Rumbling away throughout 2024 was EU threats to take action against Twitter/X for abandoning fact-checking. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) is clear on its requirements - so that conflict will escalate. If X won't change, presumably ultimately it will be banned from the EU.
Meta have decided they'd rather keep EU market access. Today they announced the removal of fact-checking, but only for Americans. Europeans can still benefit from the higher standards the Digital Services Act guarantees.
The next 10 years will see the power of mis/disinformation accelerate with AI. Meta itself seems to be embracing this trend by purposefully integrating fake AI profiles into its networks. From now on it looks like the main battle-ground to deal with this is going to be the EU.
You don't have to use the euro or join the Schengen area to be part of the EU afaik
Those are mandatory for newcomers.
Everything is negotiable in the EU😁