About six in 10 jobless people in Belgium have a non-Belgian background, new figures show, as the right-wing government moves to tighten rules for migrants and the unemployed.  Employment Minister David Clarinval, who released the statistics Wednesday in response to a question from Socialist MP Sophie Thémont, called them “rather astonishing.”  “We know … [migrants] have a much lower command of the national languages,” he said. “They may have difficulty understanding the institutional system. So, we clearly need to focus on these people and pay particular attention to them.”  He added, “The main message is that everyone must work, including people of foreign origin.”   The figures classify individuals as having a non-Belgian background if they were born with another nationality or if at least one parent holds another nationality, even if they now hold Belgian citizenship. About 41.5 percent of Belgium’s unemployed are Belgian, while nearly 13 percent have North African roots, followed by migrants from southern EU countries.   Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, a Flemish right-winger who took office in February, has called Belgium’s immigration policy the “source of all misery” and has introduced strict new rules, including mandating higher income requirements and longer waiting periods for family reunification visas.   De Wever’s government is also moving forward with a plan to cut off unemployment benefits for those who have been jobless for more than 20 years starting next year. In the future, claimants will only be allowed to receive benefits for up to two years. The changes mean 180,000 Belgians are set to lose their unemployment benefits next year, saving the state just under €2 billion.

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump on Monday asked a New York appeals court to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case that made him a felon as he plotted a path back to the White House last year. In a 96-page filing, Trump’s lawyers relied on many of the same arguments that Trump previously made before, during and immediately following the 2024 trial, including that the conviction should be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and that the judge who oversaw the trial should have recused himself because he made political contributions. “This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his lawyers, a six-person team of Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys, wrote. The appeal is just one of Trump’s attempts to overturn his conviction last May of 34 counts of business fraud for his effort to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. He has separately asked a federal appeals court to transfer his state criminal case to federal court. Such a move would pave the way for Trump to eventually ask the Supreme Court to erase his criminal record by tossing his conviction on presidential immunity grounds. Though Trump has suffered few consequences as a result of the conviction — he won reelection in November and was subsequently sentenced to no punishment in January — he’ll still carry the title of felon unless an appellate court overturns the case. Trump’s lawyers argued in the filing Monday that the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, issued more than a month after a New York jury convicted Trump in the hush money case, meant prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office should have been precluded from using evidence connected to Trump’s “official acts” as president during his first term. That evidence, his lawyers wrote, included testimony about conversations between Trump and Hope Hicks, who was then the White House communications director, as well as Trump’s social media posts. Late last year, the trial judge, Justice Juan Merchan, rejected the notion that the immunity ruling applied to the evidence used in the case, finding that evidence at issue related not to Trump’s official acts, but instead to his private conduct — specifically, his effort to conceal a hush money payment to Daniels. Trump’s lawyers also took aim at Merchan himself, as they did numerous times during the course of the prosecution, writing that “his impartiality was reasonably in doubt” because of small-dollar political contributions he made to Democratic candidates or causes in 2020. They also cited his daughter’s work for a digital agency whose clients include a number of Democratic officials. When Trump’s lawyers made the same arguments in 2023, asking Merchan to recuse himself, the judge disclosed that he had sought guidance earlier that year from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics about several issues Trump subsequently raised. The judge said the committee had issued an advisory opinion regarding his daughter’s employment that concluded: “We see nothing in the inquiry to suggest that the outcome of the case could have any effect on the judge’s relative, the relative’s business, or any of their interests.”

