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

EUROPE’S CENTER ISN’T HOLDING ANYMORE Despite recent election wins for moderates in the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K., the far right is stronger than ever. By TIM ROSS in Jaywick, England Illustration by Merijn Hos for POLITICO In recent elections, voters in Europe have given hope to embattled centrist politicians across the Western world.   Donald Trump may have romped back into the White House, but the international movement of MAGA-aligned populists has run into trouble across the Atlantic. At elections in the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania — and in a sprawling vote across 27 EU countries for the European Parliament — mainstream candidates defeated populist hardliners and far-right nationalists.  “There remains a majority in the center for a strong Europe, and that is crucial for stability,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, after the EU Parliament elections last year. “In other words, the center is holding.”   Sixteen months later, that hold is looking anything but secure.    Hard-right and far-right politicians are now leading the polls in France, the U.K. and even Germany. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating is a dire 21 percent. His French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, is even lower, at 11 percent — and the mood is so grim that this fall’s spectacular theft at the Louvre is being treated by some as a giant metaphor for a country unable to manage its challenges.   Even von der Leyen’s own EU conservatives now rely on the votes of far right lawmakers to get her plans approved in Brussels. One outraged centrist likened the shift to those German politicians who enabled Adolf Hitler to take power. Populists at the extremes, meanwhile, cast themselves as the obvious alternative for populations that want change. And now they can expect Trump to help: In a brutal rupture of transatlantic norms, a new U.S. National Security Strategy aims to use American diplomacy to cultivate “resistance” to political correctness in Europe — especially on migration — and to support parties it describes as “patriotic.” Trump himself told POLITICO he would endorse candidates he believed would move Europe in the right direction. On that rightward trajectory, in the next four years the political map of the West faces its most dramatic upheaval since the Cold War. The implications for geopolitics, from trade to defense, could be profound.   “What [Europeans are] getting from Trump is the strategy of maximum polarization that hollows out the center,” said Will Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute, the centrist American think tank that backed Bill Clinton in the 1990s. “The old established parties of left and right that dominated the post war era have gotten weaker,” he said. “The nationalist or populist right’s revolt is against them.”  Nowhere is this recent transformation more dramatic than in the U.K.   As the sun sinks toward the horizon over a calm sea one Thursday evening in November, half a dozen regulars huddle around the bar in the Never Say Die pub, a few yards from the beach at Jaywick Sands, on the east coast of England.   Built in the 1930s as a resort 70 miles from London, Jaywick is now the most deprived neighborhood in the country. The area had such a bad image that in 2018 a U.S. MAGA ad used a photograph of a dilapidated Jaywick street to warn of the apocalyptic future facing America if Trump’s candidates were not elected.   Jaywick was named England’s most deprived neighbourhood in October — for the fourth time since 2010. | Tolga Akmen/EPA It is here among the pebbledashed bungalows and England flags hanging limp from lampposts that a new political force — Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK — has built its heartland.   At the bar, Dave Laurence, 82, says he doesn’t vote, as a rule, but made an exception for Farage, who was elected to represent the area last year. “I quite like him. He’s doing the best he can,” Laurence says as he sips his pint of lager, with ’80s pop hits playing in the background. “I’ll vote for him again.”  Laurence freely describes himself as “racist” and says he would never vote for a Black person, such as the center-right Conservative Party’s leader Kemi Badenoch. What troubles him most, he says, is the number of immigrants who have arrived in the U.K. during his lifetime, especially those crossing the Channel in small boats. Soon, Laurence fears, the country will be “full of Muslims and they’ll fucking rebel against us.”  With its anti-establishment, immigration-fighting agenda, Farage’s Reform UK offers voters a program tightly in tune with far-right parties that have gained ground across the West. According to opinion polls, Farage now has a real chance of becoming the U.K.’s next prime minister if the vote were held today. (A general election is not due until 2029).   It’s startling to note that as recently as July 2024, Starmer’s Labour Party won a historic landslide and some of his triumphant election aides traveled to the U.S. to advise Democrats on strategy. Today, Starmer is derided as “First Gear Keir” as he fights off leadership rivals rumored to be trying to oust him. And Reform isn’t the only force remaking British party politics. To the left of Labour, the Greens have also made recent gains in the polls under a new leader calling himself an “eco-populist.”   Farage’s stunning rise from the sidelines to the front of a political revolution carries lessons well beyond Britain’s borders. Europeans raised in the old school of mainstream politics fear that the traditional centerground — their home turf — will not hold.   ‘DURABLY UNSTABLE’   Macron, for his part, tried to counter the rise of the hard right by calling a snap election for the French National Assembly last year. The gamble backfired, delivering a hung parliament that has been unable to agree on key economic policies ever since. Macron is now historically unpopular.   French lawmakers’ clashes over the budget have toppled three of Macron’s picks as prime minister since the summer of 2024. A backlash against his plan to raise the pension age has forced ratings agencies to mull a damaging downgrade. Macron, who himself became president by launching a new centrist movement to rival the political establishment, now has no traditional party machinery to help bolster his position. “He’ll leave a political landscape that is perhaps durably unstable. It’s unforgivable,” said Alain Minc, an influential adviser and former mentor to the French president.  The chaos gives populists their chance. The main politicians making any running in conversations about the next presidential election belong to the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen and its youthful party president Jordan Bardella, who are riding high in the polls at 34 percent.   In Germany, too, the center ground is steadily eroding.   Though Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives won a snap election in February, his ideologically uneasy coalition, which consists of his own conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), holds one of the slimmest parliamentary majorities for a government since 1945, with just 52 percent of seats. That leaves the Merz coalition vulnerable to small defections within the ranks and makes it hard for him to achieve anything ambitious in government. The far-left Die Linke party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) both surged at the last election, too, with AfD winning the best result in a national election for any far-right party since World War II.  Merz’s attempt to defang the AfD by moving his conservatives sharply to the right on the issue of migration seems to have backfired. The AfD has only continued its rise, surpassing Merz’s conservatives in many polls.   The rise of the far-right is a cultural shock to many centrist Germans, given the country’s deeply entrenched desire to avoid repeating its past. “For a long time in Germany we thought with our history, and the way we teach in our schools, we would be a bit more immune to that,” one concerned German official said. “It turned out we are not.”   Even in the Netherlands, where centrist Rob Jetten won a famous but narrow victory over the far-right firebrand Geert Wilders in October, there are reasons for mainstream politicians to worry. Wilders’ Freedom Party is still one of the biggest forces in the land, winning the same number of seats as Jetten’s D66. He could well return next time, just as Trump did in the U.S.   WHERE DID ALL THE VOTERS GO?   