STRASBOURG — The European Parliament has voted today to set up an EU fund to expand access to abortion for women across the bloc, in a historic vote that divided lawmakers. The plan would establish a voluntary, opt-in financial mechanism to help countries provide abortion care to women who can’t access it in their own country and who choose to travel to one with more liberal laws. European citizens presented the plan in a petition — through the campaign group “My Voice, My Choice.” Lawmakers in Strasbourg voted 358 in favor and 202 against the proposal, and 79 MEPs abstained. The topic sparked animated discussions in the European Parliament plenary on Tuesday evening. MEPs with center-right and far-right groups tabled competing texts to the resolution put forward by Renew’s Abir Al-Sahlani on behalf of the women’s rights and gender equality committee. Supporters of the scheme argued it would help reduce unsafe abortions and ensure women across the bloc have equal rights; those who oppose it, mostly from conservative groups, dismissed it as an ideological push and EU overreach into national policy. Abortion laws vary greatly across the EU, from near-total bans in Poland and Malta to liberal rules in the Netherlands and the U.K. The fund could be a game changer for the thousands of European women who travel every year to another EU country to access abortion care. The European Commission now has until March 2026 to give a response. This story is being updated.

Sweden and Belgium want to discuss an EU limit on the number of children conceived from a single sperm donor — to prevent future generations from unwitting incest and psychological harms. Donor-conceived births are rising across Europe as fertility rates decline and assisted reproduction becomes more widely accessible — including for same-sex couples and single women. But with many countries struggling to recruit enough local donors, commercial cryobanks are increasingly shipping reproductive cells known as gametes — sperm or egg — across borders, sometimes from the same donor to multiple countries. Most EU countries have national limits on how many children can be conceived from one donor — ranging from one in Cyprus to 10 in France, Greece, Italy and Poland. However, there is no limit for cross-border donations, increasing the risk of potential health problems linked to a single donor, as well as a psychological impact on children who discover they have dozens or even hundreds of half-siblings.  Sweden, backed by Belgium, is raising the topic with EU ministers on Friday, with hopes of preventing future generations from dating half-siblings and reducing risk of heritable diseases. “This issue has been left unresolved for too long,” an official from Belgium ,granted anonymity to speak freely, told POLITICO, adding that an “international limit is a first step in the right direction.” A limit would prevent high numbers of children conceived from the same donor, reducing risks of hereditary diseases and half-siblings unknowingly getting together. “We don’t want genetic half siblings to … start families,” Carolina Östgren, research officer at the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics, told POLITICO.  Sweden’s ethics council started looking into the issue in 2023, following an article published in newspaper Dagens Nyheter, which reported that Swedish clinics are selling donated sperm abroad resulting in one donor potentially fathering more than 50 children. In Sweden, each donor can only provide donations to six couples. However, there are no restrictions on how many children a donor may father across different countries. And the clinics are using this to go beyond the national limits.  BOOMING BUSINESS, GROWING RISKS Some cryobanks — sperm and egg banks — set their own voluntary limit for the maximum families or children per donor. The fertility clinic in the Dagens Nyheter article had a voluntary cap of 25 families worldwide per donor; however, while the donors were informed about the exports, many recipient parents didn’t know their children could have up to 50 half-siblings. Most EU countries have national limits on how many children can be conceived from one donor. | Andreas Arnold/Picture Alliance via Getty Images A recent case —  a donor with a rare cancer-causing gene whose sperm was used to conceive at least 67 children, 10 of whom have since been diagnosed with cancer — “is another example of why we have to regulate this on an international level,” Östgren said.  A spokesperson for the European Sperm Bank, one of the bloc’s largest cryobanks providing sperm and egg donations to 80 countries, told POLITICO that donors go through extensive health checks and family history reviews. From a medical perspective, choosing a donor is generally safer than conceiving naturally, the spokesperson argued. However, those screenings would not have detected the cancer-causing TP53 gene mutation that was carried by the donor.  “You can never be 100% sure of detecting everything,” Peter Reeslev, head of Denmark-based Fertility Consultancy, which provides international advice to fertility clinics, said in a written response. “Centralised registry can support and limit donor number of offspring, but imagining no illnesses will occur among donor conceived children is naïve.” “We can’t do whole-genome sequencing for all sperm donors — I’m not arguing for that,” Edwige Kasper, a biologist at Rouen University Hospital in France, who presented the cancer-risk donor case at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Milan told The Guardian. “But this is the abnormal dissemination of genetic disease. Not every man has 75 children across Europe.” On average a European man has one to two children. But through donations, the number can rise as high as 550 children, as in the case of a Dutch sperm donor who has been banned from further donations. MIND THE CAP! Cryobanks warn that overly strict limits could reduce supply, which is