Alcohol has been enjoyed in societies for thousands of years, playing a role in celebrations and gatherings across the world. While misuse continues to cause harm, it’s encouraging to see that, according to World Health Organization data, trends are moving in the right direction. Consumers are better informed and increasingly aware of the benefits of moderation.   While Diageo is only relatively young — founded in 1997 — our roots run deep. Many of our brands date back centuries, some as far back as the 1600s. From iconic names such as Guinness and Johnnie Walker to modern innovations like Tanqueray 0.0, we are proud to continue that legacy by building and sustaining exceptional brands that resonate across generations and geographies. We want to be one of the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world — grounded in a strong sense of responsibility.  That means being transparent about the challenges, proactive in promoting responsible drinking, and collaborative in shaping the future of alcohol policy. We are proud of the progress made, but we know there is more to do. Lasting change requires a whole-of-society approach, bringing together governments, health experts, civil society and the private sector.   We believe a more balanced, evidence-based dialogue is crucial; one that recognizes both the risks of harmful drinking and the opportunities to drive positive change. Our brands are woven into cultural and social traditions around the world, and the industry contributes significantly to employment, local economies and public revenues. Recognizing this broader context is essential to shaping effective, proportionate and collaborative alcohol policies. Public-private collaboration brings together the strengths of different sectors, and these partnerships help scale impactful programs.  > We believe a more balanced, evidence-based dialogue is crucial; one that > recognizes both the risks of harmful drinking and the opportunities to drive > positive change. Across markets, consumers are increasingly choosing to drink more mindfully. Moderation is a long-term trend — whether it’s choosing a non-alcoholic alternative, enjoying fewer drinks of higher quality, or exploring the choice ready-to-drink formats offer, people are drinking better, not more, something Diageo has long advocated. Moderation is not a limitation; it’s a mindset. One of the ways we’re leading in this space is through our expanding non-alcoholic portfolio, including the acquisition of Ritual Beverage Company in the US and our investment in Guinness 0.0. This growing diversity of options empowers individuals to choose what’s right for them, in the moment. Moderation is about choice, and spirits can also offer creative ways to moderate, such as mixing alcoholic and non-alcoholic ingredients to craft serves like the ‘lo-groni’, or opting for a smaller measure in your gin and tonic.  Governments are increasingly taking proportionate approaches to alcohol regulation, recognizing the value of collaboration and evidence-based policy. There’s growing interest in public-private partnerships and regulatory rationality, working together to achieve our shared goal to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. In the UK, underage drinking is at its lowest since records began, thanks in part to initiatives like Challenge 25, a successful public-private collaboration that demonstrates the impact of collective, targeted action.  > Moderation is not a limitation; it’s a mindset. Diageo has long championed responsible drinking through campaigns and programs that are measurable and scalable. Like our responsible drinking campaign, The Magic of Moderate Drinking, which is rolled out across Europe, and our programs such as Sober vs Drink Driving, and Wrong Side of the Road, which are designed to shift behaviors, not just raise awareness. In Ireland, we brought this commitment to life at the All Together Now music, art, food and wellness festival with the launch of the TO.0UCAN pub in 2024, the country’s first-ever non-alcoholic bar at a music festival. Serving Guinness 0.0 on draught, it reimagined the traditional Irish pub experience, offering a fresh and inclusive way for festival-goers to enjoy the full energy and atmosphere of the event without alcohol.  Another example comes from our initiative Smashed. This theatre-based education program, developed by Collingwood Learning and delivered by a network of non-government organizations, educates young people and helps them understand the dangers of underage drinking, while equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to resist peer pressure. Diageo sponsors and enables Smashed to reach millions of young people, teachers and parents across the globe, while ensuring that no  alcohol brands of any kind are mentioned. In 2008, we launched DRINKiQ, a first-of-its-kind platform to help people understand and be informed about alcohol, its effects, and how to enjoy it responsibly. Today, DRINKiQ is a dynamic, mobile-first platform, localized in over 40 markets. It remains a cornerstone of our strategy.  > Diageo has long championed responsible drinking through campaigns and programs > that are measurable and scalable. In the UK, our partnership with the Men’s Sheds Association supports older men’s wellbeing through DRINKiQ. Most recently, this collaboration expanded with Mission: Shoulder to Shoulder, a nationwide initiative where Shedders are building 100 buddy benches to spark over 200,000 conversations annually. The campaign promotes moderation and connection among older men, a cohort most likely to drink at increasing or higher risk levels. Across all our partnerships, we focus on the right message, in the right place, at the right time. They also reflect our belief that reducing harmful drinking requires collective action.  Our message is simple: Diageo is ready to be a proactive partner. Let’s build on the progress made and stay focused on the shared goal: reducing harm. With evidence-based policies, strong partnerships and public engagement, we can foster a drinking culture that is balanced, responsible and sustainable. Together, we can make real progress — for individuals, communities and society as a whole. 

