PARIS — France’s National Assembly unanimously rejected the 2027 state budget bill Wednesday night, in a further sign that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will have a tough time getting through €43 billion in budget savings.

458 lawmakers from both Emmanuel Macron’s camp and the opposition voted against the first part of the text that deals with tax income. It had been extensively amended by various groups, resulting in a proposal no one was happy with. The second part of the text, which covers spending, was also struck down as a result. The government’s draft budget will now go directly to the Senate where it will be debated from Nov. 20.

The French lower chamber had already rejected the other leg of the 2027 budget, which covers state pensions and the health care system. It will now be discussed in the Senate.

With France’s economy stagnating, debt piling up and the risk of a financial crisis looming over the country, Lecornu’s government is under pressure to put French finances in order. It has pledged to bring down the deficit — the difference between how much the government spends and how much it brings in — to 5% of the gross domestic product next year.

Budget Minister David Amiel warned on Wednesday that, after the amendments, the version of the budget rejected that night would have brought the deficit to 5.9%.

With Lecornu lacking a majority in the lower chamber, the rejection was widely expected and increases the chances that the government will try to force the text through. As the April 2027 presidential election approaches, the government has repeatedly insisted that it aims to adopt the budget by the end of the year — something it failed to do with the two previous budgets.

The government could either use Article 49.3 of the Constitution again, a provision that allows it to bypass a parliamentary vote but exposes it to no-confidence motions. It could also adopt the budget through executive orders, an unprecedented option in France’s recent history.

A dispute over what to call the EU’s future relationship with Canada is deepening a split between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, four diplomats told POLITICO.

Berlin and Brussels are at loggerheads over von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada an “associate member” of the EU, with tensions worsening after the Commission president touted the phrase at a summit in Montreal — just hours after a German-led push removed the wording from a joint statement approved by 27 EU capitals.

Merz previously floated “associate member” as a status for Ukraine, as it works toward fully joining the bloc. After the idea was roundly rejected, including by Kyiv itself, officials in Berlin see von der Leyen’s push to use the term for Canada as a rebuke of the German chancellor’s initiative.

The clash over the phrasing is illustrative of a growing divide between Merz and von der Leyen toward how the bloc should be governed.

Berlin has said it won’t approve the EU’s next long-term budget, proposed by the Commission at around €2 trillion, unless “hundreds of billions” are shaved off the total amount. And von der Leyen’s proposal for a European Security Council has failed to gain traction in Germany, where the government has embraced a separate format with France and the U.K. for sensitive Ukraine-related matters.

“There is this institutional dilemma between Brussels and Berlin,” said Jan Techau, head of Germany for the Eurasia group and a former speechwriter for the German defense ministry. “Von der Leyen has taken a strongly integrationist approach to the EU while Merz has completely developed away from this and talks about the nation states as the primary driver of EU policy.”

A representative for Merz did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

What’s in a name?

Neither Berlin nor Brussels are giving ground on the “associate member” issue.

Berlin reiterated its opposition at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, two of the diplomats told POLITICO. But the Commission president has no intention of abandoning the label, a person familiar with her thinking said. They were granted anonymity, like others in this article, to describe the sensitive diplomacy.

“We’re really focusing on building on the foundations that were set last week at the summit,” said Paula Pinho, chief spokesperson for the Commission, adding that Berlin and Brussels share the same basic goals regarding EU-Canada ties.

A German diplomat said: “There is no difference in substance. We both committed to form a unique partnership that we don’t have with any other country outside the European Union.”

The difference comes down to fine print, as von der Leyen’s definition of the associate member term — as applied to Canada — precludes the status from being offered to Ukraine, two EU diplomats said.

Instead of an intermediate step on the way into the EU, complete with prizes such as observer status in the European Council, associate member status would be granted to a country that could never be fully admitted to the EU — as von der Leyen acknowledged in her Montreal speech. 

Von der Leyen’s use of the term thwarted Berlin’s logic. “Germany had different plans for associate membership — and still does,” said one of the diplomats.

Techau said Berlin and Brussels share “ideological overlap on many issues,” including party affiliation — both Merz and von der Leyen belong to Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union Party. “They often have similar views and even on ideas like this,” he said, referring to warmer ties with Ottawa.

Yet the Canada issue has played out in “an exemplary way,” he said. While von der Leyen sees this as “a big geopolitical gain for her and the Commission,” Merz has “proven disappointing to people in Brussels who hoped he would take a more integrationist approach to the EU, and this has been driven entirely by domestic prerogatives.”

For Techau, the label dispute is a proxy for the wider argument running through core debates such as the budget and the bloc’s security: whether the EU should be driven more by its common institutions or by its national governments.

“The issue is, in many ways, ‘unresolvable,’” Techau said.

Zoya Sheftalovich and Seb Starcevic contributed reporting from Brussels.

WARSAW — Poland’s political crisis deepened on Tuesday as nationalist President Karol Nawrocki launched a bitter attack on pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk amid a furor over the politicization of judges at the country’s Constitutional Tribunal.

In increasingly heated exchanges, Nawrocki accused Tusk of using the court dispute for an illegal power grab, while Tusk defended his actions as vital to preserving the rule of law in the EU’s sixth-largest economy.

The long-running but highly charged judicial dispute dates back more than a decade and centers on the political appointment of judges at the top court by the previous administration of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party that was in power until 2023.

Tusk’s government and the European Commission have insisted the court must be overhauled to conform with EU norms on impartiality, and on Friday suspended the court’s president and his deputy.

On Tuesday, eight judges elected by the current ruling majority led by Tusk convened the court and declared they had sufficient numbers to resume its long-stalled work.

Hitting back, Nawrocki used the televised opening of a National Security Council meeting, attended by Tusk and other political leaders, to attack the prime minister. Tusk was not given a chance to respond while the cameras were on.

“Full responsibility for every police officer outside the tribunal, for all the illegal actions, including suspending judges and issuing unlawful orders, lies with one man who is present in this room — Prime Minister Donald Tusk,” Nawrocki said, referring to Friday’s confrontations in front of the tribunal.

“I expect [the prime minister] to rein in his government’s ambitions and put an end to the illegal actions of his representatives inside the Constitutional Tribunal,” Nawrocki added.

Earlier, Tusk had accused Nawrocki of escalating the conflict and called on him to end his opposition to the judges elected by parliament.

“The president has a chance, and I hope he takes it, to stop attacking lawfully elected tribunal judges and allow them to work,” Tusk said before a Cabinet meeting.

Tusk also accused Moscow of exploiting Poland’s political turmoil and urged politicians not to become “useful idiots” as the squabble over the court’s fate intensifies.

As the National Security Council meeting ended, Tusk reiterated his main points on the tribunal but adopted a more conciliatory tone, offering Nawrocki a one-on-one meeting to “think about how to reduce tension.”

But he also said he was pleased that the “situation was stabilizing,” alluding to the fait accompli of the tribunal having resumed work. 

The feud over the tribunal is hardening Poland’s political divisions ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election, bringing a previously divided array of factions on the nationalist right into closer alignment against Tusk. For the prime minister, the crisis also serves as an opportunity to consolidate the voter base ahead of the election.

The eight judges elected by the current parliamentary majority held a general assembly Tuesday afternoon under Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the judge who assumed control of the court Friday. Nawrocki and the right-wing camp do not recognize her authority.

The president also keeps refusing to swear in five of the eight judges. Instead, they took their oaths in the parliament in a ceremony that Nawrocki contends was null and void.

The eight voted to recognize themselves as a quorum, arguing that only 12 of the court’s 15 judges were eligible to participate after Korwin-Piotrowska temporarily suspended PiS-linked Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy Bartłomiej Sochański. A third PiS-era appointee, Jarosław Wyrembak, occupied an improperly filled seat.

That reduced the required two-thirds quorum from 10 to eight, although Święczkowski and his political allies rejected his suspension and the quorum calculation.

The judges unanimously approved the tribunal’s draft budget for 2027 and drew names for disciplinary panels to consider proceedings against Święczkowski and Sochański.

Poland’s long-simmering rule-of-law issue reached boiling point this weekend. So, what now?

On today’s show, Zoya Sheftalovich and Kathryn Carlson unpack Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s efforts to undo judicial appointments made under the previous right-wing Law and Justice government. Tusk’s administration argues that removing these PiS-era appointees is essential to bringing Poland back into line with EU rule-of-law standards. But after this weekend’s turmoil, could the push backfire? And what could it mean for Tusk’s support ahead of next year’s elections?

Then, on to a crisis closer to home: Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever offered his resignation to King Philippe Monday morning, after failing to reach a budget agreement for 2027. Does that mean the government will collapse? Zoya and Katie go through what happens next.

And finally, RFK Jr.’s Make American Healthy Again campaign is coming to Brussels … at least when it comes to ultra-processed foods.

What are your thoughts on unhealthy, processed snacks and junk food? How should the bloc tackle them? Write in and let us know: You’ll find us on WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Crisis over top court shapes Poland’s battle lines before 2027 election.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s food fight is coming to Brussels.
• King mulls De Wever’s resignation as Belgian budget talks fail.

BERLIN — Britain has set a 2030 deadline for raising defense spending to 3% of GDP. Finding the money — and getting industry to deliver — will be the harder tests, U.K. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told POLITICO.

U.K. Chancellor John Healey announced the target during last week’s budget, but faced criticism for not laying out how it would be funded. The government will set out next year how it plans to meet the 3% target by 2030 and its NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035.