According to polling firm Ipsos, a large proportion of voters in many Western democracies now have little faith in the political process. While they still believe in democratic values, they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working for them.   A large survey questioning around 10,000 voters across nine countries found 45 percent were dissatisfied, fueling support for the extremes. Among voters on the far left (57 percent) and the far right (54 percent), levels of dissatisfaction were highest of all.   The countries with the highest rates of dissatisfaction in the Ipsos study were France and the Netherlands, where political upheaval has taken its toll on faith in the system.   Anti-riot police officers stand next to a demonstration called by far-right activist Els Rechts against the Netherlands’ current asylum policy, in September in The Hague. | Josh Walet/ANP via Getty Images Alongside the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of lockdowns, the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction were the cost of living, immigration and crime, according to Gideon Skinner from Ipsos. Trust in politics fell in the 90s and took another hit in the late 2000s at the time of the financial crash, he said.   “There may be specific things that have made it worse over the last couple of years but it’s also a long-term condition,” Skinner told POLITICO. “It’s something we do need to worry about and there is not a silver bullet that can fix it all.”  Perhaps the greatest problem for incumbent centrists is that in most cases their economies are so moribund that they lack the fiscal firepower to spend money addressing the issues disillusioned voters care about most — like high living costs, ailing public services and migration.  THE INEQUALITY EMERGENCY   The financial crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020-21 left many governments strapped for cash. In the U.K., for example, the economy was 16 percent smaller than it should have been a decade after the 2008 crash if prior growth trends had continued, according to Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London.   “Crucially, the impact of the financial crisis, like the impact of so much else in our politics, was massively unequal,” Menon said. “Prosperous places with high productivity, with well-educated workforces suffered far, far less than poorer parts of the country.”   Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz submitted a study to the G20 in November warning that the world was facing an “inequality emergency.” Fueled by war, pandemic and trade disruptions, the crisis risks preparing the ground for more authoritarian leaders, his report said.   In many Western countries, the centerground is more than just a metaphor. It is in capital cities like London, Paris and Washington that power and money accumulate and the economic and political elites seek to maintain their grip on the status quo.   The further you travel from these centers out to areas in decline, the more likely you are to find support for radical politics.   As Menon notes, Britain’s 2016 revolution — the referendum vote to leave the European Union after almost half a century of membership — can be mapped onto the culinary geography of the country.   “Pret a Manger” is a smart national chain of sandwich and coffee shops, catering for hungry commuters and office workers in wealthy, successful British cities. “Places that had a Pret voted Remain,” Menon said. Parts of the U.K. where median wages were lower were disproportionately likely to vote to leave the EU.   IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned, as Farage rides a wave of headlines about irregular migrants landing in small boats from France.   From January to May this year, there were a record 14,800 small boat crossings, 42 percent more than in the same period in the previous year, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.   For Laurence, in the Never Say Die pub, the small boats represent the biggest issue of all. “What’s going to happen in 10 years’ time? What’s going to happen in 20 years’ time when the boat people are still coming over?” he asked.   A decade ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving into Europe from Syria, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. The AfD surged in the months that followed, permanently changing German politics. At February’s election, the AfD won a record 21 percent of the vote, finishing in second place behind Merz’s conservative bloc.  “The fundamental failure that is common to the whole [centrist] transatlantic community is on immigration,” said Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute. “All of the far-right movements have made it their top issue.”   It is the perceived threat that waves of migration pose to traditional national cultures which drives much of the support for the far right. Trump’s White House is now primed to join the European nationalists’ fight. According to a new U.S. National Security Strategy document released in December, Europe is facing “civilisational erasure” from unrestricted immigration, as well as falling birthrates. The analysis draws on the so-called great replacement theory, a racist conspiracy theory. Free speech — in the MAGA definition, at least — is another casualty of conventional centrist rule in Europe, as political correctness veers into “censorship,” the U.S. document said. Protesters demostrate under the motto “Loud against Nazis” in early February in Berlin. After years of decline, The Left party  pulled off a stunning revival in the general election later that month. | John MacDougall via AFP/Getty Images In his interview with POLITICO earlier this week, Trump aligned himself fully with the strategy paper. European nations are “decaying” and their “weak” leaders can expect to be challenged by rivals with American support, he said. “I’d endorse,” he added. In Brussels, the double-punch of the president’s interview and the strategy document left diplomats and officials feeling bruised and alarmed all over again, after a period in which they allowed themselves to hope that the transatlantic alliance wasn’t dying. One EU diplomat was blunt in assessing Trump’s new method: “It’s autocracy.” THE STOLEN JEWELS  Sometimes, it takes a random news event — ostensibly unconnected to politics — to crystalize the national mood. In Paris, the theft of France’s priceless crown jewels from the Louvre provided just such an opportunity, morphing into an indictment of an establishment that can’t get the job done, even when the job simply involves thoroughly locking the windows at the world’s most famous museum. National Rally leader Jordan Bardella called the incident a “humiliation” before asking: “How far will the breakdown of the state go?”   In Britain, just a month after Starmer’s victory last year, riots broke out across the country, fueled by far-right extremists. The catalyst was the murder of three young girls aged 6, 7 and 9, in Southport, northwest England, by a Black teenager wrongly identified at the time on social media — in posts amplified by the far-right — as a Muslim.   At the time, Farage suggested the police were withholding the truth about the suspect, earning him the fury of mainstream politicians. While stressing he did not support violence, Farage railed against what he called “two-tier policing,” a phrase popular among far-right commentators who claim police treat right-wing protesters more harshly than those on the left.  It’s an opinion that resonates in Jaywick. Chennelle Rutland, 56, is walking her two dogs along the beachfront, admiring the view as the sun sets, flaring the sky orange, then purple. The colors catch the surface of the flat sea. “It’s one rule for one and one rule for the other,” she says. “The whites have got to shut up because if you do say anything, you’re ‘racist’ and ‘far right.’”   Far-right activist Tommy Robinson invited his supporters to attend the “Unite The Kingdom” rally in September. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images It would be wrong to characterise residents of Jaywick as simply ignorant or full of rage. Many who spoke to POLITICO there were cheerful, happy with their community and up to speed with the news. But, just as they’d soured on their country’s centrist establishment, they were also tuning out its favored news sources.   In Jaywick, some of Farage’s voters prefer GB News, Britain’s answer to Fox News, which launched in 2021, or learn about current affairs from YouTube and other social media. The BBC — for decades the mainstay of the British media landscape — has lost a portion of its audience here. Right-wing commentators and politicians attack it as biased. Trump has lately joined in, threatening to sue over a BBC edit that he said deceptively made it look as if he was explicitly inciting violence. The BBC’s director general and head of news both resigned. In the process, another piece of Britain’s onetime centerground was giving way.   