Poland’s fugitive former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he has been granted asylum in Hungary after claiming he faces political repression in his home country. “In this situation, I decided to take advantage of the asylum granted to me by the Hungarian government due to political repression in Poland. I would like to thank Prime Minister Viktor Orbán very much,” he wrote Monday in a social media post.  Ziobro, a senior figure in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, perceives an investigation against him as politically driven by the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “I have become the target of personal revenge by Donald Tusk and his circle,” Ziobro wrote, warning that members of the government would face “severe consequences.” He claimed the proceedings against him amounted to retaliation against the opposition. Polish government minister Tomasz Siemoniak slammed Ziobro. “Refuge in Hungary is a downright perfect summary of Ziobro’s career. The former Minister of Justice fleeing like a coward from the Polish justice system. Total downfall,” he commented on X. Ziobro was stripped of immunity in November last year, amid an escalating confrontation between Tusk’s government and the opposition Law and Justice. Several former Law and Justice officials are under investigation over alleged corruption during the party’s period in power. Ziobro is a key figure in an investigation into why and how the Law and Justice-led government allegedly purchased Pegasus spyware to surveil political opponents. If indicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison. Ziobro previously fled abroad. He said he had also applied for his wife to receive international protection. Hungary previously granted asylum to former Polish Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski, who faced 11 charges in Poland for misuse of public funds when he was deputy justice minister from 2019 to 2023.

The main rival to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is incarcerated in a high-security prison just outside Istanbul, but that’s not stopping him from vowing to win the presidency from his cell. In written replies to questions from POLITICO, the democratically elected Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu struck a defiant tone from the notorious Silivri jail, and insisted he was still the legitimate electoral candidate who could end Erdoğan’s 25-year dominance of Turkish politics. The popular mayor’s arrest last March triggered massive nationwide protests and international condemnation. Turkey’s opposition views his imprisonment as a politically motivated maneuver by Erdoğan, an Islamist populist strongman, to remove his most effective secular opponent in the NATO nation of 88 million people. The 55-year-old, who faces a potential jail term of more than 2,300 years, replied via his lawyers and political advisers to a series of questions sent by POLITICO. The rare remarks signal İmamoğlu is confident in the groundswell of his support and is determined to remain a political force from behind bars. “What we are living through today is not a genuine legal process; it is a strategy of political siege,” he wrote. “President Erdoğan’s aim is not only to shape the next election. It is to erase my candidacy now and in the future, and to push me completely out of politics. The reason is clear: They know that in a free and fair election, I can defeat President Erdoğan at the ballot box, and they are trying to prevent that.” POLITICAL TIDE TURNS The sweeping crackdown against İmamoğlu — along with many other mayors from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) — came amid signs that the country’s political tide was shifting dramatically to the secularists. The Islamists were defeated by an unexpectedly high margin in municipal elections in 2024, and the authorities moved to charge İmamoğlu on multiple counts, just as he was about to be nominated as the CHP’s official presidential candidate. Despite his detention, more than 15 million Turks still voted in a CHP primary to name him as the official challenger — a highly symbolic public outpouring, as he was the only candidate. İmamoğlu and members of his team were charged with corruption, extortion, bribery, money laundering and even espionage. The sheer scale of the case revealed its weakness, İmamoğlu explained. He complained of “1,300 inspections at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality that produced no concrete findings; a 3,900-page indictment based largely on rumors and witnesses whose credibility is contested; a demand for prison sentences totaling up to 2,352 years; and a maximum trial duration set at 4,600 days.” The next election isn’t expected until 2028, but İmamoğlu is still seen as posing a particular risk. He has defeated Erdoğan’s party allies in Istanbul mayoral elections three times; crucially, his party won in traditionalist, religious quarters of Turkey’s biggest city, which the Islamists had long seen as their political bastions. Erdoğan himself used the mayoral office in Istanbul as a springboard to win national power years ago. FIGUREHEAD BEHIND BARS Despite his incarceration, İmamoğlu continues to campaign online through platforms like X, Instagram and TikTok, with help from his team. According to Soner Çağaptay, İmamoğlu has little chance of being allowed to take on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a free and fair race. | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images But can a candidate really run a serious presidential campaign from prison, while Erdoğan controls