On a Monday visit to Brussels and Berlin, Streeting said he has “total confidence” that the U.K. will hit the 2030 goal, adding: “We deliver on time and on target.”

The U.K. currently spends about 2.6% of GDP on defense. However, the defense budget has been bolstered in a bid to deter Russia, while other departments face cuts.

“I think I was probably the only Cabinet minister going into the budget who was in a position to confidently say that we’d be getting more,” Streeting said of last week’s announcement.

He said the commitment to higher spending “was an important message to send to industry and our allies, and our adversaries for that matter.” He also rejected accusations that the government has not laid out a clear path for higher spending.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that hitting the 2030 defense spending target would need an additional £11 billion in spending, and reaching the 2035 NATO goal “would require an even larger, and more sustained, increase.”

In last week’s announcement, the Treasury also established an Innovative Defence Financing Taskforce aimed at “maximising the contribution of private and international finance to UK defense.”

The idea is to figure out how to channel more private sector funds into defense, including with public-private partnerships.

However, Streeting said he was wary of defense turning to Private Finance Initiatives. Under PFI, private consortia design, build and maintain public infrastructure — such as schools, hospitals and roads — in exchange for decades of taxpayer-funded lease and service payments.

“I’m a big critic of PFI,” said Streeting, noting that Britain “learned the lessons on PFI a long time ago and so the private finance initiative is not something we would repeat.”

“But there are other ways of drawing in private finance which learn the right lessons and get a good return and good deal for everyone, and pass without controversy,” he added.

The defense buildup involves tighter cooperation with industry and also closer links with key allies like Germany.

Streeting met with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in Berlin to discuss the two countries’ defense partnership. That included discussions on Germany potentially joining the British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Programme to build sixth-generation fighter jets.

Germany has been casting about for a way to build advanced combat jets after its joint efforts with France collapsed earlier this year.

One option is to forge closer ties with GCAP, but some of the three existing members, including Japan, are worried that bringing in Germany could delay the project, which aims to bring the aircraft into service by 2035.

There is also concern that adding another member would dilute the amount of work being done by companies from the three original countries, something Streeting said he was aware of. German officials also worry that Germany would have too little influence over a program that is already underway. 

Streeting stressed that allowing in new GCAP members would have to be a “shared decision” with Italy and Japan, adding he was conscious of “some of the risks around timescales for delivery.”

Asked about potential delays to GCAP, Streeting said: “One of the things I’m keen to do is to try and accelerate the program and look right across the program delivery timetable which bits we can try and truncate.”

He added that the long development time for the GCAP project exemplified frustrations with the defense industry across a range of other programs that are “shared by defense ministers across NATO.”

The European defense industry is pressing for governments to issue long-term contracts, which would lower the risk they face in making large investments to set up new production.

“I think it reflects a legitimate peacetime business as usual, where industry leaders are keen to avoid famine and feasts. They want to sustain their production lines,” Streeting said, but added that companies therefore “do not go as fast or as productively as they possibly could.”

But the need to deter Russia and to continue supporting Ukraine means that caution should be jettisoned, he said.

“We are in a place of heightening threat, and so as the U.K. and our NATO allies are spending more and investing more in our capability, we need industry to step up and accelerate as well with us.”

BERLIN — Germany is unveiling its plan to catch up in the global AI race, but key details remain unclear.

Germany should become a “sovereign AI nation” by 2030 and narrow the gap with leading AI hubs in the U.S. and China, according to a report drafted by the government’s AI task force and obtained by POLITICO set to be released Monday.

“The next 12 to 18 months will therefore be decisive in setting the course,” read the report, which was due to be presented to the National Security Council and also at a summit on AI in Berlin.

Germany wants to secure access to the world’s leading models while strengthening European alternatives, particularly through expanded cooperation with France and Canada, according to the report. 

“We are leveraging collaborations with like-minded partners in the EU and worldwide (especially France and Canada) to benefit the German AI ecosystem and ensure sovereign access,” the report noted. “We will also use intra-European collaborations,” such as with French AI company Mistral, “to achieve this leverage,” its authors added.

At the same time, “AI made in Germany” should stand out through its focus on industrial AI with “highly specialized models,” the report read.

“A key focus here is the development of innovative production systems to increase productivity through the use of AI,” the report noted. “The widespread use of AI and AI-based robotics can boost productivity and quality, optimize industrial processes, and improve control over complex systems.”

To help speed up the development of AI in Germany, the government plans to act as a “strategic anchor customer,” using public contracts and pilot projects to help European AI providers enter the market.

The plan comes as Germany struggles to catch up on AI while cultivating more strategic autonomy in the area. Much of the blueprint, however, lacks key details, including on financing. The measures “neither constitute funding decisions nor prejudge” future budget procedures, according to the report.

The government established the task force in June to better coordinate AI initiatives across several ministries. The blueprint proposes 18 measures such as plans to “strategically expand AI computing infrastructure and connect it as a European ecosystem” as well as “strengthening the semiconductor value chain.”

By 2030, the government wants at least 80% of large companies and 55% of small and medium-size businesses to use AI. Berlin is also aiming for 90% of federal agencies to have at least one AI application in production. AI agents are expected to prepare administrative processes “end to end” and, where legally permitted, complete them with full automation. 

The government is also working to increase the country’s AI data center capacity by 300% compared with 2025, the report read.

Jasper Bennink contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS— Belgium’s King Philippe is considering Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s resignation after the premier offered to step down following failed attempts by his coalition government to agree to plug a €10 billion budget gap.

In an 11th-hour attempt to reach a deal for next year’s budget, top officials from De Wever’s five-party government gathered over the weekend, but left without an agreement early Monday morning. Tuesday was widely seen as the unofficial deadline to strike a deal, as the budget still has to pass through parliament before the end of the year.

As part of the talks, De Wever wanted to show financial markets that Belgium is on track to meet its European obligations. Belgium had a deficit of 5.2 % of GDP in 2025, which is expected to rise further next year.

After De Wever offered his resignation Monday morning, the palace said the king was “postponing his decision” and “will begin consultations tomorrow with the party leaders of the various coalition partners.” It added that the king “is appealing to everyone’s sense of responsibility and urges all stakeholders to prioritize the general interest and a spirit of compromise.”

The prime minister is expected to meet the king again on Friday.

De Wever had ruled out starting the new year with a temporary budget, which would let the government continue with the same budget as last year’s.

Budget talks have been ongoing for weeks, with tensions emerging mostly between the Flemish socialists of Forward and the Francophone center-right Reformist Movement.

The former asked for more contributions from the highest incomes, through taxes, while the latter ruled that out and pushed back against a wider reform of value-added tax.

There were still “far too many taxes on the table,” David Clarinval, deputy prime minister for the Reformist Movement, told reporters when talks broke up. He didn’t rule out discussions resuming today.

Last November, Belgium’s budget talks also went into extra time. On this occasion, De Wever did not tender his resignation, but requested an extension to budget talks from King Philippe. The king granted him an additional 50 days to reach an agreement.

If Belgium is on track for snap elections, the country could lean toward extreme parties, with both the far-right Vlaams Belang and the far-left Workers Party performing well in the polls.

This article has been updated.

The jet lag has barely worn off, but Brussels is already grappling with what its new relationship with Canada could actually look like.

After the 48-hour whirlwind EU-Canada summit in Montreal, Prime Minister Mark Carney has given the EU six months to hash out what “associate membership” actually means. On the show, Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur unpack the deals struck at the summit and what lies ahead for the relations between the two powers.

Next, after last month’s unwieldy European Council summit drew criticism of its president, Antonio Costa, he’s doubling down on his push to secure a budget by 2027. This week, his head of cabinet Pedro Lourtie will be holding so-called “confessionals” with national governments to get a sense of where they stand.

And finally, Europe’s coffin makers are afraid Chinese competitors could be the death of their business.

Questions, comments? Please write in! Find us on WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• EU and Canada’s 6-month test of commitment.
• 8 things we learned at the EU-Canada summit.
• Europe’s coffin-makers warn Chinese imports could be death knell for industry.

MONTREAL, Canada — The European Union and Canada have agreed to build the closest possible relationship. Over the next six months, they will have to define what that means — and whether Canada can become the EU’s first, and perhaps only, associate member.

A summit in Montreal last week highlighted the urgency behind the budding relationship. Both sides say their partnership is positive and not directed against any country. But it is also driven by mutual need: to shore up supply chains, pool expertise and reduce reliance on the United States and China.

Mark Carney told POLITICO in an interview straight after the summit that the two sides should not be tailoring their partnership to cope with the potential reactions of other powers. “We’re not adjusting [based on] what the U.S. might think, what China might think, what … Russia might think,” he said. The goal, the Canadian prime minister explained, is to help both sides “withstand shocks” and prevent rivals from exploiting critical dependencies.

The test of that plan comes in six months, when the European Commission will meet with the Canadian government to see what progress has been made. One diplomat involved in the talks, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the meeting, which will be held in March before next year’s EU-Canada summit in Brussels, should make clear how far the relationship can develop and whether Ottawa is really on track for associate membership.

In the months ahead, there will be plenty of issues that could distract EU leaders. Governments must negotiate the bloc’s next seven-year budget, amid deep divisions over its size and spending priorities. Plus, a series of elections in some of the EU’s biggest countries, including Spain, France, Italy and Poland, will make concentrating on Canada a tall order.

Deal first, definition later

The joint declaration signed in Montreal commits both sides to defining the concept of “associate membership” by their 2027 summit. In the meantime, they have a slate of agreements and work plans to put into practice.