WHAT NEXT?   There are reasons for centrists to hope. In Rome, Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party has become less extreme in power, and the worst fears of moderates about a group with its historic roots in neo-fascism have not come to pass. She remains popular, and while pushing a culture war at home, she has avoided the wrath of the EU leadership and kept Trump onside.   Populists and nationalists don’t always win. Trump lost in 2020. In the Netherlands, Wilders lost in October this year, though only by a whisker. Romania’s Nicușor Dan won the presidency as a centrist in May, but again only narrowly defeating his far-right opponent.   Structural obstacles may also slow the radicals’ progress. The U.K.’s first-past-the-post voting system makes it hard for new parties to do well. The two-round French system has so far stopped Le Pen’s National Rally from gaining power as centrists combine to back moderates. In Germany, a similar “firewall” exists under which center parties keep the far-right out.   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned. | Tolga Akmen/EPA Even as he enjoys a sustained lead in the polls and wins local elections in the U.K., Farage has not convinced voters that Reform would do a good job. Even some of his supporters worry he will be out of his depth in government.   The problem, for the centrists who are in power, is that a lot of voters seem to think they, too, are out of their depth. And, whether that involves dealing with migration, combatting inequality, or just boosting the security around the Mona Lisa, it’s a reputation they’ll need to fix in order to survive — no easy task given the intractability of the challenges facing the rich world.  The next year will see more elections at which the centrists — and their populists rivals — will be tested. In Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, long seen as the far-right bad boy of EU politics, is fighting to keep power at an election expected in April. There are regional votes in Germany where the AfD is on track to prosper. France may require yet another snap election to end its political paralysis. Trump’s diplomats and officials will be ready to intervene. Farage’s party, too, will be on the ballot in 2026: It is expected to make gains in Wales, Scotland and local votes elsewhere next spring. After that, his sights will be on the U.K. general election expected in 2029, by which time European politics may look very different.   “Of course I know Mr. Orban and of course I know Giorgia Meloni, of course I know these people,” Farage told POLITICO at a recent Reform rally. “I suspect that after the next election cycle in Europe there will be even more that I know.” Natalie Fertig in Washington, Clea Caulcutt in Paris and James Angelos in Berlin contributed to this report.  

LONDON — For Britain’s government, it’s a no-go. For the Greens’ new leader Zack Polanski, it’s a must. The end of free movement of people with the EU has been a “disaster” for the U.K. that should be urgently reversed, Polanski told POLITICO — in his first major intervention on EU policy. Elected leader of the left-wing environmentalist party last month, Polanski’s brand of “eco populism” is already cutting through with some voters. POLITICO’s polling average shows his party steadily climbing to 13 percent — more than double the 6 percent they won in last year’s general election. One outlier even shows them drawing level with Labour. While Polanski — a relative outsider who sits in London’s regional assembly rather than Westminster — has so far cut through by focusing on domestic policy, inequality and the cost of living, he’s now setting out his stall on Europe. Though Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to reset relations with the EU, he’s done so within tight red lines designed to appeal to Brexit supporters: no re-entry to the single market, no rejoining the customs union, and absolutely no return to freedom of movement. Polanski has no such qualms, and he’s not impressed with the prime minister’s caution. “It all feels a little bit ‘meh,’ for want of a better description,” he told POLITICO of Starmer’s reset so far. “It doesn’t really feel like he has any kind of passionate vision of what the future looks like, or any real direction that he’s driving it in. He doesn’t really have a vision for this country. So how is he going to have a vision of what the future of Europe looks like?” ‘DISASTER’ In particular, the Green leader is unapologetic about a return to free movement of people — which ended in 2021. It’s an issue most politicians in Westminster won’t go anywhere near for fear of landing on the wrong side of voters annoyed about immigration. “The restriction on free movement has been a disaster,” he said, adding that it should be in the “first phase” of any rapprochement. “It’s interesting to see [Nigel Farage’s party] Reform banging on about immigration, but we know immigration has risen since Brexit. “It’s just risen from countries outside of Europe. So even on its own terms, Reform and the Brexit Party’s own project was a disaster by their own criteria. And I think free movement is really important, both for our citizens and citizens around Europe.” Though Keir Starmer has sought to reset relations with the EU, he’s done so within tight red lines designed to appeal to Brexit supporters. | Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images Net migration to the U.K. was 431,000 in 2024 — significantly higher than rates in the 2010s when numbers were typically between 200,000 and 300,000. But despite welcoming more newcomers than ever, Brits have lost their right to move abroad within the EU. Polling commissioned by POLITICO shows voters aren’t impressed with the new system and are open to turning back the clock, if somewhat disinterested in the policy detail. Starmer’s EU reset, primed at a summit in May this year, involves negotiating a new agrifood deal with the EU to smooth trade in food, closer cooperation on energy, and a “youth experience” scheme that doesn’t restore free movement but would give a capped number of young people time-limited visas to live abroad. Polanski, however, thinks the government should go further on building ties with the EU in other areas. “I think rejoining the customs union is something we should be doing as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s just resulting in higher prices for people.” It’s a policy also backed by the opposition Liberal Democrats, with whom the Greens are bidding for disillusioned Labour voters. As for rejoining the bloc altogether? “Over longer term, absolutely we should be rejoining the European Union. But we’ve got to make sure that that conversation is a conversation all the public’s involved with. I think one of the reasons Brexit happened is because so many people feel like politics is done to them rather than with them,” he said. “I think Brexit was a catastrophic decision. I think it’s also important that politicians listen to the fact that the public made that decision, and I believe they made that decision because of the lack of investment in their communities and need and want of something different. I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone, though, who thinks that was a right decision that has made our communities any wealthier.” INTERNATIONALISM The Green leader told POLITICO that “really grim” plans by the Tories and Reform to leave the European Convention on Human Rights show “the slow march towards fascism that this country is on.” But he said the rightward drift across Europe is a reason to get stuck in, not to hang back. “I think there’s some really worrying trends across Europe, particularly around the far right, and we’re seeing the beginnings of some of those trends in our own country. I think any political party has a decision to make, which is: Do you stay isolationist and out of Europe and say, ‘Well, you know, they’re going right wing, so we’re not going to get involved.’ “Or do you say actually: International and indeed, socialist solidarity looks like working with left-wing or progressive movements across Europe in ways that look to reform Europe; to make sure that the entire project is moving in a direction that ultimately protects people’s freedom, protects the poorest communities across Europe, and is the best thing for our country, too.”

AMSTERDAM — The Party of European Socialists’ top brass huddled in Amsterdam last week to take stock of their waning influence across Europe. Apart from being an opportunity for national party leaders to meet bilaterally and rally participants with panels and speeches, the congress was framed as a grand debate on the future of social democracy. It was also a chance for observers to do a temperature check on a political family that is hoping to claw back power in upcoming elections in the Netherlands and Sweden. So who’s up in Socialist world, and who’s down? And what solutions were proposed to battle the far right? POLITICO reads the runes. WINNERS * Europe’s far right The guests of honor, present on almost all panels and yet not physically in Amsterdam, were transatlantic right-wing populism and the far-right leaders surging across Europe. “We cannot go back to that dark past, we will fight the far right with all our might,” PES President Stefan Löfven concluded, framing the struggle as social democracy’s central mission in the coming years. In sketching out the future of social democracy, many leaders positioned it squarely against the far right, using the contrast as a roadmap for renewal. Others were more open to play within the right-wing populist terrain, giving topics such as migration and national identity a Socialist twist.  “There is an anxiety about identity, which doesn’t mean that we should take the obsession of the far right on our side, but it means we have to respond to this anxiety,” said French social democratic leader and MEP Raphaël Glucksmann. “In France, we have to say something about what it means to be French … and it will be even the opposite response to the far right, but … we have to respond to the fears that do exist.” Romania’s Social Democratic Party will amend its statutes to change its definition of itself from “left-wing” to “center-left,” and will drop the “progressive” descriptor for attachment to the “democratic, national, religious, traditional and cultural values of the Romanian people.” * Sánchez’s ego During the congress, many national party leaders praised Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for boosting Spain’s economy while reducing inequality — in other words, using his policies to show that social democracy can work. “They raise the wages, they raise the pensions, they tax the rich, they invest massively in climate transition, they invest massively and they regulate housing and they legalize thousands of migrants … and it works,” said the leader of the Belgian Walloon socialists, Paul Magnette, pointing to the success of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in polls after governing for seven years. During the congress, many national party leaders praised Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for boosting Spain’s economy while reducing inequality — in other words, using his policies to show that social democracy can work. | Fernando Otero/Europa Press via Getty Images Sánchez received a standing ovation at the congress, with leaders tripping over each other to shake his hand as he arrived for a group photo. In an early morning closed-door meeting on Saturday, Sánchez told his lieutenants in Brussels and beyond to be ambassadors for Spanish social democracy. “They say we are the last bastion of social democracy in Europe, but in reality, we are the seed,” he said, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. * Workers Many leaders agreed that the main problem with social democracy was that politicians had forgotten their roots in labor movements. They vowed to listen again to workers’ concerns and to double down on investing in the welfare state. “We have to bring back workers at the core of our decisions … Workers now vote for [the] far right and that’s a harsh truth … because choices that were made were to the disadvantage of workers,” Glucksmann said. The party doubled down on social democracy’s mainstays — health care, job creation, affordable housing and renewable energy — as the core of its campaign program. LOSERS * Migrants The Socialists were unable to agree on how to tackle migration. The party kept mum on the topic in its congress resolutions and campaign plans, although many leaders locked horns on the issue when it was brought up during panels. During a debate on Saturday, Swedish Social Democratic Party chief Magdalena Andersson said her party’s key to success in the polls has been to get tough on migration.   During a debate on Saturday, Swedish Social Democratic Party chief Magdalena Andersson said her party’s key to success in the polls has been to get tough on migration. | Nils Petter Nilsson/Getty Images “We are way stricter on migration and on crime than we were before, because of the situation in Sweden, we took more refugees than any other European countries during the crisis [in] 2015,” Andersson said. “We have a lot of shootings, we have to take this [seriously], we are much tougher on crime than we were before.” Italian Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, who promotes a humanitarian approach to migration with a focus on inclusion rather than deportations, seemed to rebuff Andersson, arguing the Socialists can’t defeat the far right “by running after their agenda.” Similarly, Sánchez said during a speech: “To be credible, we must also remain loyal to our principles, we cannot accept the far right’s frameworks, we cannot renounce our convictions for the sake of political convenience.” * Actual voting Everything the congress was meant to vote on had already been decided beforehand behind closed doors, with many of the attendees seeing the gathering as a talking shop. Löfven was reelected president by ballot on Friday night unopposed. His team of vice presidents remains largely unchanged and was agreed on by party leaders behind closed doors during a dinner and without an open contest or vote. Delegates also rubber-stamped membership and policy resolutions with an informal show of hands — no roll call, no records kept and no one counting the votes. The setup left little room for dissent in public, and even less for accountability. * Smer The Socialists also kicked out Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer party. (Its membership was previously suspended in October 2023 and its MEPs were ejected from the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament.) “If they want to punish us because we have defined marriage as a unique union between a man and a woman, that we said there are only two sexes and that we said that in these issues our law takes precedence over European law, if that’s why we have to be expelled, then it’s an honor for us,” AP reported Fico as saying in reaction to the expulsion.

François Bayrou, France’s latest embattled prime minister, is blaming the country’s 19 million over-60s for pushing state finances to the brink. Looking likely to be the latest French leader to fall on his sword, Bayrou is going down fighting — albeit fighting old people. The working-age population faces “slavery,” he said, because it’s having to repay “loans that were light-heartedly taken out by previous generations.” Bayrou wants to force through €43.8 billion worth of budget cuts to bring French spending under control. But he faces a largely hostile French parliament, with the left and the right signaling they will vote him down at a confidence vote he’s called on Sept. 8. Where France, Europe’s second-largest economy, is going, the rest of the continent will probably follow. Not only do the country’s unsustainable finances threaten to drag the rest of the EU into a debt crisis of the kind that rocked the eurozone a decade and a half ago, but France’s troubles foreshadow a phenomenon that’s going to hit pretty much every European country sooner rather than later: Populations are getting older, meaning there are fewer workers to pay for an ever greater number of pensioners. How governments tackle that could be the challenge of our age.  NOT OK, BOOMER Bayrou, born in 1951, is blaming his fellow boomers. The over-60s make up over one-quarter of France’s population ― a share that is expected to rise to a third by 2040. They are either drawing a pension or about to, putting increasing pressure on France’s exploding public debt, which now exceeds €3.3 trillion.  The centrist prime minister, allied to President Emmanuel Macron, staked his reputation on insisting there’s no alternative to a path of fiscal rectitude. France’s €400 billion annual pensions bill is equal to 14 percent of national gross domestic product. The costs will increase by €50 billion by 2035, while a decade later the bill will be a cool half a trillion euros. Bayrou, a former justice and education minister who has tried three times to become president, has long been a proponent of putting the national books in order. But going after the oldies in such a blatant way is a new twist.  That’s probably because he knows he’s got little left to lose. As France’s third prime minister in a year, Bayrou has served a little under nine months and doesn’t look likely to make it past that. France’s Socialist party, which Bayrou would once have counted on as an ally, has turned its back on him over pensions reform — an issue that exploded after the government raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. Last week, Bayrou warned that young people will be the biggest victims of the ballooning debt.  The over-60s make up over one-quarter of France’s population ― a share that is expected to rise to a third by 2040. | Patrick Landmann/Getty Images “All this to help … boomers, as they say, who from this point of view consider that everything is just fine,” he said in a televised interview. He has since clarified that he never advocated “targeting boomers” ― technically those born between 1946 and 1964 when the postwar population exploded ― but the message is clear: The older generation needs to do some belt tightening. “There is a risk of cannibalization, whereby we finance the present and the past at the expense of the future, and we are doing this more and more,” said Maxime Sbaihi, a fellow and former director of Institute Montaigne, an economic think tank. “The French are not aware of the demographic situation in France, they think that France is a young country, that we can stop working at 60, there is a kind of collective imagination that is difficult to shake,” he added. This ignorance, he said, is leading France toward a brutal, painful adjustment of its social system. TO THE GUILLOTINE! France’s pensions bill accounts for one-quarter of all government spending; Italy is the only European country paying out a larger share proportionate to its economy. Pensions account for over half of France’s €839 billion increase in public debt between 2018 and 2023, former Treasury official Jean-Pascal Beaufret warned. “For us millennials, Bayrou’s speech about boomers … will be our Robespierre at the Convention of the 8th of Thermidor,” Ronan Planchon, a journalist for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, wrote on X, a reference to how the French revolutionary leader was sent to the guillotine after denouncing his own compatriots. Bayrou has warned the biggest victims of the ballooning debt will be young people.  | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images Pensions have long been a political taboo, with France nearly always seeing street protests whenever an overhaul is mooted. Fresh demonstrations are planned for Sept. 10.  But given the country’s aging population, politicians are reluctant to challenge a group that represents a big slice of their vote, and that holds the lion’s share of the country’s wealth and savings. Compared to other items on the budget, pensions are particularly hard to adjust, said Hippolyte d’Albis, an economist and professor at the ESSEC Business School. “It’s an expenditure that is binding on society because the parameters that determine it — most notably the annual indexation of basic pensions — are set by law and can only be changed by passing a new law,” he said.  In 2024 the national deficit stood at 6.1 percent of GDP — double the 3 percent allowed under the EU’s fiscal rules. Paris forecasts that the deficit will not fall below 3 percent until 2029.  Economy Minister Eric Lombard suggested things could get bad enough to require the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail the country out — treatment usually reserved for financial basket cases like Argentina. He backtracked a few hours later after a large wobble in the stock market.  François Bayrou wants to force through €43.8 billion worth of budget cuts to bring French spending under control. | Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA The markets are already well aware of France’s troubling fiscal trajectory; the country has already had its credit rating cut by the major credit ratings agencies. It’s now a stone’s throw away from seeing its borrowing costs surpass those of Italy, long a byword for reckless spending and unsustainable debt.   France’s pensions system is unbalanced, but in demographic terms the country is actually a lot better off than many of its peers, with the second-highest fertility rate in the EU, at 1.7 births per woman. Italy and Spain, for example, face an even more stark fiscal cliff as the population ages, with only 1.1 to 1.2 births per woman. “France is the developed country where the standard of living in retirement is the highest compared to the average standard of living of working people,” said Thierry Pech, director general of progressive think tank Terra Nova. He said that raising the working age, which France has already done, is in some ways the “most brutal method.” “It wouldn’t be unfair to involve the wealthiest retirees,” he said. “But it would require a bit of political courage and a lot of education.” 

Somewhere over the Atlantic, a gleaming private jet gifted by Qatar soars high, while EU leaders experience severe altitude envy down on earth. According to ABC News, the Trump administration might be about to replace its Air Force One plane with a luxurious Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet, courtesy of the state of Qatar. Although the Gulf country says the deal is not final yet, the gift would obviously be the best way to commemorate that weird sword dance Donald Trump did in Saudi Arabia during his first mandate. The Donald will probably have the plane upgraded with golden letters spelling ‘air force Don’ and a Diet Coke button under every seat before it can take off. But on the other side of the pond, European politicians are fuming. Not because of ethical questions, or lack thereof — we are way past that at this point — but because they are the ones who had to endure a sobering EU parliamentary inquiry for a Qatar-related scandal; and what do they have to show for it? A mere Louis Vuitton bag stuffed with cash — peanuts! It really does not sound fair. Qatargate involved a lot of bad press and even a few nights in pre-trial detention for some MEPs: The cash they allegedly received barely covered it. How does Donny get to use the jet while in office, and then see it donated to his presidential library foundation after his second stint in the White House is over? Reports that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is considering a “strategic jet reserve inquiry” to ensure equal distribution of aviation-related gifts among all member countries are unconfirmed at the time of going to press. But we can say for sure — or guess — that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has called up Doha demanding to know why his buddy Donny got a plane while he’s still flying Wizz Air. After all, isn’t he the closest thing Europe has to a loud leader who loves to shout at the press while wearing oversized suits? Back in Brussels, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola could match Queen Ursula’s response by launching her own internal review into “gift inequality” and “transatlantic favoritism.” Not to say she wants a jet, but if jets are being handed out by Gulf monarchies, Europe shouldn’t be left out. Qatari officials, for their part, seem to be shrugging off accusations of favoritism. The Trump jet is not a done deal, and even if it were it would definitely not be a bribe connected to lobbying, foreign policy, or the sudden appearance of a golf course in the Doha suburbs named ‘Mar-a-Dunes.’ It’s just their version of calling to say I love you. And Europe is left grounded yet again. CAPTION COMPETITION “What did they say his name was? Pray-voh ..?” Can you do better? Email us at gpoloni@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope. Last week, we gave you this photo: Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our mailbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze. “Maybe we can gift Trump an Airbus A350.” by Joep Roet

George Simion is riding a wave of discontent created by slowing growth, high inflation, and entrenched inequality that may carry him into Romania’s presidential palace in Sunday’s vote. But the hard-right ultranationalist’s disruptive — and sometimes contradictory — agenda is already freaking out investors, who fear he will plunge the country into further economic and financial chaos. “We’ve reached the limit,” said Valentin Tataru, an economist at ING in Bucharest. “There’s no way of continuing.” Romanian politics plunged into turmoil late last year when the two main establishment parties — the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) — were eclipsed by the stunning rise of far-right ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, who won the first round of the presidential election. Georgescu was later banned over undeclared election funding and allegations of Russian interference. Since Simion’s first round victory in the election re-run on May 4, investors have dumped Romania’s bonds and bet heavily against its currency, the leu. Dutch bank ING estimates that the central bank had to spend nearly 10 percent of its foreign reserves over the last two weeks to keep its losses against the euro down to a manageable level. After a decade of solid growth was derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Romania’s budget deficit closed in on 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, while its trade deficit was an even larger 10 percent. Those twin deficits mean Bucharest requires a steady inflow of foreign cash to fund the purchases. If that stops, then the leu — and living standards — will crumble. They are already under pressure from inflation, which peaked at 15 percent in 2022 and is still running at nearly 5 percent. Growth, meanwhile, has been lackluster, coming in at only 0.8 percent in 2024. Ratings agency S&P has warned that the country’s debt could revert to junk status if its already-parlous financial state gets any worse. S&P and the other two big ratings companies, Moody’s and Fitch, all currently give Romania the very lowest investment grade rating, meaning the next downgrade would lead to an immediate jump in its borrowing costs. Romania, and the next president, will have to find a better balance of import and exports. To stay within EU rules and ensure the steady flow of funds from Brussels that allows it to invest in badly-needed infrastructure, it needs to slash its deficit. Instead, Simion’s populist economic agenda now threatens to set the match to all this financial tinder. Earlier in the campaign, he promised to build one million new homes for only €35,000 each. He later backtracked on the pledge, admitting it wasn’t possible. Simion also said he found inspiration in Argentina’s chain-saw wielding, radically small-government, libertarian leader Javier Milei. But, in an interview with POLITICO, Simion said he wanted the state to take over energy interests owned by Austria’s OMV. According to EU statistics, in 2023 the Bucharest region was the sixth-richest in the EU in terms of GDP per capita when adjusting for purchasing power, coming ahead of Hamburg or Berlin. | Robert Ghement/EFE via EPA “The privatizations went very badly and people are frustrated,” he said. “We will negotiate with OMV.” The AUR candidate has pledged to appoint banned presidential candidate Georgescu as prime minister should he win. GETTING BACK AT THE ESTABLISHMENT POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts Simion, who leads the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), ahead of Bucharest’s centrist mayor Nicușor Dan. Experts say that large swathes of the public have lost confidence in an entrenched political establishment that is seen as having mismanaged the nation while taking care of its own private interests. “This situation is hard for ordinary people. They’re very upset at the political class,” said Anton Pisaroglu, a political consultant who also ran as a candidate in the election before dropping out. He described the prevailing mood in the campaign as “anti-system.” One reason for that is the sharp regional inequality created by the earlier boom, in which Romania played catch-up after 50 years behind the Iron Curtain. According to EU statistics, in 2023 the Bucharest region was the sixth-richest in the EU in terms of GDP per capita when adjusting for purchasing power, coming ahead of Hamburg or Berlin. The northeast of Romania was among the poorest. That inequality, and the resentment it engendered, is fertile ground for AUR’s nationalist, anti-establishment message, said Sorina Cristina Soare, a political scientist at the University of Florence who has been conducting interviews with Romanian voters as part of her research. “The more you distance yourself from the rich neighborhoods in the big cities, the more you have votes for Simion and protest votes,” Soare said. An analysis of the first round of voting found that, on average, constituencies won by Simion had 1,931 patients per doctor, whereas the ratio in seats won by Dan was only 725. For Sunday’s winner, putting the country back on a halfway stable economic footing will be a daunting challenge — one that election manifesto promises are unlikely to survive. Simion, if victorious, “will probably be forced by necessity to do what is needed,” said Tim Ash, a sovereign credit strategist for BlueBay Asset Management.

BRUSSELS — The boys are back in town. It all started with a ceremonial photo taken after the formation of the new Belgian government: white, middle-aged men in the front row, a few female ministers behind them — their faces hidden in the shadows — with no person of color in sight. The photo led to so much backlash that it was retaken — but critics, including a minister in the new Cabinet, say it reflects an issue that remains unresolved. The appointment of just four women out of 15 ministers sparked anger on social media and among politicians. It also presented a stark contrast with the government of previous Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, which achieved gender parity among its ministers. “How is it going? Hope we (half of humanity) are not bothering you too much!” wrote Marie-Colline Leroy, the former Belgian secretary for gender equality, in a post on Bluesky. Vanessa Matz, modernization minister in the new government, told POLITICO that the situation makes her “uncomfortable.” “I don’t find it normal … four women … is obviously very, very few,” said Matz, who hails from the francophone centrist Les Engagés party. Furthermore, none of those women made it to the kern, or core Cabinet of deputy prime ministers that discusses the most important issues, Matz pointed out. ‘SMURFETTE PRINCIPLE’ Katrien Van den broeck, who worked in the communications department of the previous De Croo government and is a trainer at the Alliance of Her platform, which empowers women to pursue careers in politics, compared the situation to the village of iconic Belgian comic characters the Smurfs. “There’s many kinds of men in that village … And there’s one woman, Smurfette, and one woman is enough,” she told POLITICO. “And basically, what we see in the government is the Smurfette principle.” “Diversity is not an issue for this government, it’s not a priority. But it should be,” she added. The conservative Belgian government, formed at the end of January after seven months of negotiations, consists of the right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the francophone center-right Reformist Movement, the francophone centrist Les Engagés, the centrist Christian Democrat and Flemish party, and the center-left Flemish Forward party. King Philippe of Belgium (right) shakes hands with newly sworn-in Prime Minister Bart De Wever during the oath ceremony at the Royal Palace in Brussels. | Jasper Jacobs/AFP via Getty Images Ministerial positions are allocated on the basis of vote share, with political parties putting forward nominations. Four parties nominated just one woman each, with Vooruit nominating none. The imbalance is even more striking considering that Belgium, sometimes seen as a close second to Scandinavian countries in terms of gender equality, in 1994 became the first country worldwide to introduce legally binding gender quotas for parties in all elections. In response to the flurry of criticism, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever of N-VA said “it is a shame” that there aren’t more women in the government. “It’s more of a coincidence, not a choice. It’s not elegant, in these times, to have only men in the Cabinet — but it can happen,” he said. Van den broeck pointed out: “As prime minister, you have some leverage. You can send them back and say: I want an equal government.” De Wever’s administration pushed back, with a spokesperson saying: “Each party decides for itself whom it wishes to appoint. The prime minister does not intervene in the parties’ choice.” New Defense Minister Theo Francken, also of N-VA, brushed aside the criticism, expressing disappointment that someone might be judged based on their gender and not their abilities. “Aside from the fact that the world is on fire and there are much bigger issues, I am surprised by this criticism,” he wrote in a long post on X, finishing with the statement: “Long live meritocracy.” Van den broeck ascribed the outcome to Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump’s clear message that “diversity is not necessary anymore” is spreading from Washington, she argued. POLITICO contacted the political parties in the new government for comment, but did not receive a response. PRESSING FOR PRESENCE Robie Devroe, a researcher on gender and political representation at the University of Ghent, pointed out that the lack of diversity among ministers “also relates to minorities, age, level of education, sexual orientation.” That lack of diversity could affect upcoming legislation and reduce the rights of women and minorities — and may also result in some perspectives being neglected, such as on abortion law, where Belgium is set to discuss an extension to the current legal limit of 12 weeks. It could also affect interest in politics, Devroe continued. Politicians who are female, from an ethnic minority or who have disabilities serve as role models for their respective groups. “If those groups in society see that politics is largely dominated by white, middle-aged men, this will also diminish their interest in politics because they will have the feeling that politics is not for them,” she explained. The opposition socialist party has put forward a proposal that would enshrine gender parity in the constitution. Minister Matz said it’s time to talk about quotas. According to her, the introduction of quotas at the federal level is “a necessary evil” and should last until they are no longer necessary. “If we don’t have them, we’ll never get there. We have to push things forward,” Matz said. Matz acknowledged that as a woman in such a male-dominated government, she feels a greater responsibility to advocate the interests of women. “I have three wonderful [female] colleagues who, like me, believe it’s important — so we’re not going to let anyone push us around,” she said.

MEDYKA BORDER CROSSING, Poland — Legally, the two ambulances should be allowed to cross into Ukraine unhindered, but the Polish farmers standing sentry on the border take the law into their own hands and motion for the drivers to stop.  They open the doors and peer inside, scanning for contraband, suspecting the vehicles are carrying unregistered cargo. They find nothing and wave the ambulances through. The farmers have taken it upon themselves to check all commercial traffic on the four-lane border crossing at Medyka. There are a dozen of them, clad in fluorescent vests and carrying Polish flags, braving a biting wind that brings sleet, then snow.   It may seem like a lonely picket on a bleak winter’s day, but these border protests have helped generate an important political dynamic in a country that was once seen as Ukraine’s most resolute ally against the common enemy: Russia. After three years of war, the public mood is souring over economic sacrifices made for Kyiv, and sympathy for the farmers is playing a significant role in that shift.  At the most fundamental level, the farmers are pushing back against a European Union system of “solidarity lanes” that allowed agricultural heavyweight Ukraine to pour its massive exports of grain and other foodstuffs over the land border into the EU because they could no longer be shipped out via the Black Sea.  The economic argument that Poland’s support for Kyiv carries too high a price — that Ukraine’s goods don’t meet EU standards and that Polish produce is being undercut — has resonated. At a peak last year, a survey by the Public Opinion Research Center, a leading pollster, found that 81 percent of Poles supported the farmers’ protests. But the grievances in Poland cut deeper, and the farmers’ protests are feeding into broader national debates about history and identity looking back to World War II and earlier — topics that loom large in the run-up to the presidential election on May 18.  “The story we were sold was that we had to help Ukraine, that we had to take their food so they’d have money for the war … that was a lie,” complains Jan Wardęga, a farmer from nearby Żurawica, gripping a fishing pole repurposed as a flagstaff. “This fight isn’t for the poor Ukrainians — it’s for big corporations and Western capital.” FROM FRONT LINE TO FARMLAND Around Medyka and beyond, Polish farmers have blocked border crossings and organized noisy rallies over the past two years. They describe their struggle as a fight to defend not just their own livelihoods but Poland’s sovereignty and its national interests. “This isn’t just the Polish border. It’s the Schengen border. It’s up to us to defend it,” says Wardęga, his yellow vest stretched over puffer jackets that engulf his slight frame. Yet the complexity of farmers’ struggles has been reduced in media and political narratives to the simplistic notion that Ukraine is to blame for everything. In reality, the increased flow of goods across the border has exposed long-existing cracks in Polish agriculture. After joining the EU in 2004, Poland’s farmers faced pressure to modernize and compete on international markets. But while sectors like poultry, dairy and fruit became regional powerhouses, many farms remain small, family-run plots vulnerable to price swings and external competition. That disparity intensifies perceptions of inequality. Polish farmers see themselves as bound by strict EU regulations on pesticides, environmental protections and labor standards — hoops they have jumped through to produce zdrowa żywność, or healthy food. Ukrainian imports, they say, aren’t. “We’re not against the Ukrainian people. We helped them at the start, housed them, fed them. But we can’t be victims of oligarchs who profit off the chaos,” says Roman Kondrów, a stocky man with a Colonel Sanders-like beard who leads the Medyka protest. The tension in Poland isn’t about whether to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia — next to no one in Poland wants Vladimir Putin’s troops to triumph. But the farmers’ rhetoric, cloaked in seemingly pragmatic economic complaints, has normalized a view of Ukraine as too corrupt, too backward and too wild to be trusted. OLD WOUNDS REOPENED Historical fault lines have also resurfaced, amplified by right-wing groups and fueling a powerful narrative