DUBLIN — The Irish capital, which doubles as Europe’s de facto tech capital, hosted two very different AI summits in the past week. Most eyes were on the International AI Summit, the signature tech event of Ireland’s six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, where top brass from the world’s biggest tech firms discussed ways to harness artificial intelligence and minimize safety risks. But the weekend before, a very different conversation was taking place at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit, as Ireland’s tech workers demanded a say in how the burgeoning technology reshapes the workplace and society. Ireland’s lucrative tech sector has been rattled by waves of AI-driven layoffs — and the country’s fledgling tech union has seen an exponential spike in sign-ups from workers who are worried about their future.   There’s an “awakening” happening right now among workers in Ireland’s tech sector, and a growing “awareness that they’re not bulletproof,” said Sinéad Gibney, a social democrat lawmaker who previously worked for Google.   “I do think what we will see is that parts of roles will be automated, which means that people will be competing more heavily for the same roles,” she said. “They won’t have the same labor power and therefore we’re going to see a drop in quality of work, we’re going to see more zero-hour contracts, in more places than we already see it.” The labor movement brewing in Ireland, where many of the world’s tech giants have their EU bases, is part of a wider trend among tech workers globally, who have seen their work disrupted by rapidly evolving AI. RISE IN LAYOFFS Ireland’s dedicated union for tech workers, the Digital and Techworker Alliance (DATA), has seen a five-fold increase in membership since it was first founded in 2023.   In its first year and a half of existence, membership hovered around 270 people. In the past year-and-a-half, it’s jumped to more than 1,350 members, DATA organizer John Bohan told POLITICO.  He added that this number tends to spike around layoffs and other actions. “The tech industry was founded on the idea that it would never have a union, because they’re making people rich, and treat them really well,” Bohan said.  “But post-Covid, workforce adjustments happened again and again, with layoffs and declining conditions in the sector. We started to see more people wanting to get organized around redundancies.”   The spike in sign-ups coincides with a wave of layoffs in Ireland’s tech bubble (and the tech sector globally), as companies corrected pandemic-era overhiring, and diverted investment to AI.   Ireland hosts the EU headquarters of most of the world’s largest tech companies, and more than 170,000 people are employed in the tech sector, according to the country’s statistics institute. Social media giant Meta has roughly halved its workforce in Ireland since the pandemic, axing well over 1,000 roles to offset AI investment and boost efficiency. Separately, Meta subcontractor Covalen also announced massive layoffs earlier this year, cutting more than 700 people.   Video-sharing platform TikTok announced this year it would shed around 300 Irish jobs, mostly from its trust and safety team, shifting the work to other countries, outsourced vendors or automated AI solutions.   A report by the IMF earlier this year warned that Ireland’s labor market is “relatively more exposed” to AI than many advanced economies, partly due to its concentration of tech workers.   The AI race is also creating new jobs on the Irish market – as AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are setting up Irish bases and trying to lure Big Tech workers with even bigger salaries.   Amid the uncertainty and volatility of the AI boom, tech workers are turning to unions for the first time as a safety net. One tech worker who used to work in trust and safety at a big tech firm told POLITICO that there used to be a feeling that as a “pampered” tech worker you “can’t ask for your rights, because you already have it so much better.”  But as layoffs continue and teams get leaner, workers in fields like trust and safety “now have to deal with these issues with fewer and fewer resources”, and face a “constant threat of being chopped,” the worker said.   That’s causing an “undoing of a certain perspective that we have of ourselves as tech sector workers,” they said, “because of undeniable experiences that now put us in situations where we clearly see our rights being violated, even if we may have it so much or somewhat better than most people.”  A different tech worker who currently works for Covalen told POLITICO that there is a sense that “if they believe they can replace you with AI, they will do that.”   “All these Big Tech firms only care about profit, and what I have realized is the Irish government protects that Big Tech capital [rather than workers],” the Covalen worker said. “But the question is, what’s the government going to do when the tech bros change their mind and move elsewhere?”   WORKERS AT THE CENTER The speaker list at this week’s AI summit was a flex of the country’s strength as a tech hub, as top names from the world’s biggest companies like Google and Microsoft took to the stage. Fionnuala Ní Bhrógáin, head of organizing and campaigning at Ireland’s Communications Workers’ Union (DATA’s parent union), was the only union voice on the line-up. “The fact that 36 executives and industry bosses featured on the program, compared with just one trade union speaker — invited at the last minute after attention was drawn to the absence of workers’ voices — says a lot about the value the Irish government places on AI’s impact on workers,” she told POLITICO. “The reality is that a meaningful conversation about AI’s future can only happen through genuine engagement with workers and collective bargaining,” Ní Bhrógáin added. “Without that voice, we risk deepening mistrust and resistance rather than creating the conditions for workers to shape these changes collectively.” DATA organized its counter-AI summit the previous weekend, to put “workers at the center of the debate about power, AI, technology and the future of work.”  The event cut through the “hype and futurism of politicians and industry figures to focus on the real present harms faced by ordinary workers and communities,” DATA’s Bohan said.   The union is pushing for stronger legal protections for tech workers caught up in AI-driven layoffs in Ireland, including making it mandatory for employers to recognize unions during collective bargaining. It is also calling for a ban on cooling-off clauses that prevent laid-off workers from moving between Big Tech subcontractors.   A spokesperson for Ireland’s department for enterprise told POLITICO in a written statement that the government is “committed to strengthening collective bargaining and industrial relations” and has published an action plan to do so between now and 2030.   They said that employers already have to comply with obligations under Irish employment law, including consultation and notification procedures for collective redundancies, and workers who feel those rules have been broken can complain to the Workplace Relations Commission.  Firefighting to future-proofing  Naoise Ó Cearúil, a center-right Fianna Fáil lawmaker who chairs the AI committee, pointed out that while there have been high-profile job cuts in Ireland’s tech sector, “the actual net is that there has been an increase [in jobs], particularly over the past year and even five years.”  According to Ireland’s central statistics office, total employment in tech and related sectors surpassed 177,000 in the second quarter of this year, up from around 144,000 at the same time in 2021.   Ó Cearúil pointed out that many job losses were in trust and safety jobs like content moderation that are “very difficult mentally,” and now tech firms are able to “utilize AI and software to be able to do a lot of detection, rather than using humans.”   He has called for a national program to be established, to support workers whose jobs are at risk due to AI and automation.   A spokesperson for Ireland’s department of enterprise acknowledged that the country’s tech sector has “experienced significant adjustment in recent years,” but said the changes were generally part of wider global restructuring “rather than reflecting any Ireland-specific weakness.”  They said the Irish government is currently focused on “ensuring workers and businesses are equipped to adapt to technological change through investment in education, training, lifelong learning and digital skills.”  

BRUSSELS — France and Germany said Friday they had struck a deal to favor European-made cars under a landmark EU industry bill in exchange for weakening a 2035 vehicle emissions target, ending months of wrangling between the bloc’s two biggest economies. Under the agreement, Germany would accept stricter “Made in Europe” — or local content — requirements for the automotive industry in the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, a longstanding French demand, while France would back Berlin’s push to relax the EU’s plan to phase out new combustion-engine cars. The EU’s current target is for companies to reduce emissions from new vehicles by 100% from 2021 levels by 2035, with the possibility to “earn” 10% of emissions leeway through initiatives like offsets and investments. France and Germany now want to soften the 2035 target to 90% but without having  to offer investments in alternative fuels to compensate the remaining 10%, as proposed by the European Commission. “This balanced approach will enable the European Union to pursue its climate objectives while strengthening the technological sovereignty, industrial base and international competitiveness of its automotive industry,” the two countries said in a joint statement. The agreement, first reported by POLITICO in July, was due to have been announced Thursday, during a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. But it was held up at the last minute by disagreements within Germany’s governing coalition. “We hope that this Franco-German dynamic can swiftly lead to an agreement with our partners, for our jobs and our industry,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on social media. An Elysée official on Friday made clear that, under the Franco-German deal, the scope of Made in Europe for automotive can be extended to the U.K. and Switzerland under certain conditions. — addressing a key concern of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government ahead of a Nov. 20 U.K.-EU summit in Brussels. The agreement was reached after the German Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government, dropped its opposition. “This is a modern realignment of German industrial policy that places significantly greater emphasis on preserving jobs and production sites,” said German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, who is from the SPD. “The clear expectation for German companies is that they will use these new opportunities to make investments and guarantee jobs here in Germany,” he added. CORRECTION: This article was updated on Oct. 16 after an earlier version misrepresented the figures in the Franco-German proposal on the softening of 2035 targets.

LONDON — Britain has signed a new critical minerals partnership with the Trump administration, as it seeks to diversify supply chains away from China. Foreign Minister Seema Malhotra signed the partnership in Washington with U.S. Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg on Wednesday night. “As demand for critical minerals around the world continues to rise, this Memorandum of Understanding with the United States underscores our commitment to working as close allies to build resilient, diversified global supply chains,” Malhotra said in a statement. Under the terms of the deal, the two countries have agreed to use economic policy tools and coordinated investment to secure supplies of critical minerals and crack down on subsidized imports that risk undercutting domestic production. They will jointly identify priority projects, mobilize financing for developments, and share intelligence on investments that could threaten domestic capabilities in either country. The partnership signals a tougher stance on market distortion, with both sides pledging to protect their industries from “non-market policies and unfair trade practices” — including by working with allies on a global approach to pricing challenges. The agreement also states both sides will use existing legislative and diplomatic tools to review, deter and potentially block critical minerals and rare earths asset sales on national security grounds. U.S. and U.K. ministers are expected to convene within the next six months to take the partnership forward. The Trump administration, which has announced similar agreements with Mexico, the European Union and Japan, ultimately wants to establish a critical minerals trading bloc, first floated on Wednesday by Vice President JD Vance to 54 countries. Speaking to reporters in London on Thursday, U.K. Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said the trading bloc with Washington “makes perfect sense.” “On critical minerals, the alliances make perfect sense, as long as they take into account the specific peculiarities of domestic markets,” Kyle said.  “In all of the alliances, all of us have different needs, and all of us are producing different minerals, so we have to make sure that it’s completely cooperative, but we should be approaching it with a ‘how do you make it work?’ — rather than how to avoid it,” he added.

The German competition authority hit Amazon with a €59 million fine on Thursday after finding the e-commerce giant’s pricing rules for third-party vendors to be in breach of national and EU competition rules. The authority determined that Amazon’s practices, and in particular its use of algorithms to influence pricing by sellers and the enforcement of its Fair Pricing Policy, are in breach of Germany’s digital dominance rules as well as EU competition law. “Amazon competes directly with marketplace sellers on its platform and influences the prices of its competitors, including through price caps, which is problematic from a competition standpoint,” Andreas Mundt, president of the Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, said in a statement. The agency takes issue with Amazon’s pricing restrictions, and in particular its pricing cap, on what third-party sellers can charge without being penalized under the platform’s rules. “We will vigorously challenge the FCO’s conclusion, which is based on unique German regulation and directly conflicts with EU competition law consumer standards,” said Rocco Bräuniger, Amazon’s country manager for Germany, in a statement. Per Bräuniger, the agency is forcing Amazon to promote uncompetitive prices to customers. The decision follows a preliminary assessment sent to Amazon in June 2025, after which the company submitted comments. The Bundeskartellamt had designated Amazon as a company of paramount significance for competition across markets in July 2022, a finding upheld by the Federal Court of Justice in April 2024. 

BRUSSELS — Ukraine’s war chest stands to get a vital cash injection after EU envoys agreed on a €90 billion loan to finance Kyiv’s defense against Russia, the Cypriot Council presidency said on Wednesday. “The new financing will help ensure the country’s fierce resilience in the face of Russian aggression,” Cypriot Finance Minister Makis Keravnos said in a statement. Without the loan Ukraine had risked running out of cash by April, which would have been catastrophic for its war effort and could have crippled its negotiating efforts during ongoing American-backed peace talks with Russia. EU lawmakers still have some hurdles to clear, such as agreeing on the conditions Ukraine must satisfy to get a payout, before Brussels can raise money on the global debt market to finance the loan — which is backed by the EU’s seven-year budget. A big point of dispute among EU countries was how Ukraine will be able to spend the money, and who will benefit. One-third of the money will go for normal budgetary needs and the rest for defense. France led efforts to get Ukraine to spend as much of that as possible with EU defense companies, mindful that the bloc’s taxpayers are footing the €3 billion annual bill to cover interest payments on the loan. However, Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian nations pushed to give Ukraine as much flexibility as possible. The draft deal, seen by POLITICO, will allow Ukraine to buy key weapons from third countries — including the U.S. and the U.K. — either when no equivalent product is available in the EU or when there is an urgent need, while also strengthening the oversight of EU states over such derogations. The list of weapons Kyiv will be able to buy outside the bloc includes air and missile defense systems, fighter aircraft ammunition and deep-strike capabilities. If the U.K. or other third countries like South Korea, which have signed security deals with the EU and have helped Ukraine, want to take part in procurement deals beyond that, they will have to contribute financially to help cover interest payments on the loan. The European Parliament must now examine the changes the Council has made to the legal text. | Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images The text also mentions that the contribution of non-EU countries — to be agreed in upcoming negotiations with the European Commission — should be proportional to how much their defense firms could gain from taking part in the scheme. Canada, which already has a deal to take part in the EU’s separate €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons scheme, will not have to pay extra to take part in the Ukraine program, but would have detail the products that could be procured by Kyiv. NEXT STEPS Now that ambassadors have reached a deal, the European Parliament must examine the changes the Council has made to the legal text before approving the measure. If all goes well, Kyiv will get €45 billion from the EU this year in tranches. The remaining cash will arrive in 2027. Ukraine will only repay the money if Moscow ends its full-scale invasion and pays war reparations. If Russia refuses, the EU will consider raiding the Kremlin’s frozen assets lying in financial institutions across the bloc. While the loan will keep Ukrainian forces in the fight, the amount won’t cover Kyiv’s total financing needs — even with another round of loans, worth $8 billion, expected from the International Monetary Fund. By the IMF’s own estimates, Kyiv will need at least €135 billion to sustain its military and budgetary needs this year and next. Meanwhile, U.S. and EU officials are working on a plan to rebuild Ukraine that aims to attract $800 billion in public and private funds over 10 years. For that to happen, the eastern front must first fall silent — a remote likelihood at this point. Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.

LONDON — Victory is finally in sight for the Bank of England. But rate cuts aren’t. It’s taken Britain’s central bank longer to bring inflation under control than any of its peers on the global stage, but on Thursday economists expect forecasts to show that inflation in the U.K. will return to the government’s 2 percent target within the next two years, having overshot it for almost all of the last four. The pound surged to its highest level against the dollar in five years last month, as global confidence in the anchor of the world’s financial system appeared to fray due to the news flow out of the U.S. But there will be little else to set the pulse racing: Financial market participants are almost unanimous in expecting no change in the Bank rate from its current 3.75 percent. Even the extraordinary events of January, which saw the U.S. seize Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and U.S. President Donald Trump threaten military force against his NATO allies over Greenland, seem unlikely to induce a shift in the Bank’s communication about the U.K.’s economic outlook. Extrapolating how these seismic events will translate into the U.K. economy has been hard. One of the more hawkish members of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, Megan Greene, argued in a speech last month that while a stronger pound should help keep the cost of imports down, it could easily be offset by other factors, especially if the U.S. Federal Reserve were to be pressured by the White House into cutting U.S. interest rates more aggressively. Greene argued the MPC should focus on what is in its power to control. Here, the Bank is facing a familiar conundrum: growth is sluggish and unemployment is trending higher, but inflation is coming down — even if painfully slowly — and most business surveys suggest wage growth will continue to outstrip what is justified by productivity. Headline inflation ticked up again in December to 3.4 percent, still far above the 2 percent target. The latest data suggest that the economy is still more or less ticking along, growing at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the three months through November. STILL ‘GRADUAL AND CAUTIOUS’ The narrow vote by the MPC to cut the Bank rate to 3.75 percent from 4 percent at its last meeting in December — and the unwavering message from the Bank that it will take a “gradual and cautious” approach to easing policy — means the committee will stay put on Thursday, according to Deutsche Bank economist Sanjay Raja. UBS economist Anna Titareva, meanwhile, reckons the vote will be split, with both Governor Andrew Bailey and Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden capable of voting again for a cut alongside Alan Taylor and Swati Dhingra, the two external members most concerned about the risks of a slowdown and an accompanying rise in joblessness. But that scenario would still leave Bailey in the minority against the remaining five of nine members in the committee. Most analysts still expect the Bank to cut interest rates twice this year. Inflation is set to fall from April as Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to strip green levies off energy bills causes a drop in final prices for electricity. Deutsche’s Raja expects cuts in March and again in June, but says rates are unlikely to fall any further after that.

BRUSSELS — The EU and U.K. must overcome historic gripes and “reset” their relationship to be able to work together in an increasingly uncertain world, the bloc’s top parliamentarian said. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola used an address to the Spanish senate on Tuesday to call for closer ties with the U.K. as London steps up efforts to secure smoother access to European markets and funding projects, after the country voted to leave the bloc in 2016. “Ten years on from Brexit … and in a world that has changed so profoundly, Europe and the U.K. need a new way of working together on trade, customs, research, mobility and on security and defense,” Metsola said. “Today it is time to exorcize the ghosts of the past.” Metsola called for a “reset” in the partnership between Britain and the EU as part of a policy of “realistic pragmatism anchored in values that will see all of us move forward together.” Her speech comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he intended to try and ensure his country’s defense industries can benefit from the EU’s flagship SAFE scheme — a €150 billion funding program designed to boost procurement of military hardware. That push has been far from smooth, with a meeting of EU governments on Monday night failing to sign off U.K. access to SAFE, despite France — which has consistently opposed non-EU countries taking part — supporting the British inclusion. Starmer has also signaled in recent days that he is seeking closer integration with the EU’s single market. Brussels has so far been reluctant to reopen the terms of the U.K.’s relations with the bloc just six years after it exited. While those decisions lie with the remaining 27 EU member countries, rather than the Parliament, Metsola’s intervention marks a shift in tone that could bolster the British case for closer relations. In the context of increasingly tense relations with the U.S., capitals are depending on cooperation with British intelligence and military capabilities and in key industries. Europe must take “the next steps towards a stronger European defense, boosting our capabilities and cooperation, and working closely with our NATO allies so that Europe can better protect its people,” Metsola said.

LONDON — Keir Starmer will draft a new law to strip Peter Mandelson of his right to sit in Britain’s House of Lords after new revelations about the former British ambassador to Washington’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appeared in the Epstein files. The British prime minister has asked officials to draft legislation to remove Mandelson from the House of Lords “as quickly as possible,” his spokesman told reporters Tuesday afternoon. No.10 Downing Street said the Cabinet Office has also referred material to the police after the newly released files appeared to show Mandelson sharing live government policy deliberations with the disgraced financier.  The Metropolitan Police said Monday it is reviewing allegations of misconduct in a public office. Starmer’s spokesperson said the Epstein file documents “contain likely market sensitive information surrounding the 2008 financial crash and official activities thereafter to stabilize the economy.” “Only people operating in an official capacity had access to this information, [with] strict handling conditions to ensure it was not available to anyone who could potentially benefit from it financially,” the spokesperson said, adding: “It appears these safeguards were compromised.” Mandelson, a former Labour Cabinet minister who twice had to resign from Tony Blair’s government, was given a seat in the House of Lords by Gordon Brown in 2008 — a move which allowed Brown to appoint him as business secretary. More recently, the peer was made U.S. ambassador by Starmer as he sought to build strong ties with Donald Trump’s administration. The British prime minister sacked Mandelson last year after the release of U.S. Department of Justice files which shed new light on Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein. The former ambassador quit the ruling Labour Party on Sunday— but Starmer is under mounting political pressure to go further. Starmer “regards it as ridiculous that a peerage cannot be removed, except with primary legislation, something that has not happened since 1917,” his spokesman said Tuesday. “The prime minister believes there is a broader need for the House of Lords to be able to remove transgressors more quickly,” the spokesperson added. Downing Street has called for cross party support for its bid to modernize the unelected House of Lords. Currently peers can retire from the upper chamber — but they cannot be removed.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zittern um die Versorgungssicherheit: Deutschlands Gasspeicher sind nur noch zu einem Drittel gefüllt. Während Wirtschaftsministerin Katherina Reiche beschwichtigt, warnt die Branche vor Engpässen an extrem kalten Tagen. Joana Lehner von “Energie und Klima am Morgen” berichtet im Gespräch mit Gordon Repinski über die Sorgen der Energiebranche und wie Unternehmen mit kurzfristigem Bedarf in finanzielle Nöte geraten könnten. Ein kostenloses Probe-Abo des Pro-Newsletters gibt es hier. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt Netzagentur-Chef Klaus Müller, warum er trotz leerer Speicher keine Mangellage sieht, aber mit steigenden Preisen rechnet, wenn auch nicht für private Haushalte.  Beben in Washington: Drei Millionen neu veröffentlichte Seiten der Epstein-Akten erschüttern das Machtzentrum der USA. Mittendrin: Präsident Donald Trump. Washington-Korrespondent Jonathan Martin  von POLITICO analysiert, warum der Zynismus der US-Wähler gegenüber den Institutionen einen neuen Siedepunkt erreicht. Außerdem im Podcast: Zahnarzt nur noch für Selbstzahler? Die Aufregung um den Vorstoß des CDU-Wirtschaftsrates. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 information@axelspringer.de Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s celebrations over the imminent passage of the 2026 budget will be short-lived. Once it’s approved, he’s going to be a lame duck until the presidential election of spring next year. Current and former ministers, lawmakers and political aides — including three Macron allies — told POLITICO that now that the budget fight is over and the concerns of angry citizens and jittery markets are assuaged, the whole cycle of French politics will shift to campaign mode at the expense of the dirty work of lawmaking.  First will come next month’s municipal elections, where voters in all of France’s 35,000-plus communes will elect mayors and city councils. Then all attention will flip to the race for the all-powerful presidency, Macron cannot run again due to term limits, and polls show he could be replaced by a candidate from the far-right National Rally. “It’s the end of [Macron’s] term,” a former adviser close to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said of the budget’s passage.   Gabriel Attal, Macron’s former prime minister who now leads the French president’s party, confirmed in an interview with French media last month that he told his troops the budget marked “the end” of Macron’s second term.  “I stand by what I said,” Attal told FranceInfo.  As president, Macron continues to exert a strong influence over foreign affairs and defense, two realms that will keep him on the world stage given the geopolitical upheaval brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Domestically, however, he’s been hampered by the snap election in 2024 that delivered a hung parliament.  Lecornu was only able to avoid being toppled over the passage of the budget, as his two immediate predecessors were, thanks to his political savvy, some compromises and a few bold decisions. These included pausing Macron’s flagship pension reform that raised the retirement age and going back on his promise not to use a constitutional backdoor to ram it through without a vote. “Lecornu was smart enough to make the budget phase pass and end on a high note. That’s commendable, given that [former Prime Ministers Michel] Barnier and [François] Bayrou didn’t manage to do so, and he did it with considerable skill,” said a ministerial adviser who, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.  But Lecornu’s decision to prioritize uncontroversial measures in the coming weeks speak to the difficulties that lie ahead.   These priorities include defining the division of power between the central government and local authorities, and streamlining and centralizing welfare payments that are currently doled out in an ad hoc fashion. Lecornu is also planning to get to work early on France’s 2027 fiscal plans to try to prevent the third budget crisis in a row.  French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu leaves the Elysee Palace in Paris after a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 28. His decision to prioritize uncontroversial measures in the coming weeks speak to the difficulties ahead. | Mohammed Badra/EPA “There will be a presidential election in 2027. Before then, we need to agree on a bottom line which allows the country to move forward,” government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said Thursday on Sud Radio.  Lecornu has repeatedly stressed that his government should be disconnected from the race for president, blaming “partisan appetites” for both the budget crisis and the collapse of his 14-hour government, which was eventually replaced with a suite of less ambitious ministers.   But it’s ironic that some French government officials and MPs are now saying the self-described warrior-monk prime minister may have vaulted himself into the realm of presidential contender with his budget win. Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos, said Lecornu had clearly become a more viable presidential candidate but noted that the jump from prime minister to president “is always a hard task.”  One parliamentary leader was much less sanguine. They said the same “partisan appetites” Lecornu has long warned about will likely cost him his job before voters head to the polls to choose Macron’s successor.   “[Lecornu] has few friends … And now that the budget has passed, every political group can have fun throwing him out of office to plant their flag before the next presidential election,” the leader said.  Anthony Lattier, Sarah Paillou and Elisa Bertholomey contributed to this report.