That includes a digital trade agreement and a competition deal signed in Montreal, plus Canada’s participation in the EU’s high-performance computing partnership. They also agreed on a new framework for cooperation between EU border force Frontex and the Canada Border Services Agency. Ottawa said it intends to join the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan facility.

The declaration sets out further work on critical raw materials and energy, including a feasibility study into long-term liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and exploring ways to jointly stockpile strategic resources. It also calls for cooperation on subsea cables, artificial intelligence and research, closer financial links, Arctic security, and disaster response. Canada and the EU will begin talks on deeper Canadian participation in Erasmus+, the EU’s education and youth program.

The summit also saw the launch of the Alliance for the Future, a broader partnership plan that could eventually include Japan, South Korea and Australia. It aims to build resilient supply chains and coordinate on economic security, so partner nations do not inadvertently harm one another with trade measures as they respond to Chinese overcapacity and U.S. tariffs.

But that could be easier said than done, with both Europe and Canada keen to avoid breaching World Trade Organization rules with their arrangements.

That concern is already visible in the debate over “Buy Canadian” and the EU’s proposed “Made in Europe” rules, both of which seek to favor homegrown suppliers. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Montreal that Brussels intends to ensure Canada is not disadvantaged by the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act — proposed legislation encouraging European businesses to go greener through subsidies and payment schemes. The ball is now in Carney’s court to offer similar assurances to European businesses under Buy Canadian.

Semantics breakdown

The summit’s biggest political snag came down to two words.

Von der Leyen opened the door to Canada becoming the EU’s first “associate member” in her State of the Union speech in September. But Germany blocked the term from being included in the joint declaration, saying the concept is vague and undefined. Other EU capitals said they also wanted to know what the arrangement would entail before fully committing to it.

The wrangle over the label overshadowed the substance of the summit and visibly frustrated both Carney and the European contingent. Asked about Germany’s objections, Carney told POLITICO it was “a very internal European issue.”

The dispute highlights Ottawa’s challenge: even if the Canadian government and the Commission agree on a plan, any formal arrangement must navigate 27 EU governments with their own concerns, pet industries and foibles.

The real reason for Berlin’s opposition remains unclear, with one EU diplomat describing the kerfuffle as an “embarrassment.”

One theory among senior EU officials and diplomats is that Germany was smarting because it wanted the term to be used for Ukraine earlier this year — only for other EU countries and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself to reject the idea.

The Le Pen test

The EU-Canada partnership is meant to rest on shared, centrist values. But what happens if political shifts in the EU’s two largest countries change what underpins the friendship?

The French presidential election in April could bring Marine Le Pen to power, while the Alternative for Germany has made gains in successive regional elections.

Carney told POLITICO he would work with whichever leaders voters choose, while drawing a line between cooperation and agreement. “My responsibility is to work with, whether it’s provincial premiers or leaders of other countries, in the best interest of Canada,” he said. But he added that “working with and having agreement on are two different things.”

Carney said democratic outcomes could change Europe’s priorities, but argued that cooperation could still deepen.

The six-month stocktake will show whether that confidence holds.

BERLIN — British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting arrives in Berlin on Monday to discuss closer military cooperation with Germany. But internal German defense ministry briefings seen by POLITICO show the two countries still face tough choices over how to work together.

The documents, prepared for internal talks with various defense companies ahead of Streeting’s visit, reveal how Britain and Germany intend to divide responsibility for developing two new types of missiles, the industrial competition taking shape and the technological challenges that remain.

The stakes extend well beyond their bilateral relationship. Russia’s war against Ukraine has exposed gaps in Europe’s defenses, while uncertainty over America’s long-term military commitment has increased pressure on European governments to develop more of their own weapons.

Streeting will meet his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, as the countries discuss the development of long-range missiles together, even as Berlin weighs whether to join Britain’s next fighter-jet program or pursue a different European partnership.

“The defining test is not where every single component of a piece of kit or equipment was made,” Streeting said on Oct. 22 at the opening of a British artillery factory by German arms giant Rheinmetall. His message: Allies must prioritize delivering weapons over competing industrial interests.

Building Europe’s next missiles

At the heart of the partnership is a plan to develop weapons capable of hitting targets more than 2,000 kilometers away. Known as Deep Precision Strike, or DPS, the project aims to give European forces the ability to strike far behind enemy lines without relying on American missiles.

The internal briefings reveal how Britain and Germany intend to divide the work.

Britain will lead development of a missile designed to fly low and evade enemy radar, known as the High-End Cruise Missile. The first version is expected to be ready for military use in 2032.

Germany will take charge of a different weapon, designed to travel several times the speed of sound. A rocket would carry this so-called hypersonic glide vehicle high into the sky before releasing it toward its target. Berlin aims to have it ready for military use by 2035.

The two weapons are the centerpiece of the partnership, but Germany and Britain are also considering other ways to strengthen their long-range strike capabilities, the briefing shows.

For the two-part DPS project, the plans involve significant investment. Britain has committed £770 million over four years to the wider missile effort. Separate German budget material seen by POLITICO identifies more than €9 billion in future spending, although without a defined timeframe.

But agreeing which country leads each project is only part of the task. The countries must also decide which companies will develop the weapons.

Competition behind the cooperation

For the German-led hypersonic weapon, the ministry plans to have two companies develop competing experimental versions by 2029.

One is MBDA, Europe’s established missile manufacturer. The other is Hypersonica, a much smaller German-British startup. Their designs would be tested before Berlin decides how to proceed.

The competition could prove sensitive. According to the internal German briefing, the ministry anticipates that MBDA may worry its younger rival could benefit from technical knowledge gained during development and testing. 

Hypersonica, meanwhile, is already gaining experience through Nightfall, a British-funded project to develop missiles for Ukraine. According to the briefing, some of that work could help the startup develop a more advanced German-British weapon.

Another complication will be finding out what role France will play — if at all.

When Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron met in July, they agreed to explore cooperation with Britain on long-range weapons, specifically highlighting that ArianeGroup, the Franco-German rocket manufacturer, could play a role.

However, political agreement between European governments does not automatically settle industrial arrangements.

The ministry briefing says talks about involving ArianeGroup in developing a booster — the rocket component that would propel the hypersonic weapon into flight — proved difficult because of limited rights to use the technology. The document does not specify what those restrictions entail.

For Britain and Germany, the next step is to turn these plans into firm commitments. Officials have discussed initial agreements to advance the missile project before the end of the year, separate documents seen by POLITICO show, although it remains unclear whether any will be signed during Streeting’s visit.

Responding to POLITICO’s request, the German defense ministry declined to comment.

A difficult choice in the skies

While Britain and Germany are moving closer together on a missile partnership, their plans for building the next generation of fighter jets pose the question: Which countries does Berlin want as its long-term defense partners after its flagship fighter-jet project with France collapsed in June?

Britain has moved to fill that gap. During a visit to Berlin earlier this month, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham encouraged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to consider joining the advanced fighter program London is already developing with Italy and Japan, known as GCAP.

For Britain, German participation would help divide the enormous costs of developing a new fighter jet. For Berlin, it offers something beyond the aircraft itself: closer post-Brexit ties with Britain, a major European military power and key NATO ally, as well as a strategic partnership with Japan.

That diplomatic appeal matters as Europe takes on more responsibility for its own security amid uncertainty over America’s future commitment to the continent. 

But Germany’s defense ministry sees problems with the British offer.

“At present, cooperation with Sweden and Spain appears preferable,” one of the internal briefings states, pointing to a better match with Germany’s military needs rather than GCAP.

Officials also worry that Germany would have too little influence over a program in which Britain, Italy and Japan have already divided much of the development work among their companies. 

That leaves Berlin weighing the diplomatic benefits of joining Britain against the military and industrial advantages of starting over with different partners.

For Streeting, the visit to Berlin therefore comes at an important moment with unresolved issues. Britain and Germany are making tangible progress on missiles, but London has yet to convince Berlin that it should also become a partner in Britain’s next fighter jet.

LONDON — Andy Burnham will avoid making “arbitrary” cuts to Britain’s rising social security budget, a top Cabinet minister said Friday, as he defended days of mixed government messaging on welfare.

Defense Secretary Wes Streeting accused Labour’s opponents — and the Keir Starmer government he served in as health secretary — of not properly thinking through plans to reduce the welfare bill, leading to a collapse in political support.

Streeting told the BBC Today program: “I saw it, frankly, after the last general election, when we went too far too fast with an arbitrary figure to cut welfare and when people saw the detail of what that meant for disabled people in our country, the very same people who were saying we need to cut the welfare bill were saying ‘but not like that’.”

He said: “What I do understand from experience, and I’ve seen this experience borne out under both Conservative and Labour governments, is that when you put in place arbitrary targets to cut welfare without a thought-through plan to do so sustainably and responsibly, the plans fall apart.”

Spending on U.K. health and disability-related benefits has increased sharply since the Covid pandemic, with the bill for working-age disability benefits in England and Wales increasing from £14bn in 2020 to £25bn in 2026.

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn is leading a report into how to help the estimated one million young people not in employment or education. It is due to be published in November, and the government is also waiting on minister Stephen Timms to make recommendations on disability benefit reform.

A previous bid to reduce welfare under Starmer was scrapped after a revolt among Labour MPs. The row was seen as deeply damaging to Starmer’s authority and a sign that the leadership had lost touch with rank-and-file MPs.

