EUROPE HEAT WAVE IN PICTURES Europe is sweltering under one of the most intense heat waves ever, with temperatures well above 40 °C across much of the continent. Thibaud Moritz/AFP via Getty Images From scorched plains in Spain to shuttered schools in Paris, the extreme heat has triggered red alerts, wildfires, and widespread disruption. As health officials issue urgent warnings and governments scramble to respond, this blistering start to July raises fresh alarm about the accelerating impact of climate change in Europe. A rare “roll cloud” advances from the horizon toward the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean near Cabo da Roca, southwestern Portugal. | Arthur Carvalho/AFP via Getty Images -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Experts warn that the intense heatwave reflects the mounting impact of climate change. | Julie Sebadelha, Jeff Pachoud, Gabriel Bouys, Milos Bicanski/AFP via Getty Images Emma Raducanu cools off with a towel full of ice during a break between sets in her first-round match against Mimi Xu on day one of the Wimbledon tennis championship. | Mike Hewitt/Getty Images Zoo animals cool off as temperatures reach over 40 °C in Sofia, Bulgaria. | Nikolay Doychinov/AFP via Getty Images  A firefighter extinguishes burning hay bales in Lower Saxony, Germany. / Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images  A thermometer shows the temperature rising towards 40°C as Belgium faces an intense heatwave, prompting the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) to issue an orange alert across the country between July 1-3, warning of potentially dangerous heat levels. | Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images

NICE, France — The race to save the world’s oceans is on. The United Nations Oceans Conference in Nice, France ended Friday with promises from world leaders to ratify a global, binding agreement to help protect the world’s oceans by September — paving the way for the world’s very first Conference of the Parties for a High Seas Treaty next year. “This is a considerable victory,” said French Oceans Ambassador Olivier Poivre d’Arvor in a press conference Friday. “It’s very difficult to work on oceans right now when the United States have withdrawn from almost everything. But the Argentinian president helped a lot. China [promised to ratify]. Indonesia just ratified a few hours ago. So, we won.” If that happens, it will have been a long time coming. The negotiating process started 20 years ago and the treaty was adopted in 2023, but countries have been slow to ratify and at least 60 must do so for the treaty to come into force. With marine and coastal ecosystems facing multiple threats from climate change, fishing, and pollution, the treaty’s main aim is to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which make up around two thirds of the ocean. But if getting 60 countries to ratify a treaty they already endorsed was hard, deciding which parts of the world’s international waters to protect from overfishing — and how — won’t be much easier. “Make no mistake, like every other convention, there will be opposition,” Dale Webber, Jamaica’s special envoy for climate change, environment, ocean and blue economy, told POLITICO. “I already know of some countries who are fishing on the high seas who are saying, ‘You’re trying to limit my catch!’ but that’s exactly what we need to do.” OFF TO A SLOW START Some smaller and developing countries, as well as environmental groups, leave the conference feeling that the onus remains on them to protect the world’s oceans — despite grand words from French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the conference’s opening on Monday. “Everybody needs to do more — specifically those countries that belong to the Western world,” Panamanian climate envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez told POLITICO. “If you look at the 30 by 30 goal, it’s developing countries [who are] carrying the weight as of right now,” he added, in reference to a global goal to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030. French Polynesia stole the show this week, announcing the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area, highly or fully protecting around 1.1 million square kilometers of its waters, teeming with tropical fish, sharks, rays, dolphins and 150 species of precious corals.   Other non-EU countries to have presented new marine protected areas include Colombia, Samoa, Tanzania and São Tomé and Príncipe. In comparison, the offering from the EU and other Western countries seems paltry to NGOs. “The legacy of EU countries at this conference on ocean protection can be summed up as: ‘Do as I say, not as I do’,” said Seas at Risk policy officer Tatiana Nuño.  While Marine Protected Areas cover just over 12 percent of EU sea area, only 2 percent have management plans in place and less than 1 percent are strictly protected, according to the European Environment Agency. Portuguese environment minister Maria da Graça Carvalho pledged to establish a Marine Protected Area around the Gorringe Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean, which features Western Europe’s tallest seamount and is over 180 kilometers long — although details around how it would be managed remain scarce. France announced fresh limits on bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas — but faced criticism from NGOs denouncing a lack of ambition. Greece declared it had begun legal procedures for the creation of Greece’s first two marine parks. The U.S. was a no-show, having decided to skip the conference, as reported by POLITICO last week. A