all the vital levers of state? İmamoğlu’s main campaign account on X, which has nearly 10 million followers, was blocked in Turkey in May. The incarcerated mayor fully acknowledges the limits imposed on him but insists a campaign without his physical presence or podium speeches can succeed. “What defines a campaign is its ideas, its values, and the shared will of citizens. We have all of these on our side … Everyone is aware that my arrest is unjust. Even a significant portion of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) voters consider my detention unfair and see it as a grave blow to justice,” he wrote. He also stressed the importance of the CHP primary in demonstrating the swell of popular support for him beyond the traditional party base. “The presidential primary on March 23, 2025 demonstrated this clearly. Although I was detained, around 15.5 million citizens voted to support my candidacy. Only 2 million of that number were CHP members; the other 13.5 million came from every segment of society,” he explained. “The campaign launched by my party to demand trial without detention and early elections has gathered 25.1 million signatures. All of this reflects a demand that transcends party lines: a demand for justice, merit, and dignity.” Yet the legal fate of his candidacy now rests with a judiciary that has a poor record of independence. Last February, Istanbul’s chief prosecutor’s office opened an investigation alleging that İmamoğlu’s diploma from Istanbul University had been forged; one day before his arrest, the university annulled the diploma. Under Turkey’s constitution, presidential candidates must be over 40 and hold a university degree. Another hearing is expected later this month. According to Soner Çağaptay, an expert on Turkey at the Washington Institute think tank, İmamoğlu has little chance of being allowed to take on Erdoğan in a free and fair race, as the president will use the advantages of incumbency and state institutions to block his candidacy, stigmatize him and weaken support for the CHP. “Even though İmamoğlu can declare his candidacy virtually from a jail cell, there is no way this will be legally allowed — because for Erdoğan this would be a mortal political threat if this were a free and fairly contested race,” he said. FOREIGN POLICY FLOP In his responses, İmamoğlu took aim at Erdoğan’s “aggressive” foreign policy and his close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, linking both to the erosion of rights at home. İmamoğlu took aim at Erdoğan’s close relationship with Donald Trump. | Pool photo by Evan Vucci via Getty Images “It is clear that President Trump’s presidency has opened a turbulent era … Diplomacy has increasingly shifted from institutions to leader-to-leader dealings, squeezed between rapid bargains and gestures that rarely lead anywhere,” he wrote. He argued Erdoğan was seeking the legitimacy he had lost domestically in Washington, but questioned whether Ankara was really getting what it wanted. “We must ask what the concrete gains of this alleged success are. Despite claims that relations with Washington are improving, Türkiye still has not returned to the F-35 [U.S. stealth fighter] program and [associated] sanctions have not been lifted,” he wrote. “Our neighbor Greece continues, in violation of agreements, to militarize the Aegean islands. The alliance among Greece, Israel, and Southern Cyprus against Türkiye strengthens and extends steadily. Israel is pursuing provocative policies towards Kurds in various regional countries. The Gaza peace plan, struck with a ‘real-estate-dealer mentality,’ has still not ended Palestinians’ suffering and hunger. What is the government doing in response?” he asked. İmamoğlu also insisted that Erdoğan’s security-driven policy had narrowed the space for democratic politics at home. “Fundamental rights are restricted, pressure is placed on elected officials, and media and civil society are silenced, justified by ‘security’ and geopolitical importance. Over time, the idea that freedoms can be pushed aside ‘for stability’ becomes normalized.” If elected president, İmamoğlu said, rebuilding ties with Europe would be one of his top priorities, alongside fulfilling the democratic criteria to be a candidate EU member. “As the CHP, our goal of full EU membership remains intact. In the short term, we will work to modernize the Customs Union to include services, agriculture, public procurement and digital trade, and to align with European standards,” he wrote. MISSING THE CITY İmamoğlu said he is maintaining a strict routine in prison despite the bleak short-term prospects. He writes, reads and follows the news as closely as possible — not only for personal resilience, but out of a sense of public duty. “That responsibility does not end at the prison gate … I am treated within the official framework, but I believe detention should never be normalized in a democracy. Especially when it is used as a tool of political containment. The issue is not the conditions, but the principle: Detention and prolonged legal uncertainty must not become instruments of politics.” What he misses most is his family; his wife Dilek, his children, parents and friends. A large share of visitation requests are rejected without justification. “I also miss the ordinary rhythm of the city, walking freely in the street, direct contact with people, and sharing unplanned moments,” he wrote. He added that he keeps up his strength, knowing he is still part of a democratic movement larger than his personal circumstances. “That is what truly determines everything, not the walls around me.”