Streeting’s comments came after an extended back-and-forth between ministers and journalists Thursday over whether Burnham’s government will lower welfare spending before the next general election.

Healey was asked by the BBC Thursday whether cuts to the welfare bill would be made before the next election.”There will be a reduction in the benefits bill, we’ll do that in a Labour way,” he said.

But Treasury officials tried to clarify that Healey had not put a date on reductions, with the chancellor telling Channel 4 News shortly afterwards: “It’s not correct to say that we are going to bring this welfare bill down in this parliament because we’ve not set a timetable for that.”

Streeting said of welfare Friday: “We all agree we’ve got to bring it down, we’ve just got to do it in the right way.”

Tories leapt on the confusion yesterday to say Labour were “confused, unserious, and [had] no plan.”

Deputy Conservative Chairman Matt Vickers told GB News Friday morning that Healey had given “no answers” on welfare. He added: “The government’s priorities are completely wrong. We need to get in there, sort the ballooning welfare bill, and protect this country properly.”

PARIS — France’s economy shrunk by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2026, according to fresh estimates from national statistics agency Insee, pushing the country closer to recession and further complicating the government’s efforts to stave off a debt-driven financial crisis.

Economy and Finance Minister Roland Lescure said Friday that this summer’s extreme heat and spiking energy prices were responsible for the negative growth.

In an interview with Franceinfo, he said the new figures give added urgency for lawmakers to pass the 2027 budget proposed by the government, which aims to bring the deficit down to 5% of gross domestic product next year with €43 billion in savings.

“If we don’t have the budget adjustment we put in the budget, we will hit the wall,” Lescure said.

But France’s fragmented parliament failed to pass budgets before the new year in both 2024 and 2025, and the spring 2027 presidential election may further complicate efforts to seek compromise this time around. That could force Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to push through the budget using a constitutional backdoor that bypasses a parliamentary vote, but it would expose the minority government to potential motions of no confidence.

Lescure insisted that adopting a budget for next year was key to “reassure markets” and relaunch growth in the last quarter of the year. The French economy contracted by 0.1% in the first quarter of 2026 and recorded no growth in the three months that followed.

That anemic growth will likely complicate the government’s pledge to bring the deficit down to 5.4% of GDP this year, as the target was based on the assumption the economy would grow by 0.5% in 2026.

“The French economy is at a standstill,” Lescure said. “It has to restart.”

LONDON — Britain’s government runs on numbers — but what if they’re a shot in the dark?

From tepid economic growth to squeezed household incomes, this week’s budget from Chancellor John Healey was packed with grim figures about the state of play in the U.K. — and a host of costly measures to try and turn things around.

Yet it’s almost certain that the budget forecasts Healey relied upon Wednesday will be revised by the time the next fiscal event rolls around.

In this week’s episode of the Westminster Insider podcast, POLITICO unpacked the numbers that govern the U.K. — and found out just how many doubts there are about the information the country relies on.

1. True levels of immigration

Few issues divide Brits like immigration — but grappling with hard data on the issue has proven to be a repeated challenge to governments of all stripes.

For decades, immigration into the U.K. was calculated by the International Passenger Survey (IPS) — essentially people with clipboards at airports, train stations and ports asking people about their intention to stay in the U.K.

But between 2012 and 2020, the number of European Union nationals coming into the country was off by 76% — or 93,000 people a year. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) only discovered this error after trialing a new approach to counting immigration that focused less heavily on the IPS, which was dropped altogether in 2025.

The ONS now uses this new measurement — relying on a combination of Home Office data, information from the Department for Work and Pensions and tax receipts.

But this was again wrong in the year to June 2023 — by 234,000 people.

The original numbers published by the ONS in November 2023 said net migration to the U.K. was 672,000. A year later, the ONS admitted there had been a mistake and said it was in fact 906,000.

Laura Gilbert, who ran data science in No. 10 Downing Street until last year, told POLITICO that net migration numbers are often incredibly misleading — and even the way we calculate those numbers is “highly spurious.”

Gilbert says the quality of the numbers on immigration normally improves months later, sometimes by “quite a lot.” But she warned, “if politicians are making a decision based on exact numbers, often they are using the first number that comes out, which is the worst one.”

2. The scale of unemployment

Healey and Prime Minister Andy Burnham have vowed to get welfare spending down “but in a Labour way.” Much of this will rest on getting young people into work, the subject of a 217-page report by Tony Blair-era minister Alan Milburn.

But Britain’s workforce — and the number of young people out of work — is counted by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), an ONS measurement beset with issues.

For example, between 2019 and 2024, the LFS missed 1 million workers because people with full-time jobs are less likely to answer the phone to surveyors during the week, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) admitted just this week that the survey is too unreliable to measure productivity. “In recent years, falling response rates have significantly affected the quality of the LFS, making it more difficult to estimate reliably the number of workers and the hours they work,” the watchdog said.

Gilbert says Healey’s claim that there are “1 million young people out of work” is unlikely to be accurate.

The number of NEETs — people not in education, employment or training — is also based on figures from a subset of the LFS, which is particularly susceptible to inaccuracies.

“I think being within 50,000 on either side of that number is very unlikely to be the sort of level of accuracy that you’re at,” Gilbert said. “It’s entirely spurious, if I’m completely honest, but it’s a big number, you write it down, and everyone reads the papers.”

Ben Warner, who set up 10DS, Downing Street’s data science unit, says the LFS can’t accurately measure the number of entrepreneurs arriving in the country, either, making it difficult for ministers to know if decisions — such as a much-hyped tax relief for founders — are actually encouraging people to come to the U.K.

“I’m willing to bet you a hundred quid [we don’t have accurate numbers] at the level that you would need to make thoughtful policy around this,” Warner said. “I am sure there are people who have very, very good knowledge of the economic statistics. But if you’re a minister, you don’t necessarily have access.”

3. Where inflation and GDP sit

These are hugely important measures for a government: Are costs rising for households — and is the British economy growing?

But buried inside this week’s budget assessment by the OBR was a startling admission: There is a one in five chance inflation in 2027 will come in at over 4.5% … and the same chance it will be under 2.5%. They are profoundly different outcomes for the cost of living, a top political issue.

Warner told POLITICO, “The whole thing is mental. We are discussing the uncertainty of the numbers and pretending that these are real.”

Gilbert says there are knock-on effects at play: problems with net migration numbers and workforce data bleed into inflation and GDP projections.

“Understanding migration tells us about the demographics of the country, and when we look at how many people are in work, and that is wildly undercounted, it looks like there are more people who are unemployed, which has a knock-on effect on GDP and inflation,” she explained.

4. The number of kids on free school meals

The number of pupils in England on free school meals is just over 2.2 million, according to government statistics from the start of this year. That’s more than a quarter of all children in the country.

But Gilbert warns that these numbers are likely to be overestimated because schools “game the system” when census data is collected. “So for anyone who has children in school they may have received a text message that says don’t send them to school with a packed lunch — because the schools get funding based on how many children are on school meals,” she said.

5. The number of rough sleepers on the streets

One of Burnham’s flagship promises when he became prime minister was to end homelessness in the U.K., and Wednesday’s budget put £432 million towards precisely that promise.

Yet the way rough sleepers are counted in the U.K. varies according to each council, with some areas relying on an estimate and others on a street count — sending workers out to physically count the number of people on the streets on a particular day in autumn.

Some councils have swapped between methods — which can make it look as though they have dramatically reduced their rough sleepers from one year to the next.

For example, in 2017 Brighton and Hove Council used an estimate of rough sleepers which put that number at 176. The following year, the council used a street count — but this took place on a snowy night, so the number fell to 68.

This made it appear as though the number of people experiencing homelessness had been more than halved.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham will have an unofficial goal when he meets members of Britain’s former empire next week: Avoid a fight about slavery reparations.

Good luck, as they say, with that.

His predecessor Keir Starmer’s trip to the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, at a beach resort on the Pacific island of Samoa in 2024, is still the stuff of rueful mutters in parts of Whitehall.

Lined up in a semi-circle of armchairs — “like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting,” as one person briefed on the gathering put it — leaders from many of the 56 Commonwealth nations negotiated live over a 16-page communique on laptops and tablets. Starmer, a barrister, found himself personally redrafting a key paragraph about reparations on a screen surrounded by other leaders, said two further people briefed on the meeting.

The unusually intimate format of the leaders’ retreat meant they had no officials with them on the veranda, and Starmer had just one civil servant — No. 10’s private secretary for foreign affairs — stationed in a tent close by. His chief of staff Morgan McSweeney was woken at 4 a.m. London time by a phone call to talk about the strategy for reparations.

That, however, was never clearly resolved. The retreat dragged on hours late; some leaders left before it was even over. Starmer was frustrated and felt he had been “ambushed,” said one U.K. official involved in the 2024 trip. A second said they had blocked the incident from their memory. A third said Starmer was left “furious,” adding: “He went in blind and it was terrible for him.” A fourth said simply: “It was a disaster.” All were granted anonymity to speak frankly.

The eventual communique agreed on a “conversation towards forging a common future based on equity.” This fudge kicked the issue of reparations down the road — where it now lands in Burnham’s lap.

Britain’s new prime minister will touch down at the biennial summit in Antigua and Barbuda next week to find the issue still firmly on some Caribbean and African leaders’ minds.

At the United Nations in May, 123 countries passed a motion calling for “inclusive, good-faith dialogue on reparatory justice.” The U.K. abstained. Barbados PM Mia Mottley announced a manifesto from Caribbean leaders on the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations in June. Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey said last week that an apology for Britain’s role in the slave trade “wouldn’t hurt.”