State Department spokesperson said the conference is “at odds” with positions held by the current U.S. administration. “We can do this,” said the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thomson. “Small countries are leading the way. Come on, big countries, make 30 by 30 a reality,” he added. “The EU can do a lot more,” in terms of ocean protection and MPAs, Webber, the Jamaican envoy said. “We’re up to 15 percent in Jamaica, and for all our Marine Protected Areas, we have a management plan.” Portugal’s Carvalho told POLITICO she hoped her country’s own MPA announcement would serve as an “example” to other EU countries. A TUG-OF-WAR LOOMS The discrepancy in ambition foreshadows the hurdles of implementing the high seas treaty. Governments are set to squabble over where to put new Marine Protected Areas in international waters and how they should be managed — as well as how they should be financed. Monitoring these vast, remote waters will be difficult and costly. It turns out that rescuing that world’s oceans doesn’t come cheap. The world needs to invest $15.8 billion annually to achieve a global target of protecting 30 per cent of the global oceans by 2030, according to a new report penned by Systemiq. Currently, annual investment in ocean protection amounts to $1.2 billion, leaving a $14.6 billion funding gap. “We also have considerable concerns about how [the funding commitments so far] translate onto the ground,” said Kristian Teleki, CEO of NGO Fauna & Flora. “The frontline where communities are the ones bearing the brunt of ocean decline but equally are the solution for reversing this trend.” One thing is for certain: Countries won’t be able to count on the U.S. for the foreseeable future. The summit aims to promote enduring uses of ocean resources — one of 17 sustainable development goals held by the United Nations. But the Trump administration has rejected those goals, calling them “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty.” While it’s “sad that they have taken this decision,” said Jamaica’s Webber, “they’re just one country. An important country, a large country — but still one country.” In addition to the high seas treaty, countries have also rallied around a call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, with the current number of signatories standing at 37 — standing in opposition to the U.S. which has signed an executive order promoting deep-sea mining in national and international waters. “While the usual virtue signaling floats on the breeze at UNOC in the French Riviera, we’ve had a GREAT week in D.C. where things get done and the sun shines bright,” posted The Metals Company CEO Gerard Barron on social media network X. “The deep sea is the heritage of humankind, and one nation cannot make a unilateral decision to destroy it to the detriment of other nations,” said Panama’s Monterrey. The next United Nations Oceans Conference is set to take place in South Korea in 2028.

EU membership isn’t on the ballot in Canada’s crucial election later this month — but polling shows Canadians are intrigued by the idea of joining the bloc. As U.S. President Donald Trump upends the relationship with his northern neighbor via a blizzard of punitive tariffs and belligerent social media posts, Canadians are wondering if they should cozy up to new, more reliable allies. Enter Brussels. In a recent poll, a whopping 44 percent of Canadians said they supported the idea of EU membership, compared with only 34 percent who dismissed the idea. European Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho noted that Brussels was “honored with the results of such a poll,” but appeared to confirm that only European countries are eligible for membership, according to the bloc’s governing treaties. But while Canada joining the EU might sound far-fetched even to the Commission, the EU experts who unpacked the question for POLITICO said that while such a gambit would be unlikely to succeed … it’s not actually impossible. ‘CANADA WOULD CERTAINLY QUALIFY’ The case for Canada as the bloc’s 28th member seems to be based mainly on vibes, dude. Although separated by the Atlantic Ocean and thousands of kilometers, Canada and the EU share many common interests: strong economic ties, shared democratic values and, well, the splitting headache Donald Trump’s U.S. administration is causing. European Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho noted that Brussels was “honored with the results of such a poll,” but appeared to confirm that only European countries are eligible for membership, according to the bloc’s governing treaties. | Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images That begs the question — given Pinho pointed to terminology in Article 49 of the Treaty on the European Union that says “any European State … may apply to become a member of the Union” — is there anything beyond basic geography that makes a country European and could Canada qualify? And since you asked … “Being European is more of a state of mind,” Giselle Bosse, professor of EU external democracy support at Maastricht University, told POLITICO. “Legally and formally a European state is not actually defined and looking into the past, we’ve had European states that in a way are not limited to the European continent,” said Bosse, pointing out that EU countries have overseas territories in the Caribbean, Pacific and the Arctic. She called Canadians “special Europeans, in a way” for reasons including their belief in the welfare state, their political and legal systems being based on European models and many Canadians having continental ancestry. Frank Schimmelfennig, professor of European politics at ETH Zurich, had a similar take, elaborating on an ongoing discussion about what it means to be European beyond placement on a map of the world. “Canada would certainly qualify,” he said, as it is “in very many ways probably closer to those European values, institutions and policies than many of the current candidate countries.” Those candidate countries include Western Balkan countries as well as Ukraine and Moldova which are progressing well (if slowly) on the EU pathway, but also Turkey and Georgia, which have stalled due to democratic backsliding and concerns over the rule of law. While some of the Canadian vibes are good, any decision would, ultimately, belong to the European Commission and the bloc’s member countries. As a note of caution for any excitable europhiles in Ottawa, when the EU’s southern neighbor Morocco applied for membership in 1987, its application was declined on the grounds that it was not a European state. FRENCH FARMERS WOULDN’T LIKE IT Although some EU scholars have arguments about why Canada’s EU membership is possible, others threw cold water on the prospect. To begin with, Canadians would need to be deadly serious about their so-called Europeanness. So far, the poll responses may have been “an emotional move on the part of Canadians,” according to Bosse, the professor from Maastricht University. Prior to joining the EU in 2004, Central European countries continually framed their accession as a “return to Europe,” the place of their historical belonging. Canadians have not expressed similar sentiments — at least not for now. Ian Bond, deputy director at the Center for European Reform, believes “it would be extremely difficult to make the case that Canada is a European country” for several reasons. Even if it were to pass the test of so-called Europeanness, “practical economics” would get in the way, he said. “Canada would then have to put the customs border between itself and the U.S. and apply EU tariffs and regulations on imports from the U.S. … It would be incredibly economically destructive. It would outweigh any benefits that it might expect to get from the [EU] membership over many, many years,” Bond added. He said that allowing a new member into the bloc would require unanimity — and even referendums in some member countries, such as France. “How often have French farmers voted in favor of free trade with other parts of the world? … They are more likely to set things on fire in an effort to prevent it from happening,” he added. IT’S A LONG SHOT Finally, green-lighting Canada’s EU membership could frustrate some countries, such as Turkey, which have been queueing up for, literally, decades. New Prime Minister Mark Carney made his first foreign trip to France on March 17 to discuss building stronger economic, defense and commercial ties with French President Emmanuel Macron. | Daniel Dorko/AFP via Getty Images “I don’t think this is feasible in the short term, because of the procedures and the state of the union and enlargement,” said Bosse. Instead, what Canada could do is improve their economic partnership agreement with the EU, said Bond. And it seems Canadian authorities are already on that. New Prime Minister Mark Carney made his first foreign trip to France on March 17 to discuss building stronger economic, defense and commercial ties with French President Emmanuel Macron. But he may have also made a fatal error for any long-shot EU ambitions, when he called Canada the “most European of non-European countries.”  If Brussels was taking notes, that could backfire if Canada ever actually submits a membership application. Csongor Körömi contributed to this report.

LONDON — The U.K., along with the rest of the world, may be on the brink of climate disaster. If the worst happens, Whitehall is going to want a little bit of warning.  So it is turning to scientific experts for help — and to a government-backed center for innovative research which also happens to be the legacy left by one of the most controversial figures in recent U.K. political history. Scientists, assisted with millions in government funding, are about to embark on a mission to set up an “early warning system” for two so-called climate change ‘tipping points’: critical thresholds which, if breached, could plunge Britain and much of the world into a new reality of extreme weather and food insecurity. The £81 million, multi-year scheme could deploy robots — dubbed WALL-E by some experts, in honor of Pixar’s robotic environmental hero — to monitor the impact of climate change in the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic. The cash would also be used for supercomputer models of historic climate data. It will all be led by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), an independent body funded by the government and founded at the instigation of former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s top aide until he was forced out of Downing Street in a swirl of ignominy in 2020. ARIA has a remit to carry out research considered “too speculative, too hard, or too interdisciplinary to pursue elsewhere,” according to its own mission statement. This includes work on prospective climate disasters. “It is incumbent on governments to think the unthinkable about what might happen,” said Laurie Laybourn, a researcher on climate and security at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank.  CLIMATE MONITOR Full details of the project will be announced in early 2025.  But the aim is to monitor for changes in ocean circulation, temperature, and ice melt — driven by global warming — that could herald the collapse of the subpolar gyre (SPG.)  