LONDON — Water firms and campaigners are set to wait until next year to see the full details of Andy Burnham’s plans to overhaul the sector in England.

Britain’s new prime minister has promised greater “public control” of the water industry as a centerpiece of his domestic agenda, partly reversing a wave of privatization that began in the 1980s. Ministers are due to unveil more detail in a “10-year plan for Britain” that is currently expected in December.

However, while this 10-year plan will contain a high-level vision, priorities and principles for the industry’s future, much of the granular detail of how future ownership models will work in practice is only expected later, said two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Some of these key details will be laid out in Chancellor John Healey’s multi-year spending review at some point in 2027, added the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss evolving policy. One said the spending review — a date for which has not been decided — was where the full details would be “nailed down.”

These include any fiscal implications for the Treasury, which could have to find billions of pounds if ministers decided to transfer privately-owned shares to the public purse.

This appears to mirror an approach Burnham has taken to policymaking for decades, first as a Cabinet minister and then mayor of Greater Manchester before he took over 10 Downing Street in July. He is known for setting out a broad direction which his officials can later use to pin down detailed policy, while also seeking buy-in from private industry.

With a general election due by summer 2029, however, any wait will compress the prime minister’s window to enact far-reaching reform before he goes back to the electorate.

‘£40 being added to every single water bill’

England’s privatized water firms also argue that uncertainty over the sector’s future is damaging investor confidence.

The industry trade association Water UK has said the entire industry risks being downgraded by the credit ratings agency Moody’s, which would add £40 to customers’ annual bills.

Water UK Chief Executive David Henderson urged the government to move ahead with reforms suggested last year by former Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe, before ministers decide the overall path of how the sector is owned.

The Cunliffe report “was given to the government 15 months ago and the credit rating agencies are watching,” Henderson told POLITICO. “If the government doesn’t pretty soon decide what it wants to do with that report, then we risk a downgrade, as Moody’s has indicated. And if there’s a downgrade, that would sadly see £40 being added to every single water bill across England and Wales. That’s the last thing anybody wants.”

He added: “We still have no idea how [a proposed] new regulator will look, what status it will have, what its duties will be, which parts of the Environment Agency will stay in the Environment Agency, and which parts will go into the new regulator. That is causing uncertainty … an important consideration for any investor.”

One government official insisted the 10-year plan would contain some finer details of plans to overhaul the water industry, though they accepted that fiscal implications were always dealt with in fiscal events such as the spending review. 

Environment Secretary Angela Eagle is also due to bring a water bill to parliament before Christmas with separate policy, such as closing what Burnham has called “loopholes used to pay excessive bonuses” to water company executives. It will also contain scrutiny powers for regional mayors.

Burnham announced last month that the bill would lift a ban on the government owning more than 3% of shares in any English water firm. But he has also long made clear that he would not fully nationalize the industry, a move the government previously estimated would cost £100 billion for England and Wales together.

First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, one of Burnham’s most powerful allies in government, is leading three task forces including one on public control of water alongside housing, energy and transport.

Officials have been working through a “spectrum of options” for how public control in the water sector will look, a second government official said. They added that ministers are due to begin deciding which option — or combination of options — will be taken forward before the 10-year plan.

STRASBOURG — The EU will not ease sanctions on Russian fossil fuels even after the U.S. struck a diesel deal with Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday morning.

In a speech to EU lawmakers, she warned “Russia is not a trusted supplier of energy because it would, this is our experience, at any time weaponize energy dependencies to blackmail others,” arguing it was Russia that cut gas supply to Europe. “That is a lesson Europe certainly will not forget.”

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease sanctions on imports of diesel fuel until April 2027, as global oil prices surge. 

A few days later, Trump defended the deal, arguing the EU had also purchased billions in fossil fuels from Moscow, without providing further details. 

Von der Leyen also addressed the trade imbalance with China.

She confirmed that the European Commission would present a new deterrent tool as soon as December. This tool is expected to be based on the one proposed by Berlin and Paris earlier this month and would empower the EU executive to restrict or even ban imports from countries seen as distorting the single market. It would require minimal consultation from member states, allowing faster action from Brussels.

This instrument would come alongside a diversification instrument and a solidarity mechanism which are already in the works.

“We see jobs lost in our industrial heartlands,” von der Leyen said, adding that the EU will continue to seek deals with Beijing after an agreement to cap Chinese hybrid imports. As POLITICO reported last week, the EU is expected to prioritize chemicals and industrial machinery in its efforts to protect European industry from Chinese competition.

Camille Gijs contributed to this article.

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 — Beijing has threatened to retaliate if the U.K. raises tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, aligning with the European Union.

Responding to POLITICO’s story that Britain was looking to act in “lockstep” with the bloc to counter China’s market dominance in electric cars, a spokesperson from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said: “If the U.K. insists on imposing restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles, China will resolutely retaliate and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese industries.”

The U.K. is currently working with its European partners to avoid a 10% electric vehicle tariff from the beginning of next year, when stricter rules of origin under the Brexit trade deal kick in. 

The British government is also lobbying to be included in the EU’s Made in Europe policies, which give Brussels-made products preferential treatment in certain procurement projects. 

U.K. Trade Minister Anas Sarwar told POLITICO on the sidelines of the German-British Business Summit at Mansion House last week that “the more that the U.K. and the EU work together and act in lockstep, the better it is for both the U.K. and the European Union.” 

“The automotive sector and partnership remain strong, but do we have to grapple with the challenge that comes from rapid expansion in China? Of course we do,” he added. 

China urged Britain to follow World Trade Organization rules and warned it against copying Brussels’ approach, arguing that tariffs on Chinese EVs would be discriminatory. 

“China urges the U.K. to abide by WTO rules, think carefully, and not follow the European Union,” said the Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson. “China will closely monitor the U.K.’s developments.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union is beefing up its presence in the Arctic to catch up with neighboring powers carving new trade lanes and drilling for resources under the melting ice.

On Tuesday, the EU unveiled a new plan called Northern Neighborhood. It’s meant to prepare for rising military and commercial activity in the north driven by climate change, and calls for new transport, research and security infrastructure in the region.

“The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding. And it’s not someone else’s frontier. It’s part of the European Union,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared as she unveiled the strategy.

She pointed to Russia’s expanding military footprint and the race for emerging shipping routes and critical resources as forces reshaping Europe’s security and economic future.

Climate change is dramatically affecting the Arctic. Planet-warming emissions are making the ice melt faster, disrupting the region’s fragile ecosystems. But where the ice is disappearing, countries like China, Russia and even Canada see an opportunity.

The EU is now scrambling to update its existing policies on the Arctic — once largely focused on environmental protection — to give more importance to security, shipping and extracting resources.