The visit will be a test of how Burnham — who has a reputation for speaking off the cuff, especially on issues of moral justice — maintains a delicate U.K. government line that reparations are not “the answer,” as Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told POLITICO last month. And Burnham will face that challenge in a unique spotlight: It will be his first overseas visit with King Charles III, who is the head of the Commonwealth.

POLITICO spoke to a dozen U.K. officials or politicians who were involved in the 2024 summit or the planning for Burnham’s upcoming visit. They painted a picture of acute anxiety in the British state over how to deal with calls for reparations from its former colonies; tensions between Downing Street and the Foreign Office over the handling of 2024; and serious questions in Whitehall about whether the summit is even useful for No. 10 — despite the king’s role leaving U.K. prime ministers little choice but to attend.

Burnham will not have to deal with the extreme jetlag and communications hurdles that dogged Starmer’s trip, which involved a 28-hour flight in each direction. But like Starmer, he will fly out at a time when his in-tray is crowded by other issues — not least the U.S. midterms happening at the same time and the domestic aftermath of his first budget, just unveiled this past Wednesday.

The first U.K. official quoted earlier in this story said: “There’s a sense that there can’t be a repeat of [2024] this time around.” The third U.K. official quoted above said: “I don’t understand why they’re making the same mistake. Does the prime minister really have to go?”

A No. 10 official, however, said Burnham made clear soon after taking power on July 20 that he was “very keen” to attend the summit. Miliband has “laid the groundwork so that things hopefully won’t be as tricky as they were in 2024,” this person added.

“Andy’s style is that he is an honest broker with people, and he will give an instinctive response to things,” the official said. “But the government’s position is clear that reparations are not seen as the right route. It’s a careful balancing act, but one that we’re well prepared for.”

Climate resilience fund in the works

One tactic for the current No. 10 will be to try to avoid talking about it public.

Downing Street has broken with recent precedent by deciding not to bring the usual “pack” of political journalists, taking a smaller media “pool” instead. This will limit the scope of questions that Burnham faces. (Political editors from news outlets, including POLITICO, have written to No. 10 to object to the arrangement.)

Timing could also allow the visit to slip under the radar. Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband will be there alongside counterparts including Anthony Albanese of Australia and Mark Carney of Canada, creating a rare opportunity for them to discuss the implications of the U.S. midterm results in private. The symbolism, as “middle power” nations deal with a drift in U.S. relations under Donald Trump, would be obvious.

Officially, the agenda is to build an alliance that can boost these middle powers, along with the developing states that global summits usually overlook. 

The Commonwealth Secretariat — the London-based body that co-ordinates the summit — said the aim of next week’s gathering is “partnerships and investment,” including in climate and youth employment, and removing trade barriers.

Likewise, the U.K. Foreign Office has been working on a climate resilience fund for developing nations, two people with knowledge of the talks said. A third said conversations in the U.K. government had focused on mobilizing public and private finance, and improving access to finance for climate-vulnerable countries.

Three people with knowledge of the planning emphasized that this summit would be an opportunity to build on relations with countries that could discuss bilateral trade, though they did not name specific nations and no U.K. trade ministers are due at the event.

“There will obviously be trade and investment discussions with a range of partners,” said one of the three people, a U.K. government official, who also noted that the U.K. will raise the impacts of El Niño. “The bigger picture is that we want to use the Commonwealth network to deepen trade and investment links across its 56 members — that Commonwealth advantage is one of the reasons the grouping matters to the UK.”

‘Playing Scrabble with words’

But leaders at these events, known by the awkward acronym CHOGM, can raise whatever topics they wish — reparations included.

Denis O’Brien, the Irish telecoms billionaire who founded the Repair Campaign calling for financial reparations to the Caribbean in 2022, said: “The conversation has moved radically forward.” He urged Britain and other European nations to “start off with an apology and then have an engagement,” adding: “The Foreign Office and the prime minister’s office are playing Scrabble with words — and unfortunately they’re leaving King Charles, who is so highly respected in the Caribbean, in a very difficult position.”

Paul Boateng, the Labour peer who was Britain’s first Black Cabinet minister and now campaigns on the issue, said Caribbean nations “are going to be pressing it. This issue is not going to go away.” The recent UN resolution reinforced Caribbean and African nations’ argument, argued Boateng: “We can’t be seen to simply ignore it … We cannot hold the Foreign Office line that it changes nothing.”

That position cast a long shadow two years ago.

No. 10 flew to Samoa in 2024 insisting reparations were “not on the agenda,” even though the summit’s free-wheeling format meant the choice was effectively out of Downing Street’s hands. 

This message “went down like a bag of sick” with Caribbean nations who saw it as “colonial” and “arrogant,” recalled one person involved in conversations at the time.

The handling created tension between Downing Street and the Foreign Office, then led by David Lammy, who also attended, according to six other people with knowledge of the 2024 trip. 

One of the six people said No. 10 figures had expected the Foreign Office to better manage expectations among Commonwealth nations ahead of Starmer’s arrival. The person said: “No. 10 did not feel like they were well enough informed, and felt some of this could and should have been handled in advance. There was the feeling that both Lammy and the Foreign Office were institutionally pre-disposed to this sort of stuff and not shutting it down. The PM didn’t know what he was going into.”

A second person said: “​​The FCDO world does forget, sometimes, the politics of what’s going on in the U.K. It’s very institutionalized.”

A third person stressed that senior aides in No. 10 had blamed Foreign Office officials, not Lammy personally. Before Starmer left office this year, No. 10 had been drawing up plans for Starmer to skip this year’s CHOGM — and send Lammy as his representative. By then Lammy had been moved from the foreign office and was Starmer’s deputy prime minister.

Another of the six people countered that it was No. 10 that persisted, ahead of the 2024 summit, with a line that was too binary — reparatory justice, as campaigners prefer to call it, has a wide definition that includes support for climate adaptation and education — and failed to listen to Foreign Office warnings ahead of time about the strength of feeling among Commonwealth nations.

“The audit trail would completely exonerate David and the Foreign Office,” this person said. They argued No. 10 officials — who were keen to hold on to the mantle of fiscal responsibility ahead of Starmer’s first budget — had viewed the row too much through how it would be perceived by the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper.

Two other people with knowledge of the 2024 trip insisted they did not remember any significant friction between No. 10 and the Foreign Office. Lammy’s office did not immediately respond to an invitation to comment.

UK review mooted a scaled-back summit

More significantly, the 2024 summit also led to discussions in Whitehall about the set-up of CHOGM itself.

Lammy commissioned an internal review by Foreign Office officials on the Commonwealth in the wake of the 2024 summit, his former Special Adviser Ben Judah told POLITICO.

Judah said the review suggested reducing the frequency of CHOGMs to “every four or five years,” potentially aligned with the hosting of the Commonwealth Games, and seeking to remove the final communique and leaders’ retreat.

It suggested an investment conference in alternate years modeled on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which could keep the Commonwealth branding but with no organizational role for the Secretariat, said Judah.

Judah suggested this would improve attendance at CHOGM, which is often patchy; India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not plan to attend next week’s summit, for example, though there will be a delegation led by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.  “The Indians think this thing is ridiculous and self-harming and just totally bizarre,” said Judah. “They’d be interested in a real investment conference, not this farce.”

A second former U.K. government official said they knew about the report, which has not been made public, adding that No. 10 figures under Starmer discussed similar concerns about the format of the Commonwealth summit after the Samoa visit.

The Foreign Office declined to respond to questions about the report when contacted by POLITICO, including when it was finalized or whether any of its recommendations were pursued. One Foreign Office official, however, stressed that it was not the U.K. government’s position and that any decisions about future CHOGM arrangements would be for Commonwealth members collectively.

The U.K. government official quoted on trade and investment earlier in this piece said: “The Commonwealth is more important to our geostrategic position now than at any time throughout its 80-year history. In today’s more divided, unpredictable world, the Commonwealth has the potential to be a powerful, values-based force for good in the world.

“This gives us a huge opportunity to drive U.K. interests and priorities — Commonwealth relationships have helped to drive global support for Ukraine, and it is hugely important for our work on climate.”

Funding pulled from reserves

Judah, however, argued that the Commonwealth Secretariat is a “broken institution” and Britain should wind down its involvement to focus on an investment summit instead.

CHOGM has ended up as a “platform for the reparations campaign,” argued Judah: “There’s nothing else on the agenda because it’s not a real international organization, and it’s not a real summit with deliverables.” The Commonwealth and Secretariat, he said, has “essentially been taken over by the only countries that are still really invested in them, which are the Caribbean countries supported by a few African countries, to push the reparations agenda.”

For some, that extends to questions about the way the Secretariat spends its money.

Two people with knowledge of the situation said part of this year’s CHOGM summit is being paid for out of the Secretariat’s reserves. “There is a real sense of concern about the malaise and drift of the organization,” argued one of the two people. “Financially it’s in a dire, dire state.”

A Commonwealth spokesperson responded: “The Commonwealth Secretariat accesses reserve funds for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and always with member country approval.”

Back in 2024, Starmer’s most senior aides privately raised the question about whether he should attend the Samoa summit at all. “We were overruled,” said another person who worked under him.

Whitehall officials initially assumed that Burnham would not go either, until he said otherwise. “To a lot of the Caribbean countries, the word [from officials] was that he wasn’t going to show,” said O’Brien. “I think people were taken aback by that.”

But despite Starmer’s experience in 2024, Burnham will attend. 