of imbalance. During World War II, Ukrainian nationalists killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians in Volhynia in what is now western Ukraine — atrocities widely known in Poland as the Wołyń massacres. Earlier still, in 1918, Polish youths known as the Orlęta Lwowskie (Lwów Eaglets) fought bitter battles over the city of Lviv, now part of Ukraine. Even though the conflicts took place generations ago, they remain potent symbols of sacrifice and suffering in Polish historical memory. “Our children died for Lwów (Lviv), for Wołyń, and now they come here and just want to take, take, take,” one farmer says. He declines to give his name but insists that Poles have already paid too steep a price. Such raw sentiments have helped shape the presidential election campaign. Politicians of all colors have seized on Volhynia, using the tragedy to question Ukraine’s moral standing or to demand concessions from Kyiv. Amid the rancor, however, there has been one small breakthrough: Ukrainian authorities recently agreed to begin exhumations at three sites — a step many Poles see as crucial for acknowledging wartime atrocities. Meanwhile, voter dissatisfaction with Donald Tusk’s brief tenure as prime minister is growing. With only a fraction of his centrist coalition’s 100 electoral promises fulfilled — stymied by legislative roadblocks left by its Law and Justice (PiS) party predecessors and infighting among allies — the Polish leader is under mounting pressure. His ally, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, is running for the presidency — and if he wins in May, they could finally navigate a way out of the political minefield left by PiS. But the two face the challenge of supporting Ukraine without alienating voters, walking a thin line that risks satisfying no one. Warsaw’s interests lie in a strong, independent Ukraine — a strategic buffer against Russian aggression and a potential partner within the EU and NATO. Yet with Donald Trump now in the White House, diminished United States support for Kyiv could put even more pressure on Tusk and Trzaskowski to shore up domestic unity while ensuring Ukraine’s security. Against this backdrop, the unresolved dispute over Volhynia poses a test of trust between the two neighbors. Bartłomiej Gajos, a historian at the Mieroszewski Centre for Dialogue, a research institute monitoring Polish-Ukrainian relations, warns that delays in addressing these historical wounds risk fracturing the fragile solidarity. For Poles, Volhynia is a deeply symbolic issue, Gajos told POLITICO: “It ties historical justice to a broader sense of moral obligation. Resolving it would signal mutual respect — ignoring it does the opposite.” TOWARD A NEW REALITY It would be too easy, however, to say Polish society is “turning against” Ukraine. The overwhelming support Poles displayed at the outset of the war was never guaranteed to remain sky-high. Over time, war fatigue has set in, inflation soared and the initial surge of solidarity has ebbed. Today, sentiment is more nuanced. A report from the Mieroszewski Centre, published in January, found that only one in four Poles has a positive opinion of Ukrainians, while nearly a third hold a negative view. Most Poles continue to support Ukraine’s sovereignty and its struggle against Russia. But they increasingly weigh this support against economic costs and practical concerns. Farmers, through their protests and vocal demands, have become a visible driver of this shift, though Gajos believes they aren’t alone. “What we experienced right after the war was an anomaly — calling each other brothers and sisters and so on,” he says. “That was a moment of genuine emotion, but in the long run, it’s not sustainable.” Even so, the strain is undeniable. What began as a trade dispute is now entwined with broader and historical issues, all magnified by the spread of rumors and misinformation that risk deepening the divide between Poland and Ukraine. Russia has actively sought to exploit these tensions, launching propaganda campaigns aimed at Polish and European farmers. Yet there is little evidence to suggest these efforts have gained substantial traction. More often, the narratives seem to originate organically. Coordinating their actions through messaging apps and Facebook groups, Polish farmers share stories of murky dealings at the border. Rumors of contraband shipments, dubious humanitarian aid and lax inspections are common. Amid this information fog, it becomes easier for misinformation — some possibly amplified by Moscow’s channels — to take hold. Farmers like Kondrów and Wardęga rattle off stories of shady enterprises and disguised shipments. “I’ve seen trucks supposedly carrying ‘humanitarian aid’ — tulip bulbs bound for Ukraine! What war needs tulips?” Kondrów scoffs. The contrast fuels a perception of inequity even as Poland makes huge economic and political gains from closer ties. Ukrainian labor has helped fill gaps in construction, retail and services, boosting Poland’s gross domestic product and easing workforce shortages. At the same time, Polish exports to Ukraine — from machinery to processed foods — are at record highs. TRUST AT A CROSSROADS The standoff in Medyka at the end of last year pales in comparison to earlier protests, when farmers, joined by truckers, blocked the entire border with Ukraine. It wasn’t even ostensibly about Ukraine — this time, the farmers were using the narrow choke point of the border to pressure Warsaw over an EU trade deal with Latin American countries. But the echoes reverberate far beyond this corner of Europe. Warsaw’s stance on Ukrainian imports has shaped an EU debate on whether to maintain — or even tighten — Kyiv’s access to the single market and could affect the country’s long-term membership prospects. Controversy over security guarantees and military aid underscores the complex challenges of assisting Ukraine in wartime. By co-opting some of the farmers’ grievances, Tusk has sought to undercut the narrative of PiS and far-right nationalists — Poland’s third political force — who claim he is blind to rural struggles. It’s a gamble that’s worked before, but one that could backfire ahead of May’s presidential vote by normalizing falsehoods and negative perceptions of Ukraine. Brussels is keeping a wary eye on Tusk’s tightrope act. With a new proposal on EU-Ukrainian trade due in the first half of the year, the European Commission needs Poland to cooperate in projecting a united front. Yet each time farmers protest, it underscores the fragility of an alliance forged in wartime and tested by economic and social realities. As dusk settles on the border in Medyka, the taillights of diverted trucks fade into the distance. Farmers gather around a burning barrel, sipping tea laced with hooch, their faces lit by the flickering flames. On the surface, their demands seem straightforward: transparency, fairness, stability. But beneath these calls lies a deeper truth: Poland’s support for Ukraine is no longer driven purely by emotional solidarity or moral duty.  “We’re not done fighting,” Kondrów says, silhouetted against the glow of the fire. “If need be, we’ll come back to this border again and again.” Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.

Germany will try to persuade the U.S. to remain in the World Health Organization, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump signed a Day One executive order to begin U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations’ global health agency, picking up where he left off four years ago. “The new U.S. president’s announcement to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) is a serious blow to the international fight against global health crises,” Lauterbach said, adding: “We will try to persuade Donald Trump to reconsider this decision,” reported Reuters. Commenting further on X, Lauterbach said the news was a “catastrophe for the health of the poorest people on the planet.” The U.S. pays approximately 20 percent of mandatory contributions to the WHO, which are weighted based on a country’s resources, amounting to $130 million in 2024. It has also been by far the biggest voluntary funder, contributing an extra $368 million in 2023. Germany is the second biggest funder, paying $229 million in voluntary contributions in 2023. Other donors will now need to reconsider their own contributions to avoid a major drop-off in WHO spending. Thomas Steffens, Germany’s State Secretary for Health, said last week EU countries should convene to discuss the future of the WHO under Trump.