already running short. The European Sperm Bank argued that only 3-5 percent of men who begin the selection process are approved, warning that if family limits are set too low this would drive up screening costs and wait times, potentially pricing out would-be parents. Cryobanks use one donor for conceiving as many children as possible, because the unit cost is lower, Östgren said. The European Sperm Bank caps the number of would-be parents that can use one donor at 75, allowing one donor to potentially father hundreds of children. Its price for a single-use sperm vial varies from around €700 to €1,100. But this bank also offers prospective parents the chance to opt for an exclusive donor — meaning no other families will ever receive their sperm. But it comes at a cost. Screening fees would be distributed across fewer families which would increase the price, the European Sperm Bank said in written response, without giving a value.  But that logic doesn’t fly with ethicists. “You cannot say that it’s cheaper, and that’s why we should do it,” Östgren said. “We must think of other factors than the business logic here.” The concerns also go beyond hereditary health risks and possible incest. Thanks to the rise of consumer DNA testing and social media, donor-conceived individuals are now discovering dozens — sometimes hundreds — of genetic half-siblings worldwide.  “The psychological impact of discovering that you have dozens of half-brothers and sisters in Europe or even the wider world carries a huge impact,” the Belgian official said. “The world is getting smaller and smaller. People look for each other, find each other faster.” Fertility consultant Reeslev agreed that “due to changes in communicational platforms and transparency e.g. DNA testing, the time has come for a sperm donor limit on a European level.” In some countries, the donor’s identity is kept secret unless the child experiences severe health conditions. Other countries allow donor-conceived children to know who the donor is from a certain age, ranging from 15 to 18 years. Some, such as Denmark, allow the donor to choose whether to be anonymous or open.  Belgium wants to erase the anonymity option. “We also advocate (for) a European central donor register and support the removal of anonymity,” the official said. “This is about the right of the child to know their parentage.” THE CASE FOR EU ACTION To raise attention of the issues in March this year Sweden, together with ethics councils from Norway, Finland and Denmark, published a joint report, calling for the EU discuss issues around international donations.  Donor-conceived births are rising across Europe as fertility rates decline and assisted reproduction becomes more widely accessible. | Lee Sanders/EPA Their call has been heard.  “We’re really happy that they are taking this seriously and discussing it on the broader level, on the European level,” Östgren said.  The European Sperm Bank is also hoping the ministerial discussion will lead to a harmonized cap on the number of families per donor and the establishment of a central EU donor registry to ensure long-term traceability and secure access to vital donor information.  That’s because the EU’s new regulation on substances of human origin, which will apply from 2027, while a step toward harmonizing currently widely varying rules and standards, doesn’t introduce a bloc-wide family limit and central donor registry. In the meantime Östgren believes an EU decision would be a first step toward worldwide guidance. “Sperm is exported … in the whole world,” Östgren said.

LONDON — U.K. MPs just liberalized a 164-year-old abortion law with typical British understatement. Now, to hope that Donald Trump’s America doesn’t notice. The House of Commons voted 379-137 Tuesday night to remove criminal sanctions for women having their own abortion in England and Wales, partially unpicking a law passed in 1861. It was a moment in history, but backers who took pains to paint it as a narrow, common-sense reform largely achieved their goal. A young, socially liberal crop of MPs supported it overwhelmingly, and more far-reaching proposed changes did not come to a vote.  While MPs were inundated with lobbying and exchanged heated debate, the reform was passed via a simple amendment to a wider bill. The volume of controversy and front pages did not reach the level of another ongoing issue of conscience, assisted dying. The basic principle of abortion access appears largely settled; fewer than 100 MPs sat through the two-hour debate. “I think there is something pretty inherently British about going ‘well, I might disagree, but it’s not really my business, is it?’,” argued Rachael Clarke, head of advocacy at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a large-scale abortion provider that campaigns for abortion rights. The U.S. is not the same. With individual states refereeing abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade three years ago, public debate is fractious — and pro-abortion rights campaigners believe that could spill over into the U.K. In February, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance attacked “safe zones” that prevent protests near abortion clinics in England and Wales, saying: “basic liberties of religious Britons” were under threat. Nigel Farage, whose populist party Reform U.K. is leading opinion polls, said last month: “I am pro-choice, but I think it’s ludicrous … that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks.” One Labour Party staff member, granted anonymity to speak frankly, argued Tuesday’s reform could open “a bag of worms” and lead to a “spectacular own goal” for pro-abortion rights campaigners in the long term. They added: “Many perfectly decent people question whether it is right to end a pregnancy as late as 24 weeks — far later than permitted in most Western countries — yet these MPs choose to offer early Christmas presents to Reform by laying radical amendments that will reopen the abortion debate at a particularly dangerous time.” AN ABORTION LAW IN PLACE SINCE 1861 While abortion has been legal in Britain since 1967, it remained a crime since 1861 for a woman to “procure her own miscarriage” if certain conditions, including a maximum 24-week time limit, were not met. That — and a loosening of restrictions on at-home abortion pills during the COVID-19 pandemic — led to high-profile cases of vulnerable women being dragged through the courts.  