The U.K., along with the rest of the world, may be on the brink of climate disaster. | Benjamin Cremel/Getty Images That system of marine currents plays a critical role in maintaining northern Europe’s temperate climate. The project will also assess the linked risk of the Greenland ice sheet collapsing. If there are signs the SPG is about to collapse, it would tell anyone paying attention that potentially existential changes to global conditions could be on on their way. There is still significant scientific uncertainty, but some climate models anticipate that SPG collapse could happen as soon as 2040, resulting in colder, snowier winters and hotter summers in the U.K. and Europe, while potentially disrupting monsoon rains that are vital for food security in west Africa. Ultimately, the goal is to create a permanent monitoring system that would alert policymakers if a tipping point was coming — buying governments and their populations vital time to prepare. Sarah Bohndiek, one of the two scientists leading the climate change program at ARIA, warned the world was less prepared for climate tipping points than it had been for COVID-19. “We saw the devastating societal and economic consequences [of the coronavirus], but also the speed with which we were able to respond and start delivering vaccination and delivering medical care,” Bohndiek told POLITICO. “What would happen if we cross one of these climate tipping points? Well, actually, we don’t have the same level of preparedness that we had for the pandemic.” ‘CATASTROPHIC LOSSES’ But warning signs over the SPG could be just the first stage of a still bigger tipping point: the breakdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) ocean current. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considers an abrupt collapse of the AMOC unlikely this century. But if it did occur, scientists predict catastrophic global consequences. A recent IPPR report, written by Laybourn, the climate and security specialist, concluded that AMOC collapse would lead to such extreme cold that it “would effectively wipe out crop-growing in the U.K.” Its wider effects could cause “catastrophic losses to key crops globally,” the report said. The paper criticized the government for failing to take account of climate tipping points when assessing national security risks and strategy. Laybourn welcomed the idea of an early warning system. If a tipping point is approaching “we need as much warning as we can,” he said. A government spokesperson said: “We continue to support fundamental research into climate risks, such as the work being conducted by both the Met Office and ARIA, as part of our record-breaking £20.4 billion backing for U.K. research and development.” There is still significant scientific uncertainty, but some climate models anticipate that SPG collapse could happen as soon as 2040. | Carl Court/Getty Images Gemma Bale, Bohndiek’s co-director on the early warning system project, described the research as “edge-of-the-possible stuff.” “What we want to do over the five years of our program is to demonstrate that it could be possible,” said Bale. “Maybe we’ll have something that looks like an early warning system at the end of five years. But maybe we’ll have just changed the conversation so people are thinking: ‘This is what we need to do to actually build that system — and take these risks really seriously.’” The challenges are technical as well as scientific, said Bohndiek. Robotic measuring instruments — the ones she likens to WALL-E — would have to operate for years in the depths of the ocean or out on the wastes of the Greenland ice sheet in the middle of an Arctic winter.   Bohndiek and Bale, both founding directors at ARIA, have a background in medical physics, not climate science. They have asked top climate scientists already working on the problem for proposals to design the early warning system, as well as specialists in sensor technology. The agency also wants to work with social scientists who can then help convert the findings into policy recommendations. BE PREPARED The chosen “creators” — ARIA speak for researchers — will take the project forward early next year. Tim Lenton, professor of climate change at the University of Exeter, is one of those who has submitted a proposal. An SPG collapse, if it happened, could unfold “quite quickly … in the space of a decade,” he said. The costs of government investing in an early warning system now is “trivial compared to what you can save in terms of damages,” he added. But if the unthinkable happened, and the SPG early-warning system was triggered, what could Whitehall actually do? “You’d start with the basics,” said Lenton. “So, snowier, harsher winters — let’s get some more salt. Let’s think more like British Columbia and how they cope with their winters. How do we make the rail network more resilient? How do we cope with more heating demand?” The £81 million, multi-year scheme could deploy robots to monitor the impact of climate change in the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images In more extreme scenarios, ministers would have to ask, “What kind of agriculture we can credibly maintain and how do we support farmers to keep doing it?” Lenton said. “Forewarned is forearmed.” In the more unlikely scenario of a full-scale AMOC collapse, those early warnings would demand even more drastic action from governments around the world. Laybourn describes AMOC collapse — and its knock-on effects on agriculture and society — as a “planetary-scale cataclysm.” “Hyperbole is a feature of our age — but these are appropriate words for this,” he said.

