PARIS — Parisian voters will in March choose a new mayor for the first time in 12 years after incumbent Anne Hidalgo decided last year against running for reelection. Her successor will become one of France’s most recognizable politicians both at home and abroad, governing a city that, with more than 2 million people, is more populous than several EU countries. Jacques Chirac used it as a springboard to the presidency. The timing of the contest — a year before France’s next presidential election — raises the stakes still further. Though Paris is not a bellwether for national politics — the far-right National Rally, for example, is nowhere near as strong in the capital as elsewehere — what happens in the capital can still reverberate nationwide. Parisian politics and the city’s transformation attract nationwide attention in a country which is still highly centralized — and voters across the country observe the capital closely, be it with disdain or fascination. It’s also not a winner-take-all race. If a candidate’s list obtains more than 10 percent of the vote in the first round, they will advance to the runoff and be guaranteed representation on the city council. Here are the main candidates running to replace Hidalgo: ON THE LEFT EMMANUEL GRÉGOIRE Emmanuel Grégoire wants to become Paris’ third Socialist Party mayor in a row. He’s backed by the outgoing administration — but not the mayor herself, who has not forgiven the 48-year-old for having ditched his former job as her deputy to run for parliament last summer in a bid to boost his name recognition. HIS STRENGTHS: Grégoire is a consensual figure who has managed, for the first time ever, to get two key left-wing parties, the Greens and the Communists, to form a first-round alliance and not run their own candidates. That broad backing is expected to help him finish first in the opening round of voting. Emmanuel Grégoire. | Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images His falling-out with Hidalgo could also turn to his advantage given her unpopularity. Though Hidalgo will undoubtedly be remembered for her work turning Paris into a green, pedestrian-friendly “15 minute” city, recent polling shows Parisians are divided over her legacy. It’s a tough mission, but Grégoire could theoretically campaign on the outgoing administration’s most successful policies while simultaneously distancing himself from Hidalgo herself. ACHILLES’ HEEL: Grégoire can seem like a herbivorous fish in a shark tank. He hasn’t appeared as telegenic or media savvy as his rivals. Even his former boss Hidalgo accused him of being unable to take the heat in trying times, a key trait when applying for one of the most exposed jobs in French politics. Polling at: 32 percent Odds of winning: SOPHIA CHIKIROU Sophia Chikirou, a 46-year-old France Unbowed lawmaker representing a district in eastern Paris, hopes to outflank Grégoire from further to the left. HER STRENGTHS: A skilled political operative and communications expert, Chikirou is one of the brains behind left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s last two presidential runs, both of which ended with the hard left trouncing its mainstream rival — Grégoire’s Socialist Party. Sophia Chikirou. | Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images She’ll try to conjure up that magic again in the French capital, where she is likely to focus her campaign on socially mixed areas near the city’s outer boundaries that younger voters, working-class households and descendants of immigrants typically call home. France Unbowed often performs well with all those demographics. ACHILLES’ HEEL: Chikirou is a magnet for controversy. In 2023, the investigative news program Cash Investigation revealed Chikirou had used a homophobic slur to refer to employees she was feuding with during a brief stint as head of a left-wing media operation. She also remains under formal investigation over suspicions that she overbilled Mélenchon — who is also her romantic partner — during his 2017 presidential run for communications services. Her opponents on both the left and right have also criticized her for what they consider rose-tinted views of the Chinese regime. Chikirou has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the overbilling accusations. She has not commented on the homophobic slur attributed to her and seldom accepts interviews, but her allies have brushed it off as humor, or a private conversation. Polling at: 13 percent Odds of winning: ON THE RIGHT RACHIDA DATI Culture Minister Rachida Dati is mounting her third bid for the Paris mayorship. This looks to be her best shot. HER STRENGTHS: Dati is a household name in France after two decades in politics. Culture Minister Rachida Dati. | Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images She is best known for her combative persona and her feuds with the outgoing mayor as head of the local center-right opposition. She is the mayor of Paris’ 7th arrondissement (most districts in Paris have their own mayors, who handle neighborhood affairs and sit in the city council). It’s a well-off part of the capital along the Left Bank of the Seine that includes the Eiffel Tower. Since launching her campaign, Dati has tried to drum up support with social media clips similar to those that propelled Zohran Mamdani from an unknown assemblyman to mayor of New York. Hers have, unsurprisingly, a right-wing spin. She’s been seen ambushing migrants, illicit drug users and contraband sellers in grittier parts of Paris, racking up millions of views in the process. ACHILLES’ HEEL: Dati is a polarizing figure and tends to make enemies. Despite being a member of the conservative Les Républicains, Dati bagged a cabinet position in early 2024, braving the fury of her allies as she attempted to secure support from the presidential orbit for her mayoral run. But the largest party supporting President Emmanuel Macron, Renaissance, has instead chosen to back one of Dati’s center-right competitors. The party’s leader, Gabriel Attal, was prime minister when Dati was first appointed culture minister, and a clash between the two reportedly ended with Dati threatening to turn her boss’s dog into a kebab. (She later clarified that she meant it jokingly.) If she does win, she’ll be commuting from City Hall to the courthouse a few times a week in September, when she faces trial on corruption charges. Dati is accused of having taken funds from French automaker Renault to work as a consultant, while actually lobbying on behalf of the company thanks to her role as an MEP. Dati is being probed in other criminal affairs as well, including accusations that she failed to declare a massive jewelry collection. She has repeatedly professed her innocence in all of the cases. Polling at: 27 percent Odds of winning: PIERRE-YVES BOURNAZEL After dropping Dati, Renaissance decided to back a long-time Parisian center-right councilman: Pierre-Yves Bournazel. HIS STRENGTHS: Bournazel is a good fit for centrists and moderate conservatives who don’t have time for drama. He landed on the city council aged 31 in 2008, and — like Dati — has been dreaming of claiming the top job at city hall for over a decade. His low profile and exclusive focus on Parisian politics could also make it easier for voters from other political allegiances to consider backing him. Pierre-Yves Bournazel. | Bastien Ohier/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images ACHILLES’ HEEL: Bourna-who? The Ipsos poll cited in this story showed more than half of Parisians said they “did not know [Bournazel] at all.” Limited name recognition has led to