Nicola Packer, 45, was cleared of having an illegal abortion last month after she took abortion pills during lockdown in 2020, unaware she was already 26 weeks pregnant. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi told MPs Packer was “taken from her hospital bed” by police to face the “indignity” of a four-and-a-half-year legal process. “This is not justice, this is cruelty, and it has got to end,” she said. Antoniazzi’s amendment was therefore aimed at women using at-home abortion pills, as criminal sanctions will still apply to medical professionals. But a letter by more than 1,000 medical professionals, arranged by the anti-abortion campaign group Right to Life, argued it would make dangerous late-term abortions “possible up to birth for any reason,” including choosing the child’s sex. Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald put it more bluntly in Tuesday’s debate — asking what would happen if a woman carrying a baby at full term “decides it is an inconvenience.” Antoniazzi was “appalled” by these suggestions. “This is not about abortion up to 40 weeks,” she told POLITICO. “It’s not about changing the Abortion Act. It’s not about selective sex. It’s just not all of those things that we are getting bombarded with in our inboxes, and it’s a misrepresentation, and it’s really, really unfair to those women that have been in the criminal system.” A ‘SONG AND DANCE’ Labour MP Stella Creasy also wanted to decriminalize abortion, but took a different approach. She proposed a more far-reaching amendment — which did not come to a vote for procedural reasons — to repeal the 1861 law entirely and establish a new framework in its place, including enshrining abortion access as a human right. Creasy proposed to create a “lock” on ministers, reducing access to abortion services in the future, such as if Farage becomes prime minister in 2029.  She pointed to U.S. campaigners who “bitterly regret not having acted under Biden and Obama,” telling MPs: “Those who feel content that abortion is a settled matter and cannot be weaponized in our politics need to listen to the drumbeat that is already banging loudly in this country.” But the reception she received suggests British pro-abortion rights campaigners are at pains not to make the first move in a U.S.-style culture war.  BPAS and other abortion providers circulated a briefing to MPs saying Creasy’s amendment would “rip up the Abortion Act” of 1967 and give future ministers a “blank slate” to rewrite the law, because they could undo any lock. Pro-abortion rights campaigners who opposed Creasy’s amendment also quietly hope her warnings will not come true — that the social fabric in the U.S. and U.K. is just too different. Clarke said: “I think people see what’s happening over there very much as a cautionary tale — [that] things they previously thought were safe and beyond any sort of rolling back.” But she added, “The anti-abortion movement in the U.S. and the U.K. is fundamentally religious by nature. I think the difference genuinely is that the degree to which your man on the street or woman on the street is religious in the U.K., and in the U.S., is very different.” A Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak frankly, added: “Our [political] right don’t believe in divine intervention. Our religious wars were 400 years ago.” Gesturing around parliament, the MP added: “Sure, there are paintings of them all over this place, but they’re mostly behind us.” ‘PROCEDURAL AMBUSH’ The debate was, of course, active and heated in the U.K. in its own way. Conservative MP Caroline Johnson proposed a separate amendment — which failed by 379 votes to 117 — to mandate in-person appointments before a woman could obtain abortion pills. She argued it would stop women having traumatic late-term abortions by accident, and ensure they were not coerced. Tuesday’s debate was scattered with outspoken MPs opposing decriminalization. One, Conservative Julia Lopez, said: “We are being asked to rewrite a profound boundary in British law that protects the unborn child with two hours of debate on a Tuesday afternoon. That is not responsible lawmaking — that is procedural ambush.” Feelings run high, and each side fears the other’s proposals are only a first step. Indeed, this is what some campaigners want; Antoniazzi told MPs “abortion law needs wider reform,” but argued the right way is “through a future bill.” Likewise, new Reform MP Sarah Pochin called for the 24-week time limit to be cut during Tuesday’s debate, mirroring the argument of her leader, Farage. Pro-abortion rights campaigners are looking warily at Reform’s poll rating and public opinion. In an Ipsos poll of 1,062 Brits last month, 72 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases — but this dropped to 46 percent for men aged 16 to 34.  Antoniazzi, for her part, accepts that the gap between the tone of debate in the U.K. and U.S. could narrow. “We are a far more liberal society,” she said, but “this is coming down the line. Women’s rights are being attacked, and they’re being attacked from America and Trump and Vance and all of that.” She added: “I only want women to not be criminalized. That’s all I want — to take them out of the law with a very simple amendment. I don’t want it to be a song and dance, I don’t want to be front and center.” That’s the British way. In future, campaigners could find they no longer have that choice. Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

