Brussels’ battle over whether plant-based foods can be sold as “veggie burgers” and “vegan sausages” ended the year in stalemate on Wednesday, after talks between EU countries and the European Parliament collapsed without a deal. French centre-right lawmaker Céline Imart, a grain farmer from southern France and the architect of the naming ban, arrived determined to lock in tough restrictions on plant-based labels, according to three people involved. Her proposal, dismissed as “unnecessary” inside her own political family, was tucked inside a largely unrelated reform of the EU’s farm-market rulebook. It slipped through weeks of talks untouched and unmentioned, only reemerging in the final stretch — by which point even Paul McCartney had asked Brussels to let veggie burgers be. The Wednesday meeting quickly veered off course. Officials said Imart moved to reopen elements of the text that negotiators believed had already wrapped up, including sensitive rules for powerful farm cooperatives. She then sketched out several possible fallbacks on dairy contracts — a politically charged issue for many countries — but without settling on a clear line the rest of the Parliament team could rally behind. “And then she introduced new terms out of nowhere,” one Parliament official said, after Imart proposed adding “liver” and “ham” to the list of protected meat names for the first time. “It was very messy,” another Parliament official said. EU countries, led in the talks by Denmark, said they simply had no mandate to move — not on the naming rules and not on dairy contracts. With neither side giving ground, the discussions ground to a halt. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. Imart insisted that the gap could still be bridged. Dairy contracts and meat-related names “still call for further clarification,” she said in a written statement, arguing that “tangible progress” had been made and that “the prospect of an agreement remains close,” with negotiations due to resume under Cyprus in January. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) Dutch Green lawmaker Anna Strolenberg, who was in the room, said she was relieved: “It’s frustrating that we keep losing time on a veggie burger ban — but at least it wasn’t traded for weaker contracts [for dairy farmers].” For now, that means veggie burgers, vegan nuggets and other alternative-protein products will keep their familiar names — at least until Cyprus picks up the file in the New Year and Brussels’ oddest food fight resumes.

The European Commission refused to rule out taking legal action against three countries that are keeping their unilateral import bans on Ukrainian goods. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are openly defying efforts to reset trade relations as a revised trade deal with Kyiv kicks in. The bans, covering Ukrainian grain and other farm products, breach EU single market rules that prohibit national trade barriers. The defiance underscores how politically fraught the EU’s trade relationship with Ukraine has become, with capitals essentially daring Brussels to prioritize Kyiv over EU members to enforce the trade pact. “We see no justification for maintaining these national measures,” Commission Deputy Spokesperson Olof Gill said Thursday, a day after a new European Union trade agreement meant to address EU members’ concerns about negative impacts from a flow of Ukrainian imports took effect. In an email, Gill said the EU executive would “intensify its contact” with the intransigent capitals. Pressed on whether the Commission had ruled out launching infringement proceedings, Gill replied: “All options are on the table.” Brussels has been reluctant to act since the bans were introduced in 2023, hoping the updated trade deal would make them redundant. Officials familiar with the talks say politics are also playing a part. Taking Poland to court could strain relations with Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government, while singling out Hungary and Slovakia would look like a double standard. Poland’s agriculture ministry told POLITICO earlier this week that the government’s restrictions “do not automatically lift” under the new EU deal and remain in force.  Likewise, Budapest will maintain its national-level protection, Hungary’s Agriculture Minister István Nagy said, while accusing Brussels of “prioritizing Ukrainian interests.” His Slovak counterpart, Richard Takáč, called the new deal’s safeguards “not strong enough” to protect local producers, suggesting Bratislava will follow suit. The bans, covering Ukrainian grain and other farm products, breach EU single market rules that prohibit national trade barriers. | Ukrinform/Getty Images The updated agreement, approved by EU countries on Oct. 13, replaces the temporary trade liberalization introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion, providing a more stable framework for Ukrainian exports while adding safeguards for European farmers. This story has been updated.

LONDON — Britain’s technocratic ministers aren’t the most obvious candidates to don MAGA-style red caps and belt out punchy slogans. But Britain’s housing secretary has a real fight on his hands, and he’s not afraid to channel Donald Trump in waging it. Steve Reed took office in early September with a colorful promise to “build, baby, build.” Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis. The availability of affordable housing has plummeted, Brits are getting on the housing ladder later in life, and many families and renters are living in overcrowded, substandard and insecure homes. To try to fix this, the government came to power promising to build 1.5 million new homes over the course of the parliament. Reed and his team went into this fall’s Labour conference wearing hats emblazoned with the Trump-style three-word phrase, a rabble-rousing address and a social media strategy to match. But his MPs are already worried that the tradeoffs Reed and the U.K. Treasury are pushing to get shovels in the ground ride roughshod over the environmental protections that Brits cherish — and put some vulnerable Labour seats at risk. The three-word slogan is “completely counterproductive,” said one Labour MP who was granted anonymity to speak candidly like others quoted in this piece. The government must acknowledge “that nature is something that people genuinely love, [which] improves health and wellbeing.” PLANNING BATTLE Front of their minds are a host of changes to the U.K.’s planning bill, which is snaking its way through parliament. The bill aims to cut red tape to fast-track planning decisions, unlock more land for development, and create a building boom.  The legislation is on a journey through the U.K.’s House of Lords, and has been tweaked with a slew of government amendments on its way. In October, Reed introduced further amendments to try to speed up planning decisions and overrule councils who attempt to block new developments.  But the first MP quoted above said they are concerned Reed’s “build, baby, build” drive will only see Labour shed votes to both Zack Polanski’s left-wing Green Party and Nigel Farage’s populist Reform. The government announced that the quotas for affordable housing in new London developments would be slashed from 35 percent to 20 percent. | Richard Baker/Getty Images “Making tough decisions about how we use our land for important purposes, such as energy, food, security, housing and nature, is what government is about,” the first MP said. But they added: “We need to make sure that we are making the right decisions, but also telling a story about why we’re making those decisions, and dismissing nature as inconvenient is going against the grain of the British public.” They added: “Nobody disagrees with [building more homes] as a principle, but ending up with a narrative that basically sounds like you’re speaking in support of the [housing] developers, rather than in support of the communities that we represent, is just weird.” MAKING CHANGES Last week, Reed opened up another front in his battle. The government announced that the quotas for affordable housing in new London developments would be slashed from 35 percent to 20 percent. City Hall said the measures would help speed up planning decisions and incentivize developers to actually build more houses. But cutting social housing targets is an uncomfortable prospect for many in the Labour party.   The government’s message is “build, baby build — but not for poor people,” a Labour aide complained.  Reed firmly defended the change, telling Sky News last week: “There were only 4,000 starts in London last year for social and affordable housing. That is nothing like the scale of the crisis that we have.” He added of the quota: “35 percent of nothing is nothing. We need to make schemes viable for developers so they’ll get spades in the ground.” BLOCKING THE BLOCKERS NARRATIVE Reed has the backing of the U.K.’s powerful Treasury in waging his battle. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the government wants to back the “builders not the blockers,” language a second Labour MP, this one in a rural seat, described as “terrible” and an approach that “needs to stop.” Such rhetoric will fail to persuade constituents worried about new developments that trample nature to support new housing. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” they warned. “It’s all vinegar.” The government has already shown that it’s willing to take the fight to pro-environment MPs — sometimes dismissed in the U.K. as “NIMBYs,” short for “not in my backyard.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the government wants to back the “builders not the blockers.” | Pool Photo by Joe Giddens via Getty Images 2024 intake MP Chris Hinchliff was stripped of the Labour whip in July after proposing a series of rebel amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and attacking the legislation for having a “narrow focus on increasing housing supply.” While there is vocal opposition to the “build, baby, build” strategy within Labour, there are also MPs who align themselves with the general message, if not the exact wording. “I would not go out to my constituents who are concerned about the Green Belt wearing a [build, baby, build] cap,” said a third Labour MP, also in a rural seat, “but at the same time, you have to be honest with people about the trade-offs.” They accused the opposition to Reed of “fear-mongering” and stoking the idea that England’s green belt — a designated area of British countryside protected from most development — risks being “destroyed.”  “That has killed off responsible discussions on development,” they argued. “Do I love the slogan? No. Am I going to lose sleep over it? No, because as a constituency MP you can have reasonable conversations.” THE RED HAT BRIGADE Reed also has a cohort of willing warriors on his side. The 2024 intake of Labour MPs brought with it some highly vocal, pro-growth Labour factions. The Labour YIMBY group and Labour Growth Group have been shouting from the rooftops about building more. Labour Growth Group chair and MP Chris Curtis says: “We have some of the oldest and therefore coldest homes of any developed country. We have outdated, carbon intensive energy infrastructure, hardly any water storage, pipes that leak, old sewage infrastructure that dumps raw sewage into our rivers, and car dependency because we can’t build proper public transport.  “Anybody who thinks blocks on building has been good for nature is simply wrong,” he added. “Protecting our environment literally depends on us building well, and building quickly.” Labour MP Mike Reader, who worked in the construction and infrastructure sector before becoming an MP and is part of the pro-building caucus, was sanguine about Reed’s message. “The U.K. is the most nature-depleted country in Western Europe,” he said. “So to argue for the status quo … is arguing for us to destroy nature in its very essence. The legislation that we [currently] have does not protect nature.” As for concern that the government is too close to housing developers, Reader shot back: “Who do they think builds the houses?” Steve Reed introduced further amendments to try to speed up planning decisions and overrule councils who attempt to block new developments. | Aaron Chown/Getty Images “I want each [MP who rejects the ‘build, baby, build’ message] to tell the thousands of young families in temporary accommodation that they don’t deserve a safe secure home,” he said. “If they can’t do that they need to grow a pair and do difficult things. That’s why we’re in government. To change lives. And build, baby, build.” A fourth unnamed Labour MP said the slogan is “a bit cringe and Trumpian,” but added: “I’m not really arsed about what slogans they’re using if they’re delivering on that as an objective.” There’s also unlikely praise for the effort from the other side of the U.K. political divide. Jack Airey, a former No. 10 special adviser who tried to get a planning and infrastructure bill through under the last Conservative government, said “people that oppose house building often have the loudest voice, and they use it … and yet, the people that support house building generally don’t really say it, because why would they? They’ve got better things to do.” “I think it’s really positive for the government to have a pro-house building and pro-development message out there, and, more importantly, a pro-development caucus in parliament and beyond,” he said. In a bid to steady the nerves of anxious MPs, Reed told the parliamentary Labour Party last week that his Trump-style slogan is a “bit of fun” that hides a serious point — that there simply aren’t enough houses being built in the U.K. And an aide to Reed rejected concerns from Labour MPs that nature is not being sufficiently considered, saying “nobody understands [nature concerns] more than Steve. “We reject this kind of binary choice between nature and building,” they said. “We think that you can do both. It just requires imaginative, ultimately sensible and pragmatic policy-making, and that’s what we’re doing. “We’re not ashamed to campaign in primary colors,” the Reed aide said. Noah Keate contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission announced Monday it had reached an agreement with Ukraine to update their existing free trade agreement, granting Kyiv improved market access compared to pre-war terms, though not fully restoring wartime trade liberalization measures. The deal marks a significant reprieve for Ukraine, which continues to resist Russian aggression more than three years after President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Earlier this month, Ukraine lost emergency trade waivers granted by Brussels early in the war. “Today’s agreement in principle is balanced, fair and realistic. It represents the best possible outcome under difficult geopolitical conditions,” EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told a news conference. “Politically, this is a strong signal of support to Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and democratic future. And crucially, it is also a response to concerns voiced by our member states, farmers and food producers.” The revised deal, which confirms an earlier report by POLITICO, builds on the existing EU-Ukraine free trade agreement but updates it to reflect lessons from the war.  Ukraine has committed to continue aligning its farming standards with EU rules — a process already underway as part of its path to membership. Full alignment is expected by 2028, including in areas like animal welfare and pesticide use.  The deal also allows either side to curb imports if they cause serious market disruption. And while Ukraine won’t regain the blanket tariff-free access it enjoyed during the war, the new terms raise quotas for many products that weren’t previously liberalized, while keeping tighter limits on a narrow list of politically sensitive goods like sugar, poultry, eggs and wheat. Ukraine’s top trade negotiator Taras Kachka described the outcome as “a really good deal,” telling POLITICO the level of liberalization secured in the agreement will allow Ukraine to maintain wartime trade volumes, with only a few exceptions.  “We actually follow EU standards — and we started this not today but 15 years ago,” Kachka said, adding that the agreement helps show Ukraine is “a predictable trade partner” and lays the groundwork for deeper economic integration. The agreement follows months of tense negotiations and uncertainty for Ukrainian exporters. The EU’s temporary wartime measures had initially lifted tariffs on all Ukrainian products, but later reinstated caps on sensitive agricultural goods. When these Autonomous Trade Measures (ATMs) lapsed on June 6, the Commission introduced a hasty interim solution, snapping back quotas to pre-war levels and sparking a scramble among Ukrainian exporters to move goods before hitting the ceiling. BRIDGES OF RESILIENCE European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the agreement, saying in a statement it will build “bridges of resilience and economic solidarity in the face of Russia’s unjustified war of aggression.” The deal would safeguard the interests of European farmers, while embedding Ukraine as part of the European family, she said in a statement: “We remain committed to a path of mutual growth and stability, leading to its full integration in our Union.” Ukrainian exports to the EU have surged since Russia’s full-scale invasion, bolstered by the wartime suspension of tariffs. That liberalization helped offset Kyiv’s wartime losses, but triggered a political backlash in frontline EU countries, where farmers blame cheap Ukrainian goods for undercutting prices. A patchwork of national bans and licensing systems remains in place in countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.  Following Monday’s agreement at political level, both sides will work to fine tune its technical elements, the Commission said, with EU member countries and the European Parliament to be briefed in the coming days. Subject to hammering out a final legal text, both sides will proceed with formally endorsing the update to the existing trade agreement. On the EU side, the deal would need to be endorsed by the Council, representing EU member countries. It would then be formally adopted by the EU-Ukraine Association Committee. This story has been updated.