doubts about his ability to win, even within his own camp. Although Bournazel earned support from Macron’s Renaissance party, several high-level Parisian party figures, such as Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad, have stuck with the conservative Dati instead. Macron himself appears unwilling to back his party’s choice, in part due to Bournazel being a member of Horizons, the party of former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe — who turned full Brutus and publicly called on the president to step down last fall. “I don’t see myself putting up posters for someone whose party has asked the president to resign,” said one of Macron’s top aides, granted anonymity as is standard professional practice. Polling at: 14 percent Odds of winning: ON THE FAR RIGHT THIERRY MARIANI Thierry Mariani, one of the first members of the conservative Les Républicains to cross the Rubicon to the far right, will represent the far right National Rally in the race to lead Paris. Though the party of the Le Pen family is currently France’s most popular political movement, it has struggled in the French capital for decades. Thierry Mariani. | Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images HIS STRENGTHS: The bar is low for Mariani, as his party currently holds no seats on the city council. Mariani should manage to rack up some votes among lower-income households in Parisian social housing complexes while also testing how palatable his party has become to wealthier voters before the next presidential race. ACHILLES’ HEEL: Mariani has links to authoritarian leaders that Parisians won’t like. In 2014, he was part of a small group of French politicians who visited then-President of Syria Bashar al-Assad. He has also met Russia’s Vladimir Putin and traveled to Crimea to serve as a so-called observer in elections and referendums held in the Ukrainian region annexed by Russia — trips that earned him a reprimand from the European Parliament. Polling at: 7 percent Odds of winning: SARAH KNAFO There’s another candidate looking to win over anti-migration voters in Paris: Sarah Knafo, the millennial MEP who led far-right pundit-turned-politician Éric Zemmour’s disappointing 2022 presidential campaign. Knafo has not yet confirmed her run but has said on several occasions that it is under consideration. HER STRENGTHS: Though Zemmour only racked up around 7 percent of the vote when running for president, he fared better than expected in some of Paris’ most privileged districts. The firebrand is best known for popularizing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory in France — that white populations are being deliberately replaced by non-white. She appeals to hardline libertarian conservatives whose position on immigration aligns with the far right but who are alienated by the National Rally’s protectionism and its support for the French welfare state. Sarah Knafo. | Bastien Ohier/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Knafo, who combines calls for small government with a complete crackdown on immigration, could stand a chance of finishing ahead of the National Rally in Paris. That would then boost her profile ahead of a potential presidential bid. If she reaches the 10 percent threshold, she’d be able to earn her party seats on the city council and more sway in French politics at large. ACHILLES’ HEEL: Besides most of Paris not aligning with her politics? Knafo describes herself as being “at an equal distance” from the conservative Les Républicains and the far-right National Rally. That positioning risks squeezing her between the two. Polling at: 7 percent Odds of winning: EDITOR’S NOTE: Poll figures are taken from an Ipsos survey of 849 Parisians released on Dec. 12.

President Donald Trump’s latest round of Europe-bashing has the U.S.’s allies across the Atlantic revisiting a perennial question: Why does Trump hate Europe so much? Trump’s disdain for America’s one-time partners has been on prominent display in the past week — first in Trump’s newly released national security strategy, which suggested that Europe was suffering from civilizational decline, and then in Trump’s exclusive interview with POLITICO, where he chided the “decaying” continent’s leaders as “weak.” In Europe, Trump’s criticisms were met with more familiar consternation — and calls to speed up plans for a future where the continent cannot rely on American security support. But where does Trump’s animosity for Europe actually come from? To find out, I reached out to a scholar who’d been recommended to me by sources in MAGA world as someone who actually understands their foreign policy thinking (even if he doesn’t agree with it). “He does seem to divide the world into strength and weakness, and he pays attention to strength, and he kind of ignores weakness,” said Jeremy Shapiro, the research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Trump’s strained relations with the continent. “And he has long characterized the Europeans as weak.” Shapiro explained that Trump has long blamed Europe’s weakness on its low levels of military spending and its dependence on American security might. But his critique seems to have taken on a new vehemence during his second term thanks to input from new advisers like Vice President JD Vance, who have successfully cast Europe as a liberal bulwark in a global culture war between MAGA-style “nationalists” and so-called globalists. Like many young conservatives, Shapiro explained, Vance has come to believe that “it was these bastions of liberal power in the culture and in the government that stymied the first Trump term, so you needed to attack the universities, the think tanks, the foundations, the finance industry, and, of course, the deep state.” In the eyes of MAGA, he said, “Europe is one of these liberal bastions.” This conversation was edited for length and clarity. Trump’s recent posture toward Europe brings to mind the old adage that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. Do you think Trump hates Europe, or does he just think it’s irrelevant? My main impression is that he’s pretty indifferent toward it. There are moments when specific European countries or the EU really pisses him off and he expresses something that seems close to hatred, but mostly he doesn’t seem very focused on it. Why do you think that is? He does seem to divide the world into strength and weakness, and he pays attention to strength, and he kind of ignores weakness. And he has long characterized the Europeans as weak for a bunch of different reasons having to do with what seems to him to be a decadence in their society, their immigration, their social welfare states, their lack of apparent military vigor. All of those things seem to put them in the weak category, and in Trump’s world, if you’re in the weak category, he doesn’t pay much attention to you. What about more prosaic things like the trade imbalance and NATO spending? Do those contribute to his disdain, or does it originate from a more guttural place? I get the impression that it is more at a guttural level. It always seemed to me that the NATO spending debate was just a stick with which to beat the NATO allies. He has long understood that that’s something that they felt a little bit guilty about, and that’s something that American presidents had beat them about for a while, so he just sort of took it to an 11. The trade deficit is something that’s more serious for him. He’s paid quite a bit of attention to that in every country, so it’s in the trade area where he takes Europeans most seriously. But because they’re so weak and