HELSINKI — The U.K. is ready to work with its European allies to intercept vessels in Russia’s “shadow fleet,” Britain’s chief foreign minister said Wednesday. A week after British armed forces supported the U.S. seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic, Yvette Cooper said Britain is prepared to work on enforcement with “other countries and other allies” against ships suspected of carrying sanctioned oil or damaging undersea infrastructure. Promising “stronger action” to break the shadow fleet’s “chokehold,” she added: “It means a more robust response, and it means as we see operations by shadow fleet vessels, standing ready to be able to act.” While the foreign secretary would not be drawn on the specific action the U.K. might take, her charged rhetoric appears to be laying the ground for future interventions that go beyond last week’s coordination with the Trump administration. Officials believe that the U.K. government has identified a legal basis for the military to board shadow fleet vessels in international shipping lanes, in certain cases. Cooper did not rule out the prospect of British forces boarding vessels, telling POLITICO: “It means looking at whatever is appropriate, depending on the circumstances that we face.” She also did not rule out using oil from seized vessels to fund the Ukrainian war effort — but cautioned that the prospect was of a different order to using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. That idea hit a wall in discussions between EU countries in December. The foreign secretary said: “As you know, we’ve had all sorts of discussions in the past about different Russian sovereign assets. That’s a different set of circumstances. So we take the approach that it always has to be done within an international legal framework and on a case-by-case basis.” Asked directly if she was talking about joint shadow fleet operations with European allies, Cooper said: “We stand ready to work with allies on stronger enforcement around the shadow fleet.” Cooper made her comments on Wednesday after a demonstration on board the Finnish Border Guard ship Turva. It took part in a Dec. 31 operation to seize a cargo ship sailing from Russia to Israel, which was accused of deliberately damaging a cable between Helsinki and Estonia. Finnish authorities demonstrated a mock operation similar to the one that seized the ship on New Year’s Eve. Cooper watched as five armed officers slid down a rope from a helicopter onto the deck and stormed the bridge, shouting: “Hands up.” The operation took around three minutes. Cooper said after the demonstration: “The reason for being here is to see the work that Finland has been doing around the shadow fleet, and to look at what the further potential is for us to work with allies to strengthen that enforcement work.” Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister, said the age of some Russian-linked tankers using northern shipping routes risks an ecologically disastrous oil spill. | Olivier Hoslet/EPA She name-checked work by France and Finland, while one U.K. official said she also intends to work with Norway. Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister, said the age of some Russian-linked tankers using northern shipping routes risks an ecologically disastrous oil spill. “These vessels, these tankers, are very old,” she told POLITICO. “They are not built [for] this kind of icy weather, and they are in very bad shape, so the environmental risk is huge.” Mikko Simola, the commander of the Gulf of Finland coastguard, said he has seen “a rapid change since early 2022” in the prevalence of malign activity, for which Moscow denies responsibility. Simola said he would let the courts decide who was culpable, but said it was “certainly very strange to believe that in a short period of time, many cable and gas pipe damages would happen by accident in the same area.”

President Donald Trump has set his sights on several targets in the Western Hemisphere beyond Venezuela — from Mexico with its drug cartels to the political cause célèbre of Cuba. But one place is oddly missing from Trump’s list: Nicaragua. This is a country led not by one, but two dictators. A place where the opposition has been exiled, imprisoned or otherwise stifled so much the word “totalitarian” comes to mind. A place the first Trump administration named alongside Cuba and Venezuela as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Yet it’s barely been mentioned by the second Trump administration. That could change any moment, of course, but right now Nicaragua is in an enviable position in the region. That got me wondering: What is the regime in Managua doing right to avoid Trump’s wrath? What does it have that others don’t? Or, maybe, what does it not have? And what does Nicaragua’s absence from the conversation say about Trump’s bigger motives? Current and former government officials and activists gave me a range of explanations, including that the regime is making smart moves on battling drug trafficking, that it’s benefiting from a lack of natural resources for Trump to covet and that it doesn’t have a slew of migrants in the U.S. Taken together, their answers offer one of the strongest arguments yet that Trump’s actions in the Western Hemisphere or beyond are rarely about helping oppressed people and more about U.S. material interests. “The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue,” said Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to then-President Joe Biden. “For an administration that doesn’t care about democracy or human rights, that’s an effective survival strategy for authoritarians.” Some Nicaraguan opposition leaders say they remain optimistic, and I can’t blame them. Trump is rarely consistent about anything. He’s threatening to bomb Iran right now because, he says, he stands with protesters fighting an unjust regime (albeit one with oil). So maybe he might direct some fury toward Nicaragua? “The fact that Nicaragua is not at the center of the current conversation doesn’t mean that Nicaragua is irrelevant,” Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan politician in exile, told me. “It means that the geopolitical interests of the U.S. right now are at a different place.” Nicaragua is run by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a husband and wife who take the term “power couple” somewhat literally. They are now co-presidents of the Central American nation of 7 million. Over the years, they’ve rigged elections, wrested control over other branches of the government and crushed the opposition, while apparently grooming their children to succeed them. It has been a strange and circular journey for a pair of one-time Sandinista revolutionaries who previously fought to bring down a dynastic dictatorship. Hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have fled the impoverished country, some to the United States. Meanwhile, the regime has enhanced ties to Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries, while having rocky relations with Washington. Nicaragua is part of a free trade agreement with Washington, but it has also faced U.S. sanctions, tariffs and other penalties for oppressing its people, eroding democracy and having ties to Russia. Even the current Trump administration has used such measures against it, but the regime hasn’t buckled. Nicaraguan officials I reached out to didn’t respond with a comment. Several factors appear to make Nicaragua a lower priority for Trump. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua isn’t a major source of oil, the natural resource Trump covets most. It has gold, but not enough of that or other minerals to truly stand out. (Although yes, I know, Trump loves gold.) It’s also not a major source of migrants to the U.S. Besides, Trump has largely shut down the border. Unlike Panama, another country Trump has previously threatened, it doesn’t have a canal key to global commerce, although there’s occasional talk of building one. Nicaragua may be placating the president and his team by taking moves to curb drug trafficking. At least, that’s what a White House official told me when I sought comment from the administration on why Nicaragua has not been a focus. “Nicaragua is cooperating with us to stop drug trafficking and fight criminal elements in their territory,” the official said. I granted the White House official anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security issue. It’s difficult to establish how this cooperation is happening, and the White House official didn’t offer details. In fact, there were reports last year of tensions between the two countries over the issue. A federal report in March said the U.S. “will terminate its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operations in Nicaragua in 2025, partly due to the lack of cooperation from Nicaragua’s agencies.” The DEA didn’t reply when I asked if it had followed up with that plan, but it’s possible the regime has become more helpful recently. The U.S. and Nicaragua’s cooperation on drugs has waxed and waned over the years. In any case, although drug runners use Nicaraguan territory, it’s not a major cartel hub compared to some other countries facing Trump’s ire, such as Mexico. Some Nicaraguan opposition activists have been hoping that U.S. legal moves against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would expose narcotrafficking links between Managua and Caracas, providing a reason for the U.S. to come down harder on the regime. They’ve pointed to a 2020 U.S. criminal indictment of Maduro that mentioned Nicaragua. But the latest indictment, unveiled upon Maduro’s Jan. 3 capture, doesn’t mention Nicaragua. When I asked the White House official why the newer indictment doesn’t mention Nicaragua, the person merely insisted that “both indictments are valid.” A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment. Nicaraguan opposition leaders say that although the new indictment doesn’t mention the country, they still hope it will come up during Maduro’s trial. My sense, though, is that Ortega and Murillo are cooperating just enough with the U.S. that the administration is willing to go easy on them for now. It probably also doesn’t hurt that, despite railing frequently against Washington, Ortega and Murillo don’t openly antagonize Trump himself. They may have learned a lesson from watching how hard Trump has come down on Colombia’s president for taunting him. Another reason Nicaragua isn’t getting much Trump attention? It is not a domestic political flashpoint in the U.S. Not, for example, the way Cuba has been for decades. The Cuban American community can move far more votes than the Nicaraguan American one. Plus, none of the aides closest to Trump are known to be too obsessed with Nicaragua. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long denounced the Nicaraguan regime, but he’s of Cuban descent and more focused on that island’s fate. Cuba’s regime also is more dependent on Venezuela than Nicaragua’s, making it an easier target. Ortega and Murillo aren’t sucking up to Trump and striking deals with him like another area strongman, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. But, especially since the U.S. capture of Maduro, the pair seem bent on proving their anti-imperialist credentials without angering Trump. The results can be head-scratching. For example, in recent days, the regime is reported to have detained around 60 people for celebrating Maduro’s capture. But around the same time, the regime also reportedly freed “tens” of prisoners, at least some of whom were critics of Ortega and Murillo. Those people were released after the U.S. embassy in the country called on Nicaragua to follow in Venezuela’s recent footsteps and release political prisoners. However, the regime is reported to have described the releases as a way to commemorate 19 years of its rule. Alex Gray, a former senior National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, argued that one reason the president and his current team should care more about Nicaragua is its ties to U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China — ties that could grow if the U.S. ignores the Latin American country. Russia in particular has a strong security relationship with the regime in Managua. China has significantly expanded its ties in recent years, though more in the economic space. Iran also has warm relations with Managua. Nicaragua is the “poster child” for what Trump’s own National Security Strategy called the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which warns the U.S. will deny its adversaries the ability to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, Gray said. The White House official said the administration is “very closely” monitoring Nicaragua’s cooperation with U.S. rivals. But even that may not be enough for Trump to prioritize Nicaragua. Regardless of what his National Security Strategy says, Trump has a mixed record of standing up to Russia and China, and Nicaragua’s cooperation with them may not be as worrisome as that of a more strategically important country. With Trump, who himself often acts authoritarian, many things must fall in place at the right moment for him to care or act, and Nicaraguan opposition activists haven’t solved that Rubik’s Cube. Many are operating in exile. (In 2023, Ortega and Murillo put 222 imprisoned opposition activists on a plane to the U.S., then stripped them of their Nicaraguan citizenship. Many are now effectively stateless but vulnerable to Trump’s immigration crackdown.) It’s not lost on these activists that Trump has left much of Maduro’s regime in place in Venezuela. It suggests Trump values stability over democracy, human rights or justice. Some hope Ortega and Murillo will be weakened by the fall of their friend, Maduro. The two surely noticed how little Russia, China and others did to help the former leader. Maybe Nicaragua’s co-dictators will ease up on internal repression as one reaction. “When you get this kind of pressure, there are things that get in motion,” said Juan Sebastian Chamorro, a Nicaraguan politician forced out of the country. “They are feeling the heat.”

LONDON — U.K. ministers are warning Elon Musk’s X it faces a ban if it doesn’t get its act together. But outlawing the social media platform is easier said than done. The U.K.’s communications regulator Ofcom on Monday launched a formal investigation into a deluge of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes produced by X’s AI chatbot Grok amid growing calls for action from U.K. politicians. It will determine whether the creation and distribution of deepfakes on the platform, which have targeted women and children, constitutes a breach of the company’s duties under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act (OSA).   U.K. ministers have repeatedly called for Ofcom, the regulator tasked with policing social media platforms, to take urgent action over the deepfakes. U.K. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall on Friday offered her “full support” to the U.K. regulator to block X from being accessed in the U.K., if it chooses to. “I would remind xAI that the Online Safety Act Includes the power to block services from being accessed in the U.K., if they refuse to comply with U.K. law. If Ofcom decide to use those powers they will have our full support,” she said in a statement. The suggestion has drawn Musk’s ire. The tech billionaire branded the British government “fascist” over the weekend, and accused it of “finding any excuse for censorship.”   With Ofcom testing its new regulatory powers against one of the most high-profile tech giants for the first time, it is hard to predict what happens next. NOT GOING NUCLEAR — FOR NOW   Ofcom has so far avoided its smash-glass option. Under the OSA it could seek a court order blocking “ancillary” services, like those those processing subscription payments on X’s behalf, and ask internet providers to block X from operating in the U.K.   Taking that route would mean bypassing a formal investigation, but that is generally considered a last resort according to Ofcom’s guidance. To do so, Ofcom would need to prove that risk of harm to U.K. users is particularly great.  Before launching its investigation Monday, the regulator made “urgent contact” with X on Jan. 5, giving the platform until last Friday to respond. Ofcom stressed the importance of “due process” and of ensuring its investigations are “legally robust and fairly decided.”   LIMITED REACH   The OSA only covers U.K. users. It’s a point ministers have been keen to stress amid concerns its interaction with the U.S. First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, could become a flashpoint in trade negotiations with Washington. It’s not enough for officials or ministers to believe X has failed to protect users generally.   The most egregious material might not even be on X. Child sexual abuse charity the Internet Watch Foundation said last week that its analysts had found what appeared to be Grok-produced Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on a dark web forum, rather than X itself — so it’s far from self-evident that Ofcom taking the nuclear option against X would ever have been legally justified.   X did not comment on Ofcom’s investigation when contacted by POLITICO, but referred back to a statement issued on Jan. 4 about the issue of deepfakes on the platform. “We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” the statement said. BIG TEST   The OSA came into force last summer, and until now Ofcom’s enforcement actions have focused on pornography site providers for not implementing age-checks.  Online safety campaigners have argued this indicates Ofcom is more interested in going after low-hanging fruit than challenging more powerful tech companies. “It has been striking to many that of the 40+ investigations it has launched so far, not one has been directed at large … services,” the online safety campaign group the Molly Rose Foundation said in September.   That means the X investigation is the OSA’s first big test, and it’s especially thorny because it involves an AI chatbot. The Science, Innovation and Technology committee wrote in a report published last summer that the legislation does not provide sufficient protections against generative AI, a point Technology Secretary Liz Kendall herself conceded in a recent evidence session.  POLITICAL RISKS  If Ofcom concludes X hasn’t broken the law there are likely to be calls from OSA critics, both inside and outside Parliament, to return to the drawing board. It would also put the government, which has promised to act if Ofcom doesn’t, in a tricky spot.  The PM’s spokesperson on Monday described child sexual abuse imagery as “the worst crimes imaginable.” Ofcom could also conclude X has broken the law, but decide against imposing sanctions, according to its enforcement guidance. The outcome of Ofcom’s investigation will be watched closely by the White House and is fraught with diplomatic peril for the U.K. government, which has already been criticized for implementing the new online safety law by Donald Trump and his allies. Foreign Secretary David Lammy raised the Grok issue with U.S. Vice President JD Vance last week, POLITICO reported.  But other Republicans are readying for a geopolitical fight: GOP Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the U.S. House foreign affairs committee, said she was drafting legislation to sanction the U.K. if X does get blocked. 

The first American pope is on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump. The latest fault line between the Vatican and the White House emerged on Sunday. Shortly after Trump suggested his administration could “run” Venezuela, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of the “country’s sovereignty.” For MAGA-aligned conservatives, this is now part of an unwelcome pattern. While Leo is less combative in tone toward Trump than his predecessor Francis, his priorities are rekindling familiar battles in the culture war with the U.S. administration on topics such as immigration and deportations, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change. As the leader of a global community of 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo has a rare position of influence to challenge Trump’s policies, and the U.S. president has to tread with uncustomary caution in confronting him. Trump traditionally relishes blasting his critics with invective but has been unusually restrained in response to Leo’s criticism, in part because he counts a large number of Catholics among his core electorate. “[Leo] is not looking for a fight like Francis, who sometimes enjoyed a fight,” said Chris White, author of “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.” “But while different in style, he is clearly a continuation of Francis in substance. Initially there was a wait-and-see approach, but for many MAGA Catholics, Leo challenges core beliefs.” In recent months, migration has become the main combat zone between the liberal pope and U.S. conservatives. Leo called on his senior clergy to speak out on the need to protect vulnerable migrants, and U.S. bishops denounced the “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” leveled at people targeted by Trump’s deportation policies. Leo later went public with an appeal that migrants in the U.S. be treated “humanely” and “with dignity.” Leo’s support emboldened Florida bishops to call for a Christmas reprieve from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. As if evidence were needed of America’s polarization on this topic, however, the Department of Homeland Security described their arrests as a “Christmas gift to Americans.” Leo also conspicuously removed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Trump’s preferred candidate for pope and a favorite on the conservative Fox News channel, from a key post as archbishop of New York, replacing him with a bishop known for pro-migrant views. This cuts to the heart of the moral dilemma for a divided U.S. Catholic community. For Trump, Catholics are hardly a sideshow as they constitute 22 percent of his electorate, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. While the pope appeals to liberal causes, however, many MAGA Catholics take a far stricter line on topics such as migration, sexuality and climate change. To his critics from the conservative Catholic MAGA camp, such as Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, the pope is anathema. U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of Venezuela’s “sovereignty.” | Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Last year the pope blessed a chunk of ice from Greenland and criticized political leaders who ignore climate change. He said supporters of the death penalty could not credibly claim to be pro-life, and argued that Christians and Muslims could be friends. He has also signaled a more tolerant posture toward LGBTQ+ Catholics, permitting an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage to St Peter’s Basilica. Small wonder, then, that Trump confidante and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer branded Leo the “woke Marxist pope.” Trump-aligned Catholic conservatives have denounced him as “secularist,” “globalist” and even “apostate.” Far-right pundit Jack Posobiec has called him “anti-Trump.” “Some popes are a blessing. Some popes are a penance,” Posobiec wrote on X. PONTIFF FROM CHICAGO There were early hopes that Leo might build bridges with U.S. hardliners. He’s an American, after all: He wears an Apple watch and follows baseball, and American Catholics can hardly dismiss him as as foreign. The Argentine Francis, by contrast, was often portrayed by critics as anti-American and shaped by the politics of poorer nations. Leo can’t be waved away so easily. Early in his papacy, Leo also showed signs he was keen to steady the church after years of internal conflict, and threw some bones to conservatives such as allowing a Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and wearing more ornate papal vestments. But the traditionalists were not reassured. Benjamin Harnwell, the Vatican correspondent for the MAGA-aligned War Room podcast, said conservatives were immediately skeptical of Leo. “From day one, we have been telling our base to be wary: Do not be deceived,” he said. Leo, Harnwell added, is “fully signed up to Francis’ agenda … but [is] more strategic and intelligent.” After the conclave that appointed Leo, former Trump strategist Bannon told POLITICO that Leo’s election was “the worst choice for MAGA Catholics” and “an anti-Trump vote by the globalists of the Curia.” Trump had a long-running feud with Francis, who condemned the U.S. president’s border wall and criticized his migration policies. Francis appeared to enjoy that sparring, but Leo is a very different character. More retiring by nature, he shies away from confrontation. But his resolve in defending what he sees as non-negotiable moral principles, particularly the protection of the weak, is increasingly colliding with the core assumptions of Trumpism. Trump loomed large during the conclave, with an AI-generated video depicting himself as pope. The gesture was seen by some Vatican insiders as a “mafia-style” warning to elect someone who would not criticize him, Vatican-watcher Elisabetta Piqué wrote in a new book “The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis.” NOT PERSONAL Leo was not chosen expressly as an anti-Trump figure, according to a Vatican official. Rather, his nationality was likely seen by some cardinals as “reassuring,” suggesting he would be accountable and transparent in governance and finances. But while Leo does not seem to be actively seeking a confrontation with Trump, the world views of the two men seem incompatible. “He will avoid personalizing,” said the same Vatican official. “He will state church teaching, not in reaction to Trump, but as things he would say anyway.” Despite the attacks on Leo from his allies, Trump himself has also appeared wary of a direct showdown. When asked about the pope in a POLITICO interview, Trump was more keen to discuss meeting the pontiff’s brother in Florida, whom he described as “serious MAGA.” When pressed on whether he would meet the pope himself, he finally replied: “Sure, I will. Why not?” The potential for conflict will come into sharper focus as Leo hosts a summit called an extraordinary consistory this week, the first of its kind since 2014, which is expected to provide a blueprint for the future direction of the church. His first publication on social issues, such as inequality and migration, is also expected in the next few months. “He will use [the summit] to talk about what he sees as the future,” said a diplomat posted to the Vatican. “It will give his collaborators a sense of where he is going. He could use it as a sounding board, or ask them to suggest solutions.” It’s safe to assume Leo won’t be unveiling a MAGA-aligned agenda. The ultimate balance of power may also favor the pope. Trump must contend with elections and political clocks; Leo, elected for life, does not. At 70, and as a tennis player in good health, Leo appears positioned to shape Catholic politics well after Trump’s moment has passed. “He is not in a hurry,” the Vatican official said. “Time is on his side.”

BRUSSELS — The fight between Brussels and Washington over tech rules is officially high politics — and shows no sign of stopping in 2026.  Last week the United States sanctioned a former top European Commission official, alleging he was a “mastermind” of the bloc’s content moderation law. The travel ban was a sign the Trump administration is ramping up its attacks on what it calls Europe’s censorship regime.  The pressure puts Brussels between a rock and a hard place.  EU leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and European Parliament lawmakers dismissed the U.S. move as intimidation and even suggested considering counteraction, ramping up calls for Brussels to hold its ground and reduce the EU’s reliance on U.S. technology.  It suggests that U.S. pressure on the EU’s tech rules is now a full-blown transatlantic dispute of its own, rather than just a sideshow to trade talks, and requires an appropriate response. “The real response must be political,” said Italian Social Democrat lawmaker Brando Benifei, the European Parliament’s lead on relations with the U.S., in response to the American sanctions.  “Our sleepwalking leaders must wake up, because there’s no time left.” While the Commission condemned the U.S. move, its President Ursula von der Leyen offered a muted response, highlighting only the importance of freedom of speech in a post on X. ONLY THE START The U.S. move to impose a travel ban on Frenchman Thierry Breton, who served as the EU’s internal market chief from 2019 to 2024 and led the drafting of the Digital Services Act, marked an acceleration in the U.S. campaign against the EU’s tech rules.  Breton has borne the brunt of criticism over the EU’s tech rules, particularly following his public spat with U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-time ally, X owner Elon Musk. The tech billionaire appears to be back in the president’s good books after a bitter falling-out over the summer. A letter Breton sent in August 2024 to warn Musk ahead of an upcoming livestream featuring then-presidential candidate Trump was repeatedly shared by Trump loyalists after Breton was sanctioned.  Another four individuals were sanctioned, including two from German NGO HateAid, which Berlin’s regulators have said is a “trusted” organization to flag illegal content like hate speech.   The U.S. had previously mainly threatened the EU over its tech rules, or invoked them when the EU demanded concessions from Washington such as lower steel and aluminum tariffs in early December. But after the Commission crossed the Rubicon in early December and imposed its first-ever Digital Services Act fine on Musk’s X, Washington responded with the travel bans.  The EU executive has repeatedly said its enforcement of the DSA is not political, yet Washington insists it is nothing but.  Threats of travel restrictions from the U.S. have been trickling in since the summer, but the Commission has declined to say how it plans to protect its officials.  Both sides still have room — and face internal calls to escalate — in what is now a full-blown transatlantic dispute over the limits of free speech.  Just earlier this month, when the U.S. announced its intention to require social media disclosures from people hoping to enter the country on temporary visas, Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho insisted these were only plans and declined to comment on how it would protect its staff working on the DSA.  Pressured by journalists about the impact on staff working on digital rules, she said tech spokesperson Thomas Regnier had no plans to visit the U.S.  Still, the sanctions announced by the State Department may be only a warning shot.  The measures announced last week targeted a former Commission official, not someone currently in office. The U.S. still has many other tools in its arsenal, which U.S. politicians say it should use.  Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt called for the use of Magnitsky sanctions, which are financial measures that can cause significant operational headaches including asset freezes and barring U.S. entities from trading with sanctioned entities.  While they are normally reserved for serious human rights violations like war crimes or the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Trump administration has already used them to go after another person deemed to be a modern agent of censorship.  In July, the Treasury and State departments announced Magnitsky sanctions against Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes, including for suppressing “speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution.”  De Moraes has drawn the same criticism as EU officials from the Trump administration and its allies, including Musk.  COUNTERACTION The Commission also faces heat from the other side, with EU country leaders and European Parliament lawmakers demanding a more political response to the situation.  The EU’s tech rules have been a regular topic of debate at the Parliament’s plenary sessions, and several lawmakers have indicated the U.S. travel restrictions could be on the agenda for the January session.  German Greens lawmaker Sergey Lagodinsky said the EU should not rule out considering some sort of counteraction.  “Europe must respond. It must raise pressure in the trade talks and consider measures against senior tech executives who actively support the U.S. administration agenda,” he said in a statement shared with POLITICO.  Breton himself accused the EU institutions of being “very weak” in an interview with TF1. Just before the break, in a rare joint address, MEPs from four political groups called for stronger action against U.S. Big Tech companies.  “The small fine against X is a good beginning, but it comes definitely too late, and it’s absolutely not enough,” said German Greens MEP Alexandra Geese. The socialists have tried to kick off a special inquiry committee to figure out if the Commission is strong enough in enforcing the DSA, although support from other groups is lacking.  The Commission has yet to announce its decisions on the meatier part of its DSA probe into X and other platforms.  Others see the U.S. sanctions as another warning to reduce reliance on U.S. technology and build up the EU’s own technological capacity.  “Lovely, but not enough,” Aurore Lalucq, a French MEP and chair of the economic affairs committee, quipped in response to the Commission’s condemnation of the U.S. sanctions.  “We need to build our independence now. It starts with our payment systems, a sovereign cloud, and an industrial policy for digital infrastructure and social networks.”

The Trump administration is lashing out at foreign laws aimed at clamping down on online platforms that have gained outsized influence on people’s attention — while trying to avoid launching new trade wars that could threaten the U.S. economy. Over the past month, U.S. officials have paused talks on a tech pact with the United Kingdom, canceled a trade meeting with South Korean officials and issued veiled threats at European companies over policies they believe unfairly penalize U.S. tech giants. Several tech policy professionals and people close to the White House say the recent actions amount to a “negotiating tactic,” in the words of one former U.S. trade official. As talks continue with London, Brussels and Seoul, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is pressing partners to roll back digital taxes on large online platforms and rules aimed at boosting online privacy protections — measures U.S. officials argue disproportionately target America’s tech behemoths. “It’s telegraphing that we’ve looked at this deeply, we think there’s a problem, we’re looking at tools to address it and we’re looking at remedies if we don’t come to an agreement,” said Everett Eissenstat, who served as the director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s first term. “It’s not an unprecedented move, but naming companies like that and telegraphing that we have targets, we have tools, is definitely meaningful.” But so far, the administration has shied away from new tariffs or other aggressive actions that could upend tentative trade agreements or upset financial markets. And the new tough talk may not be enough to placate some American tech companies, who are pressing for action. One possible action, floated by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, would be launching investigations into unfair digital trade practices, which would allow the administration to take action against countries that impose digital regulations on U.S. companies. “I would just say that’s the next level of escalation. I think that’s what people are waiting for and looking for,” said a representative from a major tech company, granted anonymity to speak candidly and discuss industry expectations. “What folks are looking for is like action over the tweets, which, we love the tweets. Everyone loves the tweets.” Trump used similar investigations to justify raising tariffs on hundreds of Chinese imports in his first term. But those investigations take time, and it can be years before any increases would go into effect. Greer has also been careful to hedge threats of new trade probes, stressing they are not meant to spiral into a broader conflict. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week, he floated launching a trade investigation into the EU’s digital policies, but said the goal would be a “negotiated outcome,” not an automatic path to higher tariffs. “I don’t think we’re in a world where we want to have some renewed trade fight or something with the EU — that’s not what we’re talking about,” Greer said. “We want to finish off our deal and implement it,” he continued, referring to the trade pact the partners struck over the summer. Greer also raised the prospect of a trade probe in private talks with South Korea earlier this fall, saying the U.S. might have to resort to such action if the country continues to pursue legislation the administration views as harmful to U.S. tech firms. But a White House official clarified that the U.S. was not yet considering such a “heavy-handed approach.” Even industry officials aren’t certain how aggressive they want the Trump administration to be, acknowledging that if the U.S. escalated its fight with the EU over their tech regulations, it could spark a digital trade war that would ultimately end up harming all of the companies involved, according to a former USTR official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. President Donald Trump has long criticized the tech regulations — pioneered by the European Union and now proliferating around the globe. But he’s made the issue a much more central part of his second-term trade agenda, with mixed results. While Trump’s threat to cut off trade talks with Canada got Prime Minister Mark Carney to rescind their three percent tax on revenue earned by large online platforms, his administration has struggled to make headway with the EU, UK and South Korea in the broader trade negotiations over tariffs. The tentative trade deal the administration reached with the EU over the summer included a commitment from the bloc to address “unjustified digital trade barriers” and a pledge not to impose network usage fees, but left the scope and direction of future discussions largely undefined. The agreement fleshed out with South Korea this fall appeared to go even further, spelling out commitments that regulations governing online platforms and cross-border data flows won’t disadvantage American companies. But none of those governments have so far caved to U.S. pressure to abandon their digital regulations entirely, and the canceled talks and threatening social media posts are a sign of Trump’s growing frustration. “You won’t be surprised to know that what we think is fair treatment and what they think is fair treatment is quite different and I’ve been quite frankly disappointed over the past few months to see zero moderation by the EU,” Greer said Dec. 10 at an event at the Atlantic Council. Last week, Greer’s office amped up the rhetoric further, threatening to take action against major European companies like Spotify, German automation company Siemens and Mistral AI, the French artificial intelligence firm, if the EU doesn’t back off enforcement of its digital rules. The threat came a week after the EU fined X, the company formerly known as Twitter, $140 million for failing to meet EU transparency rules. Greer’s office also canceled a meeting planned for last Thursday with South Korean officials, as South Korean lawmakers introduced new digital legislation and held an explosive hearing on a data breach at Coupang, an American-headquartered e-commerce company whose largest market is in South Korea. The South Korean Embassy denied any relationship between the Coupang hearing and the cancellation of the recent meeting. “Neither Coupang’s data breach, the subsequent investigation by the Korean government, nor the National Assembly’s hearing played a role in the scheduling of the KORUS Joint Committee,” said an embassy official. The canceled meetings and frozen talks are significant — delaying implementation of bare bones trade agreements and investment pledges inked in recent months. But the Trump administration has shown little interest in blowing up the deals its reached and reapplying the steep tariffs it threatened over the summer, which could trigger significant retaliation and, as concerns about affordability and inflation continue to simmer in the U.S., prove politically dicey. Launching trade investigations at USTR or fining specific foreign companies could be a less inflammatory move. “What is happening is that these issues are starting to come to a head,” said Dirk Auer, a Director of Competition Policy International Center for Law & Economics, who focuses on antitrust issues and recently testified before Congress on digital services laws. “At some point the administration has to put up or shut up. They need to put their money where their mouth is. And I think that’s what’s happening right now.” Gabby Miller contributed to this report.