Among all other reasons, there is one very obvious one. “It’s very difficult for a prime minister not to go because the king goes,” said one person who worked under Starmer. “It’s important to him.”

Burnham’s ‘surer touch’

Once Burnham is in the room, campaigners hope he will at least be a listening ear.

Outside the prime minister’s Manchester office No. 10 North is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, commemorating the mill workers who refused to touch raw cotton picked by slaves.

Burnham referred to it in his first speech to the United Nations last month. “In 1862, people with little power used it to help those with none on the other side of the world,” he said. “The best change is change like that, bottom-up change led by people.”

The new prime minister “understands the importance of Manchester as the second great city of empire, and he has a surer touch than his predecessors,” argued Boateng. “We’ve got an opportunity to reset the relationship.”

What reparatory justice would look like is another matter. 

Previous estimates have suggested Britain should owe as much as £18 trillion, but the conversation is far more nuanced than talking about a single big number.

While Boateng argues that no measures should be taken off the table, he would begin with reforming the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to give more Commonwealth countries a meaningful seat at the table, and returning historic artefacts such as the Benin bronzes that are displayed in London’s British Museum. “The British Museum holds loot, literally loot. These are stolen goods,” he said.

Britain is working on debt relief too. Chancellor John Healey plans to make international finance for developing countries a key theme when Britain hosts G20 finance ministers next year. 

NGOs have urged Healey to make debt relief more generous by changing the G20’s common framework and UK domestic law, which sets the terms for 90% of debt that low-income countries owe to private lenders.

Maria Finnerty of Bond, the membership body for NGOs, said Britain “continues to play a role in enabling illicit financial flows through loopholes linked to the City of London and its overseas territories, amounting to the loss of billions from some Commonwealth countries.”

Miliband reflected all this in his POLITICO interview last month at the Labour Party Conference. While condemning the slave trade as “terrible,” he said his focus was on addressing current issues in countries “on the front line of the climate crisis, of the debt burden, of trying to reduce poverty in those countries.”

O’Brien is calling for monetary payments, however. Through the Repair Campaign, he wants to see the EU and U.K. make money available to the 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries — with a special case for Haiti — “each year for the next 75 years” for issues such as education, green energy and storm defenses to deal with climate change. 

O’Brien would not be drawn on a single figure, but suggested payments should supplement the national budget of each affected country by around 10% a year.

Asked if he had had conversations with the Foreign Office, O’Brien replied: “What do you think?

“I mean, we would like to. We’re approaching this in a very friendly way, taking a very, very sensitive period of history and trying to get results. We have the highest respect for the British government, and particularly the King. But it can’t go on forever.”

Night falls in the European capital. Everything’s quiet, but the nightmares are about to begin.

Viktor Orbán’s ghost haunts the Schuman roundabout; ash from the bonfire of red tape covers the Justus Lipsius building; Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of staff, Björn Seibert, chases after staffers demanding to know what “associate membership” for Canada actually means; and MEPs tremble at the prospect of construction workers uncovering the skeletons of political intrigues past during renovations.

Scared? You should be.

Here’s our guide to who is terrified of whom in the Brussels bubble. 

Everyone is scared of Marine Le Pen

The person haunting EU diplomats, officials and lawmakers is French presidential front-runner Marine Le Pen. Will she really halve Paris’ contribution to the EU budget, as promised? Will she pull Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni away from the Brussels mainstream? And will she demand von der Leyen’s head?

The bubble had warmed (slightly) to the idea of Jordan Bardella in the Élysée Palace, after his years leading the National Rally’s European operation revealed a certain pragmatism toward Brussels — only for those hopes to be shattered when a Paris appeals court cleared Le Pen to be a candidate for the presidency.

The next ECB chief is scared of Jean-Luc Mélenchon

The European Central Bank president is the euro’s last line of defense against unorthodox national economic decisions — but that could be tested by French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is on course to reach the runoff after vowing to set billions of euros of French debt “on fire.” His incendiary plan calls on the Frankfurt-based ECB to waive interest payments on a vast tranche of French bonds — an unorthodox, perhaps impossible, maneuver that critics warn could even see France kicked out of the euro.

Now that we know Christine Lagarde will step down as ECB president in February, what France’s presidential candidates want to do about its monumental debt pile will haunt the race for her successor, with Dutchman Klaas Knot and Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos as the two frontrunners.

Lobbyists are scared of ChatGPT

The number of amendments lawmakers have filed has exploded since generative AI arrived, with key EU laws now facing thousands of proposed text changes. Parliament officials don’t think it’s a coincidence, with some pointing to amendments written in suspiciously bot-like language, and others saying sometimes amendments cite legislation that does not even exist.

The growing pile of amendments is haunting lobbyists, parliamentary assistants and officials forced to track and sort through it all — along with the fear that AI could eventually replace them. Spare a thought, too, for the MEPs who may have to vote through the amendments one by one, with hands raised in plenary. 

Commission officials are scared of Austria’s Europe minister

Well-heeled Commission officials (and their families) are spooked by Austria’s Europe Minister Claudia Bauer, who has been leading a push to slash the Commission’s administration expenditure — which pays eurocrats’ salaries and offices — in the next seven-year budget. The campaign, backed by most EU capitals, resulted in an 8% cut to the admin budget in the latest budget proposal.

Bauer is so feared that EU officials joke they reduce their delegations’ size whenever they travel to Austria.

Jessika Roswall is scared of Stéphane Séjourné and Valdis Dombrovskis

Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall and her department have reason to fear industry boss Stéphane Séjourné, who is taking the lead on the upcoming Circular Economy Act, despite Roswall’s official title of Commissioner “for a Competitive Circular Economy.” Making matters spookier, Roswall’s environment department now shares the Breydel building with Séjourné’s internal market and industry department, setting the stage for some chilling corridor encounters as Roswall pushes for greater environmental protection while Séjourné prioritizes industrial growth.

Roswall is also under pressure from EU simplification chief Valdis Dombrovskis to cut red tape on several environmental laws. The Latvian commissioner, who oversees the omnibus packages, wants a deal before year-end. Meanwhile, the center-right European People’s Party continues to press the Commission to reopen laws on birds, habitats, and water — the EU’s oldest nature protection laws — so they can be simplified too.

Alexander Stubb is afraid of Kaja Kallas and António Costa

Kaja Kallas has not publicly addressed the call that Finnish President Alexander Stubb made to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but the EU’s top diplomat has made clear she dislikes such outreach. Still, if Putin offered serious talks and concessions, Kallas would be the obvious person to answer: as coordinating EU foreign and security policy is her job. “Of course I will talk if such an opportunity presents itself,” she told Estonian media in September when asked about speaking with Putin or his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Also reaching for the phone: António Costa. EU diplomats note that the European Council president represents the bloc at the leaders’ level abroad. That institutional turf war may explain why Stubb stressed that he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Støre spoke only for their own countries — not for Europe.

Manfred Weber is scared of his own group …

What keeps the leader of the European People’s Party — Europe’s largest political family — up at night? Divisions within his own ranks. So far, Weber has kept a tight ship and wants to reunite his troops ahead of the 2029 EU election, which he is casting as a battle against the far right. But that may prove tricky as the EPP’s national delegations increasingly clash over whether to work with the far right or isolate them.

… and the group is scared of Ouarda Bensouag

Central to Weber’s strategy is Ouarda Bensouag, the group’s secretary-general and his chief of staff. One of his most trusted lieutenants, she has a reputation as a smart but ruthless operator who EPP staffers fear when crossing paths in the Parliament’s labyrinthine hallways.

No one is scared of the Parliament … but they should be

Parliament’s attempts to spook capitals over the next long-term budget have been borderline tragic so far: It keeps threatening to kill the budget, but nobody seems to care or believe it will.

They should care. When it comes time to pass the budget, 361 of 720 votes will be needed, and the margin could be razor-thin in a fragmented chamber that’s hostile to plans to pool farm and regional funds. The louder MEPs protest — and the longer the Council ignores them — the more determined they become to prove the threat is real.

By Max Griera, Gregorio Sorgi, Kathryn Carlson, Nick Vinocur, Jakob Weizman, Fiona McNally and Eliza Gkritsi

BRUSSELS— The European Union and Canada are teaming up on compute power — a key element for training artificial intelligence models — with Canada set to join the EU’s supercomputer network.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday Canada “will now become part of this network”, confirming a POLITICO report from earlier this week that both sides were discussing the country’s entry into the European supercomputing network.

Canada joining “enables Canadian industry, startups and researchers to access European supercomputing,” von der Leyen said. “Paired with Canada’s pioneering AI industry, this would allow us to develop highly competitive, innovative and safe AI systems.”

The EU’s supercomputing network is run by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, an EU public-private vehicle with an €8.2 billion budget. The network consists of 14 supercomputers (some ranked in the global top 10), 19 AI-focused AI factories and 10 quantum computers.

The vehicle will also run seven massive AI data center hubs, known as AI gigafactories, set to be built next year with a total investment cost of €30 billion.

Experts praised a possible EU-Canadian compute power team-up, but warned it’s only the start.

“Compute cooperation is one of the most obvious short-term ‘middle power’ cooperation plays in AI,” said Anton Leicht, technology and international affairs fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But he added that for now “it doesn’t put a dent into the actual dependence” on the U.S.

“As long as the U.S. builds gigawatt-scale clusters, no amount of cooperation that doesn’t result in massive buildouts will help,” he said.

