Hungary is sinking two barges to ensure a key nuclear power plant stays online, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said Saturday.

Europe’s summer of extreme heat has caused the Danube’s water level to hit record lows, affecting power production at the Paks nuclear plant. Nuclear power stations are typically built by rivers and along coastlines so they can use water to cool down reactors.

Hungarian authorities are sinking the two barges to raise water levels so Paks, which provides the country with more than a third of its electricity, can continue to operate normally. The sinking began Saturday morning and Hungarian media are quoting the prime minister saying the water level at the plant has risen by 1 centimeter.

Magyar said on X that the current water level near Hungary’s only nuclear energy facility is 122 cm lower than normal and it is projected to drop below 132 cm on Monday, which would force one of the plant’s two turbines to shut down.

On Wednesday, Magyar announced that they would be building a riverbed sill with 150,000 cubic meters of stone and was considering sinking the two 80-meter barges. A sill is an underwater dam meant to slow down the current and raise water levels. Hungary’s Defense Ministry has assigned 100 troops to work around the clock on the project, the prime minister said on X.

Nuclear energy facilities across Europe have been affected by this summer’s droughts and soaring temperatures. Romania shut down a nuclear power plant earlier this week due to the Danube’s water levels.

France — one of Europe’s biggest producers of nuclear power — has seen its fleet of nuclear power plants affected throughout the summer. Le Monde reported authorities had to shut down six of the country’s 57 nuclear reactors as yet another heat wave broiled much of the country. Earlier in the week, a climate change-fueled jellyfish invasion forced workers to bring parts of a different plant offline.

Magyar has also cast doubt on completing an expansion of the Paks plant by a Russian state-owned firm in a deal signed by Magyar’s predecessor, the Kremlin-friendly Viktor Orbàn, citing the water issue.

The European Commission is ready to offer “eyes in the sky” via the Copernicus program to support Indonesian search and rescue operations after the country was hit by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, President Ursula von der Leyen said Saturday.

“Indonesia, we stand with you,” von der Leyen said in a post on X.

Copernicus is an observation system that can provide mapping services useful for search operations and damage assessments.

At least 38 people have died since the powerful quake struck the island of Flores, the BBC reported citing a press conference by Indonesia’s disaster response agency. Rescue operations are ongoing .

The foreign ministries of Italy, Greece and Estonia and officials have posted messages of support on X today.

Earlier this week, the Commission provided €2.1 million for assistance in Colombia as well as use of the Copernicus system after it was hit by a 7.4 magnitude quake.

A court in France on Friday shot down a bill seeking to ban access to social media for under-15s from September — a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron that raises fundamental questions about efforts to protect kids on the internet.

The Constitutional Council, which reviews the constitutionality of French legislation, said the restrictions in the bill disproportionately infringe on minors’ right to freedom of expression and communication.

Europe’s would-be first social media ban, which sought to prohibit access to anyone in France under the age of 15 from next month, had been a flagship policy of Macron’s second and final term.

The French president has also pushed restrictions to the top of the EU agenda, with an expected announcement of bloc-wide measures by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in September.

In a statement late Friday, the French presidential office said the government would not be giving up on the bill. It has set a new target date for spring 2027, which coincides with when Macron will leave office.

The statement said Macron “has instructed the Prime Minister to work, as quickly as possible, on a legally sound draft that takes into account” the court’s decision. The ruling hinted at what would make the age restriction align with fundamental rights: giving parents more flexibility.

Peter Craddock, a senior Brussels-based attorney advising social media firms, said the French court decision could have far-reaching implications.

“What they’re basically saying here is: ‘Listen, government, if you want to get this to succeed, you can’t just work on the basis of a general ban. There have to be limitations,” said Craddock, a partner at Keller & Heckman. “There have to be ways for people to say, ‘well, actually, in my case, my son, my daughter is of a certain degree of maturity and is able to use this properly.'”

The government bill had passed through the French legislative procedure after a lengthy back-and-forth earlier this summer. It was set to bring forward Europe’s first social media age restrictions, with Greece and Denmark planning to follow suit.

But Article 1 of the French bill essentially rendered it a blanket ban, without sufficiently distinguishing between the risks of each social media platform or the varying levels of vulnerability among minors themselves, said the court. The ban would also apply to online platforms that have not been proven to have risks to the health and safety of minors.

Craddock warned the court’s judgment may not bode well for other national bans or restrictions coming from the European Commission, since the decision is framed around fundamental rights, which are harmonized across the bloc.

“The reasoning is actually equally relevant internationally,  throughout the EU, because this fundamental freedom is not specific to France,” he said.

This article has been updated.

The EU, Meta and TikTok on Monday agreed to create a dedicated channel with fact-checkers to flag disinformation linked to a surge of migrants arriving in Spanish territory, three people told POLITICO.

Thousands of migrants arrived in late July in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Morocco and the EU’s only land border with Africa. The influx was triggered by false narratives spreading online that told migrants they would be welcomed, according to fact-checking site Maldita.es.

The Commission met with representatives from TikTok and Meta on Friday and Monday to coordinate a response to disinformation online. They agreed to set up an “enhanced information exchange and cooperation mechanism for reducing the impact of disinformation on the Ceuta crisis,” said the three people with direct knowledge of the talks, who were granted anonymity to speak freely.

That will serve as a point of contact for platforms, fact-checkers and the Commission to quickly flag content so that it can be reviewed and taken down if necessary. The effort comes amid concerns that disinformation is promoting further crossings into the territory on Aug. 15, according to Maldita.es. Maldita.es and the European Fact-Checking Standards Network attended Monday’s meeting.

The Commission operates a rapid response system under its code of conduct on disinformation, often triggered around elections. The new mechanism on Ceuta would bring a closer group of stakeholders together, two of the people said.

Another meeting has been set for later this week, one of those people and the third person confirmed.

Meta and TikTok said they were already actively monitoring the situation in line with their policies and had set up dedicated teams to monitor and respond to content in real time.

The crisis has divided EU countries and has reignited Europe’s long-running debate on illegal migration. Italy has since been one of the harshest critics of Spain’s left-wing government and its migration policies, and has implemented border controls for travelers arriving from Spain.

Former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who was a force behind the EU’s online content rules, on Monday said the bloc should launch a disinformation inquiry into the Ceuta crisis in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa.