vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, managing the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion and support to Ukraine through the war.
She also seems to have the begrudging respect of Trump. She, her chief of cabinet, and her trade commissioners have labored to limit the damage caused by Trump’s tariff war to the European economy.
But the Trump administration has also been riled by the commission’s crackdown on Big Tech companies, many of them in the United States, over their perceived flouting of Europe’s data regulations.
Ahead of the speech, the commission has set up a website dedicated to its leader and the event and has been distributing brochures laying out their achievements over the last 12 months.
The list is considerable, and includes sealing new trade agreements, boosting economic competitiveness, cutting energy costs, spurring defense investment, providing billions of euros in support to Ukraine and slapping sanctions on hundreds of Russian officials and organizations.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives to attend the International Space Summit in Paris Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo via AP)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
French president Emmanuel Macron, left, greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives to attend the International Space Summit in Paris Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo via AP)