The strategy calls for a rebranding of the EU’s existing partnerships with Norway, Iceland, Canada and the U.K., backed by regular summits to set joint priorities and launch projects.

Here are five things Brussels wants to change about its Arctic policy.

1. Defense and security 

The strategy warns that Russia is rebuilding its military presence in the Arctic and that China has growing strategic ambitions in the region.

The EU plans to set up a pilot research project using satellite and maritime observation in 2027 and share ship-tracking data to help identify Russian shadow fleet vessels.

In the longer term, it wants EU countries to lead on a maritime security hub to pool intelligence on threats ranging from undersea cable sabotage to illegal fishing. It also calls for setting up an Arctic Cable Hub alongside NATO to monitor and protect subsea cables in the North Atlantic and the Arctic. The strategy lacks any information on funding for these projects, however.

Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola of the European People’s Party said the new focus on the Arctic is long overdue.

“Europe hasn’t been thinking about [the Arctic] enough,” Aaltola said. “Because of the ice melting and climate change, it’s becoming kind of the next great game. And if that happens, then what are the European positions when it comes to Russia, China and also the United States?”

2. Access to energy resources

The new policy sticks with EU promises not to drill for fossil fuels in the Arctic.

“The EU remains committed to ensuring that oil, coal and gas stay in the ground, including in Arctic regions,” it reads. Instead, Brussels promises to develop renewable energy projects in the region but drops an old commitment to convince the rest of the world to follow its lead. 

“It is good that the Commission maintains its opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic,” said Delara Burkhardt, a Socialist MEP, but not pressing for a global ban “weakens the EU’s ability to push for stronger international protection and leaves the door open for other countries to exploit one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.”

The EU’s former Arctic policy — drafted in 2021 — committed the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction. 

Norway — which supplies a lot of energy to the EU — has made it clear it would still drill in the Arctic regardless of the bloc’s position.

3. Critical raw materials 

The EU is under pressure to secure new supplies of critical raw materials to reduce its dependency on China.

The new strategy says it will continue working with Canada, Greenland, Norway and the United States to develop critical raw materials projects in the region, but insists it will do so while following the “highest social, environmental and governance standards,” and work to the “benefit of local communities in respect of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.” 

Brussels has already labeled several critical raw materials projects, including the Sokli project in Finland and the Per Geijer rare earth deposit in northern Sweden, as “strategic” under EU law, which means they could benefit from faster permitting procedures.  

But some of these projects face serious local resistance from local and indigenous communities, who say the mining plans threaten reindeer herding and protected ecological sites. 

4. New trade routes

Melting ice is opening up new shipping routes in the far north, and the EU is worried that it could be sidelined from the region. But the strategy offers little on that front; its only action is a study on new shipping lanes.

The number of vessels operating in the area covered by the Polar Code — international regulations covering shipping in the Arctic and Antarctic — rose by 40% between 2013 and 2025, while the total distance sailed nearly doubled, said Michael Kingston, a special adviser on polar issues to the Arctic Council on marine protection.

Recent transits by Chinese and South Korean container ships using the Northern Sea Route running along Russia’s Arctic coast show the appeal of a route that is about 20 days faster than conventional routes, he added. 

“Russia builds the infrastructure, China facilitates and funds some of it,” Aaltola said, calling it part of a “grand bargain” between the two.

He complained that the EU is left on the sidelines. “When it comes to the Arctic, there is a vacuum of interest, and there’s also a vacuum of resources and institutions participating.” 

The route is still mostly seasonal for Russian oil and gas tankers, said Ksenia Vakhrusheva, project manager and Arctic project adviser at the environmental group Bellona. Ice, unpredictable weather, increased insurance costs and Moscow’s control over the route make it unlikely to become a mainstream commercial corridor anytime soon, she added.  

Europe also has leverage as the final customer for Chinese shipments, Vakhrusheva said.

“If the EU sends a strong message to China that they do not want goods shipped via NSR, China won’t use this route for transit,” she said. “For NSR to become a valid transit route you need two sides,” she said, “a seller on one side and a buyer on the other.” 

5. Environmental protection 

The strategy is light on measures to shield the Arctic from the impact of global warming. However, it does warn that increased shipping in an “inherently harsh and poorly charted environment” raises the risk of “catastrophic accidents, severe marine pollution” and hybrid interference.  

“Increased shipping in the Arctic both exploits this vulnerability and exacerbates it,” said Dave Walsh, an adviser at the Clean Arctic Alliance NGO, citing carbon emissions, wastewater discharge and noise as some of the impacts of more traffic.

Safety and the environment have not been a priority for Moscow, said Vakhrusheva, and a shortage of high ice-class ships combined with the need to sell oil and gas “to whoever is ready to buy it” raises the risks. 

Protections such as a ban on heavy fuel oil are still negotiated at the International Maritime Organization, where the EU is a key player, she said, adding that such measures will push up the cost of Arctic shipping. 

The strategy says Brussels will push at the IMO to turn measures to limit black carbon — soot emitted by ships that falls on snow and ice and accelerates melting — from voluntary guidelines into binding rules.

It also calls for expanding the definition of Arctic waters to everything north of 60 degrees latitude, replacing the current boundary, which excludes much of the waters around Iceland and Norway from special Arctic shipping rules.

It also promises to keep pressing for compliance with the Polar Code through tools such as an IMO regulation that involves national maritime authorities inspecting foreign-flagged ships in Arctic ports to verify compliance with international safety, environmental and crew-qualification standards. 

The document includes non-binding commitments on biodiversity loss and plans to boost ocean and Arctic research programs. It also promises to launch an “initiative to promote local public and private investment in the Arctic around blue economy sectors.” 

Jakob Weizman contributed reporting.

L’exécutif a convoqué, ces dernières heures, les plateformes de e-commerce ainsi que Google, Facebook, Instagram et Snapchat pour leur demander de faire preuve de vigilance. D’abord, face aux pilleurs qui chercheraient à revendre des produits volés en ligne. Ensuite, pour demander aux réseaux sociaux de mieux contrôler leurs fonctionnalités, notamment les diffusions en direct. Elles sont accusées par les forces de l’ordre d’avoir servi aux casseurs à s’organiser efficacement. Mais avec quel effet?
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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.”

President Donald Trump said Monday he was open to a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but said such a meeting would not focus on the war in Ukraine.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he would participate in a summit with both leaders if the purpose was to discuss denuclearization. The comments came after reports that Putin had proposed that the three leaders meet on the sidelines of next month’s APEC summit in China to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

“I would do it, not so much for Ukraine,” Trump said. “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They have not been doing much. And the same thing with China. We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons, denuclearization. And anytime I can have a meeting on denuclearization.”