so dependent on the United States for security, he hasn’t had to deal with their trade problems in the same way. He’s able to threaten them on security, and they have folded pretty quickly. Does some of his animosity originate from his pre-presidency when he did business in Europe? He likes to blame Europeans for nixing some of his business transactions, like a golf course in Ireland. How serious do you think that is? I think that’s been important in forming his opinion of the EU rather than of Europe as a whole. He never seems to refer to the EU without referring to the fact that they blocked his golf course in Ireland. It wasn’t even the EU that blocked it, actually — it was an Irish local government authority — but it conforms to the general MAGA view of the EU as overly bureaucratic, anti-development and basically as an extension of the American liberal approach to development and regulation, which Trump certainly does hate. That’s part of what led Trump and his movement more generally to put the EU in the category of supporters of liberal America. In that sense, the fight against the EU in particular — but also against the other liberal regimes in Europe — became an extension of their domestic political battle with liberals in America. That effort to pull Europe as a whole into the American culture war by positioning it as a repository of all the liberal pieties that MAGA has come to hate — that seems kind of new. That is new for the second term, yeah. Where do you think that’s coming from? It definitely seems to be coming from [Vice President] JD Vance and the sort of philosophers who support him — the Patrick Deneens and Yoram Hazonys. Those types of people see liberal Europe as quite decadent and as part of the overall liberal problem in the world. You can also trace some of it back to Steve Bannon, who has definitely been talking about this stuff for a while. There does seem to be a real preoccupation with the idea that Europe is suffering from some sort of civilizational decline or civilization collapse. For instance, in both the new national security strategy and in his remarks to POLITICO this week, Trump has suggested that Europe is “decaying.” What do you make of that? This is a bit of a projection, right? If you look at the numbers in terms of immigration and diversity, the United States is further ahead in that decay — if you want to call it that — than Europe. There was this view that emerged among MAGA elites in the interregnum that it wasn’t enough to win the presidency in order to successfully change America. You had to attack all of the bastions of liberal power. It was these bastions of liberal power in the culture and in the government that stymied the first Trump term, so you needed to attack the universities, the think tanks, the foundations, the finance industry and, of course, the deep state, which is the first target. It was only through attacking these liberal bastions and conquering them to your cause that you could have a truly transformative effect. One of the things that they seem to have picked up while contemplating this theory is that Europe is one of these liberal bastions. Europe is a support for liberals in the United States, in part because Europe is the place where Americans get their sense of how the world views them. It’s ironic that that image of a decadent Europe coexists with the rise of far-right parties across the continent. Obviously, the Trump administration has supported those parties and allied with them, but at least in France and Germany, the momentum seems to be behind these parties at the moment. That presents them with an avenue to destroy liberal Europe’s support for liberal America by essentially transforming Europe into an illiberal regime. That is the vector of attack on liberal Europe. There has been this idea that’s developed amongst the populist parties in Europe since Brexit that they’re not really trying to leave the EU or destroy the EU; they’re trying to remake the EU in their nationalist and sovereigntist image. That’s perfect for what the Trump people are trying to do, which is not destroy the EU fully, but destroy the EU as a support for liberal ideas in the world and the United States. You mentioned the vice president, who has become a very prominent mouthpiece for this adversarial approach to Europe — most obviously in his speech at Munich earlier this year. Do you think he’s just following Trump’s guttural dislike of Europe or is he advancing his own independent anti-European agenda? A little of both. I think that Vance, like any good vice president, is very careful not to get crosswise with his boss and not contradict him in any way. So the fact that Trump isn’t opposed to this and that he can support it to a degree is very, very important. But I think that a lot of these ideas come from Vance independently, at least in detail. What he’s doing is nudging Trump along this road. He’s thinking about what will appeal to Trump, and he’s mostly been getting it right. But I think that especially when it comes to this sort of culture war stuff with Europe, he’s more of a source than a follower. During this latest round of Trump’s Euro-bashing, did anything stand out to you as new or novel? Or was it all of a piece with what you had heard before? It was novel relative to a year ago, but not relative to February and since then. But it’s a new mechanism of describing it — through a national security strategy document and through interviews with the president. The same arguments have achieved a sort of higher status, I would say, in the last week or so. You could sit around in Europe — as I did — and argue about the degree to which this really was what the Trump administration was doing, or whether this was just a faction — and you can still have that argument, because the Trump administration is generally quite inconsistent and incoherent when it comes to this kind of thing — but I think it’s undoubtedly achieved a greater status in the last week or two. How do you think Europe should deal with Trump’s recurring animosity towards the continent? It seems they’ve settled on a strategy of flattery, but do you think that’s effective in the long run? No, I think that’s the exact opposite of effective. If you recall what I said at the beginning, Trump abhors weakness, and flattery is the sort of ultimate manifestation of weakness. Every time the Europeans show up and flatter Trump, it enables them to have a good meeting with him, but it conveys the impression to him that they are weak, and so it increases his policy demands against them. We’ve seen that over and over again. The Europeans showed up and thought they had changed his Ukraine position, they had a great meeting, he said good things about them, they went home and a few weeks later, he had a totally different Ukraine position that they’re now having to deal with. The flattery has achieved the sense in the Trump administration that they can do anything they want to the Europeans, and they’ll basically swallow it. They haven’t done what some other countries have done, like the Chinese or the Brazilians, or even the Canadians to some degree, which is to stand up to Trump and show him that he has to deal with them as strong actors. And that’s a shame, because the Europeans — while they obviously have an asymmetric dependence on the United States, and they have some weaknesses — are a lot stronger than a lot of other countries, especially if they were working together. I think they have some capacity to do that, but they haven’t really managed it as of yet. Maybe this will be a wake-up call to do that.