The mastermind of President Donald Trump’s effort to downsize the federal workforce, Russ Vought, promised to use the government shutdown to advance his goal of “shuttering the bureaucracy.” Presented with a layoff plan that would have moved in that direction, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services scaled it way back, POLITICO has learned. It was another example, like several during the layoffs led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency this spring, in which Trump’s agency heads have pushed back successfully against top-down cuts they viewed as reckless. POLITICO obtained an HHS document from late September, the shutdown’s eve, that said the department wanted to cut nearly 8,000 jobs, based on guidance from Vought’s budget office. On Oct. 10, HHS only went ahead with 1,760. In the two weeks since, the number has dwindled to 954, as the department has rescinded nearly half of the total, blaming a coding error. The disorganized handling of the layoffs is reminiscent of Musk’s DOGE effort, in which employees were rehired after being fired, sometimes on court orders, sometimes because agency officials objected. In each case, the layoffs rattled agency managers and traumatized employees, as Vought wanted, but haven’t gone nearly as far in downsizing the government as forecast. While the nearly 8,000-person layoff plan this month was largely scuttled by top agency officials who intervened before the cuts could be made, the whiplash manner in which it was proposed and then scaled back shows that the administration is still following the DOGE playbook. “These appear to be leftovers from DOGE. I don’t know anyone — including in the White House — who supports such cuts,” a senior administration official told POLITICO in explaining the pullback from the promised mass layoffs. The official, granted anonymity to discuss confidential matters, pointed to the involvement of a staffer who was part of the DOGE effort in producing the administration document. That document came to its initial tally of 7,885 layoffs at HHS by adding employees who would be furloughed during the shutdown, as well as workers in divisions that would be shuttered if Congress passed Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal. Trump’s May budget plan called for a 25 percent cut to HHS, but lawmakers have rejected it in the appropriations bills now in process. HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard told POLITICO in a statement that HHS made its layoff list “based upon positions designated as non-essential prior to the Democrat-led government shutdown.” She added: “Due to a recent court order, HHS is not currently taking actions to implement or administer the reduction-in-force notices.” According to the document reviewed by POLITICO, the National Institutes of Health was to take the hardest hit among HHS agencies, 4,545 layoffs, or roughly a quarter of its workforce. It ended up firing no one. A federal judge in San Francisco blocked the firing of 362 of the 954 HHS employees who did receive the October layoff notices. More will be shielded after additional federal employee unions joined the lawsuit on Wednesday. In congressional testimony earlier this year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he had downsized his department’s staff to 62,000 from 82,000 when he took office. He’s nowhere close. An HHS contingency plan produced in advance of the shutdown said the department still employed 79,717. Employees who took a Sept. 30 buyout offer from Musk would bring that lower, though the number who did is unknown because the White House has not released agency-by-agency totals and has stopped publishing agency employment updates. It’s unclear who within the Trump administration came up with the initial plan for the shutdown layoffs. Hilliard did not respond to POLITICO’s question about who within HHS was responsible. Thomas Nagy, the HHS deputy assistant secretary for human resources, has been the one updating the judge, Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, about the layoffs. The experience of the fired 954, whose last work day is scheduled for early December, mirrors the chaos of DOGE’s spring layoffs, in which employees were left wondering whether they still had jobs amidst lawsuits and officials were forced to backtrack and rehire fired workers. In one such instance, Kennedy told a House panel in June that he had appealed directly to Vought to make sure Head Start funding was protected after the early education and health care program was left out of the president’s budget proposal. In another case, HHS fired and then rehired an award-winning Parkinson’s researcher. Kennedy also told senators that he brought back hundreds of staffers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. That came after West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and others protested. Now many HHS employees are having déjà vu. The situation is reminiscent of the experience some former employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development had during the Trump administration dismantling of the foreign aid agency early this year. Some furloughed employees at HHS, for example, didn’t have access to their work emails to receive notices informing them they were laid off this month. “There were individuals who didn’t even know if they were in RIF status until they got the hard copy packet in the mail two days ago,” a laid-off employee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, using the acronym for “reduction-in-force.” A similar situation played out at HHS’ Office of Population Affairs, where nearly all of the roughly 50 employees were laid off two weeks ago, according to one person with knowledge of the situation speaking anonymously for fear of retribution. The office, which is congressionally mandated, manages hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for family planning and teen pregnancy prevention programs. Three fired employees from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — granted anonymity to provide details about the firings without fear of retribution — said that many of the roughly 170 employees cut from the agency earlier this month are getting physical copies of their termination notices mailed to them because they’re shut out of their email accounts. “DOGE never really left, it just looks different now,” one of the SAMHSA employees said. Amanda Friedman and Sophie Gardner contributed reporting. Tim Röhn is a global reporter at Axel Springer and head of investigations for WELT, POLITICO Germany and Business Insider Germany.

