LONDON — Liz Truss claims the U.K. would have managed successful missions to Mars within years — if only her 49-day premiership hadn’t been cut short.

The assertion comes in the former British prime minister’s new book “Bank Job,” which was published Monday and claims to explain “how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government” when her mini-budget in 2022 precipitated market turmoil.

In its closing chapter, the book paints a vivid picture of what Truss believes life in 2040 would be like if her policies had been given a chance to bed in. “Several missions to Mars have now been launched from Britain’s space port,” Truss’ book imagines.

The ex-PM also opts for some more grounded policy dreams.

She envisages a 2040 in which “there are now no European Union laws in Britain,” a “permissive regime for artificial intelligence” is in place, and tumbling energy costs and faster planning timelines have helped make the U.K. a leader in AI.

“Bitcoin received tax treatment consistent with its status as a form of money for commercial purposes,” she imagines. “No central bank digital currency was introduced.”

Since leaving office after a revolt in her own party, Truss has dismissed claims her economic decisions — which included a huge energy bills bailout and tax cuts funded by fresh borrowing — were responsible for crashing the pound.

She has instead pointed the finger at the central bank, the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog, accusing them of working against her. Her new book takes direct aim at the Bank of England, which proposed to sell £80 billion of gilts before the mini-budget, although delayed that sale amid market turmoil.

Truss lost her House of Commons seat at the 2024 general election, and has since been involved in launching the Conservative Political Action Conference in Britain.

France has become the new sick man of Europe just in time for its next presidential election.

After two weekends that saw hundreds of thousands of protesters hit the streets demanding the government increase teacher salaries, fix run-down schools and help subsidize the rapidly rising cost of living, the European Union’s second-biggest economy is being dragged into a vicious cycle of twin fiscal and social crises that are fueling each other.

“France is on the brink of a financial crisis,” former Prime Minister Michel Barnier told POLITICO. “We need to send a signal to the markets.”

Authorities were able to prevent the type of rioting and looting this past weekend that marked the first round of demonstrations Oct. 17-18, but financial markets are spooked. Even before the demonstrations began, investors were dumping French debt or demanding historically high returns because of the government’s failure to significantly cut a stubbornly high budget deficit, bring down €3.5 trillion of debt, jumpstart growth and reform an unsustainable pension system.

The prospect of a presidential runoff next spring featuring far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen and her far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is in the mix for second place according to most polls, is further scaring investors. Both candidates want to spend billions to lower the retirement age.

The rioting, for now, is estimated to have cost tens of millions of euros, much of which will be covered by insurance. But the chaos is pouring fuel on an already explosive situation by sending worrying signals to investors, especially if the civil unrest continues. The Yellow Vest protests of 2018 to 2020, which came early in President Emmanuel Macron’s tenure, cost the French economy 0.1% of gross domestic product, with shops reporting losses of €2 billion.

“It is clear that protests have an impact on markets,” Eric Lombard, who served as economy and finance minister last year, told POLITICO.

Given that current Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s proposed budget for 2027 already includes €43 billion in savings, leaving little room for more cuts, the government is faced with an impossible choice: Borrow more money and saddle the next generation with billions of euros in interest payments, or hope the protests die out on their own.

“We have a knife to our throats, and we can feel the drops of blood on our jugular,” said a government minister who was granted anonymity to discuss the current situation.

“We need to show that we’ve heard the outrage. But we have little margin for maneuver given the market situation.”

Playing with fire

Mario Monti, who faced a similar situation as Italian prime minister and managed to avert a financial crisis in 2011 with spending cuts and a pension reform, told POLITICO that “things can go very fast.”

Back then, the spread between Italian and German 10-year bonds — an indicator that measures how risky one country’s debt is compared to historically safe Germany — shot up from around 150 basis points to more than 500 within a few months, Monti recalled. The spread between French and German debt was 169 basis points when markets closed on Friday, while the yield on France’s benchmark 10-year bond hit 5.14% the previous day, the highest level since 2002.

France has long been seen as the EU’s “spoiled child,” Monti said, taking advantage of its political and economic weight to bend or break the bloc’s fiscal rules. But few had thought a country that big and powerful would end up on the front line of a European debt crisis.

While the ability of the European Central Bank to buy government bonds on the secondary market under certain conditions gives it a powerful tool to avert a eurozone crisis, Monti says French voters must recognize that a sovereign debt crisis in their country is no longer the stuff of fiction.

“The major problem is that the public is not concerned enough with this risk,” Monti said. “France is not psychologically ready to view itself as the target of a crisis or even as the starting point of a crisis that could spread.”

That malaise isn’t just economic: Many indicators show France has lost confidence in itself.

According to a poll last month, 9 out of 10 French people are pessimistic about the future and believe their children will be worse off than themselves. A pan-European study conducted earlier this year found that only half of French respondents feel pride in the democratic system, compared to two-thirds of Germans and close to 70 percent of Britons.

That pessimism has pushed voters toward more extreme candidates like Le Pen — whose economic platform has been panned by some economists as unrealistic and unserious — and Mélenchon, who wants to set French debt “on fire.” According to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls from earlier this month, Le Pen enjoys the support of 34% of voters while Mélenchon has 15% — meaning nearly 50% of the electorate intends to vote for an anti-establishment figure. Center-right candidate Edouard Philippe, arguably the best-placed mainstream figure to take on Le Pen, has tried to sell himself to voters as a candidate of fiscal discipline who is unafraid to address tough truths. But his campaign has struggled to find its footing.

Doom loop

The officials, lawmakers and diplomats POLITICO spoke with all agreed that France was not at risk of a Greece-like scenario forcing the government to stop paying officials and creditors. But it could very well experience a crisis similar to the one in Italy when Monti replaced Silvio Berlusconi in 2011.

“We are not yet a banana republic which risks filing for bankruptcy,” said veteran centrist lawmaker and budget expert Charles de Courson.

But during rioting earlier this month, in front of the shattered window of an already ransacked supermarket in Paris’ hipster 11th arrondissement, a man with no apparent connection to the shop was encouraging passers-by to go in and steal what they needed. A few meters away, the owner of a Chinese restaurant locked the door behind each client to make sure the rioters couldn’t get in.

These are scenes one would expect in a country on the verge of a sovereign debt crisis, not a member of the G7. Watching from Brussels, Washington or New York, diplomats and economists recognize that Paris will likely fail to bring its budget deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2029 as it previously promised to the EU.

De Courson said France has “lost all credibility” with its European partners when it comes to fiscal issues. Lombard, the former economy minister, said “we failed to honor our commitments,” but held out hope that things could change.

“On behalf of the French people, we made commitments to get the finances back on track, but we didn’t keep them. I was very much in favor of honoring my commitments. But collectively, we didn’t do that,” Lombard said. “So we put ourselves in a position of weakness.”

ORLEANS, France  — Far-right leader Marine Le Pen shed her anti-establishment radicalism on Sunday to portray herself as the guardian of France in her first presidential campaign rally in Orléans, south of Paris.

With polls showing her as the front-runner ahead of the scheduled April 2027 presidential election, Le Pen sought to reassure voters by promising to safeguard France as the country seethes with social unrest and stares down a looming debt crisis.

“Even if today the words that spring to mind are ruin, decline … riots and even chaos … we believe in our people and in France,” she said.

In a speech lasting over an hour, Le Pen told thousands of supporters that she was not aiming for a “revolution” but rather “a real change in power” that would spark a new “Renaissance” in the country.

“We’re not saying: It was better before,” she said. “We say: It was good before and it will be better tomorrow.”

Le Pen also played her usual refrains, promising to restore public order in France, strengthen the country’s borders and expel undocumented migrants if she came to power.

Le Pen and her allies have spent days pushing back against accusations by rivals that the far-right National Rally has helped deepen divisions in France amid the turmoil and disorder sparked by recent student protests. In her address, the four-time presidential candidate refrained from attacking political opponents and pitched her party as the one offering French citizens a brighter future.

“My protective vision will benefit all,” she said.

The eurozone’s second-largest economy is facing a cocktail of crises including cost-of-living protests, difficulties adopting a state budget and a spiraling debt and deficit. The dire situation has spooked the markets, with France’s borrowing costs climbing above 5% last week for the first time since 2002.

According to a senior National Rally official, Le Pen wanted to use her speech to cast herself in a presidential role and to reassure voters hesitant about supporting her. “People mostly agree with our ideas, but some still think it’s a gamble to vote for us,” the official said.

Tensions overflowing

Le Pen’s rally was also a show of force, with over 8,500 supporters gathering in a conference hall in Orléans, many carrying French flags and chanting “Marine, présidente!”

According to POLITICO’s most recent Poll of Polls from mid-October, if the election were held today Le Pen would get 34% of the vote compared to 16% for center-right candidate Edouard Philippe and 15% for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, representing the far left. Most polls have Le Pen winning in a run-off round if no candidate wins a majority in the first round.

Leaders of the far-right party staged a two-day conference in Orléans over the weekend under high security, with heightened police checks and body searches. On Saturday thousands of left-wing demonstrators gathered to oppose the rise of the far right in the center of Paris, while across the country protests attracted hundreds of thousands of people, a week after looting and riots marred rallies across France.

“France is plunging into real violence, which will become out of control if the state doesn’t take control,” said National Rally President Jordan Bardella, addressing the crowd before Le Pen’s speech.

“The National Rally appears to be the only solution to allow the return of order and return of authority.”

France was already reeling after a man randomly opened fire on passers-by in the Paris suburb of Trappes on Friday, killing one person and injuring five, including a girl of 12. French President Emmanuel Macron deplored the incident as “a racist terrorist attack.”

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said on Sunday that the National Rally carried “a heavy responsibility” for the Trappes attack because it had created “a mood … suggesting that we are being invaded, that there’s a sort of great replacement.”