Lawmakers and activists are warning that nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki’s win in the Polish presidential election represents a “defeat” for women’s rights and further threatens abortion access in Poland. Nawrocki, a self-described football hooligan backed by the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party — and by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration — won Poland’s presidential election last weekend, narrowly beating centrist Rafał Trzaskowski. His victory deals a significant loss to the current government, led by centrist Donald Tusk, and represents “a devastating blow to anyone fighting for reproductive freedom,” said Nika Kovač, coordinator for the My Voice, My Choice campaign, which is working to improve access to abortion across the EU. “As a staunch conservative with strong nationalist backing, Nawrocki is expected not only to uphold but potentially tighten Poland’s already draconian abortion laws,” Kovač said in a written statement. “His win slams the door on hope for political reform in the near future — and locks in a future where women’s lives remain expendable.” Poland has some of the strictest abortion rules in Europe. The PiS party tightened the country’s abortion laws to a near-total ban in 2020, making the procedure allowed only in cases of rape or incest, or if the life of the woman is endangered. Nawrocki has said he would not sign any bills expanding the right to abortion. Tusk’s 2023 campaign, which pushed out PiS from government after eight years of rule, heavily relied on his commitment to liberalize abortion laws. But activists said they have become embittered with his promises, after attempts to ease the strict regulations hit a political wall as the opposition and incumbent President Andrzej Duda blocked several of his efforts. A bill to decriminalize abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy narrowly failed to pass in the parliament and a parliamentary vote to stop prosecuting people who assist with abortions failed because of conservatives within his ruling coalition.  “We are quite disillusioned and disappointed,” said Kinga Jelinska, an activist from women’s rights and abortion group Abortion Dream Team and co-founder of Women Help Women. “I am not surprised that many people did not go to vote in this election … These are the votes that were missing in comparison to 2023, because people are disillusioned and they don’t want to go and vote and then have nothing delivered.” Now, Nawrocki’s win means that “there is no chance to change the abortion laws in Poland,” said Polish Member of the European Parliament Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, from the Socialists and Democrats group.  Tusk’s efforts have been “effectively paralyzed,” added Kovač. “Even a supportive parliament cannot bypass a president who holds veto power — and Nawrocki has made it clear where he stands (on abortion).” This does not mean that Polish women will stop fighting for these rights, Scheuring-Wielgus said. “Sooner or later the discussion in Poland on this topic will erupt again. I am convinced of this.” HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT It’s not just the failed legislative efforts that anger activists; Jelinska said the current government has repeatedly failed to protect women seeking abortion and doctors performing the procedure from harassment, including at the newly opened Abotak center. Activists from Abortion Dream Team opened the center in March, right opposite the Polish parliament — the first place in Poland where women can go to access and take abortion pills. But the center has been the target of ongoing attacks and steady harassment since its opening, Jelinska said, and Tusk and Trzaskowski (Warsaw’s mayor) have done nothing about it, she claimed. “We have not seen any support for our center, even though this is a situation where we actually risk our health to be there,” she said. “It is fake promises, and people are not stupid.” Doctors and organizations assisting with abortion face constant harassment in Poland. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concluded last year that women in Poland are facing severe human rights violations due to restrictive abortion laws, with many forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, seek unsafe clandestine procedures or travel abroad for legal abortions. The case of Justyna Wydrzyńska, an activist who was sentenced to eight months of community service for facilitating an abortion in 2023, made international headlines. And in April, Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun stormed a hospital in Poland and threatened a doctor with a citizen’s arrest for performing a legal late-term abortion. “We also can expect that in the future, there will be more prosecution and more attacks, because this kind of voice gets legitimized in the presidential seat,” Jelinska said. Amid ongoing challenges, the EU should step up and show solidarity to women in Poland, Left MEP Manon Aubry said. Last month, Aubry was one of the MEPs that traveled to Poland to deliver abortion pills to the Abotak center. She said she is planning to do it again soon. “It’s part of the role of the European Union,” she said. “When fundamental values of the European Union are under threat — like it is the case in Poland when it comes to women’s rights or to rule of law in general — then it’s our responsibility to stand up and act in solidarity.” The My Voice, My Choice campaign wants the European Commission to establish a fund to help women who can’t access abortion care in their own country to travel to another with more liberal abortion laws. It successfully gathered the 1 million signatures needed to be considered by the Commission earlier this year.  The Polish election shows why the campaign is “more essential than ever,” Kovač said. “When the political system fails us, it is movements like ours that must lead the fight.”

