2010 in Europe explained

This is a list of 2010 events that occurred in Europe.

Incumbents

European Union

• President of the European Commission

José Manuel Barroso

• President of the Parliament

• President of the European Council

Herman Van Rompuy

• Presidency of the Council of the EU

• • Spain (January–July)
  • Belgium (July–December)

Events

January

• January 1: Spain assumed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.
• January 3: Two passenger trains collided in Bilecik, Turkey. One train driver was killed and seven passengers were injured.^[1]
• January 7: 22 people had died in the UK due to a cold snap.^[2]
• January 10: The opposition Social Democrat, Ivo Josipović, won 60.3% of the vote in the second round run-off, beating the mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić.^[3]
• January 11: More than 5,300 residents in the regions of Shkodër and Lezhë were evacuated due to severe flooding in northern Albania.^[4]
• January 25: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on board.^[5]

February

• February 3: The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.^[6]
• February 16: A bus carrying French children on a school trip has overturned in Italy, killing at least three people on board and injuring another 20.^[7]
• February 18: A scattered exchange of gunfire on the line of contact dividing Azerbaijani and the Karabakh Armenian military forces left six people dead and one wounded.^[8]
• February 25: A collision between two trains in Buizingen, Belgium, left 18 people dead and 162 injured.^[9]
• February 26: At least 63 people were killed and one million homes were left without power in western France after cyclone Xynthia crossed Western Europe.^{[10] [11]}

March

• March 20: 67 people were arrested and several people were injured in Bolton town centre during a clash between members of the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism.^[12]
• March 24: A set of 16 goods wagons runaway for 8 km from a freight station at Alnabru in Oslo to hit and destroy a quayside warehouse. Three people died, and four were seriously injured.^[13]
• March 29: At least 40 people died after two female suicide bombers struck the Moscow Metro.^{[14] [15]}
• March 31: A coach crashed into a river after falling from a bridge in a snowstorm in Lanark, Scotland, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring 44 passengers.^[16]

April

• April 1: A locomotive ran into a stationary passengers tram after its brakes failed during a test ride in Spišská Nová Ves, Slovakia, killing three people and injuring seriously eight others.^[17]
• April 10: The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, was among 96 killed when their airplane crashed in western Russia.^[18]
• April 12: A passenger train was hit by a landslide and partially derailed near Merano, Italy, killing 9 and injuring 28.^[19]
• April 14: Over 95,000 flights had been cancelled all across Europe because violent eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull.^[20]
• April 25: Austrian candidate for chairmanship, Heinz Fischer, won the presidential election with 79.3% of the valid votes.^[21]

May

• May 5: Up to 500,000 people protested in front of the Greek Parliament amid plans to cut public spending and raise taxes as austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion bail-out.^[22] The protest degenerated in violences between protesters and riot police, resulting in three deaths and dozens of injuries.^[23]
• May 14: Throughout Eastern Europe, 21 people were killed in floods triggered by the Windstorm Yolanda.
• May 24: Three people were killed and 35 injured when a Honda Civic car collided with a school bus near Keswick, Cumbria.^[24]

June

• June 2: 13 people were killed and 25 injured in a shooting spree in Cumbria, England.^{[25] [26]}
• June 6: A passenger train collided with boulders that had fallen on the line near Falls of Cruachan, Scotland, derailed and caught fire. Several people were hospitalised and the line was blocked for a week.^[27]
• June 15: Heavy rainfall in southern France caused severe floods in the department of Var, resulting in at least 25 deaths.^[28]
• June 23: A passenger train struck a group of people who were crossing the railway on the level at Platja de Castelldefels station near Barcelona.^[29] Twelve people were killed, and fourteen injured.^[30]

July

• July 1: Belgium assumed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Spain.
• July 11: A traffic accident, near Inishowen, in Ireland, killed eight people.^[31]
• July 13: Two trains collided at Korzybie, in north Poland, injuring 36 people.^[32]
• July 18: Fourteen people were killed and twelve injured after a bus fell off a cliff in northern Albania, near the city of Durrës.^[33]
• July 23: One person was killed and 42 were injured when an eastbound Glacier Express derailed near Fiesch on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn.^[34]
• July 24: At least 21 people have been killed and 510 more injured in a stampede at the Love Parade dance music festival in the German city of Duisburg.^[35]