LONDON — Standing in Imperial College London’s South Kensington Campus in September, Britain’s trade chief Peter Kyle insisted that a tech pact the U.K. had just signed with the U.S. wouldn’t hamper his country’s ability to make its own laws on artificial intelligence.   He had just spoken at an intimate event to celebrate what was meant to be a new frontier for the “special relationship” — a U.K.-U.S. Technology Prosperity Deal.  Industry representatives were skeptical, warning at the time the U.S. deal would make the path to a British AI bill, which ministers had been promising for months, more difficult.   This month U.K. Tech Secretary Liz Kendall confirmed ministers are no longer looking at a “big, all-encompassing bill” on AI.   But Britain’s shift away from warning the world about runaway AI to ditching its own attempts to legislate frontier models, such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, go back much further than that September morning.   GEAR CHANGE In opposition Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised  “stronger” AI regulation. His center-left Labour Party committed to “binding regulation” on frontier AI companies in its manifesto for government in 2024, and soon after it won a landslide election that summer it set out plans for AI legislation.   But by the fall of 2024 the view inside the U.K. government was changing. Kyle, then tech secretary, had asked tech investor Matt Clifford to write an “AI Opportunities Action Plan” which Starmer endorsed. It warned against copying “more regulated jurisdictions” and argued the U.K. should keep its current approach of letting individual regulators monitor AI in their sectors.  In October 2024 Starmer described AI as the “opportunity of this generation.” AI shifted from a threat to be legislated to an answer to Britain’s woes of low productivity, crumbling public services and sluggish economic growth. Labour had came to power that July promising to fix all three.   A dinner that month with Demis Hassabis, chief executive and co-founder of Google DeepMind, reportedly opened Starmer’s eyes to the opportunities of AI. Hassabis was coy on the meeting when asked by POLITICO, but Starmer got Hassabis back the following month to speak to his cabinet — a weekly meeting of senior ministers — about how AI could transform public services. That has been the government’s hope ever since. In an interview with The Economist this month Starmer spoke about AI as a binary choice between regulation and innovation. “I think with AI you either lean in and see it as a great opportunity, or you lean out and think, ‘Well, how do we guard ourselves against the risk?’ I lean in,” he said.  ENTER TRUMP The evolution of Starmer’s own views in the fall of 2024 coincided with the second coming of Donald Trump to the White House. In a letter to the U.S. attorney general the month Trump was elected influential Republican senator Ted Cruz accused the U.K.’s AI Security Institute of hobbling America’s efforts to beat China in the race to powerful AI. The White House’s new occupants saw AI as a generational competition between America and China. Any attempt by foreign regulators to hamper its development was seen as a threat to U.S. national security. It appeared Labour’s original plan, to force largely U.S. tech companies to open their models to government testing pre-release, would not go down well with Britain’s biggest ally. Instead, U.K. officials adapted to the new world order. In Paris in February 2025, at an international AI Summit series which the U.K. had set up in 2023 to keep existential AI risks at bay, the country joined the U.S. in refusing to sign an international AI declaration.  The White House went on to attack international AI governance efforts, with its director of tech policy Michael Kratsios telling the U.N. that the U.S. wanted its AI technology to become the “global gold standard” with allies building their own AI tech on top of it.  In opposition Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised  “stronger” AI regulation. | Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images The U.K. was the first country to sign up, agreeing the Technology Prosperity Deal with the U.S. that September. At the signing ceremony, Trump couldn’t have been clearer. “We’re going to have a lot of deregulation and a tremendous amount of innovation,” he told a group of hand-picked business leaders.   The deal, which was light on detail, was put on ice in early December as the U.S. used it to try to extract more trade concessions from the Brits. Kratsios, one of the architects of that tech pact, said work on it would resume once the U.K. had made “substantial” progress in other areas of trade.   DIFFICULT HOME LIFE While Starmer’s overtures to the U.S. have made plans for an AI bill more difficult, U.K. lawmakers have further complicated any attempt to introduce legislation. A group of powerful “tech peers” in the House of Lords have vowed to hijack any tech-related bill and use it to force the government to make concessions in other areas they have concerns about like AI and copyright, just as they did this summer over the Data Use and Access Bill. Senior civil servants have also warned ministers a standalone AI bill could become messy “Christmas Tree” bill, adorned with unrelated amendments, according to two officials granted anonymity to speak freely.   The government’s intention is to instead break any AI-related legislation up into smaller chunks. Nudification apps, for example, will be banned as part of the government’s new Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, AI chatbots are being looked at through a review of the Online Safety Act, while there will also need to be legislation for AI Growth Labs — testbeds where companies can experiment with their products before going to market.   Asked about an AI bill by MPs on Dec. 3, Kendall said: “There are measures we will need to take to make sure we get the most on growth and deal with regulatory issues. If there are measures we need to do to protect kids online, we will take those. I am thinking about it more in terms of specific areas where we may need to act rather than a big all-encompassing bill.” The team in Kendall’s department which looks at frontier AI regulation, meanwhile, has been reassigned, according to two people familiar with the team. Polling by the Ada Lovelace Institute shows Labour’s leadership is out of sync with public views on AI, with 9 in 10 wanting an independent AI regulator with enforcement powers.   “The public wants independent regulation,” said Ada Lovelace Director Gaia Marcus. “They prioritize fairness, positive social impacts and safety in trade-offs against economic gains, speed of innovation and international competition.”  A separate study by Focal Data found that framing AI as a geopolitical competition also doesn’t resonate with voters. “They don’t want to work more closely with the United States on shared digital and tech goals because of their distrust of its government,” the research found.  Political leadership must step in to bridge that gap, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair wrote in a report last month. “Technological competitiveness is not a priority for voters because European leaders have failed to connect it to what citizens care about: their security, their prosperity and their children’s futures,” he wrote.   For Starmer, who has struggled to connect with the voters, that will be a huge challenge.