The Spanish government is banning its embassies and consulates from registering children born through surrogates in foreign countries. Regulations set to go into effect on Thursday cancel all pending registration processes and forbid diplomats from accepting certificates issued by foreign countries in which Spanish citizens are recognized as the parents of a child born through surrogacy. Several EU countries prohibit surrogacy, but citizens routinely skirt the ban by hiring surrogates in foreign countries and registering the children abroad. Opposition to that loophole has become a unifying issue among politicians — both from the far right and the far left — who are usually diametrically opposed. In Italy, right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cracked down on the practice as part of a broader campaign targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Surrogacy had become an increasingly popular option for the country’s same-sex couples, who are banned from adopting children, but in 2023 Meloni ordered city councils to only register biological parents on birth certificates. Last year her government made traveling abroad to have a baby through surrogacy a criminal act. Surrogacy has been prohibited in Spain since 2006. But for years, Spanish couples have successfully registered children born through surrogacy in other countries by providing foreign court rulings recognizing them as the baby’s parents. Up until now, those documents had been sufficient for diplomats to authorize the child’s inscription in the Spanish Civil Registry, but the situation changed last December when Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that procedure to be illegal. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing governments have moved to tighten the ban because they object to the practice on feminist grounds. In the 2023 revision of the country’s abortion law, surrogacy was described as a form of violence against women, and last year’s Supreme Court ruling condemned the practice as “an attack on the moral integrity of the pregnant woman” and a measure that treats children as “mere commodities.” The new regulations, first reported by the Cadena SER, dictate that the child’s parentage can only be determined once the minor has arrived in Spain. Spanish law only permits the adult who is biologically connected to a child born through surrogacy — usually the father — to be registered as its parent; the other partner must apply for adoption after the surrogate mother has formally relinquished the minor. Spain’s surrogacy ban is expected to be further reinforced in a human trafficking bill set to be unveiled later this year.

BRUSSELS — Europe’s favorite bottle of red or white may come with an unwanted ingredient: toxic chemicals that don’t break down naturally. A new investigation has found widespread contamination in European wines with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) — a persistent byproduct of PFAS, the group of industrial chemicals widely known as “forever chemicals.” None of the wines produced in the past few years across 10 EU countries came back clean. In some bottles, levels were found to be 100 times higher than what is typically measured in drinking water. The study, published on Wednesday by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, adds fresh urgency to calls for a rapid phase-out of pesticides containing PFAS, a family of human-made chemicals designed to withstand heat, water and oil, and to resist breaking down in the environment. Wine production is among the heaviest users of pesticides in European agriculture, particularly fungicides, making vineyards a likely hotspot for chemical accumulation. Grapes are especially vulnerable to fungal diseases, requiring frequent spraying throughout the growing season, including with some products that contain PFAS compounds. Researchers found that while TFA was undetectable in wines harvested before 1988, contamination levels have steadily increased since then — reaching up to 320 micrograms per liter in bottles from the last three vintages, a level more than 3,000 times the EU’s legal limit for pesticide residues in groundwater. The study’s authors link this rise to the growing use of PFAS-based pesticides and newer fluorinated refrigerants over the past decade. “This is a red flag that should not be ignored,” said Helmut Burtscher-Schaden of Austrian NGO Global 2000, who led the research. “The massive accumulation of TFA in plants means we are likely ingesting far more of this forever chemical through our food than previously assumed.” The report, titled Message from the Bottle, analyzed 49 wines, including both conventional and organic products. While organic wines tended to have lower TFA concentrations, none were free of contamination. Wines from Austria showed particularly high levels, though researchers emphasized that the problem spans the continent. “This is not a local issue, it’s a global one,” warned Michael Müller, professor of pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry at the University of Freiburg, who conducted an independent study that confirmed similar results. “There are no more uncontaminated wines left. Even organic farming cannot fully shield against this pollution because TFA is now ubiquitous in the environment.” The findings highlight the growing scrutiny on PFAS — a broad class of fluorinated compounds used in products from non-stick cookware to firefighting foams and agricultural pesticides. These substances are prized for their durability but have been shown to accumulate in the environment and in living