The National Rally pushed back on the charges, and instead accused the far left of encouraging the violence.

Sarah Paillou contributed reporting.

Mark Carney’s pursuit of a global alliance of middle powers has a Europe problem.

Canada’s prime minister wants to help build a new world order that can counterbalance the power of the United States and China. But his vision depends on a new relationship with a Europe that doesn’t see itself as a middle power at all. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has a different vision: a Brussels-centered bloc that extends the EU’s economic and geopolitical influence, starting with Canada. The idea, according to senior European lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan, is to create an opportunity for the EU to become the “global center of gravity for liberal democracies.” 

The competing visions will be tested this week when Carney and von der Leyen meet in Montreal for a summit intended to chart a new course for transatlantic relations. Both want to demonstrate they can prosper in a world upended by U.S. President Donald Trump. But they have different ideas about their curious new alliance — and face political resistance that could limit how far the partnership can go. 

Von der Leyen’s offer of “associate membership” in the EU surprised officials on both sides of the Atlantic. Four diplomats told POLITICO they were not consulted before she floated the idea in the State of the Union. The officials added that they don’t understand the label, which has yet to be defined. Germany has since led pushback on the plan.

“We’ve definitely put the cart before the horse,” one of the diplomats said. “We’re announcing something and then figuring out how to flesh it out.”

Trump called the membership idea “laughable,” but also threatened “very serious tariffs” should it come to be — a reminder that leaders in pursuit of Washington workarounds must avoid provoking the White House. 

The leaders are under pressure to leave Montreal with more than a liberal democratic photo-op. For starters, they need to decide what “associate membership” means — and disarm resistance in the EU capitals blindsided by von der Leyen’s plan.

Canada’s Ambassador to the EU Jonathan Wilkinson told POLITICO last month that people got too hung up on a label that was revealed prematurely. Carney called the Canada-EU relationship an “alliance for the future” when he addressed European lawmakers in Strasbourg.

Wilkinson said the Canada-EU project will show other democratic nations how to deepen partnerships. “It ties into very much what [Carney] talked about at Davos — and after Davos.”

Carney, von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa have two days to chart what’s next while American foreign policy continues to stress test geopolitical relationships in midterm campaigns that will shape Trump’s last two years in office.

The economic divide 

Ottawa considers the EU an obvious partner in its push to diversify trade away from the U.S. There’s already a free-trade agreement that both sides view as being underutilized. 

Leaders gathering in Montreal this week will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Canadian-EU trade agreement, nicknamed CETA. But nine EU member countries have yet to ratify the deal, underscoring the challenge of turning rhetoric into reality. 

“We have shared challenges and many more shared opportunities,” Canadian International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu told reporters last week in Dublin, where he was invited to participate in an informal meeting of EU trade ministers, a preview of what a more integrated Canada could look like. “Canada wants to be Europe’s most reliable partner.”

Sidhu said CETA utilization rates in EU member countries range from 60% to 80%, making a point about room for improvement and perennial challenges. “We know there’s room to grow.”

Von der Leyen’s associate membership plan “has been coldly received by member states,” a senior EU official said. “It [the summit] is more about what we do, how we can use the real potential of the CETA agreement.” CETA has been provisionally in force since 2017.

Trade talks between Canada and the bloc read like a lengthy transatlantic grievance list.

At a meeting between Brussels and Ottawa last October, the EU complained about Canadian taxes it says disproportionately hit European carmakers, opaque cheese-import quotas, cumbersome rules on cosmetics and what it considers discriminatory provincial taxes and markups on European wines and spirits.

Canada, meanwhile, warned that the EU’s deforestation rules could burden its exporters, questioned the impact of Brussels’ carbon border tax and pressed for greater recognition of Canadian standards in areas including AI.

The senior EU official described the relationship as constrained by “irritants and unfulfilled promises” that must be resolved if the two sides are to make progress.

There are hurdles ahead. Even as Canada and the EU imagine a deeper economic and security partnership, both are pursuing industrial policies that could shut the other’s companies out of lucrative public contracts — death by compounded trade barriers.

Brussels has concerns about Ottawa’s “Buy Canadian” initiatives and their compatibility with the EU-Canada free trade agreement. “Some member states didn’t like the ‘Buy Canada’ thing from Carney,” the official added.

Canada is likewise uncertain whether its companies will qualify for the EU’s proposed “Made in Europe” preferences foreseen in a major industry bill that would seek to channel public procurement spending to European companies. The EU is divided over whether to extend those preferences to trusted trading partners, a topic that is expected to come up in Montreal.

Canadian business leaders recognize the domestic appeal of “Buy Canadian” in the face of Trump’s threats, but warn there will need to be concessions.

“It’s something that will have to be resolved in order to move the relationship deeper, particularly with respect to industrial cooperation or collaboration,” Mark Camilleri, president of the Canada EU Trade and Investment Association, told POLITICO.

Camilleri likened the 10-year-old CETA deal to a garden overgrown with weeds. “It pains me to see market access being eroded through Canadian and European preferences,” he said.

Pressure is on

European and Canadian leaders are under pressure to deliver wins this week that demonstrate that “non-hegemons” — a descriptor Carney used in his Davos speech — can survive and thrive in an age of great-power rivalry.

Canadians currently support closer ties with Europe. But the EU faces political headwinds of its own, from fraught budget negotiations within the bloc to right-wing populist movements that are picking up momentum in some of its biggest economies.

One likely deliverable is a new digital trade agreement. Talks launched in March and were still underway last week. But the agreement lacks substantive text on artificial intelligence, leaving the two sides to find other places to cooperate, potentially through the EU’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. That proposal seeks to reduce reliance on U.S. tech giants, raising the risk of a new row with Washington. 

The European Commission is also pushing for Canada to join Erasmus+, the bloc’s student exchange program, according to one EU official. Carney has already publicly expressed interest. 

But Brussels has bigger ambitions for the partnership. The EU is pressing Canada to increase its funding for Ukraine, a test of Canada’s willingness to take on more of the security burden. 

For von der Leyen, securing that commitment would be a win. So would leaving the summit with a pledge from Carney to explore her offer of an “associate membership” — or whatever they end up calling it.

Zi-Ann Lum reported from Toronto, Sebastian Starcevic from Brussels and Camille Gijs from Dublin.

DUBLIN — EU and Chinese officials are already discussing the next sectors for trade talks as Brussels prepares to review implementation of their latest understanding in January, EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič told POLITICO on Friday.

“In January we can assess how it worked and if it delivered all parts of our agreement,” Šefčovič said, referring to an Oct. 9 pact by which China will voluntarily reduce exports of hybrid vehicles to the EU by almost half to 350,000 units in 2027.

That deal also lowers tariffs on European goods such as auto parts and footwear, and smooths exports of rare earth elements to the EU. 

After a scheduled January videoconference with his counterpart Wang Wentao, Šefčovič said he hopes the two can deliver results in March 2027 at their next round of in-person talks in Brussels. 

“I would like to see that we both have an understanding of what sectors we are going to focus on next,” he said.

The intense engagement with China comes as the bloc seeks to rebalance mutual economic ties, which EU officials say have been distorted by Chinese subsidies, market barriers and a surge in imports. Šefčovič stressed the urgency of the task, given that the EU’s trade deficit with China “reached almost €197 billion in the first half of this year. At this rate, we could break the 2022 record” of €397.3 billion.

“A part of our team is working on implementing all what we agreed, and [another] part of the team is talking to our Chinese counterparts on what should be the next sectors, next areas on what we want to focus the work on. Hopefully with another [Trade and Investment Consultation] in Brussels we can actually deliver the results,” he added. 

“The primary objective for us … is to rebalance the trade.”

At a press conference on Friday, the trade chief said the European Commission was looking to shield more sectors from Chinese overcapacity, with plastics the leading candidate for safeguard measures — a mix of quotas and tariffs.

“We are currently analyzing what would be the best candidates and sectors to be addressed” through safeguard measures, he said. “Currently, what I think is the closest, is the plastic sector.”

Brussels is also juggling requests from the EU’s 27 member countries, which all seek to protect the industries that are key to their economies.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU leaders last week that Brussels wants to shield the chemical and machinery sectors next, POLITICO reported.

Šefčovič added that the European Commission was looking at proposing new trade tools to nudge EU companies to diversify their suppliers, expected in early December.

“We would respect what we have heard from every single business: Keep it simple, no additional reporting,” he said. 

The EU executive is also looking to incorporate a proposal by France and Germany for a new tool that would allow Brussels within days to restrict — or even close — access to Europe for countries that severely distort the bloc’s single market. 

“It’s better to present a new instrument,” Šefčovič told POLITICO. “We could initiate it very quickly and … act very quickly.”

LONDON — When Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrived a few minutes late to a meeting with regional mayors on Thursday, his Cabinet ally Angela Rayner had a name for it. She joked they were on “Andy Time.”

The rest of Britain is beginning to learn what that feels like.

Burnham entered 10 Downing Street three months ago promising a “new economic model.” However, the prime minister’s first budget next Wednesday will ask voters to wait a bit longer for it.

John Healey, Burnham’s top finance minister, is expected to announce cuts to business regulation, new steps to move power out of Whitehall and targeted cost-of-living help as energy bills surge due to the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

But while London’s banking sector is resigned to a tax rise, Healey is broadly not expected to completely overhaul tax regimes that many in Burnham’s center-left Labour Party have long seen as unfair. These include business rates, which treat high street shops more harshly than out-of-town delivery warehouses; capital gains tax, which charges less on income from assets than from work; and council tax on homes, which is based on valuations from 1991. 

Healey and his allies are already rolling out a pitch for lower-key changes to tax and spending than his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, insisting budgets are about more than their bottom-line “scorecard.” They point instead to thinning the “sludge” of business bureaucracy and helping “bloody-minded” entrepreneurs.