Canada’s engagement in the EU’s supercomputer network builds further on Canada’s previous partial involvement in the EU’s flagship research and development program, Horizon Europe.

Horizon Europe partially funds EuroHPC.

To date, 38 countries have participated in the EU’s supercomputing network: 27 EU member countries plus non-EU countries including Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Israel and Turkey.

BRUSSELS — The European Union should ready its Anti-Coercion Instrument, otherwise known as its “trade bazooka,” for use against Washington over its push to raise EU drug prices, Belgium’s deputy prime minister has said.

Frank Vandenbroucke, who also serves as the country’s health minister, issued the call in a position paper published Thursday by the Egmont Institute think tank, co-authored with his deputy head of cabinet Gloria Ghéquière.

He also said the EU should be ready to suspend the tariff concessions it granted to Washington under the Turnberry trade deal from August 2025 if the U.S. imposes additional duties on European goods.

The Trump administration has been pressuring European governments to pay more for medicines under its “most-favored-nation” policy as it seeks to bring American drug prices into line with those in other wealthy countries.

Washington argues that Americans are unfairly shouldering the costs of pharmaceutical research and development, while Europeans reap the benefits.

The MFN policy ties American drug prices to the lowest prices charged in a basket of wealthy countries, including France, Germany and Italy. The U.S. has already concluded MFN pricing agreements with 26 pharma companies, which have agreed to benchmark the prices of drugs supplied to the U.S. Medicaid program.

The intended effect is for drugs manufacturers to either increase prices in third countries, to lower their U.S. prices, or both.

Washington is also ramping up pressure on individual member countries to pay more for their drugs. In June, the U.S. launched a so-called Section 301 investigation into Germany’s alleged “persistent underpayment” for innovative drugs. The investigation could lead to additional tariffs, exceeding the 15% ceiling agreed under Turnberry.

Capitals are banding together to counter the U.S. pressure. At an informal meeting in Dublin last week, ministers from Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium discussed creating an EU-wide pharmaceutical task force to coordinate their response.

“If we don’t work together and act as a team, countries are inevitably tempted to go it alone,” French Trade Minister Nicolas Forissier told POLITICO.

In the paper, Vandenbroucke and his colleague argue that Brussels should open an ACI investigation in response to Washington’s drug pricing policy. The instrument allows the EU to impose tariffs and restrictions on services in response to foreign threats to trade if backed by a qualified majority of member countries.

“The procedure is quite heavy, but already opening an examination would have an effect of its own,” the paper argues.

The authors also highlight a clause in Pfizer’s MFN agreement requiring it to share additional revenue from higher prices outside the U.S. with the American government. “Higher foreign payments thus become a source of revenue for the American government itself,” they write.

The deputy PM questioned the underlying basis of the policy. Because the U.S. market is so lucrative compared to all the rest, drugmakers would accept withdrawing from third countries as long as it meant keeping U.S. prices high.

Vandenbroucke, an economist by training, said the net effect would likely be an extreme increase in European drug prices — or the withdrawal of drugs from the market — while producing comparatively modest price cuts in the U.S.

According to one forecast cited in the paper, prices could triple in countries used as benchmarks, while U.S. prices would fall by just 7.5% to 15%.

“The consequences would reach well beyond the medicines budget, putting pressure on the solidarity that universal insurance is designed to secure,” the authors write.

BRUSSELS — New powers proposed for the EU’s border police Frontex to monitor social media pose a threat to free speech, European lawmakers and civil society groups have told POLITICO.

The EU Commission’s proposal Tuesday for a major revamp of the coast and border patrol agency included a broad and explicit mandate to monitor social media for information that aids or encourages illegal border crossings into the European Union.

Social democratic Italian lawmaker Brando Benifei told POLITICO it was “legitimate” for authorities to remove online advertisements for human smuggling: “But a broad social media surveillance mandate goes much further, placing online speech under a border agency’s watch.”

After a 2019 monitoring tender with similar powers was revoked over criticism about privacy violations, Benifei said “the Commission now proposes copying ICE’s invasive online tracking,” referencing the much-criticized surveillance tactics of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Under the EU proposal, Frontex would set up an internal structure to monitor social media and report to the platform in question the content it says is facilitating illegal entry to EU countries. This comes as the Commission is seeking to double the agency’s budget for the next seven years and vastly expand its powers to deport people.

The EU already has several structures that facilitate the exchange of information between civil society, social media platforms and authorities when it comes to disinformation campaigns or illegal content. These include a rapid response system on disinformation campaigns under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s landmark law regulating digital platforms, as well as a recently established democratic resilience center.

Policing content

Brussels must tread a careful balance not to police individual pieces of content, especially given criticism from civil society activists that it is trying to become the arbiter of truth online. The legality of content is set by countries, which assign their authorities or civil society to monitor the platforms for problematic postings to be flagged to the platforms to be taken down.

Frontex would apply for trusted flagger status under the DSA, which gives priority to the content it flags to social media platforms. Entities that apply for this status have to demonstrate expertise and independence to a national authority, which grants them special status.

“The DSA’s trusted flagger program was never conceived for police forces to circumvent due process when assessing the legality of people’s online expression,” said Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at civil society group EDRi.

The Commission’s initial communication suggested Frontex “will be acting” as such an entity, which EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen later clarified meant they would apply for it. That application would have to be reviewed by a national authority to check Frontex’s independence and expertise in that area.

Polish right-wing MEP Piotr Müller told POLITICO that the “mandate must be precise” in focusing on criminal networks. “Frontex should go after smugglers and human traffickers, not police opinions about migration.” Müller is among those that criticize the DSA as policing free speech online.

Executive Vice President Virkkunen announced the news at a meeting Tuesday of signatories of the DSA’s code of conduct on disinformation, some of whom are trusted flaggers. Questions around the implications of the measures for freedom of speech and assembly came up in the closed-door meeting. According to two attendees, Renate Nikolay, deputy director general of DG CONNECT, the Commission’s tech department, tried to assuage the free-speech concerns.

Other lawmakers took a positive, yet reserved, stance towards the changes in Frontex’s mandate. The EU’s migration authorities “need the tools to respond to the changing threats at Europe’s borders, including smugglers using social media to spread lies and promote dangerous crossings,” which can include “better monitoring and information-sharing,” Regina Doherty, a center-right MEP from Ireland told POLITICO.

But “the priority now is to get the detail right so authorities can act quickly within a clear legal framework, and platforms take responsibility for illegal content,” she pointed out.

Austrian center-right MEP Andreas Schwab said that “social media clearly is becoming more and more a concern, but we should not have too many tools – let’s make use of the DSA.”

Another MEP who knows the agency well was more blunt. Fabrice Leggeri, a former director of Frontex who hails from the far-right French National Rally party, said that the new powers amounted to an “attempt to censor freedom of speech in Europe” by Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen.

The Commission didn’t respond to POLITICO’s repeated requests for comment on Frontex’s expertise in this domain.

Max Griera contributed to this report.

LONDON — Andy Burnham became Britain’s prime minister 100 days ago on a pledge to end 40 years of neoliberalism. His first budget announced he wouldn’t do that on the front page.

Wednesday’s 150-page red book was titled “breathing space for today, fresh hope for the future”, a confession, with true British modesty, that it was a stepping stone to bigger pledges downstream.

Burnham’s top finance minister, Chancellor John Healey, unveiled 98 changes, including help for most households’ energy bills, which are due to spike this winter because of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, and a £10 billion defense package to support Ukraine.

Many of the tax tweaks were limited and technical, including an 8% cut to tariffs on soy milk. Healey’s ambition was reined in by surging global oil prices and a political choice by his boss not to blow the doors off yet.

Burnham has reviews on the creaking welfare system, devolving power to the regions and a “10-year plan” all coming before Christmas. Only then can he grind out the numbers for next year’s spending review.

The Labour MP Darren Jones, who served in the Treasury until Burnham arrived in July, called it a “steady-as-she-goes budget” that was to be expected. Many Labour MPs were happy, cheering measures for their area and pointing toward a bigger bang later on. Industry lobby groups could grasp onto something in their area of expertise.

But with U.K. growth struggling, others were less generous. Joe Shalam of the center-right Centre for Social Justice think tank called it the “fudge-it budget.” Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked: “Is that it?”

Perhaps the trickiest response for Burnham was from Mainstream, the left-wing campaign group that helped propel him to the Labour leadership this year. “Ending 40 years of neoliberalism can only be delivered by radical action,” read a statement by the group’s interim council.

POLITICO looks at five other takeaways from Wednesday’s budget.

1) We’re in the holding pen

The chancellor’s big bazooka was to slap a much-anticipated tax rise on banks — but he surprised many by saying it will last only 15 months. It will raise less than £1 billion in its peak year.

It wasn’t the only temporary measure Healey unveiled on Wednesday. He extended existing cuts to fuel duty, a tax cut on household energy bills and a £2 cap on bus fares, but only until 2027. They will all need to be reviewed again before his next annual budget.

Likewise, some of Healey’s spending plans thin out after a few years, which suggests they may need topping up later. This applies even to the areas closest to Burnham’s heart. Budget documents suggest support to end rough sleeping will total £1.1 billion in the two years from April 2027 but only £270 million in the three years after that.

There were plenty of changes, of course, such as to writing-down allowances, property income taxes and tax on savings. Whitehall will have to find more administration cuts while tax inspectors hunt down another £3.2 billion a year. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a non-partisan economic think tank, called it all a “hodgepodge” of “fiddly measures” that would do little to affect growth.