Trump made room for the possibility of other topics to be discussed in such a meeting but reiterated that it would be “based on denuclearization.”

“If President Xi wants to have it, I’d have it,” he said. “I’m sure we would talk about other things like trade too but yeah I would do that.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that discussions were taking place over the possibility of a meeting, but there was no “clear understanding” yet about what the potential summit’s agenda would consist of.

The possibility of a high-level summit between the three leaders comes as Trump has waived sanctions on Russia and announced a diesel deal with Putin, while placing the blame for the four-year war on Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who earlier Monday briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers about the conflict.

“To be honest, I think it is time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine, because what has happened?” Trump said to reporters. “Very little land has moved, but a million people, a tremendous number of people are dead.”

PARIS — The French government has called on leading online marketplaces such as Vinted and eBay to bar listings that include goods stolen during this weekend’s looting spree across France. 

“We expect these platforms to remove the listings in question without delay,” France’s Digital Affairs Minister Anne Le Hénanff wrote Monday in a post on X. “They will also be required to work closely with public authorities so that those reselling potentially stolen goods can be identified and prosecuted.”  

Le Hénanff and fellow cabinet members called a 7 p.m. meeting with representatives of Vinted, Amazon, eBay, Meta, and TikTok, as well as France’s leading independent reselling platform Leboncoin. 

During a government press conference earlier in the day, Minister for Small Businesses Serge Papin said officials were working on “coordination between investigators and online platforms” to identify the individuals behind suspicious listings. A specific protocol is expected to be put in place, according to a government source speaking to POLITICO. 

A spokesperson for Vinted France said the sale of stolen goods, or soliciting the purchase of such goods, is strictly prohibited on the platform. “We have a zero-tolerance policy on this matter,” said the company representative. “Since this past weekend, our teams have taken immediate action to identify and remove listings that may involve stolen goods, and we have stepped up our monitoring of suspicious listings.”

Other platforms weren’t immediately available for comment.

The discussions with the reselling websites are also likely to touch on longer-term questions around platform responsibility and the monitoring of illicit trade within the EU’s digital marketplace. 

The issue of looted goods sold on online marketplaces “is a new dimension and the Commission is happy to look at it in collaboration with French authorities,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has instructed local authorities to enact “partial curfews” Monday evening to prevent further looting and rioting. Papin said a “special support fund” will be set up to provide financial assistance to the estimated 3,000 local businesses affected by the weekend’s unrest. 

Eliza Gkritsi contributed to this report.

Donald Trump’s latest moves on Russia and Ukraine have alarmed Kyiv and European capitals alike. But rather than scrambling to contain the fallout, EU leaders are keeping their cool. Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur explore Europe’s strategy for weathering Trump’s midterm storm — and what it means for Ukraine.

Then, France reels from a weekend of violent protests, with more than 1,800 arrests and widespread destruction. As political leaders trade accusations, we look at how the unrest is shaping the battle ahead of the 2027 presidential election from Paris.

Plus, hackers turn supermarket fridges into heaters, exposing some surprisingly basic cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

If you have a question or comment, don’t hesitate! Message us on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

The EU is already struggling with how to get its largest-ever budget agreed, plug a massive financial hole for Ukraine and navigate geopolitical pressure from the U.S. and China. Now, it also faces being paralyzed by domestic political strife in the countries that collectively make up around 60% of its GDP and population.

“Everybody used to understand that we need to finish … a political agreement by the end of the year,” Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told POLITICO in an interview on the sidelines of last week’s European Council, referring to the bloc’s fraught budget negotiations.

But the Spanish election means that will no longer be possible, he said. And next year, “it’s going to be France, Italy” and others going to the polls, Christodoulides added, predicting even more complications for the bloc.

The EU is facing an unprecedented dilemma: Its four biggest economies are all heading into elections or political upheaval, potentially hamstringing the bloc’s ability to get anything done.

Spain will go to the polls next month, with the center right and far right on track to take power. France is changing presidents in April, with polls favoring far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen. The Alternative for Germany is ascendant, putting Friedrich Merz’s chancellorship in doubt. And Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s unusually long-serving government is also heading to an election in 2027.

The consequences are already becoming clear.

The bloc’s latest summit offered an early taste of what lies ahead: After two days of talks, leaders failed to make headway on the €2 trillion budget and instead became embroiled in an unexpectedly bitter row on energy policy. The summit’s conclusions notably omitted any mention of finding consensus on the budget before the end of the year, with member countries resisting a push by European Council President Antonio Costa for an end-2026 deadline, although there are summits scheduled for November and December.

If those meetings fail to produce a deal, then the already fractious talks will spill over into 2027, when electoral battles are likely to loom even larger over negotiations — and governments may be increasingly reluctant to make the compromises needed to reach agreement.

Triple assault

The paralysis Brussels fears as Europe’s election cycle gathers pace is already beginning to take hold, with last week’s summit exposing how difficult it is becoming to forge the compromises the bloc needs.

Rather than strike any big deals (a Franco-German accord on cars was the one exception), the leaders used the gathering to dig in on entrenched positions and seek tactical advantages over rival camps.

The pessimism was palpable, according to six diplomats and officials POLITICO spoke to, with several warning the EU faces sharp headwinds in the coming months. All were granted anonymity to speak freely.

“Next year, it will be worse,” said one senior EU diplomat.

“It’s true, because of this calendar for the elections … in the next year it’ll be much more difficult in the member states and inside the [European] Parliament,” said Carla Tavares, a senior MEP with the Socialists and Democrats and co-lead on budget negotiations.

The bloc’s internal malaise could hardly come at a worse time.

From U.S. President Donald Trump’s undermining of the transatlantic alliance to an ever-widening trade imbalance with China, the EU is facing mounting geopolitical and economic pressures on multiple fronts.

“They seek our division. They want our division,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters at a late-night briefing during the summit, not mentioning names but referring to countries to the east and west of Brussels. “And they have, of course, points where they can hurt us.”

Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, now a visiting fellow at Stanford University, was less circumspect. “Now we are under assault from three sides: from the U.S., Russia and China,” he said.

Washington is questioning the old alliances that have underpinned European security for generations. Moscow is waging a shadow war across Europe, from cyberattacks and sabotage to an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport that Berlin blamed on the Kremlin. Beijing is tightening its grip on critical supply chains and flooding European markets with cheap exports.

Then there’s the Ukraine problem. The country is facing a budget shortfall of $30 billion to $35 billion next year, according to the IMF, with Russia battering its energy infrastructure ahead of a brutal winter. That’s despite the €90 billion the EU already agreed to stump up last year.