The reason behind this is about much more than war dragging on the British economy and keeping inflation high. Many radical reforms just aren’t ready yet. 

Next Wednesday will mark just 100 days since Burnham took office, after a whirlwind special election that ended the Greater Manchester mayor’s decade-long absence from parliament.

Burnham’s much-touted “10-year plan” to rewire Britain’s public realm is far from finished; its publication date is edging closer to Christmas. And many granular details of his plan for reform — including higher defense spending, welfare reforms and ownership of the water sector — will only come at a multi-year spending review some time in 2027. Healey is still trying to decide when that will happen.

POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former government officials, MPs and people who speak regularly to Downing Street to map out Burnham and Healey’s strategy, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. 

Several offered the view that Healey’s budget was designed to act as a stepping stone toward the 10-year plan and spending review, while not spooking the bond markets — which Burnham complained Britain was “in hock to” last year. That is despite Britain inching closer to a general election that the prime minister must call by summer 2029.

“They want it to be a non-event,” one person who speaks regularly to both 10 and 11 Downing Street said of the budget. 

Expectation management

This narrative has already left Healey’s allies bristling.

People are “accusing us of not making decisions and kicking the can down the road when actually this budget is incredibly difficult,” said one government official. This person added: “This is the first budget of this country that will have come to the House of Commons for scrutiny while the war in the Middle East is raging and an illegal invasion of Ukraine continues by Russia. The idea that this is by any means small is quite difficult to stomach.”

A second U.K. government official argued the budget would be “as ambitious as possible within the political context.” But a third government official said they believed the budget would be more “steady as she goes” than finished solutions to Britain’s problems.

Ruth Curtice, a former Treasury official who is now chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a think tank focused on living standards, added: “In some ways it’s quite surprising to have such a small budget, given we have a new prime minister and chancellor and quite a lot has happened in the world since the last one.”

The opposition Conservative Party is preparing to seize on this “deferral budget” theme. Tory strategists are ready to paint it as a cowardly act from an administration they claim prefers sweeping vision to hard decisions. “Why act tomorrow when you can act today?” said one shadow cabinet minister. “Have some balls!”

Cameron Brown, a former Tory special adviser in the Treasury, was more sympathetic. “There’s no need to crystallize any kind of savings or cuts now,” when the spending review is looming anyway, he argued. Brown predicted a “tight and concise” but “intellectually coherent” package: “[Healey] will have some buffer at the end, a nice little cost of living package, Labour MPs will be happy, he’ll target the bad people — gamblers and banks — and he’ll push things down the road a bit.”

A Labour official voiced concern that a cautious budget could lose the goodwill Burnham has built with the public — as happened to his predecessor Keir Starmer, who promised “change” in his 2024 manifesto.

And Reeves’ former Political Secretary Matt Pound urged “caution” on deferring too many decisions to the 2027 spending review. “The truth is that they could end up putting a monumental amount of pressure on that spending review,” he told POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast in an interview released Friday. “There are already a lot of pressures they will need to fund.”

Hard to get

“Energy” will be the key thread linking Healey’s messages for the budget, a fourth U.K. government official said — from “breathing space” help with bills to building a more resilient infrastructure network. 

There will also be a “fiscal devolution roadmap” on budget day, setting out terms of how regional mayors can get more power and money and drawn up partly by Burnham’s new Manchester outpost, No. 10 North. Legislation to let them impose tourist taxes will be published in the coming weeks. And officials have talked behind the scenes about procurement and boosting Britain’s heavy industries; the budget needs to find almost £5 billion to plug a hole in a defense investment plan unveiled under Starmer.

Targeted cost-of-living measures appear likely to include scrapping “standing charges” on domestic gas bills, which cost the average household just over £100 a year. Burnham said Wednesday that he had asked Healey to look at the issue — though any help could be eclipsed by a predicted £276 rise in domestic bills this January.

The other message will be that the Treasury can do big, consequential things without raising taxes. Healey will make “a political argument that actually there are other types of budgets that you can have,” said the first government official quoted above, “busting through some of that sludge and ripping up a lot of that red tape.” Cash-strapped chancellors have reached for regulatory reform before, with mixed success.

MPs are looking closely at cost-of-living support. One backbencher in an affluent seat said any help had to be significant, because even their well-off constituents were struggling to take the holidays they wanted. Defense, by contrast, barely comes up on the doorstep: “There are hardly any votes in it, but it’s just something we have to do.”

There has been heavy engagement with Labour MPs, whose detachment from No. 10 helped force Starmer out in July. Treasury ministers Torsten Bell and James Murray are among those engaging while Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds handles tricky negotiations with Cabinet ministers, alongside No. 10 chief of staff James Purnell.

Healey has negotiated with Cabinet ministers and spoken to union leaders, banks and MPs — though not lobbyists. “No one can get to Healey,” said one. “It’s very smart. Let him do his job.”

Markets will look at the “headroom” — a snapshot of the buffer between Healey’s five-year plans and his self-imposed fiscal rules. The fourth official quoted above said Treasury officials have considered having only a small “headroom” buffer compared to the £21.7 billion left by Reeves, as it could be increased in future years. 

Reeves’ former political secretary, Pound, warned against this, telling Westminster Insider: “If the headroom is so low that it’s clear that they can’t clear the defense investment plan, for example, or the wider defense pressures, then I think that that could then start to have a bit of a knock-on effect that would be quite negative.”

However, headroom is merely a snapshot, often out of date by the time it is published. It is likely to be buffeted further by any events in the Middle East arising from the U.S. midterm results on Nov. 3.

And as with all budget briefings, some opposition politicians believe there is an element of expectation management. Conservatives suspect that headroom will come out higher than predicted — which Healey can paint as a victory.

Time is ticking

Then it’ll all be over — and Westminster will immediately start preparing for the next step.

A date was never confirmed for Burnham’s 10-year plan (beyond the latter part of 2026), but some officials believe it has already slipped slightly from the original intention. 

Downing Street and Cabinet Office officials remain determined to publish it in December, though some in Whitehall worry it might be delayed. “Knowing the things on the horizon and how big they are, I genuinely don’t see how you could make space for it,” said one official in another department.

While some Cabinet Office civil servants were first tasked to work on the plan in August, others only joined the team this month as it has grown, according to one person with knowledge of the staffing. Burnham’s ally Louise Haigh, the first secretary of state, is leading three “task forces” ahead of the plan on the cost of living, public control of utilities and the renewal of run-down high streets.

The 10-year plan won’t have all the answers, though. POLITICO reported this week that while it will contain a high-level vision, priorities and principles for the water industry’s future, much of the granular detail of how future ownership models will work is expected in the 2027 spending review. 

One Labour figure who has spoken to the government about the water industry said they believed ministers will choose “different horses for different courses” — an array of ownership models for various firms depending on how stricken they are. A second Labour figure talking to the government said: “You can’t do this in two years.”

The Labour official quoted earlier in this story said they feared the 10-year plan would be a let-down. “These big plans governments are always throwing forward to have a habit of turning out quite thin,” this person said. “At which point we all realize there was never a big plan all along.”

There are other plans to come, including an imminent plan to reform the welfare system by the former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, and a white paper in December that is due to set out a timetable, legislation and borders for plans to move more power outside Whitehall.

Devolution is one area where Burnham has moved quickly, pleasing many regional mayors. But some officials in the union movement fear that Burnham’s initial focus on devolution risks taking up bandwidth that could have been spent on other issues. A fifth government official added that they were worried all the conversations between different public bodies could crowd out the push for growth. They said: “I sit on Teams calls that are 30 people, all from different arms of the state. Sometimes I think — ‘You do know none of us are making this money?’”

‘Rubber hits the road’

Then there is the 2027 spending review. 

It will set out how the state allocates money across its arms for the next three to five years — turning these plans and the difficult trade-offs they require into reality.

The Treasury has previously confirmed it will set out the entire pathway to lift U.K. defense spending from 2.6% of GDP this year to 3.5% by 2035. It is also likely to address questions about Burnham’s pledge to create a state-funded national service for social care, funded by reducing the rise in the state pension.

There will be months of to-and-fro between Whitehall departments and a Treasury looking for cuts, efficiency savings or both to balance the books.

“The spending review is when the rubber hits the road,” said the fifth government official quoted above. “It’s already beginning. Departments are beginning to work out sacrificial lambs to offer up.”

Three people with knowledge of the conversations said Healey still hasn’t decided when in 2027 he wants to hold the spending review, though it is broadly expected no earlier than the summer. He has been privately musing with allies about the options.

Curtice said Healey’s options are essentially to hold a small fiscal event followed by a spending review next summer, or to hold a spending review with an annual budget simultaneously in fall 2027.

She added: “The big question we’ve posed for this budget — that we’re not necessarily expecting an answer to — is what is the spending total for the spending review that we know needs to come next year? Until we know the answer to that question, we don’t really know whether we can believe the path of tax and borrowing that is set out in the budget.”

Senior Conservatives argue the spending review will be so difficult that Burnham could call a snap election before it is due. He has insisted he will only force it in 2029.

Until then, much of the spending review work will fall to Reynolds. Her predecessor Darren Jones argued the existence of the 10-year plan and spending review meant it would be sensible for next week’s budget to be a little low-octane.

“The prime minister’s been clear that the 10-year plan is going to be the political strategy for the government,” Jones told POLITICO. “So I think it makes sense to do all of your public spending decisions after the publication of the 10-year plan. It would be odd if this October’s budget tried to deal with all the big trade-offs on defense, mayoral budgets, or more ownership of public utilities.

“So I think in many ways, actually the 10-year plan is more interesting this autumn in terms of the political strategy of the government. 

“And then 2027 will be the year in which ministers will have to start thinking about how to implement that strategy operationally, including in public spending decisions.”

Much of that will fall to Burnham himself.

Crowdsourcing

Rayner’s joke about “Andy Time” was not without cause.

Unlike Starmer, Burnham gets into the weeds of an issue even if it derails his schedule. The prime minister chews things over with colleagues so much that some have joked they could just remove his Downing Street desk, said the third government official quoted above. By contrast, Starmer used to retreat to No. 10’s first-floor study to read away from the hubbub.

Burnham’s approach can lead to Downing Street making decisions late in the day. One former No. 10 official said: “A Prime Minister needs to do 80 things in a day and if that goes to 60, then you end up massively behind.”

The flipside is that ministers and officials know what their leader actually wants from them — even if they are left to work out the detail.

“It’s like we’ve woken up from a political coma,” one backbench MP enthused. “I know what the prime minister thinks,” added the third government official quoted above.

Aides used to complain that Starmer, by contrast, tried to be efficient but would end meetings without setting a clear political direction. “Keir was always a stickler for time, even if the issue wasn’t resolved,” as one former colleague put it.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, suggested this week that Burnham was failing to flesh out the detail behind his vision. “Talking about it is not making a decision,” she said of social care reform at prime minister’s questions. Burnham was visibly frustrated—insisting he was making the long-term decisions other politicians duck.

And for the prime minister’s allies and most of his MPs, the vibes remain good. The No. 10 environment is more relaxed and open. Junior ministers, in meetings over bacon sandwiches, feel they can share their views and be heard.

“There’s definitely still a buzz,” said the person who talks regularly to Downing Street, who was quoted earlier in this story. “But you don’t want to spend too much time buzzing while Rome burns. There’s a reality check that I feel is going to come imminently.”

Patrick Baker, Sascha O’Sullivan, Esther Webber and Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The EU’s influential competition regulators have taken on some of the planet’s most powerful companies, from Google to Gazprom. But they are steering clear of opening a case against the world soccer governing body, FIFA. 

A complaint lodged by the European Leagues professional soccer association in October 2024 accused FIFA of abusing its dominant position by imposing its international match calendar on other sporting stakeholders. It argued that FIFA’s dual role as a governing body and the organizer of its own competitions creates a conflict of interest, through which it enriches itself. The leagues broadened the complaint last month to cover the women’s game — but the Commission has yet to open formal proceedings.

Brussels has left the European Leagues complaint in the “freezer,” one senior EU official with knowledge of the file told POLITICO. 

The episode underscores the Directorate-General for Competition’s long-running reluctance to open investigations into sports federations, which current and former European officials say is due to sport’s special status in EU law — the treaties recognize its social and educational role — but also a deliberate policy choice to swerve potentially controversial cases in an emotionally charged sector.

Now, pressure is building against the competition department over the languishing European Leagues complaint, after a cross-party group of EU lawmakers urged the Commission to use its antitrust powers to rein in FIFA. 

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, obtained by POLITICO and copied to competition chief Teresa Ribera, MEPs called for action. Bruno Gonçalves and Hannes Heide (both from the Socialists and Democrats) and Bogdan Zdrojewski (from the conservative European People’s Party) asked the Commission to take formal action, including in relation to the complaint lodged by the European Leagues, which represents 53 men’s and women’s professional football leagues across the continent.

The MEPs say the governing body’s application of the calendar “raises concerns about FIFA’s use of regulatory powers to advance FIFA’s own commercial interests,” and that those powers “must be exercised through transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate procedures, with effective safeguards against conflicts of interest.” The EU’s top court set that test for sports bodies in its landmark 2023 Super League ruling.

“FIFA is both referee and promoter of the show,” Gonçalves told POLITICO. “We have to make sure the referee doesn’t put business before people.”

Representatives for the European Leagues pressed their case in a meeting with Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera’s Cabinet in late April, but their overtures have so far been fruitless.

“The thinking has always been, on the one hand, that sports has a special status, so it is not a market comparable to others that normally are scrutinized by the competition directorate,” said one former senior EU official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive file in order to protect relationships. 

“But also, sports cases get very political and the Commission feels that member states tend to take the side of the federations so it’s hesitant to pick this fight up,” the former official added.

The Vestager principles

Over the last 15 years, Brussels has opened blockbuster investigations into Gazprom’s behavior in Central and Eastern European gas markets; whether Google illegitimately hindered the development and market access of rival mobile operating systems; and Apple’s rules for app developers.

But the Commission’s caution on sports is long-standing. 

When then-competition chief Margrethe Vestager ordered the International Skating Union in 2017 to drop rules threatening speed skaters with lifetime bans for joining money-spinning rival events, she said the decision didn’t mean the Commission was “trying to be the referee in every dispute about sport.”

Many disputes, from doping penalties to deciding the precise scheduling of games, have “little or nothing at all to do with competition rules,” Vestager said at the time. National courts and competition authorities, she added, are “usually well placed to deal with competition disputes involving a sport federation.”

Those principles have since come to guide how the Commission’s competition department decides which sports disputes to take on. There is no shortage of candidates, with controversies in sports including tennis, padel and sailing, as well as soccer.

Any investigation would test recent case law. A pair of July rulings on FIFA’s agent rules went largely the governing body’s way. In those cases, the Court of Justice of the European Union accepted that federations can impose restrictions if they pursue legitimate aims proportionately.

Ben Van Rompuy, a competition law professor at Leiden University who helped bring the original ISU complaint, said there would likely be “little appetite” in Brussels to take up the leagues’ case.

When the ISU complaint reached the Commission, courts had said little about how competition law applied to sport. Since then, “we’ve had an abundance of such guidance,” and “national enforcement in front of the courts seems to work,” Van Rompuy said. That leaves less reason for the Commission to step in. The leagues have also sued in a Brussels court, which suggests “they themselves believe that the national courts could protect their rights.”

Measured against the Commission’s own criteria for prioritizing complaints, the case looks weak, Van Rompuy said. Its impact on the EU’s internal market is “extremely limited,” he added.

FIFA declined to comment on the European Leagues complaint and the EU lawmakers’ letter.

Commission spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso said international sports bodies have “a primary responsibility” for organizing global events, and that sport is mainly a matter for national governments, with the EU playing a supporting role.

When sports organizations act as undertakings, the EU legal term for entities carrying out economic activity, they are subject to the rules of competition, Cardoso said. He added that the Commission constantly monitors markets for possible breaches, and that “if any complaint is filed, the Commission will assess according to standard practice.”

Public and political criticism of FIFA has reached fever pitch over the last 12 months due to the governing body’s cozy relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and an ultimately aborted plot this summer to sell off parts of the World Cup tournament to private investors.

According to the letter from EU lawmakers, FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s commercial sell-off scheme “exposed serious shortcomings in transparency, accountability and institutional decision-making.”

BRUSSELS — Germany, France and at least six other EU countries are pushing against “associate membership” as the name for closer EU ties with Canada, six diplomats involved in the negotiations said.

The label is one of the main sticking points in talks over a joint declaration setting areas of deeper cooperation between Brussels and Ottawa ahead of the EU-Canada summit in Montreal on Oct. 29-30, the six diplomats and two EU officials told POLITICO. They were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

The diplomats said the objections center on the wording of “associate membership,” not the broader goal of closer ties.

Five weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first proposed Canada becoming an “associate member” of the EU in her State of the Union speech — to the surprise of both Ottawa and EU capitals — and one week out from the summit itself, the disagreements show the term remains a political and messaging hurdle.

The EU “is really keen to have close cooperation with Canada,” said Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. But, he added, he too would avoid using the term “associate membership,” as it leaves too much room for confusion with other forms of EU partnerships, such as association agreements.

Germany is pushing hardest to remove the label from the draft declaration, five of the EU diplomats said, while France, Italy and Belgium were among those expressing skepticism about the phrasing.

The central concern among the capitals that object to the term is that the EU is labeling the relationship before agreeing what it would mean. They argue the name should have been defined before negotiations with Canada began, four diplomats said, with two others adding that the objecting capitals are annoyed that von der Leyen proposed the label without first consulting national governments.

“We’ve definitely put the cart before the horse,” one diplomat said. “We’re announcing something and then figuring out how to flesh it out.”

A representative for the German Permanent Representation to the EU declined to comment.

The European Commission will engage with skeptical capitals and work on acceptable language, an EU official said, adding that they believe the countries’ doubts stem from not yet understanding what the proposal means in concrete terms.

There is no disagreement over the aim of strengthening an already close relationship, including economic and defense cooperation, international engagement and institutional links, the official stressed. “What matters is what we do, not what we call it.”

What’s in a name?

The label aims to describe the EU-Canada relationship as closer than Brussels’ partnerships with other countries, without making Canada a member of the bloc, one of the diplomats said. Canada cannot become a formal member, as the EU’s founding documents limit that status geographically to Europe.

The distinction matters because existing arrangements with European neighbors, including the U.K., Switzerland and countries in the European Economic Area, center largely on access to the EU’s internal market. Canada, on another continent, is not seeking the same model or the four freedoms of movement, the diplomat said.

The idea is to identify practical areas for cooperation first, then decide whether new treaties or formal negotiations are needed, the same diplomat said.

Work on six priority areas is expected to begin after the summit, with progress reviewed after six months and then a proper stock-take one year later at the next EU-Canada summit, which will be held in Europe.

The stock-take would consider whether Canada has moved closer to the EU by becoming a full member of Horizon Europe and Erasmus, is building undersea cables and stockpiling critical raw materials with the EU, and is exploring pension-fund investment. If Canada meets those criteria, it could become the EU’s first associate member, the diplomat said.

The diplomat described the idea as an experiment, adding that “Canada might be the only one” to ever get associate membership of the EU.