LONDON — Britain will formally sanction two far-right Israeli ministers for their comments over Gaza, the U.K. confirmed Tuesday. The assets of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be frozen and the pair will also face travel bans, the Times first reported. No financial institutions will be allowed to deal with them. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the ministers had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.” He added: “These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now — to hold those responsible to account.” In response, Israel said: “It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the Cabinet would meet next week to respond to what he called the “unacceptable decision.” While the U.S. has continued to stand resolutely behind Israel as it wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, other longtime allies — including the EU, Britain and Canada — have grown increasingly critical of Israel and its military tactics. Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in response for the Hamas militant group’s violent attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis. The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 50,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, as Israel’s offensive continues. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have consistently been the most hard-line ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and are crucial allies keeping him in power. Ben-Gvir briefly resigned from Netanyahu’s Cabinet in January during the short ceasefire, before rejoining in March when fighting resumed. He said the resumption of aid deliveries into Gaza was a “serious and grave mistake.” Smotrich has approved the expansion of West Bank settlements and said that “not even a grain of wheat” should be allowed into Gaza. He also said Palestinians would be relocated to third countries after the war. The U.K. has been working on the new sanctions for weeks, as France’s push for recognition of Palestinian statehood hit a wall. Several Arab nations have been pushing for Western countries to focus their efforts on economic measures. British lawmakers who have been calling on the government to recognize Palestinian statehood were told that sanctions would take priority, two Labour MPs granted anonymity to speak candidly told POLITICO. Keir Starmer told MPs last week the U.K. was “looking at further action, along with our allies, including sanctions” while French President Emmanuel Macron gave similar indications. Last month, Starmer, Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a joint statement decrying the “intolerable” humanitarian situation in the besieged coastal enclave. “We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” they added. Lammy earlier told the Commons the comments of ministers were “monstrous” for calling for the relocation of Gazans. He added: “We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

Bug food for pets was never Plan A — it’s the last resort for insect producers to stay afloat. They blame EU bureaucracy. “I wake up every morning for the fish, not to feed the pets,” said Sébastien Crépieux, CEO of Invers, a French insect producer based in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes that grows mealworms in cooperation with local farmers. He explains that most insect producers started with the idea of replacing protein in fishmeal used to feed farmed fish with a more sustainable source — such as insects. Fishmeal is usually made from fish processing waste and forage fish like anchovies or sardines, and contributes to overfishing and biodiversity loss. In 2017, the European Commission approved the use of insect protein in aquaculture feed to address that issue. In 2022, it also allowed insects to be used in feed for pigs and poultry. For many in the field, that was a big step forward. “We all developed based on this concept,” said Crépieux. “But unfortunately, the Commission never banned fishmeal, so we’re still competing with a resource taken freely from the ocean at a very low price. Fishmeal imports into Europe must be controlled — we’re really killing the ocean,” he added. According to the 2024 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, 10 percent of fish populations were fished at unsustainable levels in the mid-1970s. The number has almost quadrupled in 2021 to 37.7 percent of stocks. The ambitious EU monitoring rules on fisheries, which came into force last January, introduced electronic tracking systems for vessels and minimum sanctions for violations of the common fisheries policy — but failed to include limits on how much forage fish can be diverted to fishmeal. That’s where insect-based pet food comes in. “If we had to compete by selling our production as fish feed, we would already be dead,” said Crépieux. That is why he, like some other producers, shifted his focus to pet food. FEEDING PETS WITH BUGS Insect-based pet food — marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable — remains a niche product embraced mostly by true enthusiasts. Traditional pet food, made from meat or vegetable byproducts or grains, still dominates more than 99.5 percent of the market. According to Crépieux, it’s unlikely this type of pet food will ever become mainstream unless major brands like Purina or Acana adopt it. Insect-based pet food is marketed as hypoallergenic and more sustainable. | Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images Still, his company has managed to attract customers who care about the environment and good nutrition for their pets, he claimed. “The palatability is high. I think animals, unlike us, know what’s good for their health — they really eat it,” he said, adding that his cats are happy with this alternative protein. However, green NGOs like Eurogroup for Animals and Compassion in World Farming have questioned its true environmental benefits. “Farming insects has a higher sustainability impact than most traditional pet food ingredients … most insects are not sourced from Europe,” said Francis Maugère of Eurogroup for Animals. “If you want to rear them here, you can — but you must keep them at high temperature and humidity, which comes with financial and energy costs,” he added. The group also argues that there’s insufficient scientific evidence to support the hypoallergenic claims. “The sustainability of insect-based pet food is highly questionable — from insect welfare standards, to the need for diets based solely on byproducts rather than cereals and soy, to its high carbon footprint due to heating requirements,” said Phil Brooke, research and education manager at Compassion in World Farming. FEDIAF, which represents the European pet food industry, called insect-based pet food “one of several promising innovations” in the drive to diversify sustainable protein sources. Cecilia Lalander, a professor at the Swedish University of Uppsala specializing in insect use in waste management, believes using insects for pet food is “not the best use of resources.” “If we’re replacing pet food made from animal byproducts — like slaughter waste, which is already a good use of waste — then it’s really not sustainable,” she said. THE UNSUSTAINABLE LOOP Lack of fishmeal regulation isn’t the only source of frustration for insect producers. The EU classifies insects as farmed animals and prohibits using kitchen waste to feed them. As a result, insects are often raised on the same food processing byproducts — like wheat bran or brewery grains — that are already suitable for feeding pigs and cattle, making insects an unnecessary extra step in the food chain. Lalander argues this is inefficient and unsustainable. “The reason the insect industry can’t be as sustainable as it could be is entirely due to regulations,” she said. Following the mad cow disease (BSE) outbreak in the 1990s, the EU implemented strict rules to prevent a recurrence. It banned the use of processed meat in livestock feed, and ruled that farmed animals — including insects — may not be fed catering waste, as it could contain traces of meat. However, Lalander points out that insects cannot develop or transmit prions, the infectious proteins responsible for BSE, and that health risks are minimal. “The system the EU opposed was the most closed loop imaginable — giving feed originating from the same species, even if they were dead or sick,” she said. “What we propose is using post-consumer food waste to feed insects, which are then used to feed animals.” The European Commission, for its part, disagrees with the view that feeding insects with catering waste is risk-free. “The risks are not limited to BSE and prions only … but related to several transmissible animal diseases,” a Commission official said in response to a POLITICO inquiry. Catering waste may transmit several animal diseases such as African or classical swine fever, foot and mouth disease or avian influenza, the official said, while catering waste has been identified as a possible or likely source of infection in several outbreaks of these diseases in the EU. “Due to the nature of the insects which are living in their feed and are contaminated with their feeding substrate, only feeding substrate already declared safe for farmed animals has been authorized,” added the Commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several scientific studies have found, however, that these risks can be avoided if food waste is treated properly before feeding it to insects. Such treatment can include fermentation, heat treatment, or drying to remove harmful pathogens that can be found in unprocessed food waste. Lalander argues that regulatory barriers aren’t the only challenge circular business models like the insect one are facing. Long-standing market expectations, shaped by cheap, linear production systems that overlook environmental costs, also pose a significant obstacle. “In a circular business model you pay for every step of the production. But if you look at the world market predominantly it’s a linear economy which means you take product and then you have a waste and that’s it,” Lalander said. She points out that expecting insect feed to be as cheap as fishmeal and soy is unrealistic, noting that “the cost for using soy and fish meal comes in the environmental impact.” Crépieux ended his conversation with POLITICO on a grim note. “Everything sustainable always loses. It’s always easier to take from nature, which is free,” Crépieux said.