Landsbergis said the coming months are looking “extremely dire” for Kyiv. “Everything falls on European shoulders,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sounded a grim note at last week’s summit, telling reporters that if Ukraine falls, 20 million Ukrainians will flood into the EU. “Russia is killing us,” he said. “They don’t want to stop.”

One solution to Ukraine’s funding woes could be the €200 billion in Russian assets that have been immobilized indefinitely in Brussels-based financial depository Euroclear. But there is no sign of the EU finding common ground on that front either, with Belgium, which vetoed previous efforts to use the assets to help Ukraine, still refusing to budge.

“Nothing has changed,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said as he exited last week’s summit early.

Other potential solutions, such as issuing more joint debt, will require messy compromises — just as Brussels finds itself with even less room to maneuver.

Who you gonna call?

The EU’s problems go beyond its budget or individual policy files. With the political futures of several of Europe’s most powerful leaders in question, Brussels risks losing the stable alliances and long-serving national heavyweights needed to broker compromises.

“We now have Europe with no obvious leader,” another EU diplomat argued. Commission President Ursula “von der Leyen is powerful. But we do not have a Merkel or Mitterrand.”

French President Emmanuel Macron cannot constitutionally serve a third consecutive term and will have to find new digs in Paris after leaving the Élysée Palace in April. During a closed-door discussion at last week’s summit, Macron admitted he wouldn’t have a political mandate to sign a deal on the budget in his final months in power, four European diplomats said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is on track for defeat after eight years in power, according to polls. Spaniards will vote on Nov. 29, meaning Sanchez will be in full election mode during EU leaders’ meetings on Nov. 13 and Nov. 26.

Costa, who has stressed the need to reach an agreement on the EU’s budget by the end of 2026 to make sure it’s ready to go by 2028, waved off fears that the bloc’s next spate of elections could get in the way.

“We are living in 27 democracies,” he said on Friday. “More or less every month we have one election. If it’s about elections, we never could approve a new budget.” 

Regardless of the result, Madrid is not expected to form a government until January, which could derail the budget talks, according to two EU diplomats.

It’s anyone’s guess how long German Chancellor Merz has left in office. While the next federal election is not scheduled until 2029, the AfD’s growing strength and his own nosediving popularity complicate how much Merz might be willing to compromise.

Italy, too, is set for elections in October 2027. Another EU diplomat said they did not expect Meloni to wait that long, arguing she could call a vote much earlier.

There could be a sweet spot in January to get the budget over the line, a senior EU official suggested. It may be the last chance to strike a deal before Europe’s political upheaval makes compromise even harder to come by.

So far, the EU’s leaders have simply been “too slow,” said Siegfried Mureșan, the European People’s Party’s co-lead on the budget. “Time is running out.”

Nicholas Vinocur contributed reporting.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron promised that rioters who “destroyed” things will face consequences as he addressed the nation on Sunday after a weekend of massive unrest across France.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets nationwide on Saturday, with students joining trade unions and members of the public to protest the cost of living. While thousands protested peacefully, footage of mayhem including public buildings being set on fire, stores being looted and clashes with riot police drew widespread condemnation in France and abroad.

“Those who destroyed must pay; those who looted must reimburse,” Macron said.

The French government has been accused of mismanaging and underestimating the protests, with calls for Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to resign emerging both on the left and the far right.

According to the latest figures from the French interior ministry, some 2,000 people were arrested during the turmoil. Police, firefighters and demonstrators suffered injuries as the situation unraveled.

Serge Papin, France’s minister for small business, will meet with company reps at the Ministry of Economy tomorrow to assess the damage and suggest assistance for businesses that were affected.

Macron said he was awaiting “clear answers” on why the protests turned violent. The French president accused “troublemakers from far-left splinter groups, joined by numerous delinquents” of engaging in “unbridled violence.”

With six months to go before next year’s presidential election in France, the events of Saturday quickly took on a political dimension.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu also accused the “ultra-left” of fomenting the violence, alleging that the France Unbowed movement and its presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon had played an “important role” within a “far-left network” driving the unrest.

Mélenchon, along with left-wing representatives from several other parties, joined Saturday’s protests and encouraged his supporters to attend, although condemning looting and violence. He said accusations that he was responsible for the mayhem were aimed at weakening his presidential bid, and accused Macron of “letting the situation deteriorate” without offering solutions to appease the anger.

Mélenchon is currently in a close race with center-left candidate Raphaël Glucksmann and center-right candidate Edouard Philippe to clinch second place behind far-right frontrunner Marine Le Pen in next year’s election. The top two candidates in the election move to a runoff if no candidate wins a majority of votes in the first round.

“At stake, too, are France’s image, its credibility, and its influence around the world,” Philippe said ahead of Macron’s statement. “These images of violence have consequences that extend far beyond our borders.”

Le Pen and her far-right National Rally have brandished the violent footage to pitch herself as the candidate of an “appeased France.” The National Rally accused Macron and his government of being the “party of chaos,” and Mélenchon’s France Unbowed of “legitimizing violence.”

The protesters had “legitimate social demands,” Le Pen said. “The French people are fed up with being caught between the government’s austerity measures and heavy-handed taxation, and the insurrection activists.”

With the U.S. midterms around the corner on Nov. 3, President Donald Trump seized on the violence to blame migration. “France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday afternoon.

This was supposed to be an EU summit about the EU’s long-term budget. But things are never easy for EU leaders, and world events have a nasty habit of making their way onto the itinerary.

That meant this European Council had a lot more on the agenda than the last handful of summits, at least: Energy, migration, enlargement, Ukraine, and more besides were covered — and very little, if anything, was decided.

Have FOMO because you weren’t there? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s POLITICO’s rapid roundup of what we learned at the European Council.

1) Energy stole the show right out of the gate

The summit’s first major clash came Thursday morning, with EU leaders split over whether to delay ETS2, the bloc’s second phase of carbon pricing, to address high energy prices, triggering a three-hour-long standoff.

Italy and Greece joined the Visegrád Four — Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — in calling for a delay, a push rejected by the majority of countries.

The debate dragged on, delaying lunch (spare a thought for our hungry leaders!) and leading to the cancellation of a press conference on Thursday night.

2) Budget negotiations are a marathon…

Negotiations on the bloc’s next long-term budget were expected to be one of the summit’s most contentious topics. But they were a nothingburger, with most leaders repeating positions they have held for months. The summit brought them no closer to a breakthrough.

Many countries, of course, want a smaller budget, with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson telling reporters that his country is “not an ATM for the EU.”

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, meanwhile, said he had no choice but to be frugal at the European level, arguing he is used to tightening his belt at home because his wife is Dutch. Think of Bart next time your Dutch friends ask you to pay them back for that coffee.

