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 Trump administration wants to work with traditional allies to secure new supplies of critical minerals. But months of aggression toward allies, culminating with since-aborted threats to seize Greenland, have left many cool to the overtures. While the State Department has drawn a lengthy list of participating countries for its first Critical Minerals Ministerial scheduled for Wednesday, a number of those attending are hesitant to commit to partnering with the U.S. in creating a supply chain that bypasses China’s current chokehold on those materials, according to five Washington-based diplomats of countries invited to or attending the event. State Department cables obtained by POLITICO also show wariness among some countries about signing onto a framework agreement pledging joint cooperation in sourcing and processing critical minerals. Representatives from more than 50 countries are expected to attend the meeting, according to the State Department — all gathered to discuss the creation of tech supply chains that can rival Beijing’s. But the meeting comes just two weeks since President Donald Trump took to the stage at Davos to call on fellow NATO member Denmark to allow a U.S. takeover of Greenland, and that isn’t sitting well. “We all need access to critical minerals, but the furor over Greenland is going to be the elephant in the room,” said a European diplomat. In the immediate run-up to the event there’s “not a great deal of interest from the European side,” the person added. The individual and others were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic relationships. Their concerns underscore how international dismay at the Trump administration’s foreign policy and trade actions may kneecap its other global priorities. The Trump administration had had some success over the past two months rallying countries to support U.S. efforts to create secure supply chains for critical minerals, including a major multilateral agreement called the Pax Silica Declaration. Now those gains could be at risk. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wants foreign countries to partner with the U.S. in creating a supply chain for the 60 minerals (including rare earths) that the U.S. Geological Survey deems “vital to the U.S. economy and national security that face potential risks from disrupted supply chains.” They include antimony, used to produce munitions; samarium, which goes into aircraft engines; and germanium, which is essential to fiber-optics. The administration also launched a $12 billion joint public-private sector “strategic critical minerals stockpile” for U.S. manufacturers, a White House official said Monday. Trump has backed away from his threats of possibly deploying the U.S. military to seize Greenland from Denmark. But at Davos he demanded “immediate negotiations” with Copenhagen to transfer Greenland’s sovereignty to the U.S. That makes some EU officials leery of administration initiatives that require cooperation and trust. “We are all very wary,” said a second European diplomat. Rubio’s critical minerals framework “will not be an easy sell until there is final clarity on Greenland.” Trump compounded the damage to relations with NATO countries on Jan. 22 when he accused member country troops that deployed to support U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 of having shirked combat duty. “The White House really messed up with Greenland and Davos,” a third European diplomat said. “They may have underestimated how much that would have an impact.” The Trump administration needs the critical minerals deals to go through. The U.S. has been scrambling to find alternative supply lines for a group of minerals called rare earths since Beijing temporarily cut the U.S. off from its supply last year. China — which has a near-monopoly on rare earths — relented in the trade truce that Trump brokered with China’s leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in October. The administration is betting that foreign government officials that attend Wednesday’s event also want alternative sources to those materials. “The United States and the countries attending recognize that reliable supply chains are indispensable to our mutual economic and national security and that we must work together to address these issues in this vital sector,” the State Department statement said in a statement. The administration has been expressing confidence that it will secure critical minerals partnerships with the countries attending the ministerial, despite their concerns over Trump’s bellicose policy. “There is a commonality here around countering China,” Ruth Perry, the State Department’s acting principal deputy assistant secretary for ocean, fisheries and polar affairs, said at an industry event on offshore critical minerals in Washington last week. “Many of these countries understand the urgency.” Speaking at a White House event Monday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum indicated that 11 nations would sign on to a critical minerals framework with the United States this week and another 20 are considering doing so. Greenland has rich deposits of rare earths and other minerals. But Denmark isn’t sending any representatives to the ministerial, according to the person familiar with the event’s planning. Trump said last month that a framework agreement he struck with NATO over Greenland’s future included U.S. access to the island’s minerals. Greenland’s harsh climate and lack of infrastructure in its interior makes the extraction of those materials highly challenging. Concern about the longer term economic and geostrategic risks of turning away from Washington in favor of closer ties with Beijing — despite the Trump administration’s unpredictability — may work in Rubio’s favor on Wednesday. “We still want to work on issues where our viewpoints align,” an Asian diplomat said. “Critical minerals, energy and defense are some areas where there is hope for positive movement.” State Department cables obtained by POLITICO show the administration is leaning on ministerial participants to sign on to a nonbinding framework agreement to ensure U.S. access to critical minerals. The framework establishes standards for government and private investment in areas including mining, processing and recycling, along with price guarantees to protect producers from competitors’ unfair trade policies. The basic template of the agreement being shared with other countries mirrors language in frameworks sealed with Australia and Japan and memorandums of understanding inked with Thailand and Malaysia last year. Enthusiasm for the framework varies. The Philippine and Polish governments have both agreed to the framework text, according to cables from Manila on Jan. 22 and Warsaw on Jan. 26. Romania is interested but “proposed edits to the draft MOU framework,” a cable dated Jan. 16 said. As of Jan. 22 India was noncommittal, telling U.S. diplomats that New Delhi “could be interested in exploring a memorandum of understanding in the future.” European Union members Finland and Germany both expressed reluctance to sign on without clarity on how the framework aligns with wider EU trade policies. A cable dated Jan. 15 said Finland “prefers to observe progress in the EU-U.S. discussions before engaging in substantive bilateral critical mineral framework negotiations.” Berlin also has concerns that the initiative may reap “potential retaliation from China,” according to a cable dated Jan. 16. Trump’s threats over the past two weeks to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canada for cutting a trade deal with China and 25 percent tariffs on South Korea for allegedly slow-walking legislative approval of its U.S. trade agreement are also denting enthusiasm for the U.S. critical minerals initiative. Those levies “have introduced some uncertainty, which naturally leads countries to proceed pragmatically and keep their options open,” a second Asian diplomat said. There are also doubts whether Trump will give the initiative the long-term backing it will require for success. “There’s a sense that this could end up being a TACO too,” a Latin American diplomat said, using shorthand for Trump’s tendency to make big threats or announcements that ultimately fizzle. Analysts, too, argue it’s unlikely the administration will be able to secure any deals amid the fallout from Davos and Trump’s tariff barrages. “We’re very skeptical on the interest and aptitude and trust in trade counterparties right now,” said John Miller, an energy analyst at TD Cowen who tracks critical minerals. “A lot of trading partners are very much in a wait-and-see perspective at this point saying, ‘Where’s Trump really going to go with this?’” And more unpredictability or hostility by the Trump administration toward longtime allies could push them to pursue critical mineral sourcing arrangements that exclude Washington. “The alternative is that these other countries will go the Mark Carney route of the middle powers, cooperating among themselves quietly, not necessarily going out there and saying, ‘Hey, we’re cutting out the U.S.,’ but that these things just start to crop up,” said Jonathan Czin, a former China analyst at the CIA now at the Brookings Institution. “Which will make it more challenging and allow Beijing to play divide and conquer over the long term.” Felicia Schwartz contributed to this report.