BRUXELLES — La commissaire européenne chargée de la Concurrence, Teresa Ribera, n’a pas mâché ses mots contre l’administration Trump, l’accusant d’utiliser le “chantage” pour contraindre l’UE à assouplir sa réglementation du numérique. Le secrétaire américain au Commerce, Howard Lutnick, a suggéré lundi à Bruxelles que les Etats-Unis pourraient modifier leur approche en matière de droits de douane sur l’acier et l’aluminium si l’UE revoyait ses règles en matière de numérique. Les responsables européens ont interprété ses remarques comme visant les réglementations phares de l’UE, notamment celle sur les marchés numériques (DMA). “C’est du chantage”, a considéré la commissaire espagnole dans un entretien à POLITICO mercredi. “Le fait que ce soit leur intention ne signifie pas que nous acceptons ce genre de chantage.” Teresa Ribera — qui, en tant que première vice-présidente exécutive de la Commission, est la numéro 2 de l’exécutif européen derrière la présidente Ursula von der Leyen — a souligné que la réglementation européenne du numérique ne devrait pas avoir de lien avec les négociations commerciales. L’équipe de Donald Trump cherche à réviser l’accord conclu par le président américain avec Ursula von der Leyen dans son golf écossais en juillet. Ces déclarations interviennent à un moment sensible des négociations commerciales en cours. Washington considère le DMA comme discriminatoire, parce que les grandes plateformes technologiques qu’il réglemente — comme Microsoft, Google ou Amazon — sont presque toutes américaines. Il s’insurge également contre le règlement sur les services numériques (DSA), qui vise à limiter les discours haineux illégaux et la désinformation en ligne, car il est conçu pour encadrer les réseaux sociaux comme X d’Elon Musk. Teresa Ribera a rappelé que ces règles étaient une question de souveraineté, et qu’elles ne devraient pas entrer dans le champ d’une négociation commerciale. “Nous respectons les règles, quelles qu’elles soient, qu’ils ont établies pour leurs marchés : le marché numérique, le secteur de la santé, l’acier, tout ce que vous voulez […] les voitures, les normes”, a-t-elle posé en parlant des Etats-Unis. “C’est leur problème, leur réglementation et leur souveraineté. Il en va de même ici.” Teresa Ribera, avec la commissaire aux Technologies numériques Henna Virkkunen, supervise le DMA, qui veille au bon comportement des grandes plateformes numériques et à une concurrence équitable. Elle a vivement réagi aux propos tenus par Howard Lutnick lors de sa rencontre avec des responsables et des ministres européens lundi, martelant que “les règles européennes en matière de numérique ne sont pas à négocier”. Henna Virkkunen tenait la même ligne mardi. Lundi, elle a présenté à ses homologues américains le paquet de mesures de simplification de l’UE, comprenant la proposition d’omnibus numérique. Ce paquet a été présenté comme une initiative européenne visant à réduire les formalités administratives, mais certains l’ont interprété comme une tentative de répondre aux préoccupations des Big Tech américaines en matière de régulation. Le secrétaire américain au Commerce, Howard Lutnick, a suggéré lundi à Bruxelles que les Etats-Unis pourraient modifier leur approche en matière de droits de douane sur l’acier et l’aluminium si l’UE revoyait ses règles en matière de numérique. | Nicolas Tucat/Getty Images Interrogée sur les raisons qui l’ont poussée à faire une déclaration aussi forte, Teresa Ribera a répondu que les remarques d’Howard Lutnick constituaient “une attaque directe contre le DMA”, avant d’ajouter : “Il est de ma responsabilité de défendre le bon fonctionnement du marché numérique en Europe.” DES FISSURES APPARAISSENT Malgré la réplique intransigeante de Teresa Ribera, la solidarité des Etats membres envers le DMA commence doucement à se fissurer. Après la réunion de lundi, Howard Lutnick a pointé que certains ministres européens du Commerce n’étaient pas aussi réticents que la Commission à l’idée de revoir les règles numériques de l’UE : “Je vois beaucoup de ministres […] certains sont plus ouverts d’esprit que d’autres”, a-t-il observé sur Bloomberg TV, affirmant que si l’Europe veut des investissements américains, elle doit changer son modèle de régulation. Parmi les participants, au moins une Européenne semble d’accord. L’Allemande Katherina Reiche, qui s’est exprimée en marge de la réunion, a déclaré à la presse qu’elle était favorable à un nouvel assouplissement des règles de l’UE en matière de numérique. “L’Allemagne a clairement fait savoir qu’elle voulait avoir la possibilité de jouer un rôle dans le monde numérique”, a exposé Katherina Reiche, citant en particulier le DMA et le DSA. Les efforts de lobbying déployés par Washington contre les règles européennes sur le numérique s’inscrivent dans le cadre d’une bataille plus large menée par les Etats-Unis au niveau mondial pour affaiblir les lois sur le numérique dans les pays étrangers. Ce mois-ci, la Corée du Sud a cédé au lobbying de l’administration Trump en revenant en arrière sur son propre projet d’encadrement de la concurrence dans le secteur numérique. Le représentant américain au commerce prépare son rapport 2026 et lance une nouvelle série de consultations dans les semaines à venir. Entre-temps, la Commission poursuit son évaluation des règles dans le cadre de son Digital Fairness Fitness Check et de la révision en cours du DMA. Mais entre le lobbying de Washington et les Etats membres qui se désolidarisent, la question n’est pas seulement de savoir ce à quoi va aboutir la révision du DMA, mais s’il peut survivre à la guerre commerciale. Cet article a d’abord été publié par POLITICO en anglais, puis a été édité en français par Jean-Christophe Catalon.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is under mounting pressure from critics to keep the lights and heating on while Vladimir Putin ramps up his military assault on Ukraine’s energy supply. The Ukrainian president is fearful of a public backlash over likely prolonged blackouts this winter and is trying to shift the blame, said the former head of Ukraine’s state-owned national power company. Thirty-nine-year-old Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, who led Ukrenergo until he was forced to resign last year amid infighting over political control of the energy sector, said he’s one of those whom the President’s Office is looking to scapegoat. During an exclusive interview with POLITICO, he predicted Ukraine will face a “very difficult winter” under relentless Russian bombardment — and argued Kyiv’s government has made that worse through a series of missteps. Adding fuel to his clash with Zelenskyy’s team, Kudrytskyi was charged last week with embezzlement, prompting an outcry from Ukraine’s civil society and opposition lawmakers.  They say Kudrytskyi’s arraignment involving a contract — one of hundreds — he authorized seven years ago, when he was a deputy director at Ukrenergo, is a glaring example of the aggressive use of lawfare by the Ukrainian leadership to intimidate opponents, silence critics and obscure their own mistakes. Kudrytskyi added he has no doubt that the charges against him would have to be approved by the President’s Office and “could only have been orchestrated on the orders of Zelenskyy.” Zelenskyy’s office declined to respond to repeated requests from POLITICO for comment. Before his arrest, Kudrytskyi said he was the subject of criticism “by anonymous Telegram channels that support the presidential office with false claims I had embezzled funds.” He took that as the first sign that he would likely be targeted for harsher treatment. Kudrytskyi, who was released Friday on bail, said the criminal charges against him are “nonsense,” but they’ve been leveled so it will be “easier for the President’s Office to sell the idea that I am responsible for the failure to prepare the energy system for the upcoming winter, despite the fact that I have not been at Ukrenergo for more than a year now.” “They’re scared to death” about a public outcry this winter, he added. COMPETING PLANS That public backlash against leadership in Kyiv will be partly justified, Kudrytskyi said, because the struggle to keep the lights on will have been exacerbated by tardiness in rolling out more decentralized power generation. Kudrytskyi said Ukraine’s energy challenge as the days turn colder will be compounded by the government’s failure to promptly act on a plan he presented to Zelenskyy three years ago. The proposal would have decentralized energy generation and shifted away, as quickly as possible, from a system based on huge Soviet-era centralized power plants, more inviting targets for Russian attacks.   Thirty-nine-year-old Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said he’s one of those whom the President’s Office is looking to scapegoat. | Kirill Chubotin/Getty Images The plan was centered on the idea that decentralizing power generation would be the best way to withstand Russian missile and drone attacks. Those have redoubled to an alarming scale in recent weeks with, some days, Russia targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with 500 Iranian-designed drones and 20 to 30 missiles in each attack. Instead of quickly endorsing the decentralization plan, Zelenskyy instead approved — according to Kudrytskyi — a rival scheme backed by his powerful Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak to “create a huge fund to attract hundreds of millions of foreign investment for hydrogen and solar energy.” Last year the government shifted its focus to decentralization, eventually taking up Kudrytskyi’s plan. “But we lost a year,” he said.  He also said the slow pace in hardening the country’s energy facilities to better withstand the impact of direct hits or blasts — including building concrete shelters to protect transformers at power plants — was a “sensational failure of the government.” Ukrenergo, Kudrytskyi said, started to harden facilities and construct concrete shelters for transformers in 2023 — but little work was done by other power generation companies. DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING Kudrytskyi was abruptly forced to resign last year in what several Ukrainian energy executives say was a maneuver engineered by presidential insiders determined to monopolize political power. His departure prompted alarm in Brussels and Washington, D.C. — Western diplomats and global lenders even issued a rare public rebuke, breaking their normal public silence on domestic Ukrainian politics. They exhorted Kyiv to change tack. So far, international partners have made no public comments on Kudrytskyi’s arrest and arraignment. But a group of four prominent Ukrainian think tanks issued a joint statement on Oct. 30, the day after Kudrytskyi’s arraignment, urging authorities to conduct investigations with “the utmost impartiality, objectivity, and political neutrality.”  The think tanks also cautioned against conducting political persecutions. In their statement they said: “The practice of politically motivated actions against professionals in power in any country, especially in a country experiencing the extremely difficult times of war, is a blow to statehood, not a manifestation of justice.” The embezzlement case against Kudrytskyi has been described by one of the country’s most prominent anti-corruption activists, Daria Kaleniuk, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, as not making any legal sense. She argued that the prosecutor has failed to offer evidence that the former energy boss enriched himself in any way and, along with other civil society leaders, said the case is another episode in democratic backsliding. Overnight Sunday, Russia launched more attacks targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, striking at regions across the country. According to Zelenskyy, “nearly 1,500 attack drones, 1,170 guided aerial bombs, and more than 70 missiles of different types were used by the Russians to attack life in Ukraine just this week alone.” Unlike previous wartime winters, Russian forces this time have also been attacking the country’s natural gas infrastructure in a sustained campaign.  Since being forced to resign from Ukrenergo, Kudrytskyi hasn’t been shy about highlighting what he says is mismanagement of Ukraine’s energy sector. For that he has been attacked on social media for being unpatriotic, he said. But he sees it differently. “Most Ukrainians understand the government should be criticized even during wartime for mistakes because otherwise it would cause harm to the country,” he said.

LONDON — The U.K. government is not moving fast enough to slash planet-destroying emissions from aviation, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned.  Governments in Westminster and elsewhere must step up progress in developing cleaner alternatives to traditional jet fuel, according to a report today from Blair’s think tank, seen by POLITICO.  “Aviation is and will continue to be one of the world’s most hard-to-abate sectors. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandates in Europe and the U.K. are ramping up, but the new fuels needed are not developing fast enough to sufficiently reduce airline emissions,” the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) said, referring to policies designed to force faster production of cleaner fuel.  The U.K. has made the rollout of SAF central to hitting climate targets while expanding airport capacity.  It is the third intervention on U.K. net-zero policy from the former prime minister this year.  Earlier this month, the TBI urged Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to drop his pursuit of a clean power system by 2030 and focus instead on reducing domestic bills. This followed a report in April claiming the government’s approach to net zero was “doomed to fail” — something which caused annoyance at the top of the government and “pissed off” Labour campaigners then door-knocking ahead of local elections.  Aviation contributed seven percent of the U.K.’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, equivalent to around 29.6 million tons of CO2. The Climate Change Committee estimates that will rise to 11 percent by the end of the decade and 16 percent by 2035.  SAFs can be produced from oil and feedstocks and blended with traditional fuels to reduce emissions. The U.K. government’s SAF mandate targets its use in 40 percent of jet fuels by 2040 — up from two percent in 2025.  Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in January that U.K. investment in SAF production will help ensure planned airport expansion at Heathrow —  announced as the government desperately pursues economic growth — does not break legally-binding limits on emissions.  The TBI urged Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to drop his pursuit of a clean power system by 2030 and focus instead on reducing domestic bills. | Wiktor Szymanowicz/Getty Images The TBI said that, while it expects efficiency gains and initial SAF usage will have an impact on emissions, a “large share of flights, both in Europe and globally, will continue to run on conventional kerosene.” A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said the government was “seeing encouraging early signs towards meeting the SAF mandate.” They added: “Not backing SAF is not an option. It is a core part of the global drive to decarbonise aviation. SAF is already being produced and supplied at scale in the U.K., and we recently allocated a further £63 million of funding to further grow domestic production.” The TBI said carbon dioxide removal plans should be integrated into both jet fuel sales and sustainable aviation fuel mandates, placing “the financial responsibility of removals at the feet of those most able to pay it.” 

LONDON — British and American officials have restarted talks on steel tariffs in the run-up to U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit next week. After months of radio silence over the summer, negotiations to implement new quotas lowering the duties on steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. began again earlier this month, two people close to the talks told POLITICO. It comes as Donald Trump prepares to travel to the U.K. for a historic second state visit, with British officials hoping to use the occasion to push for a breakthrough on tariffs as well as a long-coveted tech partnership. Britain’s steel and aluminum makers have faced 25 percent tariffs at the U.S. border since March. While U.K. firms dodged Trump’s doubling of those duties in the spring, negotiations to lower tariffs further — as promised in May’s trade pact — have been slow-moving. The talks are also politically sensitive for Britain’s governing Labour Party, which is facing pressure from the insurgent Reform UK party in the country’s industrial heartlands. “We know they’ve been talking about steel again and looking at the U.K.’s proposal on quotas,” said one of the people familiar with the negotiations. Like others quoted in this report, they were granted anonymity to speak freely about ongoing talks. Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images U.K. trade officials “really want to get something over the line,” said the second person familiar with the talks, noting that the discussions were “quite advanced before the pause over the summer began.” ‘RAPID DISCUSSIONS’ During a split-screen Oval Office phone call in May, Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an agreement promising “rapid discussions” to secure a quota for U.K. exports of the metals. The deal would allow a certain amount of steel, aluminum and their derivative products to pass from the U.K. into the U.S. at tariff rates significantly lower than 25 percent. When Trump visited Scotland in July, he said a reduction in his tariffs on U.K. steel and aluminum would come “pretty soon.” But five months after the May deal was signed, the U.K. is still lobbying U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to get the White House to put those quotas in place. “The longer this goes on, the more uncertain it is, the more damaging it is, the less likely we are going to get growth, and the more threat there is to the jobs that are associated,” said Chris Southworth, head of the International Chamber of Commerce UK. There is “a great opportunity” to conclude the steel talks on the fringes of the state visit, Southworth added. “We need a solution quickly.” MELT AND POUR RULES The U.S. has strict rules on imports of steel and aluminum, meaning the metals must be melted and poured in their country of origin to qualify for tariff relief. But the requirements have been a tall order for Britain’s steel sector after its largest exporter to the U.S. — Tata Steel UK’s Port Talbot steel mill — shut last September. The firm is switching to greener arc furnaces which aren’t expected to start operating until 2027. In the meantime, the firm has been importing steel from its plants in India and the Netherlands. “I don’t think these are unmanageable issues,” said a person briefed by the White House. “If the U.K. can figure out how to agree to the ring-fencing demands of the U.S., then I think it should be pretty easy.” Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images One solution, they said, “could be they just have a lower … quota to protect against the Indian steel coming through, and then have an agreement to raise it automatically once [Tata’s Port Talbot site] comes back online.” Trump’s state visit is “exactly the kind of opportunity to make an announcement in front of the TV cameras,” the first person quoted above said. “If it’s not now, I worry about when it will ever happen.” “We are committed to going further to give industry the security they need,” said a U.K. government spokesperson. “We will continue to work with the US to get this deal implemented as soon as possible and in industry’s best interests.”

HOW DONALD TRUMP BECAME PRESIDENT OF EUROPE The U.S. president describes himself as the European Union’s de facto leader. Is he wrong? By NICHOLAS VINOCUR Illustration by Justin Metz for POLITICO European federalists, rejoice! The European Union finally has a bona fide president. The only problem: He lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., aka the White House. U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the title during one of his recent off-the-cuff Oval Office banter sessions, asserting that EU leaders refer to him as “the president of Europe.”  The comment provoked knowing snickers in Brussels, where officials assured POLITICO that nobody they knew ever referred to Trump that way. But it also captured an embarrassing reality: EU leaders have effectively offered POTUS a seat at the head of their table. From the NATO summit in June, when Trump revealed a text message in which NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called him “daddy,” to the EU-U.S. trade accord signed in Scotland where EU leaders consented to a deal so lopsided in Washington’s favor it resembled a surrender, it looks like Trump has a point. Never since the creation of the EU has a U.S. president wielded such direct influence over European affairs. And never have the leaders of the EU’s 27 countries appeared so willing — desperate even — to hold up a U.S. president as a figure of authority to be praised, cajoled, lobbied, courted, but never openly contradicted. In off-the-record briefings, EU officials frame their deference to Trump as a necessary ploy to keep him engaged in European security and Ukraine’s future. But there’s no indication that, having supposedly done what it takes to keep the U.S. on side, Europe’s leaders are now trying to reassert their authority. On the contrary, EU leaders now appear to be offering Trump a role in their affairs even when he hasn’t asked for it. A case in point: When a group of leaders traveled to Washington this summer to urge Trump to apply pressure to Russian President Vladimir Putin (he ignored them), they also asked him to prevail on his “friend,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, to lift his block on Ukraine’s eventual membership to the EU, per a Bloomberg report. Trump duly picked up the phone. And while there’s no suggestion Orbán changed his tune on Ukraine, the fact that EU leaders felt compelled to ask the U.S. president to unstick one of their internal conflicts only further secured his status as a de facto European powerbroker. “He may never be Europe’s president, but he can be its godfather,” said one EU diplomat who, like others in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The appropriate analogy is more criminal. We’re dealing with a mafia boss exerting extortionate influence over the businesses he purports to protect.” “BRUSSELS EFFECT” It was not long ago that the EU could describe itself credibly as a trade behemoth and a “regulatory superpower” able to command respect thanks to its vast consumer market and legal reach. EU leaders boasted of a “Brussels effect” that bent the behavior of corporations or foreign governments to European legal standards, even if they weren’t members of the bloc. Anthony Gardner, a former U.S. ambassador to the EU, recalls that when Washington was negotiating a trade deal with the EU known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in the 2010s, the U.S. considered Europe to be an equal peer. “Since the founding of the EEC [European Economic Community], America’s position was that we want a strong Europe,” said Gardner. “And we had lots of disagreements with the EU, particularly on trade. But the way to deal with those is not through bullying.” One sign of the EU’s confidence was its willingness to take on the U.S.’s biggest companies, as it did in 2001 when the European Commission blocked a planned $42 billion acquisition of Honeywell by General Electric. That was the beginning of more than a decade of assertive competition policy, with the bloc’s heavyweight officials like former antitrust czar Margrethe Vestager grandstanding in front of the world’s press and threatening to break up Google on antitrust grounds, or forcing Apple to pay back an eye-watering €13 billion over its tax arrangements in Ireland. Compare that to last week, when the Commission was expected to fine Google for its search advertising practices. The decision was at first delayed at the request of EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, then quietly publicized via a press release and an explanatory video on Friday afternoon that did not feature the commissioner in charge, Teresa Ribera. (Neither move prevented Trump from announcing in a Truth Social post that his “Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand.”) “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire career at the Commission,” said a senior Commission official. “Trump is inside the machine at this point.” Since Trump’s reelection, EU leaders have been exceptionally careful in how they speak about the U.S. president, with two options seemingly available: Silence, or praise. “At this moment, Estonia and many European countries support what Trump is doing,” Estonian President Alar Karis said in a recent POLITICO interview, referring to the U.S. president’s efforts to push Putin toward a peace with Ukraine. Never mind the fact that the Pentagon recently axed security funding for countries like his and is expected to follow up by reducing U.S. troop numbers there too. It became fashionable among the cognoscenti ahead of the NATO summit in June to claim that the U.S. president had done Europe a favor by casting doubt on his commitment to the military alliance. Only by Trump’s cold kiss, the thinking went, would this Sleeping Beauty of a continent ever “wake up.” As for Mark Rutte’s “Daddy” comment — humiliatingly leaked from a private text message exchange by Trump himself — it was a clever ploy to appeal to the U.S. president’s ego. Unfortunately for EU leaders, the pretense that Trump somehow has Europe’s interests in mind and was merely doling out “tough love” was dispelled just a few months later when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed the EU-U.S. trade deal in Turnberry, Scotland. This time, there was no disguising the true nature of what had transpired between Europe and the U.S.  The wolfish grins of Trump White House bigwigs Stephen Miller and Howard Lutnick on the official signing photograph told the whole story: Trump had laid down brutal, humiliating terms. Europe had effectively surrendered. Many in Brussels interpreted the deal in the same way.  “You won’t hear me use that word [negotiation]” to describe what transpired between Europe and the U.S., veteran EU trade negotiator Sabine Weyand told a recent panel. BLAME GAME As EU officials settle in for la rentrée, the shock of these past few months has led to finger-pointing: Does the blame for this double whammy of subjugation lie with the European Commission, or with the EU’s 27 heads of state and government? It’s tempting to point to the Commission, which, after all, has an exclusive mandate to negotiate trade deals on behalf of all EU countries. In the days leading up to Turnberry, von der Leyen and her top trade official, Šefčovič, could theoretically have taken a page from China’s playbook and struck back at the U.S. threat of 15 percent tariffs with tariffs of their own. Indeed, the EU’s trade arsenal is fully stocked with the means to do so, not least via the Anti-Coercion Instrument designed for precisely such situations. But to heap all the blame on the doorstep of the Berlaymont isn’t fair, argues Gardner, the former U.S. ambassador to the EU. The real architects of Europe’s summer of humiliation are the leaders who prevailed on the Commission to go along with Trump’s demands, whatever the cost. “What I am saying is that the member states have shown a lack of solidarity at a crucial moment,” said Gardner. The consequences of this collective failure, he warns, may reverberate for years, if not decades: “The first message here is that the most effective way for big trading blocs to win over Europe is to ruthlessly use leverage to divide the European Union. The second message, which maybe wasn’t fully taken into account: Member states may be asking themselves: What is the EU good for if it can’t provide a shield on trade?” The same goes for regulation: Trump’s repeated threates of tariffs if the bloc dares to test his patience reveal the limits of EU sovereignty when it comes to the so-called “Brussels effect.” And that leaves the bloc in desperate need of a new narrative about its role on the world stage. The reasons why EU leaders decided to fold, rather than fight, are plain to see. They were laid bare in a recent speech by António Costa, who as president of the European Council convenes the EU leaders in their summits. “Escalating tensions with a key ally over tariffs, while our eastern border is under threat, would have been an imprudent risk,” Costa said. But none of this answers the question: What now?  If Europe has already ceded so much to Trump, is the entire bloc condemned to vassalhood or, as some commentators have prophesied, a “century of humiliation” on par with the fate of the Qing dynasty following China’s Opium Wars with Britain? Possibly — though a century seems like a long time.  Among the steaming heaps of garbage, there are a few green shoots. To wit: The fact that polls indicate that the average European wants a tougher, more sovereign Europe and blames leaders rather than “the EU” for failing to deliver faster on benchmarks like a “European Defense Union.” Europe’s current leaders (with a few exceptions, such as Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen) may be united in their embrace of Trump as Europe’s Godfather. But there is one Cassandra-like figure who refuses to let them off the hook for failing to deliver a more sovereign EU — former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi. Author of the “Draghi Report,” a tome of recommendations on how Europe can pull itself back up by the bootstraps, the 78-year-old is refusing to go quietly into retirement. On the contrary, in one speech after another, he’s reminding EU leaders that they were the ones to ask for the report they are now ignoring. Speaking in Rimini, Italy, last month, Europe’s Cassandra summed up the challenge facing the Old World: In the past, he said, “the EU could act primarily as a regulator and arbiter, avoiding the harder question of political integration.” “To face today’s challenges, the European Union must transform itself from a spectator — or at best a supporting actor — into a protagonist.”