The European Central Bank’s staff union is taking the bank to court, accusing ECB management of trying to silence and intimidate its representatives in violation of the principles of European democracy. The case, lodged with the European Court of Justice on Oct. 13, marks the latest escalation in a battle between union representatives and management, where relations have deteriorated since Christine Lagarde took over as ECB president in 2019. The action contests a series of letters the bank addressed to the International and European Public Services Organization (IPSO) union and one of its senior representatives “restricting staff and union representatives from speaking publicly about workplace concerns, such as favoritism and the ‘culture of fear’ at the ECB,” the union said in a statement. These letters constitute “an unlawful interference” with basic freedoms guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, the union said. “Freedom of expression and association are not privileges; they are the foundation of the European project.” An ECB spokesperson said the bank does not comment on court cases, but that it “is firmly committed to the freedom of expression and the rule of law, operating within a clear employment framework that is closely aligned with EU Staff Regulations and is subject to European Court of Justice scrutiny.” The first letter, signed by the ECB’s Chief Services Officer Myriam Moufakkir, came in response to an interview given by union spokesperson Carlos Bowles to Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung daily paper, published May 7. In it, Bowles had warned that a culture of fear may contribute to self-censorship, groupthink and poor policy decisions. The interview came at a time when the ECB’s failure to anticipate the worst bout of inflation in half a century had provoked widespread and public soul-searching by policymakers. It also followed a union survey in which around two-thirds of respondents said being in the good graces of powerful figures was the key to career advancement at the ECB, rather than job performance.   IPSO IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD According to the IPSO union, Moufakkir responded with a letter stressing that staff and union representatives must not make public claims of a “culture of fear” within the institution or its possible effects on ECB operations — including its forecasting work, which had come under especially intense scrutiny. It also accused Bowles of breaching his duty of loyalty under the ECB’s internal code of conduct, and instructed him to refrain from public statements that could “damage the ECB’s reputation.” A later letter by Moufakkir, addressed to IPSO dated Aug. 1 and seen by POLITICO, spells out the thinking. In it she stresses that the right of “staff representatives … to address the media without prior approval … applies exclusively to ‘matters falling within their mandate’. It does not apply to the ECB’s conduct of monetary policy, including its response to inflation.” In his interview, Bowles made no reference to current or future policy but rather to a work environment that he said fostered groupthink. Lagarde herself had warned against such risks, denouncing economists the previous year in Davos as a “tribal clique” and arguing that a diversity of views leads to better outcomes. Bowles had made similar statements to the media before, such as in an interview with the Handelsblatt daily paper published in January 2016, without eliciting any reaction from the bank’s management. Contacted by POLITICO for this story, the ECB said it had “stringent measures to ensure analytical work meets the highest standards of academic rigor and objectivity, which are essential to the ECB’s mandate of price stability and banking supervision.” Moufakkir suggested that Bowles’ comments undermine trust in the ECB and that this trust is crucial if the ECB is to deliver on its mandate. “Freedom of expression, which constitutes a fundamental right, does not override the duty of loyalty to which all ECB staff are bound,” she argued. Bowles rejected that framing, arguing in a letter to Moufakkir that he had a “professional obligation” to address such issues and their impact on the ECB’s capacity to fulfil its mission. PAPER TRAIL The trouble, according to the union, is that Moufakkir addressed the first two letters to an individual union representative (Bowles) who was speaking on its behalf, effectively undermining the union’s collective voice.  In her email, the union said, Moufakkir also “heavily misrepresented” Bowles’s comments and accused him of misconduct without affording him a hearing. In her letter from Aug. 1, Moufakkir maintained that her original letter to Bowles “was not a formal decision” to be recorded in his personal file, but rather a “reminder and clarification of applicable rules.”  “Its purpose was not to intimidate or silence Mr Bowles but to highlight to him the importance of prudence and external communications about ECB matters,” she wrote. The union said it sees this framing as an effort by the ECB to shield itself from judicial review: the letter addressed to Bowles was marked ECB-CONFIDENTIAL and Personal, conveying the impression of an official document. According to a person familiar with the matter, a special appeal launched by Bowles to the executive board to retract Moufakkir’s instruction has since been dismissed — without addressing its substance — because the letters had no binding legal effect and were therefore inadmissible. That has now prompted the union to turn to the ECJ; a response to a second appeal by Bowles remains outstanding. The union said that what it perceived as attempts by the ECB to silence union representatives have succeeded: Previously scheduled media interviews have been “cancelled due to fear of retaliation.” When contacted for comment, Bowles declined, citing the same reason. WHAT COMES NEXT? The ECB will have two months to submit its defense to the court. As an EU institution, the ECB is neither subject to German labor laws nor to similar rules in other EU member states and instead enjoys extensive scope to set and interpret its own rules. Out of 91 employment-related court cases since the bank’s inception, the ECB has won 71. Regardless of the legal implications, the union warned that the ECB’s approach undermines its institutional integrity and damages its credibility.  “Silencing staff representatives or whistleblowers prevents legitimate issues from being addressed and erodes trust in the institution,” it said. “Reputation cannot be protected by censorship — it must be earned through sound governance, transparency and open dialogue.” It sees the letter as part of a broader pattern in which the ECB has sought to restrict trade union activity and control staff representation, including planned changes to a representation framework that would limit the participation of union members in the ECB staff committee. IPSO is the sole trade union recognized by the ECB and holds seven out of the nine seats on the ECB’s staff committee, which is elected by all ECB staff. The ECB, for its part, has rejected much of the criticism emerging from survey organized by the union and the staff committee, which showed widespread distrust of leadership, surging burnout levels, and complaints about favoritism. The ECB has called the surveys methodologically flawed and unreliable.