August

• August 6: One person died and about 40 were injured in a train derailment in Naples, Italy, on the Circumvesuviana railway.^[36]
• August 17
  • A sewage tanker lorry struck and derailed a passenger train on a level crossing at Little Cornard, England. 21 people were injured.^[37]
  • The Intercity-Express from Frankfurt to Paris hit a truck that had slid onto the rail near Lambrecht. The first two carriages derailed and ten people were injured.^[38]

September

• September 19: A woman armed with an automatic weapon has shot dead three people and injured 18 others at a hospital in Germany before being killed by police.^{[39] [40]}
• September 26: A Polish tourist bus returning from Spain careered into a bridge on a rain-soaked German motorway, killing 13 people.^[41]

October

• October 1: 40 people were injured when a train derailed at Skotterud, Norway.^[42]
• October 4: Nine people died and 122 were injured in flooding from a ruptured red sludge reservoir at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina plant, Hungary.^[43]
• October 12
  • A bus packed with rush-hour commuters crashed into a train at a level crossing in Ukraine after jumping a red traffic light, killing 45 people and leaving another 9 wounded.^[44]
  • At most 3.5 million people attended a series of demonstrations organised by the French Union leaders throughout France.^[45]

November

• November 11: More than 25,000 students protested in Dublin against increased student fees.^[46]

December

• December 10: Former Prime Minister of Croatia, Ivo Sanader, was arrested in Austria over charges of corruption.^[47]

Date unknown

• France becomes the first European country to impose a ban on full-face veils in public areas.

Deaths

January

• January 11
  • Miep Gies, 100, Dutch humanitarian (b. 1909)
  • Eric Rohmer, 89, French film director (b. 1920)
• January 19 - Panajot Pano, 70, Albanian footballer (b. 1939)
• January 22 - Jean Simmons, 80, British actress (b. 1929)

February

• February 1 - Steingrimur Hermannsson, 81, 19th Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1928)
• February 6 - John Dankworth, 82, British jazz musician and composer (b. 1927)
• February 11 - Alexander McQueen, 40, British fashion designer (b. 1969)
• February 14 - Dick Francis, 89, British author and jockey (b. 1920)

March

• March 3 - Michael Foot, 96, British politician (b. 1913)
• March 12 - Miguel Delibes, 89, Spanish author and journalist (b. 1920)
• March 21 - Wolfgang Wagner, 90, German festival director (b. 1919)
• March 22
  • James Black, 85, British pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1924)
  • Valentina Tolkunova, 63, Soviet and Russian singer (b. 1946)
• March 27 - Vasily Smyslov, 89, Soviet-Russian chess grandmaster (b. 1921)
• March 30 - Martin Sandberger, 98, German army officer (b. 1911)

April

• April 6 - Corin Redgrave, 70, British actor and political activist (b. 1939)
• April 8 - Malcolm McLaren, 64, British musician and manager (b. 1946)
• April 10
  • Ryszard Kaczorowski, 90, Polish statesman (b. 1919)
  • Lech Kaczynski, 60, President of Poland (b. 1949)
• April 16 - Tomas Spidlik, 90, Czech cardinal (b. 1919)
• April 21 - Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, Spanish sports official (b. 1920)
• April 25 - Alan Sillitoe, 82, British writer (b. 1928)
• April 30 - Paul Mayer, 98, German cardinal (b. 1911)

May

• May 2 - Lynn Redgrave, 67, British actress (b. 1943)
• May 4 - Luigi Poggi, 92, Italian cardinal (b. 1917)
• May 5 - Giulietta Simionato, 99, Italian opera singer (b. 1910)
• May 8 - Andor Lilienthal, 99, Hungarian chess grandmaster (b. 1911)
• May 15 - Besian Idrizaj, 22, Austrian footballer (b. 1987)
• May 17
  • Bobbejaan Schoepen, 85, Belgian singer (b. 1925)
  • Yvonne Loriod, 86, French pianist (b. 1924)
• May 18 - Edoardo Sanguineti, 79, Italian writer (b. 1930)
• May 31 - Louise Bourgeois, 98, French-born American sculptor (b. 1911)