China and Japan blocked a United States-led bid to strengthen a ban on shark finning in the Atlantic Ocean, infuriating conservationists. The U.S., Belize and Brazil presented a proposal to strengthen an existing ban on shark finning at an annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in Limassol, Cyprus this week, garnering support from 42 of the 52 members of the intergovernmental fishery organization, including the EU and U.K. It would not have banned catching sharks, only required that they be landed with their fins naturally attached. Shark finning is the practice of catching sharks and cutting off their fins — primarily for use in food and traditional medicine — then throwing the fish back into the ocean to die, and is banned by dozens of countries and decried by conservationists. But China and Japan, both among the world’s biggest consumer markets and exporters of shark fin, refused to green-light the plan, which needed consensus to pass. Though Belize took the unusual step of calling a vote on the matter to bypass the requirement for unanimity Monday, at the end of the eight-day ICCAT meeting, the proposal was shelved. Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International who was present for the meeting, told POLITICO she was “deeply, deeply disappointed” the measure failed to pass despite support from an “unprecedented coalition of countries.” “We are exasperated that a strong, enforceable shark finning ban has once again been blocked by essentially two countries, despite clear scientific advice and overwhelming support from governments and conservationists alike,” Fordham added in a statement. She blamed “a lack of coordination” among the proposal’s supporters for its failure, saying they seemed “caught off guard” when Belize called for a vote and did not push back against Japan’s objections. “In 16 years, this was the biggest push [for reform] … and I’m just baffled that the proponents didn’t defend their own proposal,” said Fordham, who also hit out at the meeting’s chair, former EU fisheries official Ernesto Penas Lado, for yielding to Japan and denying a vote.

LONDON — Partial to a serving of lemon-drizzled fried calamari rings while kicking back in a Mediterranean seaside bar? They’re about to be served with a hefty dollop of politics.  U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing pressure to win concessions from the European Union over hefty post-Brexit trading tariffs placed on squid and other food items entering the continent from the Falkland Islands. Behind the scenes, the British overseas territory has been furiously lobbying the new U.K. Labour government to ensure trade barriers on squid imports are included in upcoming “reset” talks with Brussels.  Starmer has promised to do “everything we can” to reduce trade tariffs, while describing the relationship with the Falklands as “personal” (his uncle had a brush with death during the 1982 war with Argentina over the territory.) But politicians and officials in the Falklands administration are concerned they could be overlooked if Brussels uses the islands’ demands as a bargaining chip to win concessions in other areas British voters may find unpalatable.  After all, the Falkland Islands (population: 3,662) are nearly 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Britain and of fading importance to many in the U.K. STARMER’S SQUID GAME Falklanders’ fears about their status became a reality with Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the then-prime minister at the end of 2020 failed to include the Falklands and other overseas territories. Though never part of the single market, as one of the U.K’s self-governing overseas territories the Falklands always enjoyed preferential access and paid no tariffs while Britain was an EU member state. But now tariffs of 6 percent are charged on squid, of up to 18 percent on finned fish such as tuna and salmon and 42 percent on lamb (the archipelago has around 500,000 sheep — 136 for every Falkland Islander.)  Though never part of the single market, as one of the U.K’s self-governing overseas territories the Falklands always enjoyed preferential access. | Miguel Riopa/AFP via Getty Images Those are high trade barriers, given 94 percent of the Falklands’ fisheries products are destined for the EU single market and fishing accounts for around half the territory’s GDP. In 2023 alone, fishing tariffs hit £15 million.  ‘HEAVILY DEPENDENT’ Teslyn Barkman, a seventh generation Islander who holds the fisheries brief as one of eight elected members of the Falkland Islands legislative assembly, said the tariffs on top of environmental and geo-political challenges, such as the fraught relationship with Argentina (just a few hundred kilometres to the west), are a real dent to the islands’ economy. “We are a community that’s very heavily dependent on that one sector, so even a small loss in revenue is quite significant to our village — which is running a country,” she said over a dodgy internet connection as the winds blew a “hoolie” through the capital of Stanley. Catches primarily of loligo squid are taken in joint ventures with Spain, by vessels to the Galician port of Vigo to enter the single market and beyond. “If you’re in Spain and enjoying a lovely bowl of calamari, there is about a one in two chance that it’s come from the Falkland Islands,” Barkman said. For that reason, she reckoned the EU granting concessions — “ideally” back to tariff free squid sales — should be a “win win.” It’s a message the Falklands has been pushing to British ministers since the EU referendum back in 2016. And those dining in Spanish seafood bars are being warned that the hit to trawlers’ profits could soon be passed onto consumers with costlier calamari. “It just doesn’t make sense as it currently stands,” Barkman said of the current trading arrangements. She added that Stephen Doughty, Britain’s new minister for Europe and overseas territories, had offered “strong support.”  