The plan reflects changing calculations on both sides. Canada has long depended heavily on trade with the United States, but tariffs and political pressure from Washington have sharpened concerns about that reliance. Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to diversify trade and modernize the country’s infrastructure, including energy links that largely run north to south.

For the EU, a closer partnership with Canada is part of a broader effort to build relationships as pressure from the United States, China and Russia grows. The summit is intended to give the partnership a more distinctive political framework.

The declaration is still being revised, with EU ambassadors due to discuss it again on Monday. One of the EU officials cautioned that several parts of the declaration still had comments outstanding.

Another controversial element concerns energy cooperation, with Austria pushing back against any mention of deepening nuclear ties, while France, Romania, Slovakia and some other countries support its inclusion.

A spokesperson from the Canadian mission to the EU did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

BRUSSELS — The center-right European People’s Party joined forces with far-right lawmakers Thursday to push through a vote delaying a key EU climate law governing the methane emissions of oil and gas companies.

It was the latest example of the European Parliament’s biggest group ignoring old taboos and working with the far right to pass legislation weakening environmental rules.

The EU Methane Regulation requires fossil fuel companies to monitor and report emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that’s a major cause of global warming.

The requirements were due to come into force in 2027, but the Commission last week proposed delaying implementation by a year following intense lobbying from the oil and gas lobby and the U.S. government.

The EPP proposed going further, calling for a three-year delay. The amendment passed by 326 votes to 244, with the support of far-right groups Patriots for Europe, the group of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally; and Europe of Sovereign Nations, the group of the German far-right party the AfD. Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists also backed the proposal.

Most lawmakers from other centrist and center-left groups, including Renew Europe, Socialists and Democrats and the Greens, opposed the three-year delay.

The right-wing majority also voted for an amendment that would force the Commission to review the law and propose any necessary changes by mid-2029.

It comes a year after the EPP — the group of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — set a new precedent when it sided with the far right to vote to weaken environmental reporting rules for companies, breaching the so-called cordon sanitaire. Since 2024, right wing groups have made up a majority in Parliament.

Thursday’s vote, if adopted by other EU institutions, would move the deadline for implementation of rules to 2030 — well beyond the Commission’s proposed delay to 2028.

It comes after a months-long pressure campaign by oil and gas companies, which claimed that key elements of the rules requiring them to monitor and track leaks of the potent greenhouse gas were unclear, risking compliance failures that could deter critical supplies from reaching Europe.

The Parliament’s position aligns it with industry’s own call for a three-year delay, and lawmakers echoed the sector’s concerns about the risk of supply disruptions linked to hasty implementation of the rules.

“The postponement of the requirements for oil and gas importers in the Methane Regulation is a matter of political responsibility … We need legally certain rules in place … to safeguard Europe’s energy supply and competitiveness,” MEPs Andrea Wechlser and Christian Ehler, both in the EPP, said in a statement to POLITICO.

“The crisis in the Middle East is already putting massive pressure on energy markets—about 20 percent of global LNG trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz,” they added.

The Parliament’s position could empower national delegations — which failed to agree on a joint position Wednesday after pushback from Germany, Italy and Poland — pushing for a longer delay. Member countries hope to find a compromise next Wednesday after failing to find agreement earlier this week.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that Parliament voted to delay the rules until 2030.

I have little faith in polls, and I hate prediction markets, but I can't help peeking at PressAudit's 2026 midterm tracker.

The founder, Paul Renshaw, created this midterms page that shows prediction market odds from Polymarket and Kalshi on who is likely to control Congress. — Read the rest

The post I hate prediction markets, but I keep peeking at this midterm tracker appeared first on Boing Boing.

BRUSSELS — Europe’s biggest media companies have asked regulators in Brussels and London to stop Meta from introducing new terms they say would let it copy publishers’ websites to build artificial intelligence, as a backlash that began in the U.S. spreads across Europe.

In a letter Monday, the European Publishers Council, whose members include POLITICO’s owner Axel Springer, called on EU competition boss Teresa Ribera and tech chief Henna Virkkunen to press Meta to put the terms on hold before they take effect Oct. 30.

The group wants Brussels to check them against EU copyright and competition law, and has requested an urgent meeting with the teams of both commissioners.

“The Commission remains committed to ensure that Meta’s practices fully comply with all applicable obligations under EU law, including competition rules and the Digital Markets Act,” Commission spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso told POLITICO, referring to the EU’s rulebook for Big Tech. He said Brussels was aware of both Meta’s changes and publishers’ concerns.

The U.K. competition watchdog has moved as well. British publishers have complained to the Competition and Markets Authority that Meta is so dominant they are compelled to accept its terms. 

The watchdog’s chief, Sarah Cardell, told British lawmakers on Tuesday that it had asked Meta to explain the changes and would meet the company on Wednesday. She named Meta as a possible candidate for Britain’s new rules for tech giants.

The terms cover businesses that use Meta’s tools to run Facebook pages, Instagram accounts or ads, which includes almost every newsroom. 

The fight began in the U.S. last week, when Nieman Lab, a journalism research outlet at Harvard, reported on the terms after receiving a tip from a small business owner.

As first written, they let Meta send automated programs to copy websites linked to those accounts and use the material to “train” its products, Nieman Lab concluded. There is no opt-out, and a business that continues to use Meta’s tools after Oct. 30 will be deemed to have consented.

Publishers say the terms would hand Meta content for free that other AI companies pay to license.

Rapid reaction

On Friday, Meta communications chief Andy Stone responded on X that the Nieman Lab report was “false” and that there was “no change to how Meta uses web crawlers.”

Stone said the update aimed to let Meta pull accurate product information from shopping sites for ads, not to scrape news sites. The company also said the crawling language already existed in other Meta terms and was just being gathered in one place.

Late Friday, however, Meta revised the terms and deleted the word “train,” saying the terms cover only its advertising and business products.

“We’ve heard you and want to clarify,” a spokesperson for Meta told POLITICO over the weekend, adding the change was “not about scraping news sites.”

Publishers say that changes little, however. 

Meta has given them verbal assurances that they can keep using its tools without surrendering their content to AI, but the terms themselves don’t guarantee that, the European Publishers Council’s letter says.

“Meta’s supposed Friday night correction is a farce,” said Jason Kint, who heads Digital Content Next, a U.S. publisher group whose members include Axel Springer. “Exactly what you’d expect from a gatekeeper notorious for abusing its market power.”

Others have gone further. 

“This is unscrupulous theft,” Germany’s newspaper and magazine associations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. They want Brussels to block the terms while it reviews them, warning that once articles are copied into AI systems, they can’t be clawed back.

Joseph Bambridge in London contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The EU is preparing to try and persuade Canada and the U.K. to increase their support for Ukraine as part of efforts to plug the €70 billion funding gap Kyiv faces next year.

The EU-Canada summit on Oct. 29-30 and the EU-U.K. summit on Nov. 20 will give Brussels a chance to make the case at the highest level. With Kyiv’s financing needs rising and U.S. backing uncertain, Brussels is increasingly looking to non-EU allies to contribute more, five EU officials, including two from the European Commission, and two EU diplomats told POLITICO.

The EU and its member countries provide 80 percent of Ukraine’s external aid, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday. “We urgently need other partners to step up.”

European Council President António Costa told the European Parliament on Wednesday morning that “international partners have to intensify and step up financial support to Ukraine.”

The EU has committed to a €90 billion loan for 2026 and 2027, intended to cover about two-thirds of Ukraine’s needs. Brussels had expected other partners — including Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Norway — to provide another €45 billion, but much of that money has been slow to arrive as other governments have yet to firm up or disburse the support Brussels expected.

While calls to help Ukraine defend itself are not new, the projected 2027 bill has grown as Russia intensifies its assault, the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drives up costs and Washington shifts toward positions more favorable to Moscow — leaving Europe and other allies to shoulder more of the cost of keeping Kyiv afloat.

Brussels is heading into negotiations about closer economic and defense ties with London and Ottawa. Diplomats and EU officials said they do not expect a formal bargain, but that support for Kyiv from the EU’s partners is likely to shape the political climate around the talks. Like others in this article, they were granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive diplomacy.

The EU has also raised Ukraine’s 2027 financing needs at meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the G7 and the G20, as well as with Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

“During my meetings in Bangkok, the need to secure financial support for Ukraine in 2027 was a prominent topic,” European Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told POLITICO, referencing last week’s IMF and World Bank Group meetings. He said he called for “broad burden sharing and stressed the importance of international partners each doing their part as Ukraine continues fighting Russian aggression.”

All the EU officials and diplomats stressed that the push was not a criticism of the U.K. or Canada, both of which are strong supporters of Ukraine. The point, they said, is that Kyiv’s needs have grown.

The U.K. says it has committed a total of £25 billion for Ukraine and Canada has promised the equivalent of €5.4 billion in military assistance and €8.2 billion in direct financial support.

The EU and its member countries say they have contributed over €231 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion, including military aid, budget support and guarantees, support for Ukrainians hosted in the bloc, and proceeds from immobilized Russian assets — an amount one senior EU diplomat described as already “over and above.”

How to meet Ukraine’s financial needs has become “a central discussion in every single meeting” with partners supporting Kyiv, a Commission official said.

The push to secure Ukraine’s financial needs comes as support for Kyiv will be tested in a series of elections across Europe next year. In France, far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen has vowed to end aid if elected president in 2027, while in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni faces a challenge from Russia-friendly Roberto Vannacci ahead of next year’s election.

The looming votes, combined with the unpredictability of Washington’s backing for Kyiv, mean European countries need to look beyond their own budgets, the senior diplomat said. “We need to think wider and broader.”

The EU is also urging the Ukrainian government to secure more support from non-EU backers. “This is the first next step that they need to secure from their partners,” the Commission official said.