June

• June 1 - Andrei Voznesensky, 77, Soviet-Russian poet (b. 1933)
• June 2 - Giuseppe Taddei, 93, Italian baritone (b. 1916)
• June 3 - Vladimir Arnold, 72, Soviet-Russian mathematician (b. 1937)
• June 9 - Marina Semyonova, 101, Russian ballerina (b. 1908)
• June 10 - Sigmar Polke, 69, German painter and photographer (b. 1941)
• June 14 - Leonid Kizim, 68, Soviet-Ukrainian cosmonaut (b. 1941)
• June 16 - Ronald Neame, 99, British cinematographer, producer and director (b. 1911)
• June 18
  • Marcel Bigeard, 94, French military officer (b. 1916)
  • Jose Saramago, 87, Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
• June 26 - Algirdas Brazauskas, 77, 9th President of Lithuania (b. 1932)

July

• July 2 - Beryl Bainbridge, 76, British novelist (b. 1934)
• July 5 - Cesare Siepi, 87, Italian opera singer (b. 1923)
• July 17 - Bernard Giraudeau, 63, French actor and film director (b. 1947)
• July 24 - Alex Higgins, 61, Northern Irish snooker player (b. 1949)

August

• August 6 - Tony Judt, 62, British historian (b. 1948)
• August 7 - Bruno Cremer, 80, French actor (b. 1923)
• August 12 - Guido de Marco, 79, 6th President of Malta (b. 1931)
• August 16 - Nicola Cabibbo, 75, Italian physicist (b. 1935)
• August 17 - Francesco Cossiga, 82, 63rd Prime Minister and 8th President of Italy (b. 1928)
• August 18 - Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, 80, Spanish aristocrat (b. 1930)
• August 26 - Raimon Panikkar, 91, Spanish theologian (b. 1918)
• August 27 - Anton Geesink, 76, Dutch judoka (b. 1934)
• August 30 - Alain Corneau, 67, French filmmaker (b. 1943)
• August 31 - Laurent Fignon, 50, French road bicycle racer (b. 1960)

September

• September 9 - Bent Larsen, 75, Danish chess grandmaster (b. 1935)
• September 12 - Claude Chabrol, 80, French film director (b. 1930)
• September 29 - Georges Charpak, 86, French Nobel physicist (b. 1924)

October

• October 4 - Norman Wisdom, 95, British actor and comedian (b. 1915)
• October 9 - Maurice Allais, 99, French Nobel economist (b. 1911)
• October 14 - Benoit Mandelbrot, 85, French-American mathematician (b. 1924)
• October 30 - Harry Mulisch, 83, Dutch writer (b. 1927)

November

• November 2 - Rudolf Barshai, 86, Soviet-Russian conductor and violist (b. 1924)
• November 3 - Viktor Chernomyrdin, 72, 31st Prime Minister of Russia (b. 1938)
• November 5 - Hajo Herrmann, 97, German fighter pilot and lawyer (b. 1913)
• November 10 - Dino De Laurentiis, 91, Italian film producer (b. 1919)
• November 12 - Henryk Gorecki, 76, Polish composer (b. 1933)
• November 13 - Luis Garcia Berlanga, 89, Spanish film director (b. 1921)
• November 17 - Isabelle Caro, 30, French model and actress (b. 1930)
• November 29
  • Bella Akhmadulina, 73, Soviet-Russian poet (b. 1937)
  • Mario Monicelli, 95, Italian actor, screenwriter and director (b. 1915)

December

• December 12 - Tom Walkinshaw, 64, British racing car driver and team owner (b. 1946)
• December 21 - Enzo Bearzot, 83, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1927)