3) … and a sprint

European Council President António Costa is still aiming to get a budget deal before the end of the year, according to two EU officials. He announced that leaders will hold a special summit at the end of November to try and make progress (and there’s a December summit too). But that timing leaves them up against the clock to reach a deal by year’s end.

See you all back here on Nov. 26!

4) EU leaders may need to bring extra luggage next time

If leaders do hope to agree on the EU’s long-term budget this year, they should prepare for long negotiations in November and December.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested the pre-Christmas summit could last longer than the scheduled two days. “For the December summit, we should pack a few more shirts than usual,” he said. Gulp!

5) Your next holiday to Cyprus might be a little easier

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters he hopes EU leaders will discuss his country’s bid to join the Schengen travel zone at the December summit.

“All technical preparations have already been completed, and we hope that the matter will be discussed by the relevant council in December so that the final political decisions can be made,” he said.

6) Rose-colored glasses have come off when it comes to Costa

European Council President António Costa drew the ire of some leaders over his handling of negotiations to curb high energy prices, which had become a “mess,” three EU diplomats told POLITICO, with another two diplomats saying that leaders were fuming at Costa for allowing talks to go off the rails.

7) Drink (a little) less beer to help Ukraine

Ahead of the summit, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told reporters that supporting Ukraine costs each European the equivalent of one beer a year.

“That one beer is just a cost [for EU citizens]. There, it’s a cost of life. We drink less, their lives are saved,” he said. “Simple as that.”

He didn’t say whether he meant a beer bought in Stockholm or Prague. As anyone in Belgium knows, not all beers are created equal — or cost the same.

8) The EU Parliament wants you to know it matters too

The European Parliament’s two lead negotiators on the EU budget made the rounds of the press room to make sure journalists heard their views. Siegfried Mureșan (of the European People’s Party) and Carla Tavares (Socialists and Democrats) both stressed that the Parliament’s position is important.

Meanwhile, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola joined leaders for the first part of the summit. Metsola said she had made it clear to them that “the Parliament is not a rubber-stamp and never will be.”

9) Talking China (without mentioning China)

Leaders discussed trade imbalances (read: China) over lunch on Thursday and welcomed the deal the European Commission struck with China last week to curb imports of Chinese hybrid vehicles. Czech PM Andrej Babiš even went so far as to call the deal “fantastic.”

POLITICO scooped that the European Commission is expected to work on trade measures tackling imports of chemicals and industrial machinery in an effort to protect European industry from unfair Chinese competition.

10) New bromance brewing

Hungarian PM Peter Magyar posted a late-night selfie with Dutch PM Rob Jetten on social media after day one of the summit. The two were all smiles and “tired, but not sad”, as Magyar put it in his tweet.

In reaction to the tweet, Jetten told reporters, “We are more or less of the same generation and a tad more direct and pragmatic than some colleagues in the European Council, so there’s a click.”

We started at 7:30 this morning in Brussels. The second shift begins after 10 PM, with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten @MinPres.
Tired, but not sad. pic.twitter.com/dmtSMbqG4m

— Magyar Péter (Ne féljetek) (@magyarpeterMP) October 15, 2026

11) Back to the castle

António Costa announced that another competitiveness summit at Alden Biesen castle in the Belgian countryside will take place in February 2027, three EU diplomats told POLITICO.

Leaders already visited the castle earlier this year, and they clearly loved the Belgian countryside so much they want to return (or Costa is forcing them to go).

12) Still reeling from Ceuta

Ahead of Friday’s talks, 16 EU leaders met to discuss migration over breakfast (before discussing migration over lunch with everyone else).

According to one EU diplomat, leaders broadly agreed that the EU should be able to suspend asylum applications when faced with a sudden influx of migrants that may have been engineered on purpose. But would that mean the EU will implement pushbacks (which are banned under EU law)?

13) Denmark, Italy and Poland want to be tougher on migration

The three leaders joined forces to argue that migration is a concern for many EU citizens and is contributing to rising crime rates. That caused a delay to an already shockingly long summit.

14) There were some agreements

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez found some time on the sidelines of the summit to chat about Rome’s restrictions on Spanish nationals sparked by the Ceuta crisis.

Plus, France and Germany said they had struck a deal to favor European-made cars under the Industrial Accelerator Act in exchange for weakening a 2035 vehicle emissions target, ending months of wrangling between the bloc’s two biggest economies.

15) EU leaders get the good stuff to eat

Thursday’s lunch menu featured a “full-flavored vegetable jus.” Not a little flavor, not a medium amount of flavor, but the full flavor. Then on Friday there was a “rich jus”. There was also a Champagne sauce. Only the best for our leaders!

16) The same can’t be said for reporters

Some POLITICO journalists lamented the lack of vegetarian options at the Council canteen. Pray for us.

17) No harsh words from EU to Zelenskyy

At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked whether EU leaders had expressed annoyance at his recent tone toward U.S. President Donald Trump. The question followed reports that some capitals were frustrated with him and worried he was further riling the White House.

But it was all love from Zelenskyy, who said there had been no harsh words during his time in the summit room. “I heard from my European colleagues support and only support, and I’m grateful for this,” he said.

18) No hugs for Fico

As Zelenskyy entered the European Council building, he was seen hugging and kissing fellow leaders — with one exception: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico received no hug. That may well have been because Slovakia is preparing to revive a dormant cooperation forum with Moscow.

19) 20M Ukrainians could flee to Europe if Russia wins war

Zelenskyy issued a stark warning to Europe: if Russia wins the war, as many as 20 million Ukrainians could be forced to flee to Europe. Over 4 million Ukrainians already live in EU countries under temporary protection status, according to Eurostat. 

20) EU leaders have forgotten about Britain … or have they?

There was plenty of talk across the Channel this week about the U.K. potentially rejoining the bloc, but the subject did not come up at the summit, even with an EU-U.K. summit due next month. EU leaders have more pressing issues on their minds.

Still, some had things to say about the U.K.’s relationship with the EU. Foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “all our friends are welcome to join,” naming Britain alongside Canada, Norway and Iceland as partners seeking closer ties.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs suggested the U.K. “should come back to the family,” although he also said that Russia “had its hands on Brexit.”

21) At POLITICO, we save the best for last

Covering European Councils often involves a lot of waiting around, but during this summit conditions were a little tougher because of a phantom farter among reporters waiting for Zelenskyy’s press conference. POLITICO went viral in Brussels’ diplomatic and journalistic circles for reporting the hard facts on our live blog.

While this summit’s agenda was packed, in the end not many concrete decisions were taken. Some might say the summit was a load of hot air.

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 — France and Germany on Thursday failed to agree a common position on the scope of the bloc’s future “Made in Europe” rules, as well as on greater flexibility for CO2 emissions cuts and the 2035 combustion engine ban. 