Europe’s chemical industry has reached a breaking point. The warning lights are no longer blinking — they are blazing. Unless Europe changes course immediately, we risk watching an entire industrial backbone, with the countless jobs it supports, slowly hollow out before our eyes. Consider the energy situation: this year European gas prices have stood at 2.9 times higher than in the United States. What began as a temporary shock is now a structural disadvantage. High energy costs are becoming Europe’s new normal, with no sign of relief. This is not sustainable for an energy-intensive sector that competes globally every day. Without effective infrastructure and targeted energy-cost relief — including direct support, tax credits and compensation for indirect costs from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) — we are effectively asking European companies and their workers to compete with their hands tied behind their backs. > Unless Europe changes course immediately, we risk watching an entire > industrial backbone, with the countless jobs it supports, slowly hollow out > before our eyes. The impact is already visible. This year, EU27 chemical production fell by a further 2.5 percent, and the sector is now operating 9.5 percent below pre-crisis capacity. These are not just numbers, they are factories scaling down, investments postponed and skilled workers leaving sites. This is what industrial decline looks like in real time. We are losing track of the number of closures and job losses across Europe, and this is accelerating at an alarming pace. And the world is not standing still. In the first eight months of 2025, EU27 chemicals exports dropped by €3.5 billion, while imports rose by €3.2 billion. The volume trends mirror this: exports are down, imports are up. Our trade surplus shrank to €25 billion, losing €6.6 billion in just one year. Meanwhile, global distortions are intensifying. Imports, especially from China, continue to increase, and new tariff policies from the United States are likely to divert even more products toward Europe, while making EU exports less competitive. Yet again, in 2025, most EU trade defense cases involved chemical products. In this challenging environment, EU trade policy needs to step up: we need fast, decisive action against unfair practices to protect European production against international trade distortions. And we need more free trade agreements to access growth market and secure input materials. “Open but not naïve” must become more than a slogan. It must shape policy. > Our producers comply with the strictest safety and environmental standards in > the world. Yet resource-constrained authorities cannot ensure that imported > products meet those same standards. Europe is also struggling to enforce its own rules at the borders and online. Our producers comply with the strictest safety and environmental standards in the world. Yet resource-constrained authorities cannot ensure that imported products meet those same standards. This weak enforcement undermines competitiveness and safety, while allowing products that would fail EU scrutiny to enter the single market unchecked. If Europe wants global leadership on climate, biodiversity and international chemicals management, credibility starts at home. Regulatory uncertainty adds to the pressure. The Chemical Industry Action Plan recognizes what industry has long stressed: clarity, coherence and predictability are essential for investment. Clear, harmonized rules are not a luxury — they are prerequisites for maintaining any industrial presence in Europe. This is where REACH must be seen for what it is: the world’s most comprehensive piece of legislation governing chemicals. Yet the real issues lie in implementation. We therefore call on policymakers to focus on smarter, more efficient implementation without reopening the legal text. Industry is facing too many headwinds already. Simplification can be achieved without weakening standards, but this requires a clear political choice. We call on European policymakers to restore the investment and profitability of our industry for Europe. Only then will the transition to climate neutrality, circularity, and safe and sustainable chemicals be possible, while keeping our industrial base in Europe. > Our industry is an enabler of the transition to a climate-neutral and circular > future, but we need support for technologies that will define that future. In this context, the ETS must urgently evolve. With enabling conditions still missing, like a market for low-carbon products, energy and carbon infrastructures, access to cost-competitive low-carbon energy sources, ETS costs risk incentivizing closures rather than investment in decarbonization. This may reduce emissions inside the EU, but it does not decarbonize European consumption because production shifts abroad. This is what is known as carbon leakage, and this is not how EU climate policy intends to reach climate neutrality. The system needs urgent repair to avoid serious consequences for Europe’s industrial fabric and strategic autonomy, with no climate benefit. These shortcomings must be addressed well before 2030, including a way to neutralize ETS costs while industry works toward decarbonization. Our industry is an enabler of the transition to a climate-neutral and circular future, but we need support for technologies that will define that future. Europe must ensure that chemical recycling, carbon capture and utilization, and bio-based feedstocks are not only invented here, but also fully scaled here. Complex permitting, fragmented rules and insufficient funding are slowing us down while other regions race ahead. Decarbonization cannot be built on imported technology — it must be built on a strong EU industrial presence. Critically, we must stimulate markets for sustainable products that come with an unavoidable ‘green premium’. If Europe wants low-carbon and circular materials, then fiscal, financial and regulatory policy recipes must support their uptake — with minimum recycled or bio-based content, new value chain mobilizing schemes and the right dose of ‘European preference’. If we create these markets but fail to ensure that European producers capture a fair share, we will simply create new opportunities for imports rather than European jobs. > If Europe wants a strong, innovative resilient chemical industry in 2030 and > beyond, the decisions must be made today. The window is closing fast. The Critical Chemicals Alliance offers a path forward. Its primary goal will be to tackle key issues facing the chemical sector, such as risks of closures and trade challenges, and to support modernization and investments in critical productions. It will ultimately enable the chemical industry to remain resilient in the face of geopolitical threats, reinforcing Europe’s strategic autonomy. But let us be honest: time is no longer on our side. Europe’s chemical industry is the foundation of countless supply chains — from clean energy to semiconductors, from health to mobility. If we allow this foundation to erode, every other strategic ambition becomes more fragile. If you weren’t already alarmed — you should be. This is a wake-up call. Not for tomorrow, for now. Energy support, enforceable rules, smart regulation, strategic trade policies and demand-driven sustainability are not optional. They are the conditions for survival. If Europe wants a strong, innovative resilient chemical industry in 2030 and beyond, the decisions must be made today. The window is closing fast. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is CEFIC- The European Chemical Industry Council  * The ultimate controlling entity is CEFIC- The European Chemical Industry Council  More information here.