Not ‘pulling a Trump’

EU ambassadors are set to talk about the upcoming Canada and U.K. summits tomorrow, with Ukraine funding expected to form part of the discussions, the two diplomats said.

Brussels, “without pointing the finger,” wants to use the run-up to the meetings to press for broader support, the senior diplomat said. But the EU “won’t be pulling a Trump” and explicitly linking favorable treatment to contributions to Ukraine, they added.

The Commission has not set out what it will ask partners for or how any request might connect to trade and defense talks. The diplomat said the EU still needed to work out “how much will translate in joining those dots.”

Von der Leyen proposed making Canada the EU’s first “associate member” in her State of the Union speech last month. The October summit in Montreal is an opportunity to develop the idea.

Ottawa will participate in the EU’s SAFE program, which finances joint defense procurement, giving Canadian companies preferential access to SAFE-funded contracts. Closer defense cooperation and industrial access could form part of the wider conversation about support for Kyiv, one of the diplomats said.

In a statement to POLITICO, Kathryn Serieux, a spokesperson for Canada’s Privy Council Office, said Ottawa “is and has been a steadfast supporter of Ukraine,” with Canada committing nearly C$26 billion in military, financial development and humanitarian assistance.

“Canada continues to stand by Ukraine and remains engaged with international partners on Ukraine’s needs,” Serieux said.

The U.K. summit is expected to advance Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s promised reset with the bloc, including agreements on youth mobility, food and emissions trading. Burnham has said the status quo is “not good enough” and wants Britain to move closer to the EU.

London wants U.K. companies to count as European under the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, which would give preference to goods made in Europe in public contracts and industrial support. British officials worry U.K. firms could lose out despite close links between British and European supply chains.

Three U.K. officials said Tuesday they had not heard of a request for Britain to provide more support for Ukraine in exchange for letting its companies qualify under the act. A fourth EU official said Ukraine was expected to feature in the summit declaration with the U.K., but that it would reflect both sides’ efforts to help Kyiv, rather than a Brussels demand for more support.

The EU is also pressing Japan to increase its contributions, with one senior EU official saying it was lagging in 2026. A person familiar with the thinking in Tokyo pushed back on the idea that Japan was not pulling its weight, saying Tokyo had already given around $20 billion in support to Kyiv — but there could be room for more if Ukraine requested it.

Tokyo is also seeking assurances that Japanese companies will retain access to the EU market, following concerns the Industrial Accelerator Act’s “Made in Europe” preferences could put its firms at a disadvantage.

The Mission of Japan to the EU didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Australia says it has not yet received a request for more funding for Ukraine for 2027. Canberra is likely lower on the list, if it is on it at all, because its prime minister and foreign minister met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the U.N. General Assembly last month and announced additional funding and a security agreement, an Australian official said.

Dan Bloom contributed reporting from London. Amanda Copp contributed reporting from Canberra. Mike Blanchfield contributed reporting from Ottawa. Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting from Brussels.

LONDON — Labour swept to power with a big, expensive promise: to create a government-owned energy company, hand it billions to invest in British renewables, and watch it grow, eventually, to rival other state-owned energy giants. 

Two years on from the foundation of Great British Energy, that isn’t what has happened. 

Analysis from POLITICO shows billions of pounds from its budget have been redirected to schemes not included in GBE’s initial remit, stripping away some of the cash earmarked for costly, large-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar. Those funds are being used instead for very different purposes, like planning new nuclear schemes and reviving Britain’s creaking electricity grid. 

Set up by then Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the government backed GBE with £8.3 billion of fresh funding. Its purpose at the time seemed clear. “Great British Energy will own, manage and operate clean power projects,” Miliband pledged, “and generate energy in its own right.” 

Labour officials familiar with GBE plans told POLITICO in 2024 local projects would get around £3 billion of its total budget, while the rest would go on helping the company establish itself in the market, including by taking stakes in wind and solar projects. 

Yet now experts can’t agree on what, exactly, GBE is for. 

How to spend it

Miliband’s GBE pitch to the public was ambitious.  

The company would allow Britain to become a bigger player in its own clean energy market in Labour’s dash to hit green goals, he said. Referencing huge state-owned companies in Denmark and France, he told Channel 4 News weeks after the election that GBE was “not going to become Ørsted or the generation arm of EDF overnight. But that is the long-term vision.” 

Soon after GBE passed into law, though, former Chancellor Rachel Reeves reassigned £2.5 billion of its budget to help developers design small-scale nuclear power plants and prep sites where those mini-nukes will eventually go.

The government also scaled back its funding for those local, smaller-scale projects, which include getting solar panels onto school and hospital roofs. The mooted £3 billion for GBE’s Local Power Plan became just £1 billion when more details were announced this February. 

GBE has set aside another £1 billion to build up clean energy supply chains.  

And that’s all before Prime Minister Andy Burnham used Labour’s annual conference to pledge another whack of GBE’s budget to a totally new venture: Great British Grid. 

Enter GB Grid  

In a bid to put his own stamp on Miliband’s pet project, Burnham announced that the new unit would sit within GBE, using some of its budget to speed the build out of Britain’s creaking grid network.  

GB Grid will invest alongside existing grid operators in a bid to cut costs, Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said last week, at a time when the grid regularly struggles to handle the levels of power being generated by developers. 

Energy experts are torn over whether GB Grid, in particular, is a smart pivot for the government — but acknowledge it is not the same thing Miliband promised to deliver.  

“I think the focus has shifted, but I don’t think that should be seen as a problem,” said Joshua Emden, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank. 

GB Grid would have access to £4 billion of GBE funding, according to media reports published at the time of Burnham’s announcement, although officials from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero insist they “don’t recognize” that figure. 

It is still enough for Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives to pile the pressure on ministers to explain why their plans have changed. 

“Taking half the GB Energy budget and putting it into a venture that was only announced a few weeks ago leads to the obvious question of: What actually is GB Energy for? And does the GB Energy of today bear any resemblance to what the government envisaged in July 2024?” asked Shadow Energy Minister Harriet Cross. 

Doubters and defenders  

Some energy industry officials are doubtful that setting money aside for grid investment is the best use of public cash.  

“If it does that last mile [of grid] to a data center, if it helps where there isn’t actually any program or plan, [then] fine. We’re not going to say: ‘No, don’t spend it on making the grid better,’” Dhara Vyas, chief executive of the industry group Energy UK, told a panel at Conservative Party Conference earlier this month. 

But transmission operators — who run the network — are already spending tens of billions on the grid, she said. “The energy transition will be paid for by the private sector.”  

GBE “made a slow start and has focused on low-impact activities, important though they are,” said Bill Esterson, a Labour MP and chair of parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. Creating GB Grid, he argued, “suggests a shift in emphasis to build what the country needs where the network companies are not delivering.” 

The pivot “makes sense as an efficient use of government money,” argued IPPR’s Emden, if there’s a choice between investing in power generation — where there’s competition between providers — and in the grid where private networks have a “total monopoly.” 

GB Energy has “the foundations now to create something genuinely useful,” argued one government figure. “Politicians of all stripes should give it the space to get on with the job.”  

A spokesperson for DESNZ said “securing new homegrown energy and building a grid fit for the 21st century work hand in hand. Great British Grid will bring public and private investment together, helping to build the infrastructure Britain needs.” 

Additional reporting by Nicholas Earl.

LONDON — Kemi Badenoch warned Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Tuesday not to repeat the economic mistakes of her former boss Liz Truss in his first budget next Wednesday.

The Tory leader said higher national debt, increased gilt yields and extra government spending are creating a gloomy economic picture — and demanded sharp spending cuts from the ruling Labour government next week.

“The lessons of the mini-budget are: if you don’t balance your budget, if you give away £150 billion in subsidizing people’s energy bills, but you don’t cut spending, then the markets will react,” Badenoch said, citing former Tory leader Truss’ ill-fated mini-budget in 2022, which triggered a sharp sell-off in U.K. government bonds and saw the value of the British pound fall.

Truss — Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, who spent just 49 days in Downing Street — announced Tuesday she is publishing a new book setting out “what really happened” during the mini-budget in 2022, according to a press notice issued by her spokesperson.

“Bank Job: A short book on how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government” will be published later this month.

The ex-PM has blamed the mini-budget’s consequences on the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog.

Badenoch told a press conference in London she does not believe Labour is paying attention to the consequences of that Conservative budget by failing to reduce spending: “They are the ones who want to repeat the mistakes of four years ago, we are not going to be making that mistake again.”

“We need to live within our means,” she said. “We have to stop borrowing so much, but instead, Labour are taking out more loans to pay the interest on our existing loans.”

Questioned on why the public should trust her judgement on economic competence, Badenoch, who served as Truss’ international trade secretary, told POLITICO: “I am not Liz Truss and I think that the public can tell the difference.”

Badenoch said she only saw the mini-budget when it was presented and collective responsibility “doesn’t mean that you agree with all of the decisions that are made.”

“She needs to take responsibility for it, one way or another,” Badenoch said. “That is her issue.”

DUBLIN — The Irish capital, which doubles as Europe’s de facto tech capital, hosted two very different AI summits in the past week.

Most eyes were on the International AI Summit, the signature tech event of Ireland’s six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, where top brass from the world’s biggest tech firms discussed ways to harness artificial intelligence and minimize safety risks.

But the weekend before, a very different conversation was taking place at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit, as Ireland’s tech workers demanded a say in how the burgeoning technology reshapes the workplace and society.

Ireland’s lucrative tech sector has been rattled by waves of AI-driven layoffs — and the country’s fledgling tech union has seen an exponential spike in sign-ups from workers who are worried about their future.  

There’s an “awakening” happening right now among workers in Ireland’s tech sector, and a growing “awareness that they’re not bulletproof,” said Sinéad Gibney, a social democrat lawmaker who previously worked for Google.  