ROMANIAN WILD CARD GEORGE SIMION SETS BRUSSELS’ NERVES ON EDGE The presidential front-runner’s hostility to Ukraine is creating a rift with fellow European conservatives. By MAX GRIERA, NICHOLAS VINOCUR and CSONGOR KÖRÖMI Illustration by Aistė Stancikaitė for POLITICO Is Europe about to have another clamorous disruptor at the leaders’ top table? That’s certainly the fear in Brussels, as the hard-right ultranationalist George Simion stands a strong chance of winning the Romanian presidency on Sunday. European officials are particularly worried the 38-year-old firebrand will join the current duo of wreckers — Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico — in seeking to scupper aid to Ukraine just as the EU wants to dial up pressure on Russia to end the war. Advertisement If Bucharest does lurch over to the saboteur camp, it would be a bitter blow as Romania carries greater geostrategic heft than Hungary or Slovakia. The Black Sea nation of 19 million has, until now, been a rock-solid stalwart of the EU and the NATO alliance. Simion is rapidly trying to allay those fears that he will rock the boat. He insists he will be a pro-EU and pro-NATO leader, who is more directly aligned with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — a pro-Ukraine right-winger — than Orbán or Fico. He styles his alliance with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement as a way to keep U.S. troops committed to Romania. “We are a Eurorealist group, not Euroskeptic,” Simion told POLITICO, adding that he embraced the EU’s single market as a driver of wealth for Romanians. It is, admittedly, hard to imagine Simion as a natural bedfellow for Orbán, the EU’s most tenacious internal rebel. While Simion acknowledges Orbán has served as a “model” for him, there is little love lost between the Romanian and Hungarian nationalist camps, who are fiercely at odds over the Hungarian minority in Transylvania in northern Romania. George Simion campaigns ahead of the European elections in Targoviste last year. | Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images But those tensions with Orbán don’t mean everyone is breathing a sigh of relief in Brussels. Officials and experts who have observed Simion’s rise to prominence — and tracked his sometimes contradictory statements — are skeptical he can be as successful as Meloni in hitching his right-wing agenda to the EU mainstream. They point to his calls to break EU law, his territorial claims on Moldova, an EU candidate nation facing Russian destabilization, as well as his blanket opposition to any further support for Ukraine as proof that Simion will be, at best, an unpredictable leader and, at worst, a source of division within the bloc. “I think he would certainly be a disruptive figure around the EU Council table and potentially also around the NATO table,” said Oana Lungescu, a former spokesperson for NATO and currently a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “His position seems very clear that in terms of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, he proposes neutrality for Romania — which is of course incompatible with Romania’s position both as an EU member state and as a NATO ally.” Advertisement Simion adamantly denies he is pro-Russian, but he is a banned “persona non grata“ in Ukraine for promoting a “unionist ideology that denies the legitimacy of the state border of Ukraine.” Simion’s party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, is associated with an irredentist vision of a greater Romania that risks triggering territorial disputes and potential conflict with Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria. At the helm in Bucharest, he would have ample opportunity to stir up trouble by pulling out of NATO training operations for Ukrainians, obstructing border crossings and the flow of arms into Ukraine, and rowing back on Romania’s pivotal role in helping Black Sea grain exports. For his part, Simion insists he is pressuring Kyiv to defend the rights of Romanian-speakers inside Ukraine — a subject that the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has, in reality, been very willing to address. Manfred Weber, head of the center-right umbrella European People’s Party, whose Romanian affiliate opposes Simion, echoed Lungescu’s concerns and said Simion represented a “risk for what I believe in.” Rather than Orbán, Simion routinely cites Meloni as his main source of inspiration. | Grigore Popescu/Agerpres Foto The EPP leader dismissed any comparison between Simion and Meloni, who remains in the European mainstream despite her hard-right policies at home, arguing the Romanian was “definitely” not like the Italian. Weber also accused Simion of having “worked together with the Russian [security services].” Simion denies allegations he met with Russian spies in Ukraine over a decade ago. Such concerns don’t seem to have dissuaded Romanian voters, who gave Simion 41 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election. That said, the populist candidate last week floundered in his debate against centrist rival Nicușor Dan, and opinion polls suggest his lead is beginning to ebb. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls put him only 3 percentage points clear of Dan as the race heads into the final straight. TRANSYLVANIAN TENSIONS On the face of it, Simion and Europe’s disruptor-in-chief, Orbán, look to be cut from the same political cloth. Both are ultranationalists who tout a pro-family, Christian vision for their countries. Both hail from Eastern bloc countries, have compared the EU with the USSR and both venerate Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.  But there’s a clear limit to how close they can get. Simion and Orbán have been at odds for years over Orbán’s claims that Hungarian minorities in Romania are being mistreated. Members of Simion’s AUR party suspect Orbán blocked its bid to join the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping. Indeed, they were only accepted within the bloc’s premier right-wing alliance after the Hungarian leader’s Fidesz party bailed to found the far-right Patriots group. Advertisement AUR — and particularly Simion — gained notoriety in 2019 during heated disputes over military graves in the village of Valea Uzului in Romania, where many Hungarian soldiers are buried. “Hungarians were beaten, and graves were desecrated … Since then, they have been attacking our people, our region, and our schools on a weekly basis,” Botond Csoma, spokesperson and parliamentary group leader of Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, told POLITICO.  Orbán relies on support from the Hungarian minority in Romania, to whom his government granted citizenship. They accounted for more than 250,000 votes in the last general election in Hungary and are seen as a bastion of support for the strongman. He will need their backing to take on his rival, Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party is polling ahead of him in the run-up to next year’s parliamentary elections.  Despite those underlying tensions, Simion is keen to extend an olive branch to Orbán and forge an alliance in Brussels. Simion shakes hands with former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu during an anti-government rally. | Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images “The relation with Mr. Orbán at the moment doesn’t exist, but as previously stated, to some extent, Viktor Orbán is a model for me and in many issues, I will collaborate with him,” Simion told POLITICO.  Last week, Orbán spoke out about the Romanian elections for the first time, saying that “one of the candidates, Mr. Simion, said … that both Hungary and Romania should be able to rely on each other … We fully agree.” Simion thanked Orbán for his support after the statement — but that caused disarray in the Hungarian minority party. To ease the turmoil, Orbán backtracked slightly a day later and stated that he fully aligned with the Hungarian minority party’s opinion. MELONI MAN Rather than Orbán, Simion routinely cites Meloni as his main source of inspiration. The Italian prime minister occupies a political zone between the far-right camps and the EU’s center-right mainstream, and is accepted as a partner by both Weber’s EPP and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.   For Brussels, however, Simion is no Meloni. The populist’s hostile relationship with Ukraine is a major problem, and was considered another impediment to the group’s adhesion to the ECR family in the past. To gain admission to the party, the ECR obliged AUR to sign a written declaration, seen by POLITICO, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and vaguely committing to preserving the rule of law. Advertisement Since then, Simion has claimed to be a staunch critic of the Kremlin and recently said Putin should be arrested for war crimes in Ukraine. But he has declined to commit to military aid to Ukraine and has doubled down on his promise to oppose those measures within the European Council.  It remains to be seen whether Meloni and the ECR can ultimately make the populist palatable in Brussels. “I will be open to collaborate,” Simion said. “Of course, I will be the new kid on the block, so I will have to learn a lot from Madame Meloni and other experienced leaders.” Simion told POLITICO he also looked up to other conservative politicians like the Flemish nationalist Prime Minister of Belgium Bart De Wever and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala. SHAPE-SHIFTER Romanian experts, with a longer memory, have a message: Do not trust what Simion or his party program says. This is, after all, a man who has moved from comparing the EU to the Soviet Union, and has then claimed not to be Euroskeptic. “Don’t take anything from whatever they wrote in that program,” said Expert Forum’s Ana Otilia Nuţu, who argued Simion has learned from Trump’s campaign. She said that, just like Trump, Simion was “creating a cult” around himself. “People are going to vote for you even if you lie to them in the face,” she said. Simion is now moderating his speech to reach a wider audience, Nuţu said, but warned that “he is going to act like Orbán in favor of Putin” if he gets elected.  Simion speaks against the court’s decision to annul the first round of the presidential elections. | Robert Ghement/EFE via EPA Romanian political expert Radu Magdin also said Simion was unreliable and was overpromising to win the election, but reckoned that economic constraints would ultimately force him to fall into step. Romania receives highly significant EU funds in sectors ranging from farming to digitalization, and Simion won’t want Bucharest to suffer Hungary’s fate and have its funding cut. “The political legitimacy here is stronger with Simion, but the economic leverage is stronger with von der Leyen because, you know, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose,” he said, citing the economic fragility of Romania over deficit levels. “This is an element of weakness that any Romanian leader has in their relationship with Brussels.” “The pressure to normalize on any Romanian president … is huge and is driven simply by economic considerations,” Magdin added. Claudiu Năsui, former Romanian economy minister, and a current member of parliament with the liberal Save Romania Union party, was even less equivocal and predicted Simion’s victory would be an “absolute disaster.” Advertisement “What’s going to happen with the Simion presidency is that people will expect a lot more uncertainty of Romania and a lot of more problems, so they’re going to withdraw funds,” he predicted. “So at best, we should expect a Meloni or PiS-style president,” he said, referring to Poland’s nationalist, socially conservative Law and Justice party. “That will be the absolute best-case scenario. I think it’s not going to be the best-case scenario, I think it’s going to be worse than Viktor Orbán if he gets elected.” Seb Starcevic contributed to this report.

Stop us if you think you’ve heard this one before. Romanians will head to the polls Sunday for the much-anticipated first round of their presidential election. This weekend’s vote, which follows November’s canceled election, will decide which two candidates — from a field that includes far-right firebrands and anti-EU crusaders — will make it to the all-important second round on May 18, in which we’ll find out who will go to Cotroceni Palace, the presidential residence in Bucharest. Getting to this point has involved some dizzying legal twists and turns, including dramatic disqualifications and surprise comebacks. So we figured it was time to answer a few questions you might have and offer a breakdown of what to expect on Sunday — and beyond. What, again? Da. Romanians already voted last November, but the result — which saw relatively unknown ultranationalist maverick Călin Georgescu leap out to a shock first-round victory — was annulled by the country’s constitutional court over Russian interference concerns. The court ordered a do-over. Georgescu was barred from running again, with Romania’s election bureau finding he “violated the very obligation to defend democracy,” and he quickly exhausted all legal avenues to appeal the expulsion, meaning he will have to sit out Sunday’s vote. So who’s actually running? About a dozen candidates will appear on the ballot, but for now just five are tipped to have a shot at making it to the second round on May 18. (Be sure to take Romanian polls, which completely failed to predict Georgescu’s first-round triumph in November, with a hefty grain of salt.) The front-runner is George Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians party. Simion denies he is pro-Russian but wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to appoint Georgescu to a top role if he is elected. Crin Antonescu is running as the establishment candidate, with the endorsement of Romania’s ruling center-left Social Democrats as well as the center-right National Liberals and the Hungarian minority party. A former history teacher, Antonescu had a brief, unimpressive stint as acting president in 2012, which lasted just 48 days, and has not held public office for a decade. Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest since 2020, is running as an independent candidate, as is Victor Ponta, Romania’s former Social Democrat prime minister. Ponta resigned from his post in 2015 amid street protests over a nightclub fire that killed 64 people and was later investigated for corruption but cleared. Simion denies he is pro-Russian but wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to appoint Georgescu to a top role if he is elected. | Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters Then there’s Elena Lasconi, another centrist candidate for the reformist Save Romania Union (USR). A former journalist, Lasconi entered politics in 2020 when she successfully ran for mayor of a small town near Bucharest, and came second in the canceled first round of Romania’s election in November. Polls now show her trailing far behind the other candidates, and her own party has deserted her in favor of Dan. When do we get the results? The first round vote will take place this Sunday, May 4, with polling stations open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. Romania’s massive diaspora can vote from Friday to allow time for ballots to be counted. Follow POLITICO’s Poll of Polls on the big day for the results as they come in; we’ll bring you the count late into the night. According to Romania’s electoral authority, the two names that will appear on the ballot in the May 18 second round must be publicized no later than May 9, though we will likely know which two candidates have pulled ahead sooner than that. Theoretically, if a candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be no need for a second round in two weeks. But an outright winner this weekend would be unexpected. Why does any of this matter? There’s an awful lot at stake in this election, not just for Romania but for the European Union, NATO and even the Russia-Ukraine war. Romania, a nation of about 19 million which borders Ukraine, has long been a reliable member of the EU and NATO. But if Simion — who has described his party’s style as “Trumpist” — wins, he has promised to push back against Brussels, telling POLITICO last November that he would break EU law if he deemed it necessary, and has said he wants to yank military support for Kyiv. Ponta, the former prime minister, is also running on a MAGA-style platform, promising to halt Ukrainian grain exports through Romanian ports. Antonescu, the establishment candidate, and Dan, the Romanian capital’s mayor, are considered safer, more mainstream contenders by Brussels, though it remains to be seen how they would fare against Simion in a theoretical second round. If the country makes a sharp turn to the right, it would join a growing hard-right contingent helping govern in Europe, from Hungary and Slovakia to Italy, Finland and the Netherlands. POLITICO has outlined the various electoral scenarios and matchups that could take place after Sunday’s vote here.

President Donald Trump has spent the first three months of his second term imposing his will on the rest of the globe, telling long-time allies that they “don’t have the cards.” But in capitals across Europe and elsewhere, debates are raging over the hands they could play. Proposals under consideration range from minor irritants to extreme actions that could sever defense and economic relationships that have cemented alliances for nearly a century. Those include finding alternative suppliers of military equipment and munitions from U.S.-based defense contractors, enacting stronger counter-tariffs, rolling back intellectual property protections for U.S. companies and lessening their reliance on American tech giants, according to conversations with more than two dozen government officials in Europe and Canada, many of whom were granted anonymity to describe high-level discussions they’re not authorized to speak about publicly. “There’s a change in mindset. We’ve moved on from seduction to strategy,” one EU diplomat said about dealing with Trump. “We’ll take decisions to protect ourselves.” The diplomat added: “We need to strike a path that works without Washington.” Less than three months into Trump’s term, his pursuit of a transactional, mercantilist and imperialist foreign policy has rattled leaders across the globe. It started with the president’s persistence in talking about annexing Canada and Greenland, his eagerness to end the war in Ukraine largely on Russia’s terms and Vice President JD Vance’s caustic comments describing Europe as freeloaders. But Trump’s market-cratering move this month to impose massive tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners — based on a formula scores of economists found bizarre — caused many longtime allies to shed any last remnants of magical thinking that they could manage or contain this predictably unpredictable American president as they did during his first term. Leaders from London to Warsaw, Helsinki to Rome, are continuing efforts to de-escalate and maintain productive relationships with Washington — while considering how to “de-risk” by protecting themselves from Trump’s havoc. Their initial moves could be the first cracks in a dam that could break wide open, unleashing a torrent of increasingly punitive actions that, ultimately, could unravel a transatlantic alliance that has tied America to Europe for eight decades and refashion the global order. The White House, however, downplayed the potential for a rift, asserting that Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine — which he has undertaken with little input from NATO allies — are aimed at making Europe more secure, even though many of the continent’s leaders fear that any potential concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin will make their collective security even more precarious. “The President has led in an effort to bring the biggest conflict since WWII in Europe to a peaceful resolution, and he is helping restore international shipping lanes in the Red Sea that will also benefit European markets,” said national security council spokesperson Brian Hughes. “We will continue to work with our European allies on ways to improve security cooperation — be that through foreign military sales, encouraging our allies to increase their defense budgets, and holding our adversaries like the Houthis accountable.” Of course, private Signal messages during the attack on the Houthis laid bare how some of the president’s most senior aides view Europe as “free-loading,” with Vance lamenting that he “hated” bailing the continent out. Trump officials “seem to think Europe is this dying continent that has no future and is not capable of independent action, that Russia is the more formidable power,” said Minna Ålander, a fellow on transatlantic defense and security at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “They may soon find out that the opposite is true.” SHIFTING DEFENSE DOLLARS AWAY FROM AMERICA Few countries across Europe are more indebted or unconditionally loyal to the U.S. than Poland. And yet, posters are now showing up around Warsaw merging two silhouettes: Putin and Trump. It’s an indication of the extent to which two months of direct threats and challenges from Washington are rapidly changing public opinion — and the private calculations of government officials — in Warsaw and in other European capitals. Trump has been pushing NATO members to increase their spending on defense, saying that the alliance’s requirement that nations allocate 2 percent of GDP should be raised to 5 percent. But the result of his pressure may well be that NATO allies shift their defense investments away from American contracts, shrinking a lucrative financial arrangement upon which the U.S. relies. Poland, which borders Ukraine and Russia-aligned Belarus, is already spending 4.7 percent of its GDP on defense, the most of any NATO member. And it buys more American defense equipment than any other country in the world. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have praised Poland as an exemplary ally. But Warsaw is reconsidering that partnership. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has ruled out the cancellation of any existing contracts, but there are qualms in Warsaw about entering new ones. “Confidence in the USA has been severely shaken,” said Pawel Kowal, the Ukraine envoy in Tusk’s office. “I don’t think we will be placing any more major orders with the American arms industry for the time being after analyzing our experiences with what is happening now.” That’s no small statement given how much Poland’s procurement of American defense equipment, Kowal added, has helped to solidify relations with Washington, and the Trump administration in particular. Poland plans to spend $47.1 billion on defense in 2025, more than half of which will go to U.S. contractors. But Kowal says Poland now needs “to diversify our arms purchases” and “to buy in Europe or rely more on our own Polish arms industry.” Cezary Tomczyk, Poland’s deputy defense minister, said that maintaining strong ties to the U.S. remains important, noting that Trump has encouraged Europe to be more self-reliant and saying investing more in production in Poland is part of that. But Tomczyk offered a word of caution, noting that the U.S. has tangible interests in Poland as well. “If the U.S. alienates Poland, it would not be good for the U.S.,” he said. As Trump prepared to take office for the second time, European leaders strategized that they could keep him engaged with NATO by meeting his demand that they increase defense spending with commitments to direct most of their outlays to American companies. Now, they’re moving in the opposite direction. “Europe is now going to heavily increase its investments to defense. And it will be very logical that Europe is turning this money to its own economy,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, who also referred to the sudden questions about the reliability of American-made weapons systems that arose after Trump abruptly halted defense aid to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March. “There must be a political trust that if you buy something, you must be sure that you can use them as well.” Many of the countries determined to boost defense spending are loath to invest in America’s defense industrial base — and newly aware that placating Trump isn’t as simple as it was during his first term. “In previous years, under Trump 1.0 and even afterward, we said, yes, we can appease him. He wants to make deals, he wants us to go on a big shopping spree from him: Buy F-35s, Patriots, liquified natural gas and all sorts of other things … and then he’ll be appeased,” said Peter Beyer, a member of Germany’s Bundestag from the conservative Christian Democrats, the party expected to lead Germany’s incoming government. “I think that’s a much too simplistic calculation. It all doesn’t add up, at least not today. It won’t work.” Trump’s willingness to use U.S.-controlled weapons systems as leverage over Ukraine in the midst of a war has given rise to new worries. Canada, Portugal, Denmark and Germany have publicly expressed reservations about continuing to purchase F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. given that Trump, in the event of a political disagreement, could block access to spare parts and software upgrades needed to keep the aircraft flying and combat-ready. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has asserted that Berlin will continue to honor its F-35 contracts, calling the U.S. “an important ally for us.” But he has also made clear that’s at least partly due to a lack of other options when it comes to upgrading a current fleet that is about to age out. Beyer, a former transatlantic coordinator for the German government, said that even if concerns about an F-35 “kill switch” aren’t reality-based, it would be “daft” for Berlin to continue relying so heavily on America’s security backing given the administration’s approach. “If we purchase weapons systems, be it Patriot, F-35 or whatever, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, we have to be aware that it’s like a Damocles sword that a shutdown could occur,” Beyer said. “This thought is now there in people’s minds, also in connection with Starlink, Elon Musk and the data for Ukraine — this discussion is in full swing.” Given that Europe is so integrated into America’s defense industrial base after decades of procurement, finding European alternatives to U.S. systems won’t happen overnight. But even the U.S.