Snapshots at 80, 50 and 30 Ma of the interactions between the deep drivers of plate motions, the buoyant cratonic lithospheres of Africa and Baltica and the weak Europe. The effect of peri-African plumes (Mondarava, Afar plumes) may have been counteracted by the Iceland plume after 50 Ma in Western Europe in connection with exhumation of Europe. Under AF/EU convergence, contraction (blue arrows) spreads in the whole of Europe during the Late Cretaceous but was progressively replaced by extension (red arrows) in association with the West Europe Rift and in the Northern Atlantic, and then in the Mediterranean region.