“I do think what we will see is that parts of roles will be automated, which means that people will be competing more heavily for the same roles,” she said. “They won’t have the same labor power and therefore we’re going to see a drop in quality of work, we’re going to see more zero-hour contracts, in more places than we already see it.”

The labor movement brewing in Ireland, where many of the world’s tech giants have their EU bases, is part of a wider trend among tech workers globally, who have seen their work disrupted by rapidly evolving AI.

Rise in layoffs

Ireland’s dedicated union for tech workers, the Digital and Techworker Alliance (DATA), has seen a five-fold increase in membership since it was first founded in 2023.  

In its first year and a half of existence, membership hovered around 270 people. In the past year-and-a-half, it’s jumped to more than 1,350 members, DATA organizer John Bohan told POLITICO.  He added that this number tends to spike around layoffs and other actions.

“The tech industry was founded on the idea that it would never have a union, because they’re making people rich, and treat them really well,” Bohan said.  “But post-Covid, workforce adjustments happened again and again, with layoffs and declining conditions in the sector. We started to see more people wanting to get organized around redundancies.”  

The spike in sign-ups coincides with a wave of layoffs in Ireland’s tech bubble (and the tech sector globally), as companies corrected pandemic-era overhiring, and diverted investment to AI.  

Ireland hosts the EU headquarters of most of the world’s largest tech companies, and more than 170,000 people are employed in the tech sector, according to the country’s statistics institute.

Social media giant Meta has roughly halved its workforce in Ireland since the pandemic, axing well over 1,000 roles to offset AI investment and boost efficiency. Separately, Meta subcontractor Covalen also announced massive layoffs earlier this year, cutting more than 700 people.  

Video-sharing platform TikTok announced this year it would shed around 300 Irish jobs, mostly from its trust and safety team, shifting the work to other countries, outsourced vendors or automated AI solutions.  

A report by the IMF earlier this year warned that Ireland’s labor market is “relatively more exposed” to AI than many advanced economies, partly due to its concentration of tech workers.  

The AI race is also creating new jobs on the Irish market – as AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are setting up Irish bases and trying to lure Big Tech workers with even bigger salaries.  

Amid the uncertainty and volatility of the AI boom, tech workers are turning to unions for the first time as a safety net. One tech worker who used to work in trust and safety at a big tech firm told POLITICO that there used to be a feeling that as a “pampered” tech worker you “can’t ask for your rights, because you already have it so much better.” 

But as layoffs continue and teams get leaner, workers in fields like trust and safety “now have to deal with these issues with fewer and fewer resources”, and face a “constant threat of being chopped,” the worker said.  

That’s causing an “undoing of a certain perspective that we have of ourselves as tech sector workers,” they said, “because of undeniable experiences that now put us in situations where we clearly see our rights being violated, even if we may have it so much or somewhat better than most people.” 

A different tech worker who currently works for Covalen told POLITICO that there is a sense that “if they believe they can replace you with AI, they will do that.”  

“All these Big Tech firms only care about profit, and what I have realized is the Irish government protects that Big Tech capital [rather than workers],” the Covalen worker said. “But the question is, what’s the government going to do when the tech bros change their mind and move elsewhere?”  

Workers at the center

The speaker list at this week’s AI summit was a flex of the country’s strength as a tech hub, as top names from the world’s biggest companies like Google and Microsoft took to the stage.

Fionnuala Ní Bhrógáin, head of organizing and campaigning at Ireland’s Communications Workers’ Union (DATA’s parent union), was the only union voice on the line-up.

“The fact that 36 executives and industry bosses featured on the program, compared with just one trade union speaker — invited at the last minute after attention was drawn to the absence of workers’ voices — says a lot about the value the Irish government places on AI’s impact on workers,” she told POLITICO.

“The reality is that a meaningful conversation about AI’s future can only happen through genuine engagement with workers and collective bargaining,” Ní Bhrógáin added. “Without that voice, we risk deepening mistrust and resistance rather than creating the conditions for workers to shape these changes collectively.”

DATA organized its counter-AI summit the previous weekend, to put “workers at the center of the debate about power, AI, technology and the future of work.” 

The event cut through the “hype and futurism of politicians and industry figures to focus on the real present harms faced by ordinary workers and communities,” DATA’s Bohan said.  

The union is pushing for stronger legal protections for tech workers caught up in AI-driven layoffs in Ireland, including making it mandatory for employers to recognize unions during collective bargaining. It is also calling for a ban on cooling-off clauses that prevent laid-off workers from moving between Big Tech subcontractors.  

A spokesperson for Ireland’s department for enterprise told POLITICO in a written statement that the government is “committed to strengthening collective bargaining and industrial relations” and has published an action plan to do so between now and 2030.  

They said that employers already have to comply with obligations under Irish employment law, including consultation and notification procedures for collective redundancies, and workers who feel those rules have been broken can complain to the Workplace Relations Commission. 

Firefighting to future-proofing 

Naoise Ó Cearúil, a center-right Fianna Fáil lawmaker who chairs the AI committee, pointed out that while there have been high-profile job cuts in Ireland’s tech sector, “the actual net is that there has been an increase [in jobs], particularly over the past year and even five years.” 

According to Ireland’s central statistics office, total employment in tech and related sectors surpassed 177,000 in the second quarter of this year, up from around 144,000 at the same time in 2021.  

Ó Cearúil pointed out that many job losses were in trust and safety jobs like content moderation that are “very difficult mentally,” and now tech firms are able to “utilize AI and software to be able to do a lot of detection, rather than using humans.”  

He has called for a national program to be established, to support workers whose jobs are at risk due to AI and automation.  

A spokesperson for Ireland’s department of enterprise acknowledged that the country’s tech sector has “experienced significant adjustment in recent years,” but said the changes were generally part of wider global restructuring “rather than reflecting any Ireland-specific weakness.” 

They said the Irish government is currently focused on “ensuring workers and businesses are equipped to adapt to technological change through investment in education, training, lifelong learning and digital skills.”  

BRUSSELS — France and Germany said Friday they had struck a deal to favor European-made cars under a landmark EU industry bill in exchange for weakening a 2035 vehicle emissions target, ending months of wrangling between the bloc’s two biggest economies.

Under the agreement, Germany would accept stricter “Made in Europe” — or local content — requirements for the automotive industry in the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, a longstanding French demand, while France would back Berlin’s push to relax the EU’s plan to phase out new combustion-engine cars.

The EU’s current target is for companies to reduce emissions from new vehicles by 100% from 2021 levels by 2035, with the possibility to “earn” 10% of emissions leeway through initiatives like offsets and investments.

France and Germany now want to soften the 2035 target to 90% but without having  to offer investments in alternative fuels to compensate the remaining 10%, as proposed by the European Commission.

“This balanced approach will enable the European Union to pursue its climate objectives while strengthening the technological sovereignty, industrial base and international competitiveness of its automotive industry,” the two countries said in a joint statement.

The agreement, first reported by POLITICO in July, was due to have been announced Thursday, during a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. But it was held up at the last minute by disagreements within Germany’s governing coalition.

“We hope that this Franco-German dynamic can swiftly lead to an agreement with our partners, for our jobs and our industry,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on social media.

An Elysée official on Friday made clear that, under the Franco-German deal, the scope of Made in Europe for automotive can be extended to the U.K. and Switzerland under certain conditions. — addressing a key concern of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government ahead of a Nov. 20 U.K.-EU summit in Brussels.

The agreement was reached after the German Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government, dropped its opposition.

“This is a modern realignment of German industrial policy that places significantly greater emphasis on preserving jobs and production sites,” said German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, who is from the SPD.

“The clear expectation for German companies is that they will use these new opportunities to make investments and guarantee jobs here in Germany,” he added.

CORRECTION: This article was updated on Oct. 16 after an earlier version misrepresented the figures in the Franco-German proposal on the softening of 2035 targets.

BRUSSELS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make a direct pitch to European leaders for more help on Friday, amid a crisis of faith among allies over Donald Trump’s latest steps favoring Russia. 

At the second day of an EU summit in Brussels, Zelenskyy joins European prime ministers and presidents as they discuss Ukraine’s need for more weapons and cash, with concern growing that Kyiv faces a shortfall of billions of euros next year. 

The reality of the threat to European security from the four-year-long war penetrated the summit bubble after air drones hit two ships in or near Romanian waters, prompting emergency talks with NATO.

“We all in Europe want this war to end,” Zelenskyy said on social media as he arrived in the Belgian capital on Thursday. “And for that, signals of strength are needed — more real pressure on Russia and more defense support for Ukraine.”

It is especially important, Zelenskyy said, to “act together to protect lives.” But unity among European leaders is in short supply at a meeting already riddled with tensions. 

EU governments are pitted against each other in their own fraught negotiations over how much money to commit to the 27-country bloc’s budget. With populists surging, discontent raging and elections scheduled in major power centers across the continent, under-pressure leaders are a long way from approaching a deal.

That’s the combustible mix of financial discussions the U.S. president waded into.

Trump’s decision to open up American markets to previously banned Russian diesel — intended to ease price pressures in the U.S. — risks tilting the balance of an expensive war in Russia’s favor, three European officials warned. Putin’s war chest can now swell from additional fossil fuel exports, while Ukraine struggles for cash. 

As they arrived for the first day of the marathon two-day gathering on Thursday, EU national leaders began informally discussing options for how to help redress the balance. That discussion should to be picked up again around the summit table on Friday.

Russian assets

One idea rapidly rising back up the agenda is the fraught question of whether, or how, to make use of some hundreds of billions of euros of frozen Russian financial assets held in European banks. 

The bulk of these rest with the Euroclear depository in Brussels. A previous attempt to grab the funds and send them directly to Kyiv was blocked by the Belgian government ― and other countries less prominently ― over concerns it would be exposed to legal action. 