The draft quid-pro-quo deal, which was first reported by POLITICO in July, marks a major convergence between the two countries and had been expected to be signed imminently. On Thursday evening, however, the agreement stalled amid opposition from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the center-left junior partner in the ruling coalition, over concerns it dropped key environmental targets.

“A final agreement has yet to be reached,” a German government spokesperson said.

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron had suggested the ball was in the German court. “There are political constraints on the other side of the Rhine, and I completely respect coalition discussions,” Macron said Monday on the sidelines of the Paris car show.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, Germany would accept stricter Made in Europe criteria for the automotive sector in the Industrial Accelerator Act, which France has pushed for, in exchange for weakening the combustion engine ban, one of Berlin’s long-term demands.

“In light of the significant technological, economic and geopolitical changes since the existing regulatory framework was established, the Automotive Package should strike a better balance between climate objectives, industrial competitiveness, technological development and the strengthening of European value creation,” the two countries wrote in a draft agreement obtained by POLITICO.

“Based on the Franco-German Ministerial Councils in 2025 and 2026, Germany and France therefore propose a balanced negotiating package combining ambitious CO₂ reduction targets with additional flexibility and targeted incentives for European value creation,” the agreement adds.

Currently, the EU’s target is for companies to reduce combustion engine emissions by 100% from 2021 levels by 2035, with the possibility to ‘earn’ 10% of emissions leeway through initiatives like offsets and investments.

Under the proposed deal, France and Germany want to soften the 2035 target to 90%, and to offer a further 10% leeway in exchange for investments in alternative fuels (for a combined 80%).

Crucially for steel manufacturers and Germany’s leftist SPD, the French-German agreement would axe the green steel investment requirement, removing a key incentive.

“This destroys the lead market for the steel industry,” an industry lobbyist told POLITICO on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. In failing to put pressure on automakers to source green steel, the draft deal makes it a “nice-to-have” extra, they explained.

In a concession to Berlin, the draft agreement stresses that the so-called utility factor — which calculates plug-in hybrid emissions based on how often a vehicle’s electric motor is used vs. its combustion engine — should be calculated on lab-based results rather than real-world data, as required by the Commission. The change will help automakers sell more plug-in hybrids while still reaching the broader emissions targets.

In exchange for these emissions concessions, Germany endorsed France’s demand that the scope of the Made in Europe rules under the bloc’s Industrial Accelerator Act be restricted when it comes to the automotive sector.

The text only covers the EU’s 27 member countries and will be extended to the U.K. under certain conditions.

EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné told POLITICO on Tuesday that he supported the deal as a way of breaking the impasse, and said the U.K. currently qualifies for Made in Europe. 

The agreement could resolve a stalemate over both the CO2 regulation and the IAA, in which France and Germany have been on opposite sides. “The elements of this combined package should be adopted as soon as possible and at the same time,” the two countries wrote.

The British government welcomed the potential inclusion of the U.K. in the Made in Europe rules for cars. 

“This is a Franco-German proposal and there is still a European process to run, but if confirmed, we welcome the objective to have the U.K. included in the Industrial Accelerator Act, and this would be good news for the British automotive industry and the jobs and investment it supports across the U.K.,” a No. 10 official said in a statement.

If approved, the comprehensive Franco-German deal will still have to be approved by other EU countries and by the European Parliament, which are currently discussing the Industrial Accelerator Act and the automotive package, including emissions targets for automakers.

Carlo Martuscelli, Francesca Micheletti and Graham Lanktree contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — NATO allies will hold a crisis meeting to discuss how to respond to a series of drone strikes on cargo shipping in the Black Sea, Romania’s President Nicușor Dan said.

Two chemical tankers were hit by air drones in the past 24 hours in or near Romania’s territorial waters, but it is “too early” to say for sure whether Russia was behind the attacks, Dan added.

Dan was speaking on the sidelines of the European Council summit in Brussels, where he spoke to Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte about the latest incidents.

“The secretary general expressed the solidarity of the alliance and there will be a NAC [North Atlantic Council] meeting at which the whole situation with the Black Sea will be discussed,” Dan told POLITICO. “Of course the conclusion is that all the hybrid attacks are trying to decrease our support for Ukraine. We will continue to support,” he said.

Dan said invoking NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, was “not now” being discussed as an option for responding to the attacks. Nor has Romania asked for Article 4 — the emergency clause that sets consultations in motion over military matters when a member’s security has been threatened — to be triggered, he said.

Rescuers are searching for seven missing crew members after two chemical tankers were hit by aerial drones in or near Romanian territorial waters. Over the past 10 days, drones have hit at least five more cargo ships close to Romania and Bulgaria — both NATO members — killing at least 23 sailors.

Investigation teams from Romania’s army and intelligence services are trying to establish what led to the most recent drones strikes on the ships, Dan said.

Romania asked NATO for equipment including specialized radars and requested the delivery to be accelerated after a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building near the border with Ukraine in May.

Dan suggested Romania was likely to seek further assistance with equipment from allies this time. “On the operational level, we are in the same situation where we have been … on the Danube border with Ukraine,” Dan said. “What we did at that moment, we came here to NATO and some of our allies — United States, France, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, Portugal — gave us some equipment. And now we are in the same situation, but on the other border, with the Black Sea.”

After the meeting with Dan and Radev, NATO’s Rutte said the alliance had already increased “counter-drone capabilities” along its eastern flank. “NATO will continue to work closely with our allies in the Black Sea, adjusting our deterrence and defence posture as needed,” he posted on X.

This story has been updated. Victor Jack contributed to the report.

BRUSSELS — Slovakia is reviving a dormant cooperation forum with Moscow, putting Russia’s gas and oil supplies, nuclear fuel and the treatment of Russian athletes high on the agenda of their first such meeting in five years, according to a Russian government note obtained by POLITICO.

The note, written by Russian Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov, says Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár agreed during an Aug. 20 video call to hold a meeting of the Russian-Slovak Intergovernmental Commission in Moscow.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said Wednesday the meeting is scheduled for Nov. 25. The Russian note — which is dated Sept. 10 — initially set the date of the meeting as Oct. 26-27.

The IGC, which covers economic, scientific and technical cooperation, has been dormant since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The last meeting was the commission’s 21st session, held in Bratislava on Nov. 12, 2021.

The meeting comes as Moscow finds openings in other international arenas. The U.S. has invited Vladimir Putin to December’s G20 summit in Miami, while the International Olympic Committee has provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and urged sports bodies to ease restrictions on Russian athletes.