BRUSSELS ― Europe’s leaders are in the fight of their lives. For the first time, the summit they hold this week will zero in on topics aimed at reclaiming turf from the far right. Mainstream politicians ― center-right, center-left and liberal alike ― have been in power in Europe since World War II but are watching their control ebb away. They hope Thursday’s European Council will show that the EU cares about issues that have left voters feeling disaffected. In the bloc’s biggest capitals, from Paris to Rome, Amsterdam and Berlin, nationalist and even pro-Russia forces are either already in government or at the gates, having shown themselves adept at harnessing populist anger. “Defending the European project today means more than investing in our militaries — it also means delivering on the social promise that holds Europe together,” said Hannah Neumann, a Greens MEP who sits on the Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee. “One of Putin’s main tactics is to divide our societies.” The summit agenda is dominated by themes that leaders associate with a fundamental challenge: preventing a scenario in which four or five far-right leaders who may even reject the EU’s very existence are sitting around the European Council table a few years from now. It’s an outcome that would raise huge questions about the West’s military might and the future of the bloc itself. An early draft of the summit conclusions, seen by POLITICO, which national diplomats work on before submitting it to their leaders, reflects this underlying concern. Leaders will discuss housing, defense, competitiveness, the green and digital transitions and migration — all issues that officials from European governments see as critical to containing the far right. The gathering in Brussels this week is “a European Council that is looking for a new EU identity,” said an EU diplomat involved in the preparations who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations are confidential. “There is a very difficult search, with a very painful internal process, to find answers to the questions that the EU has so far failed to grasp.” SOCIAL CRISIS In particular, putting housing on the agenda would have seemed unthinkable barely a few years ago. But the price of homes is now driving politics across the bloc — and propelling the far right to major wins. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and his far-right Party for Freedom won the 2023 national vote campaigning on a housing shortage he said was exacerbated by migrants and asylum seekers. Portugal’s Chega party surged to become the country’s leading opposition this year by railing against the failure of establishment parties to tackle soaring home prices.  The European Council is coming late to the issue. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has described the housing shortage as a social crisis for over a year and created a designated housing commissioner ― Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen ― who will present the bloc’s first-ever Affordable Housing Plan in December and has vowed to clamp down on short-term rentals in 2026. The European Parliament launched a special committee on the crisis at the beginning of this year. European Council President António Costa has long said the housing crisis is a challenge as pressing as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The only way we strengthen citizens’ trust in the European project is by showing that we have the capacity to take on housing and the concrete problems that affect them personally,” he told POLITICO last year. Until now, house and rental prices haven’t been seen as a topic that the EU can tackle. While the housing crisis is a bloc-wide problem, there is no consensus on how to address it. National leaders are split along political lines and are likely to be at loggerheads when it comes to tackling real estate speculation, short-term rentals, or the expansion of public housing schemes. In particular, putting housing on the agenda would have seemed unthinkable barely a few years ago. But the price of homes is now driving politics across the bloc — and propelling the far right to major wins. | Koen Van Weel/ANP/AFP via Getty Images The divisions are evident in the draft summit conclusions, where leaders see the crisis as “pressing” but limit themselves to asking that the Commission present its plan as scheduled. ON THE RISE The march of the populists is already very real. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico sit at the European Council table, at times making it difficult or impossible to reach decisions by unanimity, which is often necessary. Czechia could soon join their camp, with right-wing populist Andrej Babiš having won elections earlier this month. In Slovenia, ultraconservative former Prime Minister Janez Janša’s party leads in the polls, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. In the EU’s two biggest and most powerful countries, France and Germany, the far right is also ascendent. Opinion polls repeatedly show Jordan Bardella of the National Rally out in front for France’s presidential elections in 2027. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) came second in parliamentary elections last year. Defense is another topic on which the EU’s mainstream hopes to fight back. The EU’s defense commissioner estimates that when national defense budgets and EU funds are totted up, the bloc will plow in €2.4 trillion over four years — a staggering figure compared with previous investments. This defense boom could, in theory, replace Europe’s struggling car industry, which provides nearly 14 million jobs, or about 6 percent of EU employment. Defense is another topic on which the EU’s mainstream hopes to fight back. | Hristo Rusev/Getty Images  The topic is set to feature at the summit, with Slovakia’s Fico linking his support for new sanctions against Russia to aid for the car sector, given Slovakia’s status as the world’s top car producer per capita. “Defense is just key to preventing a far-right surge — it creates jobs,” said a second EU diplomat. Another front in the effort to stem the far-right tide is social media regulation. The EU finds itself in a battle with Washington over rules affecting U.S. tech giants like Meta and X — the latter owned by Elon Musk, who has used the platform to amplify far-right voices such as Germany’s AfD during the country’s last election. TikTok was blamed by the EU for playing a significant role in boosting far-right messaging during recent elections in Romania. “In the face of geopolitical shifts … it is crucial to advance Europe’s digital transformation, reinforce its sovereignty, and strengthen its open digital ecosystem,” reads the current draft of the leaders’ statement. Concrete solutions remain elusive, however. “What are we supposed to do — set up our own European social media platform to counter this malign influence?” a third diplomat asked. WATERING DOWN Europe’s diplomats can already feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. The green agenda, too, has been watered down under far-right pressure. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images A discussion among EU ambassadors last week on “simplification” ― the current EU buzzword for slashing red tape ― turned into a broader push by some governments for U.S.-style deregulation. One ambassador intervened to clarify that deregulation should mean addressing bureaucratic bottlenecks rather than getting rid of EU rules altogether, according to two diplomats who were present. The green agenda, too, has been watered down under far-right pressure, with leaders set to discuss rolling back the bloc’s 2040 emissions targets. One of the clearest examples of the mainstream staking out far-right turf is migration. The once-taboo idea of processing asylum applications outside EU borders — in closed and “protected” centers — is now regularly debated, with even socialist leaders like Denmark’s  Mette Frederiksen pushing for it. In doing so she echoes calls from far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who made it part of his so-called Schengen 2.0 plan back in 2016. In the end, some of these topics may get short shrift on Thursday. The agenda is packed, and the conversation will likely be dominated by more pressing geopolitical questions such as how to boost support for Ukraine. And then there are the deep divisions that remain between the center-right European People’s Party, which dominates the EU’s main institutions, and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. But it’s a start.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered a swashbuckling call for Europe to defend itself against Russia and punish the Israeli government. Speaking as news screens showed Poland scrambling fighter jets as Russian drones hovered above the NATO country, von der Leyen’s assertive assessment of the State of the European Union on Wednesday directly contrasted her own political standing. On the defensive over a lopsided trade deal with Donald Trump and facing multiple votes of no-confidence in the European Parliament, she disavowed nostalgia and paralysis and took the battle to her opponents. In a lively first parliamentary session after the summer break, she faced boos and jeers from MEPs ― mainly from the right wing while she talked about Gaza, but later, as she referenced environmentally friendly cars, even from her own side. “Europe must fight,” she said, acknowledging the uncomfortable shift for a union that started out as a peace project in the ashes of World War II. Yet as she laid out concrete proposals for boosting Europe’s military might, cracking down on Israel and tackling the housing crisis, von der Leyen was also fighting to maintain her own fraying coalition of pro-European centrists and to show angry voters that Brussels can respond to their growing list of fears in the “unforgiving” world of today. It’s clear that citizens increasingly blame her: six in ten respondents in a recent poll said she should resign over the asymmetric trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump. “I will never gamble with people’s jobs or livelihoods,” she said of the deal. OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS The first State of the European Union speech of her second administration was closely guarded, with rank and file staffers in the Commission’s own communications department only receiving the prepared text shortly before von der Leyen stepped up to center of the Strasbourg hemicycle. Yet the 7,500-word speech made no references to events that consumed the headlines in the last hours of its drafting: Israel’s brazen strike on Hamas officials in Qatar and Russia’s incursion into Polish airspace with drones that pushed Europe, as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk put it, “closer to open conflict… than at any time since the Second World War.” Nonetheless, von der Leyen did offer new ideas for both hot zones. As ongoing U.S. support for NATO remains in doubt, von der Leyen proposed an “Eastern Flank Watch,”  including funding for a so-called drone wall long sought by Baltic countries, as well as a space surveillance system. She also suggested using Russian frozen assets to issue a “Reparations Loan” to finance Ukraine in the years to come. She also signaled a change in her own approach to the Netanyahu government. Criticized by some capitals in the wake of Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians for setting no limits on Israel’s right to defend itself, von der Leyen on Wednesday said a “man-made famine” in Gaza is part of a “systematic shift in the last months that is simply unacceptable.” There’s little the Commission can do on its own, but von der Leyen made a vague promise to stop “bilateral payments” to Israel. With the left side of the chamber awash with red-dressed lawmakers commemorating Gaza victims, von der Leyen also proposed more severe punishments — suspending a trade agreement with Israel and sanctioning extremist ministers. Those measures, while a marked toughening of the Commission’s approach, are unlikely to win the necessary support in a consistently divided Council, made up of the EU’s 27 national governments. CLINGING TO THE COALITION A year ago, just months after voters pushed the European Parliament to the right in the 2024 election, von der Leyen told MEPs of her plans to embrace a Europe that does less. Cutting red tape was the mantra.