BRUSSELS — European banks and other finance firms should decrease their reliance on American tech companies for digital services, a top national supervisor has said. In an interview with POLITICO, Steven Maijoor, the Dutch central bank’s chair of supervision, said the “small number of suppliers” providing digital services to many European finance companies can pose a “concentration risk.” “If one of those suppliers is not able to supply, you can have major operational problems,” Maijoor said. The intervention comes as Europe’s politicians and industries grapple with the continent’s near-total dependence on U.S. technology for digital services ranging from cloud computing to software. The dominance of American companies has come into sharp focus following a decline in transatlantic relations under U.S. President Donald Trump. While the market for European tech services isn’t nearly as developed as in the U.S. — making it difficult for banks to switch — the continent “should start to try to develop this European environment” for financial stability and the sake of its economic success, Maijoor said. European banks being locked in to contracts with U.S. providers “will ultimately also affect their competitiveness,” Maijoor said. Dutch supervisors recently authored a report on the systemic risks posed by tech dependence in finance. Dutch lender Amsterdam Trade Bank collapsed in 2023 after its parent company was placed on the U.S. sanctions list and its American IT provider withdrew online data storage services, in one of the sharpest examples of the impact on companies that see their tech withdrawn. Similarly a 2024 outage of American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike highlighted the European finance sector’s vulnerabilities to operational risks from tech providers, the EU’s banking watchdog said in a post-mortem on the outage. In his intervention, Maijoor pointed to an EU law governing the operational reliability of banks — the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) — as one factor that may be worsening the problem. Those rules govern finance firms’ outsourcing of IT functions such as cloud provision, and designate a list of “critical” tech service providers subject to extra oversight, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Oracle. DORA, and other EU financial regulation, may be “inadvertently nudging financial institutions towards the largest digital service suppliers,” which wouldn’t be European, Maijoor said. “If you simply look at quality, reliability, security … there’s a very big chance that you will end up with the largest digital service suppliers from outside Europe,” he said. The bloc could reassess the regulatory approach to beat the risks, Maijoor said. “DORA currently is an oversight approach, which is not as strong in terms of requirements and enforcement options as regular supervision,” he said. The Dutch supervisors are pushing for changes, writing that they are examining whether financial regulation and supervision in the EU creates barriers to choosing European IT providers, and that identified issues “may prompt policy initiatives in the European context.” They are asking EU governments and supervisors “to evaluate whether DORA sufficiently enhances resilience to geopolitical risks and, if not, to consider issuing further guidance,” adding they “see opportunities to strengthen DORA as needed,” including through more enforcement and more explicit requirements around managing geopolitical risks. Europe could also set up a cloud watchdog across industries to mitigate the risks of dependence on U.S. tech service providers, which are “also very important for other parts of the economy like energy and telecoms,” Maijoor said. “Wouldn’t there be a case for supervision more generally of these hyperscalers, cloud service providers, as they are so important for major parts of the economy?” The European Commission declined to respond.

Europe’s far-right firebrands are rushing to hitch their fortunes to Washington’s new crusade against Brussels. Senior U.S. government officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have launched a raft of criticism against what they call EU “censorship” and an “attack” of U.S. tech companies following a €120 million fine from the European Commission on social media platform X. The fine is for breaching EU transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act, the bloc’s content moderation rule book. “The Commission’s attack on X says it all,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on X on Saturday. “When the Brusselian overlords cannot win the debate, they reach for the fines. Europe needs free speech, not unelected bureaucrats deciding what we can read or say,” he said. “Hats off to Elon Musk for holding the line,” Orbán added. Tech mogul Musk said his response to the penalty would target the EU officials who imposed it.  “The European Commission appreciates censorship & chat control of its citizens. They want to silence critical voices by restricting freedom of speech,” echoed far-right Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel. Three right-wing to far-right parties in the EU are pushing to stop and backtrack the integration process of European countries — the European Conservatives and Reformists, the Patriots for Europe, and the Europe of Sovereign Nations. Together they hold 191 out of 720 seats in the European Parliament. The parties’ lawmakers are calling for a range of proposals — from shifting competences from the European to the national level, to dismantling the EU altogether. They defend the primacy of national interests over common European cooperation. Since Donald Trump’s reelection, they have portrayed themselves as the key transatlantic link, mirroring the U.S. president’s political campaigning in Europe, such as pushing for a “Make Europe Great Again” movement. The fresh U.S. criticism of EU institutions has come in handy to amplify their political agendas. “Patriots for Europe will fight to dismantle this censorship regime,” the party said on X. The ECR group — political home to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — issued a statement questioning the enforcement of the DSA following the U.S. criticism. “A digital law that lacks legal certainty risks becoming an instrument of political discretion,” ECR co-chairman Nicola Procaccini said on Saturday after the U.S. backlash. The group supported the DSA when it passed through the Parliament, having said in the past the law would “protect freedom of expression, increase trust in online services and contribute to an open digital economy in Europe.”