-made Patriot system has its challengers. The French-Italian SAMP/T, which takes only two years to produce, is now going through upgrades to put its range on par with Patriots. And confidence about it being a viable alternative has grown after its widespread usage by Ukraine over the last few years. TAKING COUNTER-TARIFFS TO THE EXTREME On April 2, Trump levied 20 percent tariffs on the EU as part of a sweeping policy shift aimed at erasing trade deficits, only to abruptly hit the pause button less than a week later to halt a global economic panic that was starting to affect even America’s bond market. Even if the detente holds, allies still reeling from the whiplash still face a new reality of chronic uncertainty. Hours before Trump announced he was pausing all tariffs except those on China, the EU voted to hit back with counter-tariffs on nearly €21 billion of U.S. products — soybeans, motorcycles and orange juice — but stopped short of retaliating on the 20 percent “reciprocal” tariff Trump had imposed on all EU exports to the U.S. “Right now, Europe is focusing on customs duties in response to the duties announced by the U.S., and we aren’t looking for escalation. We don’t want to fuel confrontation, but we do want to be very clear,” one senior European diplomat said. The EU quickly put its retaliatory measures on hold after Trump announced his 90-day pause. But if the tit-for-tat on trade ratchets back up, Europe could go even further. There has been some talk already about deploying the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, adopted in 2023 in response to China’s attempted political blackmailing of Lithuania over its position on Taiwan. The ACI, dubbed by some EU officials the “bazooka,” sets out a step-by-step procedure if and when coercion is identified, starting with talks with the country involved to determine the best way to resolve the matter. If the economic coercion continues, the EU is then empowered to ratchet up its response with countermeasures ranging from tariffs increases and exclusion from public procurement to restrictions on intellectual property rights protection. Although Trump’s initial rationale for the tariffs — boosting American manufacturing — is not ostensibly coercive, the EU Commission is considering and discussing with member states whether the ACI could be a weapon in a prolonged trade war with the U.S., according to one EU official. “It has been discussed at the European Commission level, but it’s really the nuclear option,” the European official said. “It was devised against a systemic rival [China]. You start hitting data, services, it’s a lot more imposing, you really are widening the scope. The decision is not taken, but it’s been more than just mentioned at the Commission, it’s being discussed as a possibility.” There is hope that such a move won’t be necessary. “The brake [on Trump] could well come from the markets,” another senior European diplomat said. “Europe is not defenseless.” TARGETING SPECIFIC PRODUCTS Some countries — and their citizens — are also looking at how to hit back at individual companies or industries to cause pain or grab headlines in the United States. Some EU governments are considering weaponizing agricultural and environmental standards to discriminate against American products. They could ban specific products from certain Trump-supporting states, like Kentucky bourbon or Florida orange juice. As boycotts of Tesla have already shown — European sales were down 45 percent in January — public sentiment alone could drive people to stop buying American products on their own. Across the continent, Facebook groups devoted to organizing boycotts of American products have amassed tens of thousands of followers. In Denmark, a survey showed that roughly half the population has avoided buying American products since Trump’s inauguration. And the country’s largest grocery store operator now marks whether products sold are from European companies on its electronic price tags. There’s also tourism. Canada is among a handful of countries that have issued advisories warning about traveling to the U.S., going as far as to ask citizens to “reconsider” visiting the States. Passenger bookings on airline routes between the U.S. and Canada are down 70 percent compared to the same period a year ago, a shift that industry analysts believe will cost $2 billion in lost travel and business revenue. Similarly, travel from Europe to the U.S. has dropped by 35 percent in the last two months. If Trump imposes tariffs he is weighing on pharmaceuticals coming into the country, the EU might decide to add export controls on top of that — making Americans pay even more for popular drugs like Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s obesity and diabetes drug, which is largely produced in Denmark. DISRUPTING SUPPLY CHAINS Some countries are also looking at ways to limit — or make more costly — essential products or services the U.S. depends on. The EU could impose export tariffs on EU-produced machinery, electrical equipment or pharmaceuticals — creating immediate price pressure on U.S. supply chains. That would come at a high cost for European countries, but some officials and analysts aren’t ruling it out. “Europe can have some chokepoints vis à vis America. Europe trades in machinery and optical equipment, we can effect a standstill of American production,” Swedish economist Fredrik Erixon said. “These products are not easily substitutable.” For instance, Europe could impose export controls on products made by Dutch company ASML, the world’s biggest provider of photolithography machines which are used to produce computer chips. This would force U.S. manufacturers that use ASML technology — American consumers — to pay more. Other choke points could be highly advanced technology products made by Nokia and Ericsson that are essential to network operators. Erixon described such moves as “the nuclear option” in a transatlantic trade war, given how intertwined their supply chains are. But, he said, “America is in a predicament because it wants to impose general tariffs, whereas the EU has the possibility of rearranging trade flows.” Some European companies have taken to disrupting supply lines on their own. A Norwegian fuel supplier refused to refuel the U.S. Navy warships and submarines after Trump and Vance berated Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office. It was an isolated incident, but illuminated how much American interests rely on and benefit from strong alliances — and what stands to be lost if relationships deteriorate. And allies closer to home have other levers to pull. Canada supplied 27,220,531 megawatt hours of electricity to the U.S. last year, not to mention 59 percent of the crude oil America imports — a point of leverage, some leaders have noted, in the event of a protracted trade war. The premier of Canada’s largest province threatened last month to shut off the electricity that powers much of New England the Great Lakes states, vowing that Americans “need to feel the pain” from Trump’s trade war. At the same time, the premier of Nova Scotia said American companies would no longer be able to bid on provincial procurement contracts and could see their existing contracts canceled, remarking that “some people need to touch the hot stove to learn.” STICKING IT TO SILICON VALLEY Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency and the presence of a raft of tech CEOs at Trump’s inauguration have highlighted the extent to which U.S. tech leaders are increasingly in league with Trump. The EU had already been in the lead on regulating tech companies and attempting to curb the spread of misinformation on privately owned platforms like Musk’s X. But there had been a sense of wanting to work together with the U.S. on policies and standards. That’s changing. In the Netherlands, lawmakers last month approved funding for a new Dutch-controlled cloud services platform to reduce the country’s reliance on U.S. tech companies. That followed a call from then-Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo for the EU to “take action” in response to Musk’s involvement in recent European elections where he advocated for far-right candidates. The EU has been investigating X, the social media platform Musk owns, for nearly a year and a half over suspected breaches of Europe’s Digital Services Act, which requires platforms with over 45 million monthly users to comply with a raft of stringent rules designed to keep users safe and curb the spread of illegal, harmful content. Cutting against the grain, Britain is considering a cut to the digital services tax levied on tech giants, although the optics of doing so would be extremely uncomfortable at a time when the government is also drawing up plans to reduce welfare payments for disabled people. In a sign of how countries can leverage their own tech markets and companies that are important to the U.S., China is harnessing its