“Competitiveness” was in, “climate” was out. The outcome has resulted in growing frustration among socialist, liberal and Green lawmakers, who have historically cooperated with von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party to run the EU and have endorsed her presidency. The center-left Socialists and Democrats didn’t back a bid by a far-right lawmaker to censure von der Leyen in July — but they vowed “resistance” if her policies kept veering right. But with at least two more votes of no-confidence on the horizon — and von der Leyen fending off simmering dissent within her own Commission— she offered a range of social policies. They included a pledge to eliminate poverty by 2050. (According to Eurostat, 2024, 27.5 million Europeans were “severely materially or socially deprived.”) She also included a Quality Jobs Act to “ensure that modern employment keeps pace with modern economy,” and promised housing package to accelerate home construction and renovations, with the aim to ensure no one sleeps on the street by 2030.   And while this year’s speech continued to downplay green initiatives, von der Leyen did try to merge climate and competition concerns with a plan for small electric vehicle production. The  “e-car,” she said, would be environmentally friendly, affordable and made in Europe ― as the proposal elicited boos from her own EPP. “I want to work with this House and with all pro-European democratic forces to deliver for Europeans,” said von der Leyen. LITTLE TRACTION Von der Leyen appeared at ease, smiling frequently even as she addressed persistent hecklers directly as “this shouting side of the house.” Yet the debate among leaders from the political groups that followed her speech could not have made her comfortable, revealing little change in the Parliament’s polarized dynamics. The EU’s strategic autonomy, said S&D leader Iratxe García, was buried “under a golf course,” a knock on the U.S. trade deal that shows the second-biggest group is still far from supporting the measure. As García and EPP boss Manfred Weber, von der Leyen’s top ally in Parliament, proceeded to trade blows, the leader of the centrist Renew group issued disgust. “Stability and understanding amongst pro-European forces in this chamber is absolutely vital,” Valérie Hayer told von der Leyen. “People are watching this at home, and they’re seeing a pathetic spectacle.” Max Griera and Gabriel Gavin contributed to this article from Strasbourg, Laura Kayali from Paris and Wojciech Kość from Warsaw. Gregorio Sorgi, Carlo Martuscelli, Hanne Cokelaere, Jordyn Dahl, Seb Starcevic and Aitor Hernández-Morales contributed from Brussels.

BRIGHTON — Two unions raised the prospect of breaking their financial ties to the Labour Party if the government were to water down its flagship employment rights legislation, three people with knowledge of a private meeting told POLITICO. The concern was raised at the general council of the Trades Union Congress Monday by officials from the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF), which between them donated £700,000 to Labour last year. CWU General Secretary Dave Ward told the meeting his union would come under serious pressure to disaffiliate from Labour if the party were to backslide on its employment rights pledges, one of the three people said. ASLEF Assistant General Secretary Simon Weller made broadly similar comments, another of the people told POLITICO. It comes after a third union, Unite, held an internal consultation about its continuing affiliation with the party. It could hold a vote of members on the issue at its next “rules conference,” scheduled for 2027. Unite is a major backer of Labour, donating £1.8 million to the party last year. Unions — which are holding their annual congress in Brighton — have voiced concern after Angela Rayner and Justin Madders, the two ministers who have overseen the government’s Employment Rights Bill, lost their jobs and were replaced last week. The bill pledges protection against unfair dismissal and a ban on “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, and is entering its final parliamentary stages. Downing Street moved to quash any suggestion of backsliding Monday. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said the government was “absolutely committed” to the bill, which would be “the biggest single upgrade of workers rights in a generation.”  Several union officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested their concerns revolved around the detail and timing of implementation, rather than whether the bill itself would be changed. Eleven unions remain affiliated to Labour. Their officials take part in the party’s internal democracy in exchange for hefty financial backing. One general secretary voiced doubt that either the CWU or ASLEF — whose members have voted to stay affiliated in the past — would disaffiliate, but said they believed “the genie is out of the bottle” with Unite. A second general secretary pointed out that union chiefs are trying to balance government relationships with anger from their left-wing members at what some see as an insufficiently radical government. “They’re really struggling to hold the line,” the general secretary added.