ATHENS — The European Union is investigating potential misuse of at least €11.9 million of EU funds in a recycling project in Greece, as the country’s notorious struggle to meet Brussels’ waste management standards shows no sign of ending. The probe follows EU-commissioned reports by Greek auditors that found irregularities with how much the project cost and how it’s run.   One of the reports, seen by POLITICO, found several problems with the way the recycling centers operate, including a total lack of controls over what happens to the waste that is collected. The EU investigation, led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, comes on the back of Greece’s long-standing issues with implementing EU laws on waste management, which have resulted in massive fines imposed on the Mediterranean country. The project in question is a set of “recycling units” or kiosks built by Greek recycling company TEXAN and spread out across the Attica, Peloponnese and Crete regions. Locals can get money back for recycling plastic, metal and glass items in these kiosks that aren’t packaging. “There is no information from [Attica waste management body] EDSNA on what happens to the waste after their collection, except for a report on its placement in a TEXAN storage facility for the year 2023,” the report seen by POLITICO reads, adding that not all storage units have been installed. EPPO’s investigation is based on the findings of the audit committee’s reports, among other documents, according to an official familiar with the case. The €220 million project was co-financed by the EU via a European Operational Program.   In 2023, the financial audit committee had slapped a €2.9 million refund penalty on EDSNA after finding “serious irregularities” with the purchasing contract awarded to TEXAN. The company had won the tender for the project despite suggesting that the kiosks would be around five times more expensive than what it could cost based on market prices.  Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year. | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA “It cannot be confirmed whether EDSNA investigated what a reasonable budget for the recycling centers would be, given that the market research it conducted and referred to, did not concern at least two independent [companies], but two [companies] with a common interest and an exclusive relationship, which then, of course, submitted the only bid in the tender in question and won the contract,” a separate report said, according to local media reports at the time.  Following the second audit, completed in July and first revealed by Greece’s newspaper Kathimerini, a second €3 million fine was imposed, half the amount of EU funds used for the recycling centers in the three regions, as the report notes.  BAD STUDENTS  Greece’s poor track record with recycling and respecting EU laws on waste is notorious.   According to 2022 data from the European statistical office Eurostat, the municipal waste recycling rate in Greece hovered around 17 percent, compared to the EU average of 49 percent.  Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year, the European Commission found in its 2025 environmental implementation review. The country had already “missed the 2020 target to recycle 50 percent of its municipal waste by a great margin” the review says.   In the EU, Greece is one of five members paying fines for not complying with environmental policies. To date, the country has sent about €230 million to Brussels to make up for these violations, according to the review.   Out of the 19 open infringement cases against Greece on environmental matters, six are related to waste management, from illegal landfilling to not properly applying laws on packaging waste. Local NGOs, meanwhile, have repeatedly warned of systemic disorders in the sector.  

PARIS — Il faudra encore attendre un peu pour connaître le coût financier de l’accord franco-algérien de 1968. La commission des Finances de l’Assemblée nationale devait se pencher mercredi après-midi sur le rapport des députés EPR Charles Rodwell et Mathieu Lefèvre, censé évaluer les conséquences de l’accord bilatéral — en matière de circulation, de santé et d’emploi — sur nos finances publiques. Or, son examen a mystérieusement disparu de l’agenda de l’Assemblée mardi, a repéré POLITICO. La mise sur pause de la présentation de leur travail, décidée de concert par le duo, n’est en réalité pas la première. L’examen du rapport devait avoir lieu intialement le 25 juin, puis le 2 juillet. Soit trois jours avant une éventuelle grâce présidentielle de l’écrivain Boualem Sansal, emprisonné en Algérie, et espérée en vain le jour de la fête nationale algérienne par Paris. Condamné définitivement à cinq ans de prison ferme le 1er juillet par la justice algérienne, et incarcéré depuis novembre 2024, l’auteur franco-algérien ne peut plus espérer qu’un geste du président Abdelmadjid Tebboune pour être libéré. Les deux élus macronistes avaient réservé l’exclusivité du rapport au Point. Conscients de sa sensibilité et du timing, ils ont finalement décidé de reporter une nouvelle fois sa communication à la rentrée, assurent-il à POLITICO. Fin juin, une proposition de résolution inscrite par Eric Ciotti en séance avait été retirée par le chef de file de l’UDR, pour les mêmes raisons. PAS DE VAGUE VS “SOUMISSION” Le débranchage provisoire du rapport a été concerté avec l’Elysée, dont le pôle diplomatique s’est fait présenter les conclusions, nous ont confirmé trois sources du Palais-Bourbon et du Quai d’Orsay. Le Château continue de demander au gouvernement de la mettre en veilleuse pour éviter une énième escalade, compte tenu du contexte ultratendu entre les deux pays. Mais le manque de résultats de la diplomatie française commence à faire resurgir les critiques. Mercredi, deux députés RN et UDR ont accusé dans l’hémicycle le gouvernement de “soumission” à Alger. En réplique, le ministre délégué Laurent Saint-Martin (Commerce extérieur) a soutenu la stratégie française : “Nous n’obligeons personne à garder le silence (…) notre démarche repose sur l’intelligence collective : la diplomatie doit pouvoir travailler le plus efficacement possible au service de tous nos compatriotes.” “Il y a une forme d’abstention sur l’Algérie pour faire en sorte qu’il n’y ait pas de mauvaises interprétations et qu’on crée un climat aussi apaisé que possible”, corrobore un diplomate en poste au Maghreb.

National governments and lawmakers in the European Parliament are uniting in pushing against an intended withdrawal of a long-stalled proposal that seeks to crack down on discrimination in the workplace. Fourteen EU countries have sent a letter, dated July 1 and obtained by POLITICO, to Hadja Lahbib, the EU’s equality commissioner, urging the European Commission to reconsider its decision to axe the equal treatment directive.  The EU executive in February proposed to withdraw the 2008 bill aimed at extending protection against discrimination in the workplace on grounds such as race, religion, disability, age and sexual orientation after 17 years of deadlock in the Council of the EU, where EU capitals hash out positions, as further progress was deemed by the Commission to be “unlikely.” But social affairs ministers of Belgium, Estonia, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden want to save the directive from the chopping block. In the letter, they argued that “the support for this directive has never been greater” and urged the Commission to reengage with the remaining holdouts to “clarify what improvements can be made to arrive at the required unanimity.” The move follows another letter from Parliament President Roberta Metsola, dated June 16 and obtained by POLITICO, in which the committee on civil liberties — which handled the file in Parliament — expressed “strong” opposition to the Commission’s plan to axe the file. Lahbib emphasized in May in front of lawmakers that “it has not been possible to reach the required unanimity and there is no indication or clear prospect that unanimity could be reached in the foreseeable future.”  Twenty-four countries supported the file in the Council talks, but three countries — Germany, the Czech Republic and Italy — blocked the directive. “We need unanimity in the Council, and while abstention is enough, objection is not,” Lahbib told lawmakers from the committee.  If those three countries “specify which concerns prevent them from agreeing, or at least abstaining from a vote on the text,” this would allow them to find a compromise, Lahbib said, adding that “engaging with these three member states also has potential.” The Commission in February gave the Parliament and the Council six months to express their — non-binding — opinion to the list of proposals it wanted to withdraw.