organisms, with links to cancer, liver damage and reproductive harm. While the risks of long-chain PFAS have long been recognized, TFA had until recently been considered relatively benign by both regulators and manufacturers. That view is now being challenged. A 2021 industry-funded study under the EU’s REACH chemicals regulation linked TFA exposure to severe malformations in rabbit fetuses, prompting regulators to propose classifying TFA as “toxic to reproduction.” “This makes it all the more urgent to act,” said Salomé Roynel, policy officer at PAN Europe. She pointed out that under current EU pesticide rules, metabolites that pose risks to reproductive health should not be detectable in groundwater above 0.1 micrograms per liter — a limit TFA regularly exceeds in both water and, now, food. The timing of the report adds political pressure just weeks before EU member states are due to vote on whether to ban flutolanil, a PFAS pesticide identified as a significant TFA emitter. Campaigners argue that the EU must go further, pushing for a group-wide ban on all PFAS pesticides. Wine production is among the heaviest users of pesticides in European agriculture, particularly fungicides, making vineyards a likely hotspot for chemical accumulation. | Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images “The vote on flutolanil is a first test of whether policymakers take this threat seriously,” Roynel said. “But ultimately, we need to eliminate the entire category of these chemicals from agriculture.” Industry groups are likely to push back, arguing that PFAS-based pesticides remain crucial for crop protection. But Müller counters that claim, saying alternatives are available: “There are substitutes. The idea that these chemicals are essential is simply not true.” With the EU’s broader PFAS restrictions currently under discussion, the wine study injects fresh urgency into debates over how to tackle chemical pollution and protect Europe’s food supply. “The more we delay, the worse the contamination becomes,” said Burtscher-Schaden. “And because we’re dealing with a forever chemical, every year of inaction locks in the damage for generations to come.” The European Commission declined to comment on the report. This story has been updated with a no comment from the European Commission.

The Trump administration plans to rejoin an international anti-abortion pact alongside countries such as Uganda, Saudi Arabia and Belarus, taking its first formal step to roll back Biden-era global health policies and previewing an expected strategy of seeking to curtail abortion access for millions of women and girls worldwide. Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in a confidential diplomatic cable issued Friday to notify countries that it plans to re-join the so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration. POLITICO obtained a copy of the document. The Geneva declaration was a first Trump-term initiative sponsored by six countries — the United States, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda — that sought to curb global access and support for abortions by stating that there is no international right to abortion and thus countries don’t have any obligation to finance it or facilitate it. When he took office, President Joe Biden withdrew from the declaration as part of the Democrats’ support for abortion rights. Rubio’s cable took a parting shot at the prior administration, saying Biden’s decision to withdraw from the pact “combined with the Biden administration’s negative rhetoric and pressure tactics, undermined women’s health and diminished each nation’s sovereign right to legislate its own position on matters of women’s health and the family.” The cable continues: “We are committed to promoting women’s health and meeting the needs of women, children and their families at all stages of life. We will pursue these objectives in cooperation with member states in the U.N. system and through our continued shared ambition for improved health for women and girls.” His cable came the same day Vice President JD Vance told thousands of anti-abortion protesters at the March for Life rally in Washington that Trump will be the “the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.” The Geneva Consensus Declaration is a non-binding pact that was adopted in October 2020. It eventually drew support from 39 countries, including Belarus, Congo, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan and Uganda. Brazil and Colombia have since withdrawn from it, as progressive heads of states took over in both countries. Abortion and gender rights advocates have sharply criticized the pact, saying such initiatives endanger the lives of women and girls, particularly in developing countries that rely on foreign assistance for sexual and reproductive health support. The declaration’s signatory countries state they support women’s health, but that reproductive health and rights do not include abortion. The first Trump administration took a hardline stance against any health initiatives seen to be tacitly endorsing abortion that offer a preview of what Trump’s return to the Oval Office means for U.S. posturing on global health in the United Nations and other international forums. In 2019, for example, the Trump administration threatened to veto a U.N.-led resolution aimed at preventing rape in conflict zones over claims that language in the resolution on sexual and reproductive health condoned abortions. Ultimately, the resolution was passed with U.S. support after Germany, a lead sponsor of the initiative, stripped the language in question from the resolution.