Cristian Gherasim is an analyst and journalist based in Romania. His work has appeared in outlets including CNN, Euronews and Balkan Insight. Over the last month, stickers bearing the blunt message “Russia is not my enemy” have appeared on shop windows, lampposts and traffic signs in cities across Romania, France and Italy — all part of Russia’s latest attempt to influence European public opinion. The information war is intensifying in Moldova too. Sandwiched between Ukraine and the EU, the country is set to hold a parliamentary election at the end of September, and just as it was with last year’s pro-EU referendum and presidential race, it has become a battleground for democracy once more. Only this time, Russia is seeking to intrude on the democratic process and erode trust in pro-EU leadership by using proxy associations headed by fugitive oligarchs Ilan Shor and Irina Vlah. Undeniably, what’s at stake in the upcoming vote is whether or not Moldova keeps to its European trajectory. So far, the Watchdog Moldova think tank has identified no fewer than 910 various social media accounts, all tasked with spreading Russian propaganda. YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Threads are rife with content attacking the EU and Moldova’s European integration process. Not to mention the genuine support that some Moldovans have for Russia — support that’s rooted in historic, linguistic, religious and economic ties. Last month, the country’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu similarly warned that Moscow is “orchestrating an unprecedented” campaign. Her center-right Party of Action and Solidarity pais currently leading the polls at 39 percent, with the pro-Russia Socialist party trailing at just under 15 percent. However, a sizable 30 percent of voters remain undecided — and those votes will determine whether Moldova leans West, toward the EU and democracy, or East, toward President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Remaining on the path to EU integration would drive economic development and signal to investors that the country can be trusted. Free trade and the free movement of goods, services and people would also increase job opportunities and economic growth, enticing many Moldovans to return home — over the last 30 years, the country lost about 1.5 million people out of a population of 4.3 million. Remaining on the path to EU integration would drive economic development and signal to investors that the country can be trusted. | Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images Additionally, EU membership could offer more leverage when tackling corruption. Moldova needs a drastic break with oligarchic practices — which the current government is moving to do. The likes of Shor and former Democratic Party Chairman Vladimir Plahotniuc have made oligarchic abuse infamous, after being charged in the disappearance of more than $1 billion — that’s 12.5 percent of Moldova’s GDP — from the country’s biggest banks. A destabilized Moldova, on the other hand, would wreak havoc on the wider region. The country carries significant strategic importance for the EU, and much like Ukraine, it is a buffer zone between NATO and Russia. Europe has another reason to care too: Without Moldova, the bloc would have an even bigger refugee problem. According to the U.N., since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country has received the most Ukrainian refugees in proportion to its own population. Plus, the EU’s border security would also benefit from closer ties with Moldova. According to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Romania’s border with Moldova is highly prized by smugglers — think tobacco and human trafficking. And with eastern member countries, including Romania, poised to raise taxes on tobacco, the incentive to smuggle cheaper, more harmful products is expected to jump. According to Stop Contrabanda, a website monitoring contraband cigarette busts, there’s significant money being lost to this illicit trade. A win for the pro-EU camp would assist Moldova in its struggle against Russian disinformation and help curb the Kremlin’s influence in the country. For a few years now, Moldova has been trying to overhaul its cyber defense system with assistance from the EU — an endeavor that Romania has been particularly supportive in given the close historic ties between both countries. Meanwhile, Denmark, which took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU this July, actively supports Moldova’s EU accession, and will be providing significant financial aid through the Copenhagen Pre-Accession Instrument. So, the ball is now in Moldova’s court — and the stakes couldn’t be higher. A pro-Russia vote would immediately halt the country’s EU ambitions. And as history has shown us time and again, once Russia grabs onto something, it rarely lets go.

The European Union’s economy would have looked far weaker after the pandemic without foreign workers, European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said Saturday, warning policymakers not to ignore migration’s role even as it fuels political tensions. Speaking at the U.S. Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Wyoming, Lagarde said an influx of foreign labor helped the eurozone absorb successive shocks like soaring energy costs and record inflation, while keeping growth and jobs intact. Employment in the bloc expanded by 4.1 percent between late 2021 and mid-2025, nearly matching gains in gross domestic product (GDP), she noted. “Although they represented only around 9 percent of the total labor force in 2022, foreign workers have accounted for half of its growth over the past three years,” Lagarde told the gathering of central bankers. Without that contribution, she added, “labor market conditions could be tighter and output lower.” Lagarde singled out Germany and Spain as examples. Germany’s GDP would be about 6 percent lower today without migrant labor, while Spain’s strong recovery also “owes much” to foreign workers, she said. Across the eurozone, employment has expanded by more than 4 percent since 2021, even as central bankers pushed through the steepest rate hikes in a generation. The ECB president argued that migration has played a crucial role in offsetting Europe’s shrinking birth rate and growing appetite for shorter working hours. That, she said, helped companies expand output and damped inflationary pressures even as wages lagged behind prices. But Lagarde also acknowledged the politics. Net immigration pushed the EU’s population to a record 450 million last year, even as governments from Berlin to Rome move to restrict new arrivals under pressure from voters flocking to far-right parties. “Migration could, in principle, play a crucial role in easing labor shortages as native populations age,” Lagarde said. “But political economy pressures may increasingly limit inflows.” She stressed that Europe’s labor market has emerged from recent shocks in “unexpectedly good shape.” But she cautioned against assuming that dynamic will last: demographic decline, political backlash and shifting worker preferences still threaten the eurozone’s resilience.