Asked about the purported agenda for the IGC, the Slovak foreign ministry directed POLITICO to Blanár’s public statements after the Aug. 20 call. “We pursue a policy in all directions and maintain dialogue with all countries that are interested in pragmatic cooperation with us for the benefit of the Slovak Republic’s national interests,” Blanár said at the time.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The renewed push for warmer Slovak-Russian relations follows Fico’s May 9 visit to Moscow, where he met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during Victory Day commemorations. It comes after Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s April election, which cost Putin one of his closest partners in Europe and forced him to look elsewhere for EU allies.

Months before losing the election to Péter Magyar, Orbán rebooted the Russian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, which had been suspended for several years after the 2022 invasion. Magyar’s government did not confirm to POLITICO whether the commission would go ahead next year.

EU leaders, including Fico, will gather in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit focused on issues including energy prices and support for Ukraine, with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expected to join them for a conversation on Friday.

Oil imports and cultural integration

In the August video call, Blanár raised Slovakia’s opposition to the EU’s phaseout of Russian gas imports and asked to discuss supplies at the Moscow meeting, according to the document, which POLITICO could not independently verify but bears the hallmarks of a legitimate Russian ministerial note. Slovak representatives also stressed the importance of continued Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline and welcomed regular shipments of nuclear fuel for Slovak power plants, according to the note.

Slovakia remains heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, and Fico has argued that ending imports would raise costs. When the two leaders met in Moscow on May 9, Putin said Russia would do everything to meet Slovakia’s energy needs.  

The agenda for the meeting next month reaches beyond energy, according to the document. The sides plan to explore working groups on culture, tourism, agriculture and environmental protection, and to discuss the status of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Bratislava.

Falkov also records Blanár’s opposition to what the note calls the “discrimination against Russian athletes” at international competitions, noting the issue is to be discussed at the IGC meeting.

The International Olympic Committee lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee in July and said its previous recommendations restricting Russian athletes’ participation no longer applied. World Archery lifted restrictions on Russian athletes and officials in August. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has also called for Russia to be allowed back into international football.

The approach echoes Moscow’s recent effort to lock in closer ties with Orbán’s Hungary. Budapest and Moscow in December agreed on a 12-point plan to expand cooperation in areas including energy, trade and culture. The plan was signed by then Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko after talks in Moscow in December. The Slovak note points to a similar breadth of ambition.

The Kremlin’s outreach to Fico shows how Moscow can use energy ties to pull individual EU countries away from a united stance on Ukraine. Putin made a similar pitch in Washington last weekend: After a call with the Russian leader, President Donald Trump said Russia would supply diesel to U.S. and global markets to bring down fuel prices. The deal would provide revenue to Moscow while weakening efforts to maintain a united front against the Kremlin.

But there are questions over whether Putin can follow through on his pledge to Trump. Ukraine has been stepping up drone strikes on Russian refineries, aiming to disrupt fuel supplies and cut revenue for Moscow’s war effort. Kyiv said this month that strikes had disabled 51 percent of Russia’s oil-refining capacity.

BRUSSELS — European leaders came for the budget. They’re staying for everything else.

A two-day European Council starting Thursday was supposed to be all about the money. Instead, leaders of the 27 EU member countries are heading into one of their most crowded summits in years, with a succession of geopolitical crises threatening to hijack the EU’s carefully laid plans.

European Council President António Costa originally wanted the gathering to accelerate negotiations on the bloc’s next seven-year budget, hoping to seal a deal before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 make an already difficult agreement even harder.

But the world had other plans. Soaring energy prices, tensions with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine (and U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambiguity over it), migration and turmoil in the Middle East have all elbowed their way onto the agenda.

The result is a two-day marathon covering virtually every major challenge facing the EU, from keeping European factories competitive to ensuring the world’s most important shipping lanes stay open.

For anyone trying to follow the action without spending 48 hours glued to Brussels, here’s your guide to what matters.

With the usual warning: EU leaders are notorious for letting discussions drag on or reshuffling the agenda — that’s what our liveblog is for.

Thursday at dawn: The pre-match warm-up

Before the summit even starts, Europe’s political families will gather at the crack of dawn.

The European People’s Party meets from 7:30 a.m. at the Sofitel Brussels Europe — the place to be if you can get in, given how many center-right leaders will be at the summit table.

The Socialists gather from 8:30 a.m. at PES headquarters, with Costa, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen expected.

Renew kicks off at 8 a.m. at the Palais d’Egmont, with French President Emmanuel Macron and top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas among those expected.

Even without leaders in the summit room, the far-right Patriots got a head start Wednesday, with Marine Le Pen delivering a scathing attack on the state of the EU.

Thursday morning: The energy blame game and China

Leaders kick off with discussions on Europe’s struggle for economic competitiveness, starting with energy — potentially the most politically explosive debate.

Governments want immediate relief from soaring energy prices as a result of the war in Iran, and will push the Commission to introduce new measures on top of the wide-ranging but somewhat toothless package it announced back in March.

Expect finger-pointing between capitals and Brussels over who should act, and for climate policies like the upcoming Emissions Trading System on heating and transport to come under fire.

Next comes China. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will brief leaders on efforts to tackle the EU’s enormous trade imbalance with Beijing, following trade chief Maroš Šefčovič’s negotiations with Chinese officials.

Leaders are expected to renew their demand for Brussels to “urgently” tool up with further trade defenses to prevent further deindustrialization of the bloc and to shield further industrial sectors from Chinese competition.

There’s also time for the familiar fight over EU red tape, with calls for Brussels to stop legislating.

Thursday afternoon: Costa’s budget gamble

This was supposed to be the main event. Leaders will discuss Ireland’s negotiating proposal for the EU’s 2028–2034 budget slashed by €159 billion from the Commission’s original proposal.

The positions are well known: The self-styled “modernists” — essentially the old frugals in disguise — want to contain costs, while countries benefiting from EU spending are determined to defend their allocations, under the less glamorous banner of “friends of cohesion.” Positions on new EU-wide taxes are similarly entrenched.

But the real story is timing.

Governments have watered down a commitment to secure an agreement by December, according to draft conclusions seen by POLITICO. Costa wants a deal before a series of high-stakes elections in 2027 complicate negotiations; capitals fear a deadline could weaken their bargaining power.

Most importantly, Costa is moving into the driving seat as budget talks enter their most politically sensitive stage. Watch for clues about a possible extraordinary summit in late November — and whether December remains a credible deadline or leaders quietly start preparing for negotiations to spill into 2027.

Thursday dinner: Making room for new members

Over dinner, leaders will tackle enlargement and the EU reforms needed to accommodate new members — after all, October’s summit has historically been devoted to the bloc’s hopefuls.

Montenegro is edging closer to completing accession negotiations, while progress elsewhere raises questions about whether the bloc is institutionally and financially ready to grow.