OPTICS THE SOUND OF HOPE: MUSIC SCHOOL OPENS DOORS FOR ROMA YOUTH An accomplished classical violinist is offering an alternative to life in the ghetto. Text by BORYANA DZHAMBAZOVA Photos by DOBRIN KASHAVELOV in Sliven, Bulgaria The school called Music, Not the Street offers classical music education to Roma children. It was set up by musician Georgi Kalaidzhiev in 2008 and provides lessons in a wide variety of instruments, from violin and cello to trumpet, clarinet and piano.  This article is part of the Breaking out: Stories of Roma empowerment special report, presented by the Roma Foundation for Europe. SLIVEN, Bulgaria — The train tracks that carve through the Bulgarian city of Sliven mark more than just the town’s geography; they define a stark divide in its population. On one side is the Nadezhda quarter — or “Hope” in English —  home to roughly 20,000 Roma residents. Along with the population of nearby towns and villages, the Sliven district has the highest concentration of Roma in the country, according to 2021 census data. People in the neighborhood face a reality shaped by poverty, limited access to health care and education, and persistent discrimination. As a result, generations here have been held back by early marriages and high dropout rates from school, with many of them leaving the country to seek seasonal jobs. Yet some have found hope on the other side of the tracks, in a music school just a few blocks away. The school called Music, Not the Street offers classical music education to Roma children. It was set up by musician Georgi Kalaidzhiev in 2008 and provides lessons in a wide variety of instruments, from violin and cello to trumpet, clarinet and piano.  Kalaidzhiev’s initiative has already trained more than 300 children, with around 90 currently enrolled. While some students commute from nearby villages, most live just across the train tracks in Nadezhda, seeing in the school’s offerings an alternative to life in a ghetto. But for some in Sliven, music has offered a path to a different future: Though not every student at the Music, Not the Street school goes on to pursue a professional career, many continue their education in music schools or even at the National Music Academy in Sofia. “If I weren’t playing the violin, I would have aimlessly wandered the streets,” says Tsvetelina Hristova, a 21-year-old violinist who now plays part-time with the Sliven Symphony Orchestra.  After graduating from high school, Hristova came back to work as a trainer at the music school. Her goal is to inspire more Roma girls to “continue their education without any fear, so that they do not need to think about marriage so early.”  In the Roma community, child marriage is an old tradition. While the number of marriages under the age of 16 is slowly decreasing, early matrimony continues to limit the prospects of young women. Only 12 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys are likely to complete secondary education if they marry before the age of 18, according to a 2020 survey on education and employment among Roma in Bulgaria. With the music school, Hristova said, “they can dream big.”  ONCE UPON A TUNE Since it was founded more than 15 years ago, Music, Not the Street has grown from humble beginnings in Georgi Kalaidzhiev’s sister’s basement to taking up an entire building. Kalaidzhiev, 77, was born and raised in the same Roma quarter. As an accomplished violinist, he played in concert halls across the world until he settled down in Germany in 1993 to become a concertmaster in the town of Giessen. But he never forgot where he came from: Since he started the music school, he has traveled back to Nadezhda to visit and tutor the students every few months. The project’s toughest test is to help break down stereotypes about the Roma community, sometimes coming from Roma families themselves. “I was one of those children who grew up in Nadezhda,” he said. “But playing the violin took me all around the country and abroad.”  He added that his talent with the violin eventually landed him a job in the music industry in Germany. “I wanted to pay it forward and introduce classical music to other children in the neighborhood, so it can allow them similar opportunities to the ones I was afforded,” he said. Coming from a family of musicians, 13-year-old Zlatko Angelov is determined to follow in Kalaidzhiev’s footsteps and make a name for himself in the world of classical music. “I always dreamed of becoming a violin player,” he says.  He has already played in some of the biggest concert halls in Bulgaria, joined the Sliven Symphony Orchestra in several performances, and along with other music school students taken part in several concerts in Geneva and Strasbourg in September. “Of all instruments, the violin is the dearest to my heart — from its shape and sound to the beauty of the music it creates,” he said. Zlatko’s teacher Radka Kuseva refers to him as “our big hope,” describing him as a promising young musician with a bright music career ahead of him.  Coming from a family of musicians, 13-year-old Zlatko Angelov is determined to follow in Kalaidzhiev’s footsteps and make a name for himself in the world of classical music. Kuseva has been coaching Zlatko since he was six. And the goal is to train him — and others like him — on more than classical music: The school wants to “teach them about the discipline of learning, to give them confidence, to offer them a chance to leave the neighborhood,” Kuseva said.  “We would like to show them that they are capable, that they can do whatever they want, if they put their minds to it.” FACING THE MUSIC Despite its ambitions and individual success stories, Kalaidzhiev’s school still faces challenges.  The project’s toughest test is to help break down stereotypes about the Roma community, sometimes coming from Roma families themselves. “Some of the participants do not attend classes regularly as they have problems at home or their parents are not so supportive of their music training,” Kuseva explained. Roma families can be quite conservative about allowing their children to study elsewhere — especially girls: For instance, in the beginning, people frowned upon the fact that Hristova, the violinist with the Sliven Symphony Orchestra, went to study in a music high school in Burgas, a Black Sea port.  But the more success stories Roma people encounter, the more inclined they are to let their kids study, according to students like Hristova. “The school … shows us that there really is hope for Hope,” Hristova said. This article is part of the Breaking out: Stories of Roma empowerment special report, presented by the Roma Foundation for Europe. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

