Two studies published in Eurosurveillance raise the alarm about the spread of bacteria resistant to carbapenems in both healthcare and community settings across Europe. A data analysis from 17 European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries shows an increasing spread of the carbapenem-resistant bacteria Escherichia coli sequence type (ST)131. Worldwide, E. coli is the pathogen associated with the most deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance, and the specific type of E. coli ST 131 is frequently associated with multi-drug resistance. The study analysed epidemiological data of almost 600 E. coli ST131 isolates provided by national reference laboratories from Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden. One group of isolates stood out for potential association with urinary tract infections in the community due to the relatively low median age of patients (57 years), a high proportion of female patients and the frequent detection of isolates from urine samples. These data suggest there is a much wider spread of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales infections in the community in the EU/EEA. Further spread of carbapenem-resistant E. coli would mean that these antibiotics could no longer be consistently effective for empiric treatment of severe E. coli infections.