But Sweden, Finland and Germany want to take another look at the assets. The European Commission is to come up with a new detailed assessment of Ukraine’s funding needs and an options paper on how to help, including the use of assets, according to officials from these countries. 

As the summit began, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had been urging his counterparts to “do everything we can to help Ukraine get through the winter and continue to support it next year as well.” 

“We will also have to increase funding once again in order to provide Ukraine with truly long-term assistance,” he said. “I remain firmly convinced that we are not only defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but also the political order of Europe, which is truly under pressure from Russia in every respect.” 

A German official earlier suggested that of the available options to help Ukraine, including a loan and direct grants from national governments, using the assets was the most viable way forward and should be “discussed.”

A U.S. proposal to unfreeze some of the Russian assets and transfer them to a U.S.-controlled entity so Washington could use them as leverage in peace talks with Moscow also attracted strong criticism.

Merz told reporters that the assets had been frozen in Europe and “should remain frozen in Europe … That is our business, and we will decide on it.”

‘Try again’

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told POLITICO as the summit began: “The best solution would be that we will have a solution on how to use frozen assets … We have to try again.” 

Sweden is also backing the move to re-examine options on using the assets to help Ukraine’s future funding needs. “Doing nothing is not an option,” Swedish EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told POLITICO. “The Commission is looking into different financial options, and we need to get them on the table quite soon,” she said. 

Leaders at this week’s summit should “be really honest that Ukraine needs increased financing” and that the EU “must really step up,” she added.

Zelenskyy met Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, the main opponent to a deal on assets, for talks on Thursday and thanked him for his country’s support so far.

Speaking to reporters after the first day of the summit, De Wever said the assets should be looked at as part of a future peace agreement. “Are there people on this planet who maybe dream of doing it differently this time and operationalizing those assets earlier for certain purposes? The answer to that question is: Yes there are,” he said. “Are they in this building? They are. Are there outside this building? Yes there are. Do I want to talk about it? No, I don’t.”

For Finland’s Orpo, Trump’s “terrible deal” with Putin on diesel, and the apparent U.S.-imposed limits on Starlink technology to help Ukraine counter Russian attacks, are hard to understand.

“My message to [Trump] is that we are allies,” Orpo said in an interview. “We are in NATO. And what is the biggest threat against NATO? It’s Russia — and that is why there is no logic. I don’t have answers. I have many questions.” He said Trump may be focusing on winning votes ahead of next month’s midterm elections in the U.S. but he should remember that his real allies lie in Europe and he should not “trust” Putin. 

Election anxiety

Finland holds its election next year at the same time as what could be a seismic contest in France. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is leading the polls for the French presidency and wants to cut aid to Ukraine and slash the EU’s budget. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally barred from standing next year, warned EU leaders that they must get a deal on the bloc’s next budget by December, otherwise it will be too late. 

But the 27 leaders remain split and show no signs of bridging the gap between “frugal” countries like Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, who want to limit the settlement, and others such as Italy and Romania, who are on the side of bigger pots of cash for regional development and farming. 

European Council President António Costa also sees the urgency. He believes a deal before the end of the year is not only necessary but achievable, according to two EU officials.

Costa, who is taking over the negotiations from Ireland in its role at the helm of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, believes failing to secure a deal by December would push the entire budget negotiating process beyond the electoral cycle. That would potentially delay a deal until October next year — perilously close to the new EU budget taking effect in January 2028. 

In an effort to make progress on the budget talks, EU leaders will return to Brussels for an extra summit next month.

Camille Gijs, Hanne Cokelaere and Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — There is “no logic” to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent moves to take Russia’s side in the Ukraine war, and he should remember his true allies lie in Europe, Finland’s prime minister said Thursday. 

In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, Petteri Orpo summed up the shock and dismay among Ukraine’s allies after Trump announced a diesel deal with Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, and reportedly imposed limits on Kyiv’s access to the military intelligence and technology needed to counter Russian attacks.

“My message to him [Trump] is that we are allies,” Orpo said on the sidelines of the European Council summit in Brussels. “We are in NATO. And what is the biggest threat against NATO? It’s Russia — and that is why there is no logic. I don’t have answers. I have many questions.” 

Trump alarmed European leaders and horrified Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week by announcing a deal to release Russian diesel onto the market, apparently in an attempt to lower fuel costs for American consumers. Ukraine’s allies fear the move will boost Russia’s revenue from fuel sales, giving it more money to spend on war. 

Trump also said Ukraine should stop hitting Russian fossil fuel facilities — as part of what he said was a ceasefire on energy infrastructure — and should replace Zelenskyy. 

Finland is an influential voice among Ukraine’s European allies: The country has the EU’s longest land border with Russia, at 1,300 km, and its president, Alexander Stubb — a talented sportsman — won Trump’s respect on the golf course, giving him leeway to try to influence White House policy.

Orpo said if he were in Trump’s position “I would not trust Putin.” Zelenskyy has said he fears Ukraine is losing the U.S. to Russia’s side in the war, warning the Americans and their president are on “the wrong side of history”. Orpo said he agreed: “I think he is, and they are.” 

Ukraine now faces grave danger, he said. “The sky is open for Russia, there are missiles. They need more military support, air defense,” Orpo said. “Also, the situation is dangerous because of the latest deal between Trump and Putin.”

Midterms move

One possible reason Trump turned against Ukraine with that diesel deal is the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3. “I think it is because of domestic reasons — elections are coming,” Orpo said. “But we need to get them back.” Nonetheless, he said the amount of Russian diesel that could be sold to the U.S. is too small to make much of a difference for American consumers. 

Whatever happens, EU leaders must equip Ukraine with weapons and cash, whether or not they can rely on the U.S., he said. “Today, we need to find a solution [on] how to support Ukraine, how to finance Ukraine in this winter, but also in next year,” Orpo said. “It’s crucial.”

Finland and Sweden are among the countries pushing the European Commission to reopen the fractious debate over how to use Russia’s financial assets currently frozen in European banks, especially in Belgium, which blocked a deal to raid the funds last year over legal concerns. 

“The best solution would be that we will have a solution on how to use frozen assets,” he said. “We have to try again,” Orpo said. 

Finland has asked the Commission “to continue work with Belgium, and the other member states, to find a solution.” He said he hoped to hear an update from the Commission during the summit. “It’s a better solution than using our own money.”

Budget blues

European leaders are arguing this week over their long-term budget, which Brussels officials want to finalize by the end of the year. Many diplomats do not expect a deal this year, and some leaders say they’re in no hurry. 

But others want the budget, worth around €2 trillion, signed off by December because they fear next year’s European elections — especially if far-right leader Marine Le Pen wins the French presidency — will derail negotiations. 

The longer budget negotiations last, the “more difficulties we will have,” Orpo said. “So we have to work to find a solution this year. I understand very well that it is difficult, a huge challenge, but I cannot see how it would be easier next year, because in France elections are coming, for example.”

Finland also has an election coming up in April 2027. Orpo’s center-right National Coalition Party is struggling in the polls. “This time has been very difficult,” he said. “But, finally, our economy is growing.”

Orpo’s Swedish sister party, the Moderates, mounted a late surge in last month’s election. Although that seems unlikely to keep them in office, Sweden’s Moderates still have a slim chance, even though many commentators had written them off long before the vote.

“They did excellent campaign work, and in the end of the day, people vote Moderates, not populist or socialist,” Orpo said. “I would like the same in Finland.”

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants EU leaders to look into the idea of developing bloc-wide strategic gas reserves amid concerns the continent faces a winter shortage, three diplomats and two EU officials told POLITICO.

Europe’s existing gas storage caverns — which are typically refilled over the course of the year by commercial actors — are running at record lows this year after high summer prices linked to the war in Iran undercut market incentives to restock, leaving the bloc underprepared for winter.

While it wasn’t immediately clear to diplomatic officials what form the reserve idea would take, one senior EU official described it as a long-term measure to cushion the bloc against future supply risks, as countries already do with oil and refined products. The Commission president’s comments came at a major summit of European leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Documents detailing November plans to revamp the bloc’s gas security architecture, seen earlier this year by POLITICO, include plans to encourage better crisis management by companies. However, they stop short of explicitly endorsing strategic reserves that governments would have to fill to a set level to offset supply shortages, regardless of market conditions.

Countries that typically rely on commercial refilling have already been forced to change tack this year as the limits of the existing model became clear. The Netherlands has moved to subsidize energy purchases, costing it almost €1 billion, while Germany is exploring whether to develop its own strategic stockpile.

A separate Commission proposal to set up an EU-wide mechanism to carry out joint energy purchases was received without enthusiasm by EU leaders on Thursday, two diplomats said.

PARIS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replied to French far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen’s pledge to cut financial aid with a message: Europe is benefitting from Ukraine.

“Ukraine will give back security. It’s security and experience, the price is not so high as people’s lives, that’s why I think that Madame Le Pen is not deeply [acquainted] with some details,” he told the Financial Times. “We give back and this is very important.”

Le Pen has repeatedly said, including to POLITICO, that she would stop financial aid to Ukraine if she’s elected as French president next year — but suggested France could keep training Ukraine’s military and provide non-financial assistance. Le Pen, the National Rally candidate, is currently leading the polls.

Zelenskyy stressed that European armed forces and defense industries, including France’s, were benefiting from Ukraine’s battlefield experience. “It’s win-win,” he said. `

He argued that Le Pen should keep supporting Ukraine because it’s helping the Franco-Italian air defense system SAMP/T, which is currently deployed in the war-torn country, be more efficient. “We made a lot of different changes together with French guys, because they saw how it worked and how it works now.”

“The French industry only wins with these technologies, cooperation, co-production,” he added. “I will not vote for her … because I’m Ukrainian,” he also joked.