Europe is laying the foundation for renewed economic growth. Regulatory simplification is gaining traction. Public investment is accelerating in technology, energy and defense. Private capital is supplementing these efforts. These are meaningful steps, which, in the eyes of many, are long overdue and still need to gain pace. But an additional ingredient is required.  Our new research finds that closing the continent’s competitiveness gap requires Europe’s major companies to place a new emphasis on entrepreneurial courage: that is, the increased willingness to embrace uncertainty and take calculated risks in service of renewal and growth. Corporate leaders willing to make bold investments and engage in modern public-private collaborations, much like their American and Asian peers, stand to reap the rewards for acting decisively and with greater urgency.   Europe’s global competitiveness is ultimately a function of individual companies making a material difference, particularly large corporations and dynamic scale-ups. And it doesn’t require many acting boldly to have a disproportionate impact. In examining a sample representing about 15 percent of the U.S. economy, the McKinsey Global Institute found that more than two-thirds of productivity growth between 2011 and 2019 was driven by just 44 ‘standout’ companies. Meanwhile, 13 standout companies drove a similar proportion of the German sample’s productivity growth during the same period. These highly valued ‘outliers’, together with differences in growth and return on invested capital, underpin much of the valuation gap between European companies and their international peers, as highlighted in research we conducted on UK capital markets.   The status quo is not tenable.  Since the global financial crisis, Europe has endured a prolonged slump in private investment that has been especially pronounced in future-shaping industries. In the past five years alone, our analysis found that companies with headquarters in the United States have invested €2 trillion more in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) than their European peers. And in traditional manufacturing industries, China is out-investing Europe at a rate of 3:1.  > This investment gap not only stifles European economic growth, but prevents > the continent from inventing, developing and deploying the technologies it > needs to increase productivity and drive prosperity.  And the need to boost investments is growing: when the landmark Draghi report on European competitiveness was released in 2024, it estimated that an additional €800 billion needed to be mobilized annually to start closing the continent’s competitiveness gap. With the required additional investment in defense, that figure is now estimated to be €1.2 trillion annually for the next five years.  Of course, the regulatory landscape is also important. The positive news over the past year is that the European Commission has implemented dozens of initiatives, from regulatory simplification to streamlining and enhancing funding and market-creation mechanisms, as well as preparing to propose a ‘28th regime’ to make it easier for companies to scale across its 27 member states. Governments are also stepping up, with growth in strategic public investment in technology, energy and defense capabilities creating tailwinds for private investment. For instance, Germany amended its constitution to exempt defense spending above 1 percent of GDP from its debt brake and established a €500 billion fund to support infrastructure and climate-neutral investment. Similar programs are taking shape in France, Italy, the Netherlands and the Nordics.  But, while private sector activity shows some signs of acceleration, more is needed. Driving Europe’s economic vitality requires the emergence of standout companies, acting both individually and in close collaboration with the public sector. Without it, Europe risks another decade of ‘secular stagnation’: sluggish real GDP growth of around 1 percent annually as excess savings and a dearth of investment depress aggregate demand and push interest rates back to near zero.  > So, what does it take to show more entrepreneurial courage? Informed by our > global research and what we see standout firms doing, our research highlights > a range of actions leaders could explore.  One example is making broader ecosystem plays, such as semiconductor company ASML joining with the Dutch government and regional partners to launch Project Beethoven, a €2.5 billion public-private investment to ensure ASML’s continued presence and expansion of the broader microchip cluster in Eindhoven. Another is re-inventing potential stranded assets to position them for the industries of the future, illustrated by the range of European utilities converting or marketing former coal and gas power plant sites for hyperscale data centers. And a clear one is radical adoption of AI and automation technologies, which MGI’s research shows could add up to 3.4 percentage points to annual productivity growth globally through 2040.  > Europe has an opportunity to take steps to decisively alter its competitive > trajectory.  But while public sector leaders can lay the foundations necessary to accelerate investment and growth, the continent’s leading companies are distinctly positioned to amplify this and make a critical contribution to the continent’s prosperity, security and strategic autonomy. There’s growing consensus on what needs to be done. What’s now needed is a hefty dose of entrepreneurial courage to act.

Venture capitalist Finn Murphy believes world leaders could soon resort to deflecting sunlight into space if the Earth gets unbearably hot. That’s why he’s invested more than $1 million in Stardust Solutions, a leading solar geoengineering firm that’s developing a system to reduce warming by enveloping the globe in reflective particles. Murphy isn’t rooting for climate catastrophe. But with global temperatures soaring and the political will to limit climate change waning, Stardust “can be worth tens of billions of dollars,” he said. “It would be definitely better if we lost all our money and this wasn’t necessary,” said Murphy, the 33-year-old founder of Nebular, a New York investment fund named for a vast cloud of space dust and gas. Murphy is among a new wave of investors who are putting millions of dollars into emerging companies that aim to limit the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth — while also potentially destabilizing weather patterns, food supplies and global politics. He has a degree in mathematics and mechanical engineering and views global warming not just as a human and political tragedy, but as a technical challenge with profitable solutions. Solar geoengineering investors are generally young, pragmatic and imaginative — and willing to lean into the adventurous side of venture capitalism. They often shrug off the concerns of scientists who argue it’s inherently risky to fund the development of potentially dangerous technologies through wealthy investors who could only profit if the planet-cooling systems are deployed. “If the technology works and the outcomes are positive without really catastrophic downstream impacts, these are trillion-dollar market opportunities,” said Evan Caron, a co-founder of the energy-focused venture firm Montauk Capital. “So it’s a no-brainer for an investor to take a shot at some of these.” More than 50 financial firms, wealthy individuals and government agencies have collectively provided more than $115.8 million to nine startups whose technology could be used to limit sunlight, according to interviews with VCs, tech company founders and analysts, as well as private investment data analyzed by POLITICO’s E&E News. That pool of funders includes Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms, and four other investment groups that have more than $1 billion of assets under management. Of the total amount invested in the geoengineering sector, $75 million went to Stardust, or nearly 65 percent. The U.S.-Israeli startup is developing reflective particles and the means to spray and monitor them in the stratosphere, some 11 miles above the planet’s surface. At least three other climate-intervention companies have also raked in at least $5 million. The cash infusion is a bet on planet-cooling technologies that many political leaders, investors and environmentalists still consider taboo. In addition to having unknown side effects, solar geoengineering could expose the planet to what scientists call “termination shock,” a scenario in which global temperatures soar if the cooling technologies fail or are suddenly abandoned. Still, the funding surge for geoengineering companies pales in comparison to the billions of dollars being put toward artificial intelligence. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has raised $62.5 billion in 2025 alone, according to investment data compiled by PitchBook. The investment pool for solar geoengineering startups is relatively shallow in part because governments haven’t determined how they would regulate the technology — something Stardust is lobbying to change. As a result, the emerging sector is seen as too speculative for most venture capital firms, according to Kim Zou, the CEO of Sightline Climate, a market intelligence firm. VCs mostly work on behalf of wealthy individuals, as well as pension funds, university endowments and other institutional investors. “It’s still quite a niche set of investors that are even thinking about or looking at the geoengineering space,” Zou said. “The climate tech and energy tech investors we speak to still don’t really see there being an investable opportunity there, primarily because there’s no commercial market for it today.” AEROSOLS IN THE STRATOSPHERE Stardust and its investors are banking on signing contracts with one or more governments that could deploy its solar geoengineering system as soon as the end of the decade. Those investors include Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-focused firm co-founded by billionaire VC Chris Sacca, and Exor, the holding company of an Italian industrial dynasty and perhaps the most mainstream investment group to back a sunlight reflection startup. Even Stardust’s supporters acknowledge that the company is far from a sure bet. “It’s unique in that there is not currently demand for this solution,” said Murphy, whose firm is also supporting out-there startups seeking to build robots and data centers in space. “You have to go and create the product in order to potentially facilitate the demand.” Lowercarbon partner Ryan Orbuch said the firm would see a return on its Stardust investment only “in the context of an actual customer who can actually back many years of stable, safe deployment.” Exor, another Stardust investor, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Other startups are trying to develop commercial markets for solar geoengineering. Make Sunsets, a company funded by billionaire VC Tim Draper, releases sulfate-filled weather balloons that pop when they reach the stratosphere. It sells cooling credits to individuals and corporations based on the theory that the sulfates can reliably reduce warming. There are questions, however, about the science and economics underpinning the credit system of Make Sunsets, according to the investment bank Jeffries. “A cooling credit market is unlikely to be viable,” the bank said in a May 2024 note to clients. That’s because the temperature reductions produced by sulfate aerosols vary by altitude, location and season, the note explained. And the warming impacts of carbon dioxide emissions last decades — much longer than any cooling that would be created from a balloon’s worth of sulfate. Make Sunsets didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has previously attracted the attention of regulators in the U.S. and Mexico, who have claimed it began operating without the necessary government approvals. Draper Associates says on its website that it’s “shaping a future where the impossible becomes everyday reality.” The firm has previously backed successful consumer tech firms like Tesla, Skype and Hotmail. “It is getting hotter in the Summer everywhere,” Tim Draper said in an email. “We should be encouraging every solution. I love this team, and the science works.” THE NEXT FRONTIER One startup is pursuing space-based solar geoengineering. EarthGuard is attempting to build a series of large sunlight deflectors that would be positioned between the sun and the planet, some 932,000 miles from the Earth. The company did not respond to emailed questions. Other space companies are considering geoengineering as a side project. That includes Gama, a French startup that’s designing massive solar sails that could be used for deep space travel or as a planetary sunshade, and Ethos Space, a Los Angeles company with plans to industrialize the moon. Both companies are part of an informal research network established by the Planetary Sunshade Foundation, a nonprofit advocating for the development of a trillion-dollar parasol for the globe. The network mainly brings together collaborators on the sidelines of space industry conferences, according to Gama CEO Andrew Nutter. “We’re willing to contribute something if we realize it’s genuinely necessary and it’s a better solution than other solutions” to the climate challenge, Nutter said of the space shade concept. “But our business model does not depend on it. If you have dollar signs hanging next to something, that can bias your decisions on what’s best for the planet.” Nutter said Gama has raised about $5 million since he co-founded the company in 2020. Its investors include Possible Ventures, a German VC firm that’s also financing a nuclear fusion startup and says on its website that the firm is “relentlessly optimistic — choosing to focus on the possibilities rather than obsess over the risks.” Possible Ventures did not respond to a request for comment. Sequoia-backed Reflect Orbital is another space startup that’s exploring solar geoengineering as a potential moneymaker. The company based near Los Angeles is developing a network of satellite mirrors that would direct sunlight down to the Earth at night for lighting industrial sites or, eventually, producing solar energy. Its space mirrors, if oriented differently, could also be used for limiting the amount of sun rays that reach the planet. “It’s not so much a technological limitation as much as what has the highest, best impact. It’s more of a business decision,” said Ally Stone, Reflect Orbital’s chief strategy officer. “It’s a matter of looking at each satellite as an opportunity and whether, when it’s over a specific geography, that makes more sense to reflect sunlight towards or away from the Earth.” Reflect Orbital has raised nearly $28.7 million from investors including Lux Capital, a firm that touts its efforts to “turn sci-fi into sci-fact” and has invested in the autonomous defense systems companies Anduril and Saildrone.” Sequoia and Lux didn’t respond to requests for comment. The startup hopes to send its first satellite into space next summer, according to Stone. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose aerospace company already has an estimated fleet of more than 8,800 internet satellites in orbit, has also suggested using the circling network to limit sunlight. “A large solar-powered AI satellite constellation would be able to prevent global warming by making tiny adjustments in how much solar energy reached Earth,” Musk wrote on X last month. Neither he nor SpaceX responded to an emailed request for comment. DON’T CALL IT GEOENGINEERING Other sunlight-reflecting startups are entering the market — even if they’d rather not be seen as solar geoengineering companies. Arctic Reflections is a two-year-old company that wants to reduce global warming by increasing Arctic sea ice, which doesn’t absorb as much heat as open water. The Dutch startup hasn’t yet pursued outside investors. “We see this not necessarily as geo-engineering, but rather as climate adaptation,” CEO Fonger Ypma said in an email. “Just like in reforestation projects, people help nature in growing trees, our idea is that we would help nature in growing ice.” The main funder of Arctic Reflections is the British government’s independent Advanced Research and Invention Agency. In May, ARIA awarded $4.41 million to the company — more than four times what it had raised to that point. Another startup backed by ARIA is Voltitude, which is developing micro balloons to monitor geoengineering from the stratosphere. The U.K.-based company didn’t respond to a request for comment. Altogether, the British agency is supporting 22 geoengineering projects, only a handful of which involve startups. “ARIA is only funding fundamental research through this programme, and has not taken an equity stake in any geoengineering companies,” said Mark Symes, a program director at the agency. It also requires that all research it supports “must be published, including those that rule out approaches by showing they are unsafe or unworkable.” Sunscreen is a new startup that is trying to limit sunlight in localized areas. It was founded earlier this year by Stanford University graduate student Solomon Kim. “We are pioneering the use of targeted, precision interventions to mitigate the destructive impacts of heatwave on critical United States infrastructure,” Kim said in an email. But he was emphatic that “we are not geoengineering” since the cooling impacts it’s pursuing are not large scale. Kim declined to say how much had been raised by Sunscreen and from what sources. As climate change and its impacts continue to worsen, Zou of Sightline Climate expects more investors to consider solar geoengineering startups, including deep-pocketed firms and corporations interested in the technology. Without their help, the startups might not be able to develop their planet-cooling systems. “People are feeling like, well wait a second, our backs are kind of starting to get against the wall. Time is ticking, we’re not really making a ton of progress” on decarbonization, she said. “So I do think there’s a lot more questions getting asked right now in the climate tech and venture community around understanding it,” Zou said of solar geoengineering. “Some of these companies and startups and venture deals are also starting to bring more light into the space.” Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting.

European companies are still paying vastly more for energy than they would in the U.S. or China, a new analysis has found, a year after a landmark report warned inaction would condemn the continent to economic stagnation. The findings come on the anniversary of the publication of a report by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, which found the EU was lagging behind rivals as a result of expensive power and gas, hampering firms’ competitiveness internationally. According to the new findings from the influential Center for the Study of Democracy think tank, set to be unveiled Tuesday in Washington, European countries have become more exposed to energy price shocks, with indicators surging more than fivefold in the past three years. “A year after Draghi called for stronger EU energy markets, our data shows affordability risks remain high, with retail prices still 40–70 percent above pre-crisis levels in much of Central and Eastern Europe,” said Martin Vladimirov, one of the report’s authors. Affordability is now by far the greatest threat to the EU’s energy resilience, outstripping the uncertainty created by Russia’s weaponizing of energy flows, by the climate transition and by system reliability. “It affects not only citizens’ trust, but also the capacity of businesses to compete globally,” the Center for the Study of Democracy assessment cautions. “For Europe to succeed in the next phase of its energy transition, it must ensure that clean energy is not only available, but accessible and economically viable for all.” Vulnerabilities in one domain also risk spilling over into others, adding to the major and often historical divides that already exist between EU countries, the report cautions. If the bloc fails to address the gulf between countries’ energy security, it threatens to entrench regional inequality and undermine its economic sovereignty and climate goals, it warns. In his report last September, Draghi wrote that “EU companies still face electricity prices that are 2-3 times those in the US. Natural gas prices paid are 4-5 times higher. This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market.” One key recommendation was a massive program of state and private investment in aging power grids, which experts warn are inefficient and a key source of extra costs. His inquiry called for €584 billion in additional funds for electricity infrastructure by 2030, and up to €2.29 trillion by 2050. It is unclear how much of that funding will be made available, but EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen has been tasked with planning an overhaul of Europe’s grids, to be presented later this year. However, one source of reassurance for officials will be the declining levels of exposure to geopolitical risk after efforts to diversify away from Russian oil and gas. Jørgensen has presided over the introduction of a new plan to phase out imports from the country by 2028, with new suppliers ramping up production to meet demand.

LONDON — In his first Downing Street speech, Keir Starmer promised to “deliver change.” Fourteen months on, he’s still figuring out the delivery part. The British prime minister is expected to revamp his No. 10 operation amid tumbling poll ratings and as a fraught political season gets underway. Nin Pandit, his most senior civil service aide, is being moved after 10 months to lead a new delivery team operating out of Downing Street. “Delivery” is the watchword for Starmer, who sold himself to voters as a businesslike problem-solver after years of political chaos. But several Labour officials, MPs and civil servants who spoke to POLITICO, all on condition of anonymity, questioned whether the structures Starmer has created for his major program of domestic change really are fit for purpose. Pandit is the latest in a growing list of civil servants and political aides with “delivery” in either their titles or remit. They include Liz Lloyd, Starmer’s director of policy, delivery and innovation, who works alongside Olaf Henricson-Bell, the director of the No. 10 policy unit; Pat McFadden, Starmer’s Cabinet ally and enforcer; Clara Swinson, who leads Starmer’s Mission Delivery Unit; and Michael Barber, the founder of Tony Blair’s delivery unit in 2001, who is advising the new PM.  Some officials think this big cast is a recognition that there is a problem. But some also see a cause: too many people with different ideas about getting things done. Then there is that overall vision — or lack of it (an accusation that Starmer’s allies deny vociferally). One Labour MP loyal to Starmer said: “We are like a piece of driftwood floating on the ocean looking at the view. It’s a nice view, but where are we going?”  On paper, Starmer — who returns from holiday to a flurry of activity this week — should be far more comfortable than his centrist allies such as France’s Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Friedrich Merz. He has a huge House of Commons majority and probably won’t face an election until 2029. On the world stage, his careful diplomacy has nudged Donald Trump toward more U.K.-friendly statements on tariffs, Ukraine and Gaza. At home, though, Starmer faces populists both left and right, with Brexit veteran Nigel Farage’s Reform UK consistently ahead in the polls. Inflation has ticked up. Unpopular tax rises loom. Starmer’s backbenchers are nervous about planned welfare cuts and reforms for children with special needs. And migrants keep arriving on small boats across the English Channel. “If the first year is about stabilizing and fixing foundations, I think the next year is going to be about deep-seated reform — and then the benefits of that will come towards the end of the parliament,” Ravinder Athwal, who wrote Labour’s 2024 manifesto and left his role as an aide to Starmer in July, predicted in an interview with POLITICO’s Westminster Insider. So far, it has also meant bureaucracy. THE DELIVERY BUREAUCRATS Deep in the 19th century stone-fronted Cabinet Office lies the Mission Delivery Unit (MDU). Set up by Starmer last fall, this group of around 30 civil servants — led by Swinson, a Whitehall veteran who worked for Blair’s first delivery unit — measures progress against the PM’s “five missions” that pledged the highest growth in the G7, lower violent crime, better health and education systems, and a decarbonized electricity grid by 2030. On paper, Starmer — who returns from holiday to a flurry of activity this week — should be far more comfortable than his centrist allies such as France’s Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Friedrich Merz. | Pool Photo by Manon Cruz via EPA Some officials argue her unit started at a disadvantage by being based in the Cabinet Office instead of No. 10 next door, making it less visible to the wider government machine. One person said at least some of the MDU’s staff began their work in the department’s basement. “I don’t know necessarily what their objective is,” said one government official. “From what I’ve seen, they kind of provide more of a monitoring service of how departments are getting on, rather than driving things from the center. But then there’s a question of whether that is the job of the policy team in No. 10.” Supporters point out the MDU was designed exactly to be this sort of monitoring service and that it was never intended to actually drive policy, which is led by Downing Street. Others were less charitable. A former government official described the MDU jokingly as “the slide pack department,” adding: “I genuinely don’t really know what they do.” A second government official complained: “The message you get from them is so fucking vague that you struggle to articulate it.”  The MDU is said to have a certain template in which departments have to submit their progress in order to be accepted. One Labour official said: “Oh my god, that fucking place. That unit is everything wrong with the civil service.”  A person who talks regularly to No. 10 said: “If the government is going to continue with missions as a thing, then it really needs to press a reset button and put a bit more oomph back under them. If the delivery unit remains where it is, as an adjunct in the Cabinet Office, away from the prime minister’s authority, then the reality of how Whitehall works is it’s never going to be given the priority it needs to actually be really pushing forward reform through the system.” TAKE IT TO THE BOARD Starmer’s “mission boards” have also come under question. These were set up with the aim of bringing in outside expertise to discuss the big hurdles facing the government. Each one is led by a Cabinet minister in charge of a mission — plus a sixth board led by Deputy PM Angela Rayner, on her pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2029. Swinson and McFadden would customarily sit in on the meetings, though McFadden’s attendance rate has dropped off recently, said two people with knowledge of the boards. Several people who have worked with the boards argued their lack of decision-making ability has left them underpowered. The boards are “pointless,” said the first former government official quoted above: “They’re chaired by the cabinet ministers who are marking their own homework.” When more junior ministers join meetings to present their plans, they come across like a school “show-and-tell” day, the former official added. “They don’t actually achieve anything.” The person who speaks regularly to No. 10 quoted above said: “You either soup them up and make them more useful, or you put them out of their misery, quite frankly.” A second person who speaks regularly to No. 10 predicted that Starmer — who initially said he would chair the boards personally — “will have to” overhaul them. “There is a sense that the mission delivery boards aren’t working,” they added. “Pat largely doesn’t turn up to them anymore. They need to inject energy into them or rethink delivery across the PM’s priorities.” Allies of Rachel Reeves say the top finance minister is actively working on the government’s growth strategy ahead of her fall budget. | Will Oliver/EPA More broadly, civil servants do not “feel like an awful lot has changed,” said another person in regular discussions with senior officials. “It doesn’t feel like there’s been a revolution in how the government makes decisions. There were always units for how you do joined-up government … they’ve been trying to solve this for decades. This is just a different way of doing what other governments have been trying to do.” THE FINAL BOSS One element that is effective, several officials said, involves Starmer himself. Since last fall the PM has been leading regular “stock takes” with the five “mission lead” Cabinet ministers, plus Rayner, that can run for two to three hours each. He began by visiting Cabinet ministers in their own departments, though now they come to him in No. 10. There tend to be a dozen or fewer attendees, including McFadden, Barber and Swinson. The stock takes put pressure on departments to get their ducks in a row, said people with knowledge of them, and give Cabinet ministers face-time with Starmer to press their most urgent requests — including getting No. 10 to lean on other departments. “The prime minister wants” are still among the most powerful words in Whitehall. There is continuity, too. Supporters of the PM point out that the missions themselves still stand, two and a half years after Starmer unveiled them. The Cabinet ministers leading them have all remained in their jobs. Starmer’s “Plan for Change” — which attached “milestones” to the missions — is mentioned constantly in government press releases (under orders from No. 10), and the missions govern the structure of the “grid,” the weekly news planner circulated to senior communications officials. While roles as “business champions” for loyal, fresh-faced Labour backbenchers to sell the message were quietly scrapped in July, similar “mission champions” still exist. There are regional champions, as well as mission-specific ones — Rosie Wrighting on health, Dan Tomlinson on growth, Tom Hayes on net zero, and Sarah Smith on opportunity. Fellow new MP Linsey Farnsworth was the champion for tackling crime, but her role ended in the summer after she spoke out against planned welfare cuts and she has not yet been replaced, said one person with knowledge of the move. Some other Labour MPs, though, have long complained that Starmer’s overlapping missions, milestones and steps blur the message they are meant to send to the public. Events and crises can knock these long-term goals off course, too. A second former government official said: “They’ve been talking about nothing but small boats all summer.”  IT TAKES TIME These struggles should surprise no one, according to Michelle Clement, a lecturer at King’s College London who wrote “The Art of Delivery,” a study of Blair’s first delivery unit. “We’re in the equivalent of 1998,” she told POLITICO. Blair, frustrated by the pace of change on key domestic priorities, only set up his unit in 2001. Whitehall is still getting over life under five Conservative PMs in 14 years. “All of the change and churn that we saw in recent years of prime ministers does have an impact on the capacity of the state,” she added. Clement argues that Starmer has taken the right approach in creating “institutional ballast” to ensure he has people focusing on the important issues, while other staff focus on the urgent ones. Pandit will be “well-placed” to do policy delivery, she said, despite some negative briefing (denied by No. 10) to the BBC about her effectiveness. Lloyd, Clement said, was “one of the unsung heroes of the Blair years.” If Tony Blair remains the model for government delivery, No. 10 aides would do well to check out a 20 year-old debate clip still online. | Jessica Lee/EPA “People need to panic a bit less,” said a second Labour official, who argued a “huge amount” is being done but that some of it — like extending free school meals to 500,000 more children — doesn’t resonate with the Westminster bubble. Government-funded childcare hours increase from Monday, while Starmer is expected to put a renewed focus on his pledge to open hundreds of nurseries in spare school classrooms. A third Labour official said: “That’s our priority [this] week, not tittle tattle gossip.” MISSIONS: IMPOSSIBLE Others, though, question the overall direction. Starmer’s mission-led approach to government was inspired by Mariana Mazzucato, a professor at University College London who wrote “Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.”  In an interview with POLITICO, she suggested the majority of Starmer’s five missions do not lay out clear and sufficiently direct means of changing the way the British economy works. “I don’t know what the economic strategy is, in terms of what economy we want,” she said. Mazzucato favors setting “moonshot” public sector goals that drive private investment and innovation “along the way” — just as John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land on the moon by the end of the 1960s began a chain of inventions that led to camera phones and baby formula. Mazzucato praised Labour’s net zero mission, but said overall that the party needs “a really ambitious positive strategy which resonates with people” — and that it should have had one from the start. “Growth is the result of a strategy,” she added. “So, beyond the narrative on growth, what kind of society, what kind of economy do we want? That’s not clear. I think if you asked anyone on the street, what is Labour’s strategy for the direction of economic growth — not the rate — it wouldn’t be totally clear.” Mazzucato suggested the government is thinking about delivery “in the Michael Barber way” of Blair’s first unit: more focused on key performance indicators than on serious economic reshaping. “It’s a productive critique,” she added. “I think they can still turn it around. It’s not like they’ve got the wrong DNA for thinking this way. They just don’t have it set up right.” Making the public notice is still a huge challenge, Mazzucato warned. “Biden’s agenda worked, actually, economically, but it didn’t work in terms of resonating with people.” Mazzucato remains in touch with the government in what she calls a “light touch” way. She last met Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the spring, has contact with the No. 10 policy team, and has worked closely with Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould. Much of the proof that Starmer’s government is delivering will come from 11 Downing Street. Allies of Reeves say the top finance minister is actively working on the government’s growth strategy ahead of her fall budget. A fresh overhaul of planning laws is an “attempt to grip” the system and shift the way it works, said one person who speaks to No. 11 regularly. “The Treasury is really trying to get other departments to kick into gear,” they added. No. 10, meanwhile, plans to add more firepower of its own. As well as an in-house delivery team, Starmer has been seeking a high-profile economic adviser for at least six months. It is widely reported that he will appoint Minouche Shafik, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England who resigned as Columbia University’s president after turmoil over the treatment of Gaza war protests on campus. Government-funded childcare hours increase from Monday, while Starmer is expected to put a renewed focus on his pledge to open hundreds of nurseries in spare school classrooms. | Robert Ghement/EPA Former Greater London Authority official Kate Webb also joined No. 10 recently to work on infrastructure and housing policy, a person with knowledge of the appointment said, after Nick Williams left a similar post earlier this year. LESSONS FROM HISTORY If Tony Blair remains the model for government delivery, No. 10 aides can turn to a 20 year-old debate clip that many of them will be familiar with. It was April 2005, just ahead of a general election, and Blair faced an angry grilling from a voter in a BBC debate. The man complained he wasn’t allowed to schedule a doctors’ appointment for later in the week — because Blair had set a target for patients to be seen within 48 hours. It meant the man had to be seen within two days. Blair was agog. It appeared to be an example of KPIs gone mad — but it was also a clear example of a public service target that had cut through with the public and was working. Unlike Starmer, however, Blair had eight years in office under his belt by that moment — and didn’t have Farage’s Reform UK breathing down his neck. Farage is now making moonshot promises of his own, including a vow to deport hundreds of thousands of people. Labour aides have been encouraged by recent press interviews with Farage that have tested how deliverable his pledges are. “People forget that it took a long time to make that change under Tony Blair,” said the second Labour official quoted above. “It would be great if the speed of delivery ramped up with the size of our majority. Sadly it doesn’t work like that.” With Farage eyeing that majority in 2029, Starmer has to find a way of proving that his own brand of “deliverism” works — and soon. Patrick Baker interviewed Ravinder Athwal for Westminster Insider.

The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is grounded in the recognition that people, land, and society are deeply interlinked. But today, that connection is under strain. Farmers face mounting pressure from extreme weather, rising input costs and increasing regulatory complexity. Against this backdrop, the upcoming CAP reform is a pivotal moment, one that must deliver real outcomes to future-proof European agriculture.   To do that, policymakers should focus on three clear priorities: enabling co-investment between the public and private sectors; ensuring payments are simpler and rewarding farmers for what really matters; and equipping farmers with tailored support beyond payments. This is the foundation for a CAP that truly supports food security, climate action, and farmer livelihoods, while keeping food affordable for consumers.   By aligning around these priorities, the CAP can move beyond being just a rulebook for farmers and become a framework that brings together everyone involved in sustaining and shaping our food future, balancing agricultural progress with care for the environment and our communities. At PepsiCo, we see the impact of these policies up close, starting from the very first step of our value chain. Across the EU, we work with over 800 farmers to source key agricultural crops and ingredients, including potatoes, corn and oats. These ingredients are the backbone of iconic brands like Lay’s, Doritos, and Quaker, which rely on thriving farming communities and sustainable agricultural practices. Their success is our success. And so is their sustainability.  But I can also see that today’s farmers face an uncertain future. With the EU standing at a crossroads, we have to rethink how to support food security, respond to climate impacts and deliver more equitable outcomes for farmers, while keeping food affordable and accessible for consumers.   That’s why CAP reform matters now. Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full agri-food value chain.  On PepsiCo’s part, we remain committed to being a constructive partner in support of a more competitive, resilient and sustainable food system — based on regenerative agriculture.  This approach uses science-based farming practices that aim to restore ecosystems by improving soil health and fertility, reducing emissions, enhancing water quality and protecting biodiversity while also supporting farmer livelihoods. For example, in Jaén, southern Spain, we recently launched ‘Viva Oliva’ to support local olive growers, many of whom have been working in this historic trade for generations. Through this project, we’re providing hands-on training from agronomy experts so that farmers can protect the ecosystem more efficiently and conserve vital resources.   Crucially, these practices also create new opportunities, ensuring that farming can continue to be a viable option for the next generation. In 2024 we sourced 100 percent of the olive oil for our Alvalle gazpacho brand from Jaén, securing a high-quality local supply for Alvalle while strengthening the role of farmers in our supply shed.  > We’re investing in innovative techniques that bring life back to the land > because it is the right thing to do for our business, for the farmers we work > with and for the planet. Viva Oliva is just one of the many projects that’s helped us spread regenerative agriculture across a total of 3.5 million acres (approximately 1.4 million hectares) of farmland. Recently, we extended our target and are now aiming to reach 10 million acres (around 4 million hectares) globally by 2030.   We’re also taking action further upstream through partnerships with fertilizer companies like Yara, equipping farmers with precision tools to improve nutrient efficiency, increase yields and lower the carbon footprint of their crops. This collaboration supports approximately 1,000 farms across the EU and the UK that supply key ingredients for Lay’s and Walkers, covering around 128,000 hectares. By 2030 the partnership aims to reduce fertilizer production emissions by up to 80 percent and in-field fertilizer emissions by up to 20 percent, helping scale regenerative practices while supporting farmer productivity.  > Recently, we extended our regenerative agriculture target and are now aiming > to spread these practices across 10 million acres of farmland globally by > 2030. I know that we have the expertise and ambition to meet these goals, but we can’t do it alone. To make this a reality, we need EU policymakers to deliver a coherent and enabling regulatory framework that’s fit for purpose, based on three guiding principles.  Firstly, policymakers must match ambition with investment. Strong public funding is essential, but the CAP should be reimagined to enable co-investment through blended finance models, where public and private capital work together to accelerate impact. Private investment should be results driven, allowing trusted private-sector partners, who operate at size and scale, to co-design solutions with farmers.  Secondly, payments should be simpler and pay farmers for what really matters. This requires rewarding farmers not just for compliance but also for delivering real, measurable environmental benefits such as healthier soils, lower emissions, cleaner water, and richer biodiversity. Farming is unlike most other businesses, with income around 40 percent lower than non-agricultural income,1, which is why CAP incentives must reflect the true costs farmers face, including machinery upgrades and land-use shifts. And the system should incentivize progress over perfection — farmers who are already taking action should be compensated accordingly.  Thirdly, the CAP must recognize that farmers need support beyond payments. Investing in climate information systems, knowledge sharing networks, rural infrastructure and novel technologies will help accelerate and scale the implementation of new techniques — while ensuring profitability. Travelling across Europe to meet our teams on the ground, I see firsthand how local needs differ, so farmers should also be free to choose the solutions that are best suited to their region and crops to ensure policies are impactful.    > “Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private > partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full > agrifood value chain. Archana Jagannathan And PepsiCo is committed to being part of that solution. Together with like-minded partners, we’re fully committed to growing food in a way that revitalizes the earth, supports farmer livelihoods, and feeds a growing population.  

Imagine a Europe at the cutting-edge of research, development and manufacturing. Where patients have access to the latest vaccines and treatments, first. A Europe with confidence in its resilience, health and economic security. The General Pharmaceutical Legislation (GPL) is one important step in realizing that vision. Get it right and we can begin to rebuild Europe’s life science eco-system. Get it wrong, and we risk accelerating the loss of research, development and manufacturing to other regions of the world.  It’s hard to miss the irony that almost nine months from Mario Draghi urging Europe to catch up with other regions by implementing a coordinated industrial policy or face a ‘slow agony’, our industry is nervously anticipating decisions that could, at best, maintain the same incentives framework that has seen our share of global investment decline over the last 20 years. The GPL offers some hope to up Europe’s game with a future-proof regulatory framework and new tools to tackle antimicrobial resistance. This does not sound like the recipe for European success … yet. Fierce competition from the US and China Whatever the geopolitical situation today, Draghi’s conclusions echoed numerous warnings highlighting Europe’s decades-long decline in life sciences. Since the legislation was last addressed in 2004, Europe has lost a quarter of its share of global R&D investment. And its share of global trials has halved, resulting in 60,000 fewer clinical trial places available for Europeans. Concurrently, spending on pharmaceutical R&D in China has grown almost five times faster than in Europe. China has doubled its number of commercial clinical trials since 2018; it now accounts for 18 percent of the global share. Their recent adoption of a proposal to introduce Regulatory Data Protection (RDP) signals China’s efforts to attract investment in R&D for innovative medicines. A step likely to be even more effective if Europe were to move in the opposite direction. Just 30 years ago, one in two new medicines originated in Europe, now it is just one in five. This is hardly a surprise given that the US went from spending €2bn more than Europe to spending €25bn more today over the same period. > Just 30 years ago, one in two new medicines originated in Europe, now it is > just one in five. Proposals to shape the future Since the framework was first introduced over 20 years ago, science has taken giant leaps forward. We are in a golden era of innovation, with much more to come. Immunotherapies empower the body to attack and destroy cancer cells, HIV can be managed, Hep C can be cured, and there is a good chance that cervical cancer could be eradicated thanks to the HPV vaccination. From prevention to care to cure, medicine is evolving rapidly. We strongly welcome, support and need the proposals to future proof the regulatory approval system. The regulatory sandbox is a big step in helping bring future breakthrough innovations of today and tomorrow to EU patients. Meanwhile, the proposal to use electronic-only patient information for medicinal products directly administered by healthcare professionals will reduce the administrative burden. > We strongly welcome, support and need the proposals to future proof the > regulatory approval system. Addressing another health emergency Similarly, since the legal framework was last addressed there has been widespread recognition that antimicrobial resistance represents one of the world’s most pressing health emergencies. Yet despite the urgent need, private investment in antimicrobial R&D is limited. To prevent bacteria developing resistance to existing treatments, the aim with any new antibiotic is to use it as little as possible — not an attractive proposition for investors. Included as a proposal in the GPL, the transferable exclusivity voucher is designed to address this challenge by rewarding the discovery of novel antibiotics without requiring upfront public investment. The GPL provides an opportunity for Europe to take the lead in delivering new antibiotics. Not only would this bring considerable cost-savings to every member state, it would also significantly boost R&D efforts in antibiotics, putting European researchers at its center. Proposals that accelerate negative trends In the context of recent shifts in US policy, trade tensions, concerns over national security, supply chain resilience, increasing levels of protectionism and the drive to address Europe’s competitiveness crisis, the initial proposals to erode European intellectual property (IP) in life sciences are now completely out of step. It takes two to launch a new medicine Many of the decisions that impact when patients get access to a new medicine are outside a company’s control, in fact, two-thirds of the delays to access medicines occur after companies have filed for pricing and reimbursement. For example, in Greece, companies can only file for reimbursement once a medicine is reimbursed in at least five of 11 designated EU countries, delaying filing due to the external reference pricing system. This structural condition adds to other delays, including those linked to limited healthcare funding and launch decisions. As a consequence, measures like obligating companies to launch in all 27 member states will completely fail to address inequalities in access to medicines while proving to be highly damaging to the sector’s presence in the EU. The proposal to reduce the Regulatory Data Protection (RDP) and Orphan Market Exclusivity would have a similar impact; the US already leads Europe on every investor metric from availability of capital to speed of approval and rewards for innovation. RDP for small molecules is the only appreciable benefit that the EU has over the US. The proposed expansion of the Bolar exemption — a legal provision that permits the narrow use of a patented medicine to support a generic’s marketing authorization application before IP expiration — would further erode Europe’s IP framework. It would likely lead to more litigation, reduce legal certainty and predictability, and negatively impact patients, including potentially introducing co-payment. Instead, the EU should create a clear notification system to give both generic and innovative companies transparent, reliable ‘day one’ certainty and safeguard IP protection. “If Europe truly wants to have research, development and manufacturing in the region, as well as delivering the best care for its citizens, it has to align the outcomes of discussions on the GPL with its ambition to be a world leader in medical innovation, maintain resilient supply chains and compete economically.” Nathalie Moll, director general, EFPIA. High stakes, high risk The stakes are high, and the risks tangible and immediate — but so are the opportunities. In recent weeks, global pharmaceutical companies, some of them headquartered in Europe, have announced hundreds of billions of dollars in investment into US manufacturing. This is likely just the beginning. > The stakes are high, and the risks tangible and immediate — but so are the > opportunities. A survey of 18 EFPIA members in April this year identified as much as 85 percent of capital expenditure investments (around €50.6 billion) and as much as 50 percent of R&D expenditure (around €52.6 billion) as being potentially at risk. Over the next three months alone, surveyed companies estimated that a total of €16.5 billion, or 10 percent of the total investment plans, are at risk. From intent to action There have been important positive statements of intent, reflected in the announcement of the Biotech Act, Life Sciences Strategy and Competitiveness Compass. Turning this intent into rapid and radical policy change will help, and the first tangible and visible signal will be the operating environment for companies in Europe created by the GPL. Investors and innovators are watching closely to see which side the GPL lands on.

The White House is debating whether to lift sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and potentially other Russian assets in Europe as part of discussions on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, five people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. Lifting the sanctions currently in place on one of Russia’s main pipelines connecting its natural gas fields to Western Europe would be a sharp reversal in the U.S. policy first put in place during President Donald Trump’s first term. President Joe Biden waived those sanctions early in his term, but reimposed them after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Restarting Nord Stream 2 could provide a financial windfall to Moscow, but only if the EU agreed to accept buying Russian gas via the pipeline again — a prospect that seems unlikely given its campaign to wean itself off Russian energy imports. But lifting the sanctions would amount to a diplomatic coup for Russia and a major concession from Trump. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff has been the main proponent of lifting sanctions, people familiar with the talks told POLITICO. Witkoff, who has said he has developed a friendship with Putin in his role as Trump’s envoy to Moscow, has directed his team to draw up a list of all of the energy sanctions that the United States has placed on Russia as part of the effort, two people familiar with the matter said. One of the two Nord Stream 2 pipelines built to deliver gas via the Baltic Sea to Germany is still operable despite a 2022 explosion that destroyed one line, as well as the pair of pipelines that were part of its companion, Nord Stream 1. The blast in September 2022 that halted shipments of gas remains under investigation, though reports have linked the explosion to Ukrainian nationals. The Biden administration also placed sanctions on Russia’s Arctic 2 liquefied natural gas project, which could deliver up to 13.2 million tons of gas a year if those sanctions were lifted. Trump criticized Nord Stream during his first term and on the campaign trail. He attacked Biden for waiving sanctions on the project in 2021 before later reimposing them. Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been expected to participate in peace settlement talks scheduled Wednesday in London but bailed at the last minute. Included in the administration’s settlement plan was a recognition of Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea and a lifting of sanctions — two things Ukraine said it would not agree to. The European Commission may suggest a ban on EU member countries signing new contracts with Russia for oil and gas. A second person said that while Witkoff has raised lifting energy-related sanctions, the idea so far has not found much traction in the White House and that Rubio has tried to derail it. “This is not a cake in the oven being baked, though the ingredients are being assembled,” this person said. The White House declined to comment. A spokesperson for Witkoff declined to comment. Among the people against the idea are Rubio and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who is also head of the White House Energy Dominance Council, people familiar with the debate said. Some in the U.S. government think Witkoff has been misled by the Kremlin about the extent of the economic opportunity for the U.S. in restoring business ties with Russia, according to another person familiar with the matter. “There is an internal White House debate between the energy dominance people — Burgum, who wants markets for U.S. LNG — and Witkoff, who wants to be closer to Russia,” one of the people said. Russia regaining its status as Europe’s top energy supplier would be “a bloodbath for American [oil and gas] producers,” this person continued. The State Department did not respond to questions. The Interior Department did not reply to an email with questions for Burgum. Allowing Russia to resume shipments of gas via Nord Stream 2 or Arctic 2 LNG would depress global gas prices and put U.S. LNG exporters like Cheniere Energy and other companies in direct competition with Russia, said Laurent Ruseckas, executive director a market analysis firm S&P Global Commodity Insights. “If you bring Russian gas back into the market, that would reduce the appetite of potential buyers of U.S. LNG,” Ruseckas said in an interview. The U.S. natural gas industry had made major inroads into Europe as Germany and other countries turned away from Russia as an energy supplier following its invasion of Ukraine. But oil and gas companies are now reeling from the Trump administration’s trade war and its tariffs on imported steel. The White House’s generally opaque trade policy has also made companies scale back their investing plans. Multiple outsiders are lobbying the administration to lift the sanctions, two of the people said. One of the wooers is Stephen Lynch, a Miami-based head of global private investment firm Monte Valley Partners. Lynch has made a specialty of buying energy infrastructure assets that had previously belonged to Russia. He and his partners in 2007 purchased parts of the Russian oil company Yukos at a steep discount. More recently, he purchased the Switzerland-based branch of Russian financial firm SberBank. He has applied for a license from the U.S. Treasury Department as part of his efforts to buy the pipeline. A Monte Valle representative did not reply to questions. Matthias Warnig, a former spy and close friend of Putin who is under U.S. sanctions, has also been working on an effort to restart the pipeline with the backing of U.S. investors. He has reached out to the Trump team through American business representatives and his effort is understood to be separate from Lynch’s consortium. The Biden team was not interested in Lynch’s efforts to buy the pipeline last year. Robbie Gramer contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — The EU has long promised to tear down the barriers splintering its capital markets — but behind every delay lies a web of national interests and industry players profiting from the patchwork. But now, Brussels’ top financial official is signaling that the era of diplomatic restraint regarding such forces may be coming to an end. “We have been complacent, we have been settling for less,” the EU’s financial services commissioner, Maria Luís Albuquerque, told a room full of lobbyists and top officials in Warsaw last week, according to the text of a speech released by her office. The stakes have arguably never been higher. There’s broad consensus among policymakers that mobilizing private investment will be key to shaking off economic stagnation in Europe and delivering on the Commission’s defense agenda. Yet despite more than a decade of lofty ambitions and repeated political pledges, efforts to advance the capital markets union have consistently stalled. Albuquerque isn’t just reciting the party line on the bloc’s broken markets. Since taking office in December, the former Portuguese finance minister — and ex-Morgan Stanley insider — has publicly called out the vested interests holding EU markets back.  “We have endured — and even reinforced — persisting barriers that hurt us all, even if some have an immediate gain. Not anymore,” Albuquerque said, at the Eurofi conference. The object of her frustration are market players who are happy to preserve the status quo to fill their own coffers. In Warsaw, Albuquerque called out players in the bloc’s financial plumbing, including trading infrastructure, post-trading and asset management. As well as firms, she’s targeting protectionist behavior by national governments who keep markets fragmented to retain decision-making power, so that their own economies can benefit more in the short term.  BROKEN PARTS European equity markets, stock exchanges and financial plumbing known as post-trade infrastructure are a “complex patchwork,” which creates “a huge obstacle to building bigger and better capital markets,” the think tank New Financial wrote in a 2021 report on markets fragmentation. For as long as so many players remain in the market, the report said the EU “can tinker at the edges with the detail of regulation,” but “not much will change.” European equity markets, stock exchanges and financial plumbing are a “complex patchwork,” which creates “a huge obstacle to building bigger and better capital markets,” according to a New Financial report. | Kirill Kudryavstev/AFP via Getty Images To compare, U.S. equity markets are more than double the size of the EU’s, while having a small fraction of the exchanges for listings and trading that Europe has. The report found, for example, that the EU has 20 times as many post-trade venues as the U.S. American markets also benefit from just one non-profit company, the DTCC, being responsible for all the clearing and settlement of equity trades. In the EU, on the other hand, there are 295 trading venues, 14 clearinghouses and 32 central securities depositories. Most equity trading takes place in domestic exchanges. And while there are bigger exchange groups in the EU now, like Euronext and Nasdaq, the national exchanges within those groups are still separate, meaning the market is still fragmented.  IMF research often cited by the Commission calculates the damage of single market barriers to the EU as equivalent to a tariff of over 100 percent. In short, the barriers are real, self-imposed, and sacrifice long-term overall gains for the EU’s economy in favor of short-term gains for smaller players within the single market.  A LOBBYING STORY “Behind every barrier and behind every source of fragmentation, there is someone who is making money from the fragmentation,” the Commission’s top financial services official, John Berrigan, said at a conference in Brussels in March. He said the reasons for defending the entrenched interests are linked to the EU’s overall integration. The benefits of removing blockages are “diffuse” across the EU, making them harder to see and therefore fight for, whereas the loss of revenue to players benefiting from a source of fragmentation can be “quite concentrated.” “So those people speak out and they speak loud,” Berrigan said. One of the most heavily lobbied proposals in recent history sought to break down market barriers. The Commission’s Retail Investment Strategy, put forward in 2023, aimed for two major strides to boost the number of citizens investing — introducing accessible value-for-money benchmarks so investors across the EU could see how much bang they were getting for their buck, and banning kickbacks paid by asset managers to investment advisors in return for directing investors towards their products.  The kickbacks “generate conflicts of interest and can lead to the mis-selling of financial products, suboptimal asset allocation, and poorly performing investment products,” according to the NGO Better Finance. The trouble is, the finance industry makes money from the practice. Governments, heavily lobbied by asset managers, insurers, and others who benefit from the kickbacks, pressured the Commission into removing the ban before the text was even officially proposed back in 2023. A final agreement on the proposal still hasn’t happened.  Another proposal, for an EU ticker tape which would publish data on the prices and volume of traded securities in the EU, improving overall price transparency and competition, was hollowed out after — again — pressure from governments lobbied by their stock exchanges, whose business model of distributing that data for a premium price would be threatened by the tape. Under the political deal on that legislation, a weaker version of the ticker tape with less valuable information will still be set up, but stock exchanges are already forming consortia to bid to run the tape, meaning competition may be diluted. IMF research often cited by the Commission calculates the damage of single market barriers to the EU as equivalent to a tariff of over 100 percent. | Florian Wiegand/Getty Images Those are just two examples of many, but the pattern is clear — new EU initiatives which would deepen capital markets are hollowed out or ditched after governments, in thrall to their national finance industry champions, say no.  THE RULES Then there’s the stubborn issue of the rules and who enforces them. Although most agree that having a single rulebook and a single supervisor for EU capital markets actors would make the market more integrated, governments won’t give up their ownership of the rules and their supervision, with high-level summits on the issue ending in stalemate.  They also engage in “gold-plating” — when countries roll out EU rules differently at the national level. This is often to protect national investors or domestic economic interests, a fact that creates barriers for foreign entrants, damaging competition, according to a 2024 report by the Polish capital markets lobby group CFA Poland. The report singles out Germany, Spain, and Italy as high gold-plating countries, while it said investment hotspot Luxembourg gold-plates the least. The Commission wants to change this, planning to convert directives — EU laws which can be interpreted nationally in different ways — to regulations. The latter, unlike the former, have to be rolled out the same way across the EU, something that should help to centralize more supervision at the EU level. But governments are already pouring cold water on that idea. Polish finance minister Andrzej Domański, who is currently chairing EU-level talks as the head of the six-monthly rotating presidency, said there is “absolutely no room” for centralizing supervision, and that EU countries would only “accept” better “coordination” between existing national supervisors. Ultimately, the Commission can talk tough on breaking down vested interests that are keeping the EU’s capital market undersized and fragmented — but national governments will still need to be the ones who move to break down any barriers.