Many of the more fundamental decisions were kicked down the road. Healey has committed to spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035, but will only spell out how to fund it in a spending review at some point in 2027. Major reforms to the welfare system — spending on which is still rocketing — will only be decided after two reports by the Labour grandees Stephen Timms and Alan Milburn are published in November.

Healey published a “fiscal devolution roadmap” that spelled out a path to handing regional mayors full control of the business rates raised in their areas by the end of the decade, but this has an element of wait-and-see too.

Healey had a narrative for his cautious approach. “I decided on an early budget to give the country a bit of breathing space and to provide stability and direction in the face of speculation,” he told MPs Wednesday. “We’ll continue to map out that direction for Britain through the prime minister’s 10-year plan and the spending review.”

This is not the Burnham who complained Britain was “in hock to the bond markets” last year.

2) Everything is terrible, so blame the White House.

Burnham and Healey can blame Trump — up to a point.

The chancellor said the headwinds that once faced Britain are now “global economic storms,” fueled above all by the U.S. conflict with Iran. “We did not want this war,” Healey told MPs.

Journalists spent Wednesday trawling through the usual gloomy parade of numbers about the U.K. economy produced by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Britain’s projected growth in 2027 was cut from 1.6% to 1% (though Treasury officials insisted GDP per person will rise overall by the end of the decade).

Healey chose to leave himself with a smaller fiscal buffer than his predecessor Rachel Reeves, telling MPs he had used it to “absorb the impact of the Iran war.” He also raised net taxes by £7 billion a year, though this was far less than the £26 billion in Reeves’ last budget.

But the situation is so volatile that these numbers, based on market energy prices in mid-August, are probably already out of date. The OBR’s “severe shock scenario” had oil prices peaking at around $115 a barrel in the first half of 2027. They already hit that level this week.

Healey insisted that Britain is doing well in the circumstances; his ministers all point to an International Monetary Fund prediction that the U.K.’s deficit will be the lowest in the G7 by 2029.

Opposition parties, however, paint a picture of a nation where everything is just getting gloomier. The tax take was already on course to rise to a record high; Healey broke that record again on Wednesday. (It is now due to reach 38.6% of GDP.) Britain’s spending on debt interest has almost tripled since 2020.

3) Defense spending is still a big, big headache

Healey resigned as defense secretary under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer in June to protest the lack of military spending — but now faces mounting unanswered questions about his own plans.

Healey did two big new things on defense spending on Wednesday. First, he confirmed an open secret in Westminster: he plans to reach 3% of GDP by 2030 — on a path to NATO’s 3.5% by 2035 — but repeated that the details of how he’ll pay for it will only be spelled out in next year’s spending review.

Secondly and more significantly, he outlined his plan to plug a ​​£1.8 billion-a-year gap in Starmer’s defense investment plan — but provided only scant details. 

The Treasury said it will be paid for by shaving 1% off each Whitehall department’s capital budget in the coming years. However, those departments have not yet worked out what they will cut; that is a problem for another day. These questions will dog Healey for the next year.

At least one person was delighted: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president said the chancellor “made my day” with a £10 billion package of economic and military support to Kyiv. Part of the package needed special sign-off by ministers because civil servants warned they could not guarantee it would provide value for money.

4) There was something to make Labour MPs happy

Much of what Healey did unveil appeared to be aimed at preserving the “Burnham bounce” in the polls and with his own MPs. 

The chancellor called it a “budget for the working people of Britain” and Treasury analysis says it was redistributive, handing the biggest boost to the poorest households (albeit only raising their incomes by 0.6%).

Central to this was Healey’s closest thing to a “rabbit out of the hat” — a £100-per-household cash payment to people living in homes below a certain value this winter. One Labour MP enthused that the criteria for the payment (which Treasury officials say will capture 88% of the poorest households) was “absolutely brilliant” because it will capture working households and those on benefits at the same time.

There was another £1.5 billion for social and affordable housing, a “covenant” to govern new AI data centers and changes to mileage rates for self-employed workers. Burnham has prided himself on being a grassroots politician; it was a grassroots package.

How much voters will notice is another question. The IFS warned the package of “breathing space” measures was still “relatively small.” It could be swallowed by a rise in annual energy bills in January — predictions of which have recently ranged from £276 to £469.

The OBR warned there has been “virtually no growth” in real household disposable income per person over the last decade or so, and predicted “no real earnings growth in 2027” despite Burnham and Healey’s efforts to help.

5) MPs won’t stop chattering about an election

Burnham only has to call an election by mid-2029 and keeps trying to snuff out talk of going earlier — but every prime minister does this until they don’t.

His MPs were studying the budget Wednesday to work out if it makes an early general election more or less likely. It’s fair to say they couldn’t agree.

On the one hand, this cautious budget of temporary measures might suggest Burnham — who needs his own mandate for more radical changes to the electoral system or Britain’s relationship with the EU — is holding out for the country’s backing.

Others would say a cautious stepping-stone budget is hardly the eye-catching approach you would take if you were about to sell yourself to voters. Growth is set to be slow next year; Burnham needs time to turn the economy round and show he can change things.

Burnham told journalists on Wednesday: “I don’t know how many times I’ve done this now, but yes, I can rule out calling a general election in the next 12 months.” The speculation will continue anyway.

Esther Webber, Emilio Casalicchio, Sam Blewett and Charlie Cooper contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: This article was updated on Oct. 29 to better reflect the Centre for Social Justice’s ideological stance.

At some point, maybe around the time Joe Biden declared on the debate stage that he “finally beat Medicare,” Washington got the idea that defeating an old man in an election was easy.

Not always.

Just days before an American election viewed by many voters as an opportunity to neuter an unpopular 80-year-old president, voters in Brazil and Israel delivered a vivid reminder that an old man in his country’s highest office usually didn’t get there by accident.

In Brazil, a decisive majority of voters on Sunday returned left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a fourth term, defying expectations that Brazilians were ready to discard the fiery trade unionist as yesterday’s man. In Israel’s Tuesday election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the longest-serving premier in his country’s history — lost his parliamentary majority but may have thwarted his opponents from electing a viable governing coalition.

Lula, 81, and Netanyahu, 77, have almost nothing in common except their age and political resilience. They have towered over their countries for more than a generation, outfoxed prosecutors and humiliated electoral rivals, enraged and entranced Washington. They have done it with the loyal support of voters on the left and right who view each man in heroic terms, as a tireless champion of their interests and a shield against the most fearsome enemies.

President Donald Trump has, at times, shared those political traits. If he has one more escape act left in him, it would look more like what we’ve just seen in Israel and Brazil than anything in Trump’s second term so far.

Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has failed to deliver policy victories that most voters can feel in their own lives, while shedding some of the most important parts of the political identity that forged his populist base. He ran for president in 2024 pledging to whip inflation and railing against needless foreign wars. Trump’s signature acts this term — passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, waging a global trade war, attempting regime change in Iran — have made health care, consumer goods and energy more expensive.

What is his closing message in the midterm election? Trump makes one argument consistently: that Democrats are crazy. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a convincing through line in a series of campaign-trail monologues boasting about the economy, trashing individual Democratic candidates as weirdos and subversives, musing about renaming oceans, defending the Cheesecake Factory and admiring Jon Husted’s rock-hard bod.

Compare this to what voters heard in Brazil and Israel: relentless, ruthless, shameless appeals to the political coalitions that Lula and Netanyahu forged over decades.

In Brazil, Lula tapped into the regional and class-based divisions that have defined his electoral career, while offering a buffet of new economic promises to voters in his base. He hiked welfare payments, promised voters free public transit on weekends and endorsed a shorter workweek. His 45-year-old opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, stumbled in the final days with a dismissive comment alluding to an accident Lula suffered as a young metalworker — a remark apparently taken by many voters as a gratuitous sneer at the working class.

In Netanyahu’s fight for political survival, the Israeli leader delivered an apocalyptic message aimed at polarizing the electorate to his advantage. He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv, branded his challengers as soft on Iran and derided Arab political parties as an enemy within. Israeli and American news outlets have reported that Netanyahu pushed the military for a new wave of attacks on Iran before the election, an escalation that might have reshaped the campaign’s final days.

If Trump had approached the midterms with Lula- or Netanyahu-like focus and vigor, he would probably still be a very unpopular president. But he might be a very unpopular president with a firm grip on the red states that control the Senate, instead of scrambling in October to defend Kansas and Mississippi.

Trump’s populist campaign tactics have been comparatively slapdash and unresponsive to voters’ real needs. He floated giving away $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans keep control of Congress, only to see lawmakers from his own party pan the idea as a budget buster. He has handed out locally tailored goodies — new funding pledges for a pipeline in Alaska, tariff exemptions as a gift to Maine — that might make a difference on the margins but can’t substitute for a national message on the cost of living.

And Trump has not made a concerted effort to heal the breach within the MAGA base over the war in Iran. He has toggled between Bibi-like warnings about nuclear attacks on Southern California and assurances that the war will end after the November election, all while fuel prices stay painfully high for the people who put him in office.

It may add up to the least effective campaign ever for the man who has overwhelmed American politics for 11 and a half years.

And yet, the midterms are not the end of the story.

Even a broad defeat for Republicans next week would leave Trump with half a term to work with. Two more years to recover his footing, return to political basics, reconnect with his base and fight, fight, fight for relevance and recovery. There is a bag of tricks available to him, if he were to get serious about salvaging his presidency.

For Trump’s opponents, the warning from abroad remains: Beware the old man in a hurry.