European lawmakers have delayed their decision on whether to sign off Hungary’s choice for EU commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, until Wednesday, five Parliament officials told POLITICO. Coordinators from the Parliament’s public health (ENVI) and agriculture (AGRI) committees met on Monday to decide whether to approve Várhelyi’s nomination as the next EU health and animal welfare commissioner. They agreed to delay the decision until the final commissioner hearings have finished. Várhelyi is so far the only candidate to face a second round of written questions after failing to impress lawmakers in his oral hearing last week. Committee coordinators met on Monday to discuss his answers to their follow-up questions. “We just decided to postpone the decision on the Fidesz Commissioner,” MEP Pascal Canfin, the group coordinator for the centrists Renew in the ENVI committee, wrote on X.  He told POLITICO that his group and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) are “not happy” with the choice and have not yet decided whether they can vote for him or not. It would be “impossible,” he said, “to support a commissioner coming from Fidesz in charge of anything related to preparedness,” he said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing party. While Várhelyi praised the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in his hearing last week, MEPs are still pointing to Budapest’s approach to the Covid-19 pandemic — when it was the only EU country to distribute non-EU approved vaccines from Russia and China — as a reason to reject the Hungarian candidate. They are also stalling at approving a portfolio that would include reproductive rights, Canfin said. The Greens and the Left Group have also opposed Várhelyi’s nomination so far, meaning the Hungarian lacks the numbers to get the green light. Only far-right groups and the European Conservatives and Reformists supported him after the initial hearing. One idea floated by S&D and Renew had been to approve Várhelyi in exchange for stripping competencies from his portfolio, such as reproductive rights, animal welfare and vaccines, and giving them to another commissioner. The far-right Patriots’ chief whip sees that as playing games. “It is of course unacceptable to see the groups play their games regarding the commissioner hearings,” Patriots chief whip, Danish MEP Anders Vistisen, told POLITICO.  “But it only shows the helplessness of the liberals, socialists and greens. They don’t hold any other real power in the parliament than EPP wants to grant them. The sole responsibility for the wrong direction Europe is heading now lies on the shoulders of EPP — they have a conservative parliament but refuses to use it.” Last week, a decision on Belgium’s Hadja Lahbib was also held hostage after a poor performance by Jessika Roswall. In the end, the the green light for Lahbib and Roswall was part of a deal between the EPP, the Renew group and the Socialists & Democrats. Similarly, the delay on Várhelyi means his fate can be used as a bargaining chip among the groups, who still have to sign off on the most high-profile of nominations on Tuesday, when the six executive vice presidents proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be quizzed by MEPs.

Hungary’s pick for EU commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, has said he will “promote women’s rights” across his work as he looks to convince MEPs to green-light his nomination for health commissioner. But he dodged providing specific answers on what he would do to ease access to abortion.   Várhelyi had to answer further questions from lawmakers after failing to win sufficient support from MEPs following his oral hearing on Wednesday — the only commissioner-designate to do so. He came under fire after the hearing especially for his comments about women, including his suggestion that he was “an ally of women” because he lives with his wife and has three daughters. Renew MEP Stine Bosse said she was “wholly unconvinced” that Várhelyi is the “right guardian of women’s rights,” while some MEPs suggested privately after the hearing that his portfolio could be trimmed to remove sexual and reproductive health care. In follow-up questions sent by lawmakers Thursday, Várhelyi was asked what “concrete steps” he would take as EU health commissioner to promote access to and the provision of sexual and reproductive health care. In his answers, which were published Friday, he said: “Sexual and reproductive health plays a key role in gender equality and women’s rights. If confirmed, I will therefore work together with the Commissioner for Equality on the post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy on issues related to health, including sexual and reproductive health.” He didn’t say whether he would include abortion within the cross-border health directive, something that MEPs had pushed for, although he did make reference to the Commission’s support for the U.N.’s sustainable development goals, which include a reference to family planning.  MEPs will decide on Monday whether or not he gets the job.