See also

• 2010 in the European Union
• List of state leaders in Europe in 2010

Notes and References

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8438277.stm "Trains collide in northern Turkey"
2. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/weather// "Deaths during Britain's big freeze"
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8450380.stm "Social Democrat Ivo Josipovic elected Croatia president"
4. http://www.nato.int/eadrcc/2010/01-floods-albania/index.html "Floods in Albania"
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8502741.stm "Ethiopia Airlines jet 'black box' retrieved in Lebanon"
6. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/03/giacometti-sculpture-lhom_n_448243.html "Giacometti Sculpture 'L'Homme qui marche I' Fetches $104.3 Million, World Record"
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8517994.stm "French pupils in fatal bus crash in Italy"
8. http://www.news.az/articles/9542 "Azerbaijan announces names of soldiers killed and wounded by Armenian fire"
9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8515855.stm "Belgian train crash: Eighteen people dead in Halle"
10. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/28/europe.storms/ "Storm batters Europe, at least 55 dead"
11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8540762.stm "At least 50 dead in western Europe storms"
12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8577777.stm "Police battle to control EDL and UAF protest in Bolton"
13. "Trodde vognene hang fast i skiftelok", Aftenposten.no
14. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032900007_pf.html "Russia braces for terrorism's return as 38 die in subway bombings"
15. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/03/30/russia.subway.explosions/index.html "Russian police release subway bomb suspects' photos"
16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8596164.stm "Teenage girl dies in coach crash"
17. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/316759,at-least-three-killed-in-slovak-train-crash.html "At least sixty four people in Slovak train"
18. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/10/poland-president-lech-kaczynski-killed "Polish president Lech Kaczynski killed in plane crash"
19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8615002.stm "Landslide derails train in Italy leaving nine dead"
20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8633892.stm "Ash cloud chaos: Airlines face huge task as ban ends"
21. "Bundespräsidentenwahl 2010", Federal Ministry of the Interior
22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8661385.stm "Three dead as Greece protest turns violent"
23. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/05/greek-bailout-economic-crisis-deaths "Greek bailout: Athens burns – and crisis strikes at heart of the EU"
24. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/8702409.stm "Two pupils and man killed in Cumbria bus crash named"
25. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7797376/Cumbria-shooting-police-hunt-gunman-after-several-shot-dead.html "Cumbria shooting: police hunt gunman after 'several shot dead'"
26. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10214661 "Cumbria shooting rampage suspect's 'body found'"
27. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10251545 "Boulders 'caused Glasgow to Oban rail derailment'"
28. "Var: Le bilan des inondations s'alourdit à 25 morts", Le Monde
29. "Confusión hasta última hora sobre el número de muertos en Castelldefels", El País
30. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10399126 "Spanish train kills 12 on tracks near Barcelona"
31. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/eightdeath-crash-worst-on-record-2255618.html "Eight-death crash 'worst on record'"
32. "Wypadek kolejowy w Korzybiu. Rannych zostało 36 osób. Kibice oddają krew", GP24.pl
33. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10675065 "Fourteen killed in northern Albania bus crash"
34. http://www.euronews.com/2010/07/30/driver-error-to-blame-for-glacier-express-crash/ "Driver error to blame for Glacier Express crash"
35. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10751899 "Stampede at German Love Parade festival kills 19"
36. "Deraglia la Circumvesuviana, un morto", Repubblica.it
37. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-11006018 "Suffolk train and lorry level crossing smash injures 21"
38. http://www.vosizneias.com/62364/2010/08/17/lambrecht-charedi-man-amongst-rescued-in-germanys-high-speed-train-crash "Lambrecht - Charedi Man Amongst Rescued In Germany's High Speed Train Crash"
39. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11366024 "Fatal shooting at German hospital"
40. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305141613/http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-shooting-idUKTRE68I1SP20100919 "Woman opens fire in German town, four killed"
41. http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/World/Story/A1Story20100927-239209.html "Thirteen killed in Polish tourist bus crash in Germany"
42. https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101002/ap_on_re_eu/eu_norway_train_derails "Train derails on Norway-Sweden border, injuring 40"
43. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/05/hungary-sludge-disaster-state-of-emergency "Hungary declares a state of emergency after sludge disaster"
44. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11522009 "Ukraine train and bus collision kills 42"
45. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11580492 "French police frustrated by new strike blockades"
46. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1104/1224282635055.html "25,000 protest against fees increase"
47. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11969520 "Croatian ex-PM Ivo Sanader arrested in Austria"