A Falklands official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they had the impression that Nick Thomas-Symonds, who as Cabinet Office minister will lead negotiations with the EU for Britain, would fight the Islanders’ corner when the talks kick off next year.  Miguel Riopa/AFP via Getty Images However, despite the optimism and the displays of support in Britain, the administration in Stanley is aware that Brussels is bound to make their own demands in return for any concessions. The European Commission declined to comment. Fishing rights have been one of the many controversial aspects of Brexit, with Starmer and his European interlocutors already on course for a legal battle over sand eels and puffins. The Falklands official quoted above described being “alive to the challenges,” citing fishing rights and quotas as posing a particular dilemma in the talks, and recognized that the EU could seek to leverage these in return for a better deal for the Falklands. “But this is the last option, I think. We’ve explored everything else. So if we are to have them [the tariffs] lifted, this is kind of it,” they said. FEELING HOPEFUL Barkman said she remained an “eternal optimist” despite recognizing the islands had been burned before by “missed opportunities” under previous administrations.  “We’re really hopeful,” she said. “To hear such a positive and strong message from the prime minister himself, was incredibly reassuring.” One EU diplomat told POLITICO that while there was “no appetite” to reopen the trade deal there would be an “opportunity for agreements sitting alongside the TCA.” Ed Davey, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, used a weekly session of prime minister’s questions earlier this month to call for Starmer to remember the Falklands’ fishermen during negotiations. Starmer responded by saying his uncle was “torpedoed defending the Falklands” during the 10-week conflict in 1982, when Argentina’s military dictator ordered his forces to invade the archipelago to seize the islands about 300 miles east of Argentina.  The PM’s uncle survived two bombs being dropped by fighter jets on his ship, HMS Antelope, but two British service personnel were killed.  “It is personal to me,” Starmer told members of parliament, as he vowed to “do everything we can to make it easier for all businesses to trade more freely so that we can grow our economy.” Just last month Javier Milei, the chainsaw-wielding libertarian president of Argentina, told the Financial Times he believes the Falklands — or Las Islas Malvinas as they’re referred to in Buenos Aires — “in the long term will become Argentine again,” citing Britain’s recent deal to hand Mauritius the Chagos Islands.  THE NOISY NEIGHBOURS This still rumbling dispute bolsters Barkman’s calls to shore up the Falklands’ fishing industry. She argues that “any opportunity that looks like a way to remove prosperity or economic opportunity for the Falklands tends to be taken” by the government in Buenos Aires. “And we’re very, very aware that currently, the neighbors” — as she describes Argentina — “aren’t being as aggressive as they have been before but this changes with a pretty regular cycle. So it’s very difficult to maintain the level of risk.” The need to defend the islands is firm in the consciousness of older Britons, but Falklanders are conscious that they must continue to make the case for their right to self-determination (only three islanders voted against maintaining allegiance with Britain in a 2013 referendum.)    Falklands’ diplomats engage in a great deal of outreach with U.K. MPs and are making considerable efforts with the new tranche of younger members that Labour’s electoral landslide ushered in. Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard flew to the Falklands Friday to meet troops stationed there in an effort to underline the U.K.’s continuing support for the territory.  A government spokesperson said: “The U.K. understands the importance of tariff free trading with the EU for the Falkland Islanders and ministers and officials will continue to work closely with the Falkland Islands government.  “We will protect the interests of our fishers and fulfill our international commitments to protect the marine environment.” But opposition MPs are on alert for the Falklands being left out. Lib Dems’ Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller called for ministers to ensure the Falklands are “properly included” in negotiations “so that these tariffs can be cut, and British citizens fishing off the Falklands can sail proudly under the Union Jack once more,” a suggestion that joint ventures may be opting to fly the Spanish flag to beat the tariffs. It is clear that coming to office as the first post-Brexit Labour PM, Starmer was always going to have to navigate vastly competing interests. Adding to the mix, the legacy of colonialism brings yet another unique challenge for his much vaunted European reset. Jon Stone contributed reporting from Brussels.