The Commission has outlined proposals to prepare the EU for enlargement, and leaders will discuss how internal reforms should accompany the accession process. Watch for a positive signal to Montenegro and commitments on reforming the bloc itself.

Friday morning: Ukraine’s wish list

The second day begins with Ukraine and an expected appearance by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Declarations of European solidarity are all but guaranteed. The more interesting question is what leaders are actually prepared to do.

Kyiv needs air defense systems, interceptors and financing as Russian attacks intensify. Leaders could discuss tougher action against Moscow’s shadow fleet and visa restrictions for Russians. And while EU financing for Ukraine has already been agreed for 2026, the country’s needs beyond that remain an increasingly pressing issue.

Could this mean reopening the debate on using frozen Russian assets to plug future funding gaps? That remains a question mark — although no immediate breakthrough is expected.

Friday pre-lunch: Defense and three dangerous waterways

Before breaking for lunch, leaders will turn to Russian hybrid attacks, maritime security and the Middle East.

In the Black Sea, recent attacks on civilian shipping threaten Ukraine’s crucial grain export route. Turkey has floated new protected shipping corridors, while countries including Romania and Bulgaria are pushing to give the issue more attention.

Will leaders back concrete measures or stop at condemnation? That’s the question.

Discussions then turn to the Middle East and two other critical shipping routes: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. The fallout from the Iran–U.S. war, increased Iranian attacks around Hormuz and renewed Houthi threats in the Red Sea have disrupted global trade and energy flows.

The EU’s Aspides naval mission is short of vessels, and Kallas wants governments to contribute more. Watch whether leaders put ships behind their promises.

The broader Middle East discussion will also touch on Iran, Yemen, the West Bank and Lebanon.

Friday lunch: The migration showdown

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen are worth watching as leaders discuss migration over lunch, following the crisis in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta.

Irregular arrivals have been declining, but disagreements remain over border crises, solidarity and tougher migration controls.

And with an election looming in Spain on Nov. 29, this could be Sánchez’s last tango — and a final chance to defend his government’s handling of the crisis while venting his frustration over the lack of European solidarity.

Watch whether the debate produces agreement or another political clash, as happened last time.

Bonus: Two pressers are better than one

With such a packed agenda, leaders won’t wait until the end of the summit for the usual joint press conference by von der Leyen and Costa. An additional one is planned for Thursday, after the budget debate.

On Thursday, watch Costa’s language on the budget deadline and whether von der Leyen offers any concrete measures on energy prices.

On Friday, look for promises of additional support for Ukraine, whether commitments on maritime security come with actual ships and resources — and commentary on how the migration showdown over lunch went.

Martina Sapio contributed to reporting.

The Ukraine war’s spillover into the Black Sea is creating a growing European security and commercial risk: Drones are hitting ships and killing sailors, grain routes are under strain, and insurers and investors are weighing the cost of operating through Ukraine’s ports.

Five commercial vessels have been hit in Bulgarian and Romanian waters over the past week alone, leaving at least four people dead, several sailors missing and others injured. In response, Black Sea countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have raised the issue at NATO, asking for more focus toward the region and joint support, according to two alliance diplomats.

“The attack within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone is absolutely unacceptable. It constitutes a serious breach of maritime and international law and will further jeopardise safe navigation in the Black Sea,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on X after the attacks last week.

Russia has been attacking Ukrainian ports and cities in the area since the start of its full-scale invasion. But the recent strikes have brought the spillover into NATO territory. If they continue, EU leaders will face pressure to protect Black Sea shipping and keep Ukrainian trade moving.

Those questions will be top of mind at Thursday’s European Council summit. According to draft conclusions obtained by POLITICO, leaders are expected to discuss the “immediate restoration of safe passage for grain cargo ships.”

A wider problem

Russia is not the only country using naval drones in the Black Sea. Ukraine has also used them against Russian-linked shipping. In June, a Ukrainian sea drone exploded in Romania’s Constanța port after Kyiv said it had veered off course because of Russian electronic interference.

“The Black Sea situation is quite dangerous because attacks are coming from both [sides],” said an EU shipping representative, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “You have to worry about both.”

Attribution can also be difficult. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Wednesday that investigators still have not proven that Russia is behind the strikes — although some have attributed his reticence to his broadly softer approach toward the Kremlin.

Drone operations by both Russia and Ukraine are likely to continue as long as each has the money and production capacity to sustain them, said Cristian Vlas, assistant research manager for Eastern Europe at the think tank ACLED.

Oleksii Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and founder of the Black Sea Security Forum, told POLITICO that a “serious diplomatic initiative” was needed, bringing together Ukraine, Russia and a third-party guarantor, such as Turkey, “to restore freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.”

Grain routes under pressure

The security risk is disrupting routes that carry Ukraine’s harvest to market, with consequences for EU transport links. Black Sea ports are Ukraine’s main export gateway, handling around 95 percent of the country’s grain exports, as well as significant volumes of iron ore. Shipping traffic has fallen as the security risk has grown.

Some cargo is being rerouted to the River Danube, but capacity there has been stretched in recent months as drought pushes water levels to record lows. Operators are trying to add rail capacity, but that risks moving the bottleneck westward to Romania.

Moving more Ukrainian grain overland also risks reviving tensions with farmers in neighboring EU countries, Vlas said. Romanian farmers have worried that Ukrainian produce meant only to transit could stay on the domestic market, he added, while transport operators are already juggling competing demands for capacity.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi has warned that millions of tons of unsold grain is piling up, and that farmers who can’t sell won’t be able to afford to resow all their land.

Bulgaria is working with Romania and Turkey on a joint initiative to protect freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, which Radev plans to bring to EU leaders on Thursday.

Following the Black Sea countries’ request at NATO, military officials are likely to look into possible options such as shifting counter-drone systems to the region, the two alliance diplomats said. Radev said Sofia will convene his counterparts in Ankara and Bucharest to examine further proposals, while a senior Bulgarian official called for new joint anti-drone systems with Romania, partly financed by the EU.

Investment at risk

The attacks also threaten what had started to look like a renewed bet on Ukraine’s ports. MSC, the world’s largest container line, was among the biggest and newest investors, reportedly acquiring a majority stake in a container terminal at a port near Odesa in May.

Ukraine has also been offering investors a long-term concession at the Chornomorsk terminal near Odesa. This terminal is one of Ukraine’s largest planned port public-private partnerships and part of what is expected to be a multibillion-euro reconstruction effort involving European companies.

But people who work in Ukraine’s ports say the case for rebuilding is collapsing.

“No one is ready to invest and rebuild, since you know that tomorrow there will be another missile, another pack of drones,” Oleg Grygoriuk, chairman of Ukraine’s Marine Transport Workers’ Trade Union, said.