control over TikTok’s future in the U.S. Trump has been forced to delay the enforcement of a law requiring that TikTok find a new owner in the U.S. or be banned over security concerns. That’s because Beijing, upset about being hit with additional tariffs, scuttled a tentative deal giving a group of American investors a 50 percent stake in the company. GOING IT ALONE Whether allies in Europe or the Americas end up implementing some of the more aggressive responses they’re now discussing, Trump’s unilateral approach and disregard for the interwoven economic and security interests at the core of longstanding alliances has heightened the urgency of lessening their dependence on Washington. No one put it in more stark terms than Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, responding to Trump’s tariffs: “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over,” he said in late March. Increasingly, Europe’s sudden seriousness about defense spending isn’t driven by the idea that placating Trump will help maintain American hard power as a backstop for the continent’s defense — but by the realization that in many ways Europe is already on its own. That’s a message Hegseth and Vance have conveyed directly both in private meetings and public statements. Following his election two months ago, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, declared his top priority to be strengthening Europe to “achieve independence from the USA,” lamenting that Trump has made clear that “the Americans … are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.” To that end, Merz succeeded in winning the Bundeswehr’s approval to skirt Germany’s “debt brake” and dramatically boost defense spending, a striking about-face for a country that has been wary of greater militarization since the end of World War II. And as more countries follow suit, there is growing interest in forming new coalitions. Several countries in Europe’s north and east appear interested in joining the six-member Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation, or OCCAR, which manages armament programs on behalf of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Belgium. Denmark, which has long contributed more to NATO defenses than many larger member countries, has joined the European Sky Shield Initiative to create a multi-layered air defense system in Europe. “In three to five years, we need to be totally able to defend ourselves in Europe,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told POLITICO last month. Similarly on the trade front, allies are eager to insulate themselves from Trump’s erratic approach by replacing trade with the U.S. with new partners. French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said last month that Paris was suddenly rethinking its opposition to a massive EU trade pact with several South American nations, calling on leaders in Brussels to address French concerns so that the “Mercosur” deal could be finalized. Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, Saint-Martin said, was “a wake-up call.” After Trump’s reversal on tariffs left China as his primary target under an increased 145 percent tariff, Beijing opened negotiations with the EU to abolish the bloc’s tariffs on imported vehicles from China. Those discussions, if successful, could dramatically reduce the volume of American-made vehicles sold in the European market. In the long run, Trump’s belief that he has better cards could weaken America’s hand, reducing its leverage over longtime allies once they’re more independent from Washington. “We need to take advantage of the crisis with the U.S., to rebuild our economic, defense and energy sovereignty,” said a former French minister. “And we need to carry on hitting back.” This text is a collaboration of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. Eli Stokols reported from Washington, WELT’s Philipp Fritz reported from Warsaw, Clea Caulcutt reported from Paris and Emily Schultheis reported from Los Angeles. Nicholas Vinocur in Brussels and Esther Webber in London contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — From the front lines in Ukraine to ordinarily damp Belgium, a shortage of rainfall has left much of Europe parched halfway through spring.  The early drought spells trouble for supply chains and farmers — with potential knock-on effects for industry, trade and global food security, adding to the economic turmoil triggered by Donald Trump’s erratic tariff announcements.  The European Drought Observatory’s most recent update from mid-March places parts of Poland, Ukraine, Greece, the Balkans, Sweden, Ireland, Germany and more in its orange “warning” category, while the southeastern Spanish coast is already on red alert.  While factors such as water mismanagement contribute to dry conditions, scientists say that the effects of man-made climate change, which include increasingly irregular rainfall patterns and hotter temperatures, will lead to worse and more frequent droughts in Europe.  A lack of rainfall combined with unseasonably warm weather — the continent experienced its hottest March on record last month — is driving this current drought, said the observatory’s lead researcher, Andrea Toreti.  “The situation we are observing is causing quite some concern,” he said, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. There, “the rainfall deficit has been building up over the last 60 to 80 days, and it’s accelerating. … We’re monitoring this closely because it’s evolving very fast.” Scientists say that the effects of man-made climate change will lead to worse and more frequent droughts in Europe. | Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images The present conditions resemble those ahead of Europe’s devastating 2018 drought, Toreti said. How severe this year’s drought becomes will depend on the weather in the coming few weeks, he added — and it’s not looking good.  “The coming weeks will be critical. If it doesn’t rain in the coming weeks, we’re looking at serious impacts on agriculture, for example,” he said. “If we look at the climate predictions for the coming three months in the areas already suffering from low rainfall, the forecasts are not encouraging.”  The situation in Germany has been deteriorating particularly fast, Toreti said.  The German Helmholtz Center’s drought monitor colors more than half the country in deep dark red, signifying “extraordinarily” dry topsoils. The situation is less dire at deeper soil levels, but that upper layer is crucial for the young plants and seedlings farmers are growing right now.  Meanwhile, the Rhine, a vital artery for transporting goods in Western Europe, is experiencing low levels usually seen in summer. As a result, barges can only pass the river with less than half their usual cargo, driving up logistics costs and slowing supply chains.  Belgium is also facing a dramatic rainfall deficit. According to the country’s Royal Meteorological Institute, there has been shockingly little rainfall between March 1 and Tuesday last week — with effectively no rain for 33 days during that period and only 7.8 millimeters of precipitation at its Brussels monitoring station. The average is around 50 mm.  Among the worst-hit countries are Poland and Ukraine, which are both world-leading grain exporters. | Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images “We’ve never experienced such a dry period,” the institute’s climatologist Pascal Mormal told L’Echo. But Belgium, which saw its wettest year on record in 2024, is relatively lucky for now, with plentiful groundwater reserves, and isn’t yet considered at risk of a full-blown drought.  The situation is far worse in Central and Eastern Europe, where a dry winter didn’t give soils a chance to recover from last year’s drought. Among the worst-hit countries are Poland and Ukraine, which are both world-leading grain exporters.  “A potential poor grain season as a result of intense drought can have a significant impact on the global grain market,” agricultural researcher Claas Nendel warned in a note circulated by the German meteorological service earlier this month, warning of a “drought year” for the region often described as Europe’s breadbasket. While Europeans probably don’t need to worry about their supply of baguettes and focaccia, high grain prices can destabilize global food security — already under threat due to the United States’ humanitarian aid cuts.  Dry conditions also allow wildfires to spread with ease. In Liechtenstein and Austria, authorities are already fretting about fire weather. For Ukraine, the danger is further amplified by stray Russian missiles sparking fires in parched fields and forests.  The spring drought also puts pressure on the European Commission to unveil substantial measures as part of its much-anticipated Water Resilience Strategy, expected in June. The paper is meant to address the dual water challenges — too little and too much rain — brought about by global warming. Both extremes are becoming a growing challenge for Europe as climate change disrupts the planet’s water cycle. While large swaths of the continent grapple with drought, Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands this weekend declared a state of emergency following torrential rain and flooding.