PARIS — A senior French judge warned Tuesday against “unacceptable” foreign interference after the U.S. reportedly considered sanctioning members of France’s judiciary. “If such facts were true or were to materialize, they would constitute unacceptable and intolerable interference in our country’s internal affairs,” Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, president of the Paris court that handled a contentious case involving far-right chief Marine Le Pen, said in an inaugural speech to new magistrates, according to AFP. His comments come after German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that the U.S. State Department considered imposing sanctions on the judges who sentenced Le Pen to a five-year election ban last spring over embezzlement of EU funds, preventing her from running in the presidential election planned for 2027. Le Pen, who denies all charges, will face an appeal trial from next week, with a decision expected ahead of the summer. U.S. President Donald Trump had slammed the earlier verdict as “another example of European leftists using lawfare to silence free speech” and added “free Marine Le Pen” in a post on Truth Social. The Trump administration recently pledged to support “patriotic European parties” that seek to fight Europe’s “civilizational erasure” in its controversial National Security Strategy. The U.S. in recent months sanctioned 11 judges from the International Criminal Court, including a French magistrate who green-lighted an ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza. The U.S. Embassy in Paris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s leftist-populist government has suffered a setback after Slovakia’s top court temporarily suspended controversial legislation that would abolish the country’s whistleblower protection office. “The Constitutional Court’s ruling confirms that the new law is so contentious that it was necessary to suspend its effects. We view today’s decision as a significant milestone in safeguarding the rule of law in Slovakia,” the whistleblower’s protection office told POLITICO in a statement. The decision entered into force on Tuesday. The decision pauses the disputed law — which would otherwise have entered into force on Jan. 1, 2026 — until the court reviews whether it complies with the constitution. Since returning to power in 2023 for a fourth term, Fico’s Smer party has taken steps to dismantle anti-corruption institutions, including abolishing the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which handled high-profile corruption cases, and disbanding NAKA, an elite police unit tasked with fighting organized crime. The ruling coalition has also cracked down on independent media and amended the constitution to grant Slovakia’s national law precedence over EU law in “cultural and ethical matters.” The Fico administration — which bypassed a presidential veto after using a fast-track procedure to push through the bill — is not backing down yet in the whistleblower office dispute. “So far, it is only a decision to suspend the effectiveness … We are convinced that the Constitutional Court will confirm that the law is in order and will enter into force,” the interior ministry said in a statement. The government’s plan is to replace the office with a new institution whose leadership would be politically appointed. This move would cut short the current director’s tenure and weaken protections for whistleblowers. “It was a shock because it hadn’t been discussed, consulted, or even announced in any way beforehand. And in my first reaction I described it as the most blatant political interference in the activities of an independent state institution that I can imagine,” Zuzana Dlugošová, the head of the whistleblower’s protection office, told POLITICO. She warned that with protections weakened, whistleblowers will be “less willing to help the state uncover violations of EU law and fraud involving European funds, which are significant in Slovakia.” POLITICAL PAYBACK NGOs and the political opposition said they view the move as political payback from Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, whose ministry had been fined by the whistleblower office for suspending and reassigning elite police officers under whistleblower protection without the office’s consent. The suspended officers had been investigating corruption among senior Slovak officials. The Interior Ministry told POLITICO in a statement that “the opposition’s claims of ‘revenge’ are false and have no factual basis.” “The change is not personal, but institutional. It is a systemic solution to long-standing issues that have arisen in the practical application of the current law, as confirmed by several court rulings,” the ministry said, adding that the proposed changes are consistent with the EU’s whistleblower protection directive. The European Commission, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and several experts contacted by POLITICO disagree with ministry’s assessment. Transparency International Slovakia Director, Michal Pisko, said that the decision to ax the office “was a power move against an independent institution with which the Ministry of the Interior has long been in conflict.” Political scientist Radoslav Štefančík from the University of Economics in Bratislava said: “This office was one of the few that still operated independently of government power. The new office will be under government control and, as a result, ineffective. The main beneficiaries will be those who previously benefited from the criminal code reform: fraudsters and thieves, regardless of which political party they belong to. “This isn’t just about a single office. It concerns the entire system of checks on government power by independent institutions. It reinforces a system in which 99 percent of people must abide by the law, while a chosen few believe they stand above it,” he added. In a statement to POLITICO, the European Commission said it “regrets that the Slovak Parliament did not take the opportunity for thorough consultation and recalls that it had shared its concerns regarding several provisions of the law.” “As a reminder: We had communicated our strong concerns about several elements of this law in relation to EU law … This regards notably the dissolution of the existing Whistleblower Protection Office and the resulting early termination of the mandate of the Head of Office,” the Commission said, adding that it will review the law and decide on next steps. But experts point out that the Commission often moves slowly, allowing EU member countries to flout the rules with impunity. “Can the Commission recognize that it should act before it becomes too late? Because when it becomes too late, and the Commission starts the infringement process a year, a six months from now, who cares? It’s a done deal. The dust has settled,” said Vigjilenca Abazi, director of the European Whistleblowing Institute. “From experience, the European Commission usually ends up softening its stance and letting things slide. With all due cynicism, I think Fico will end up winning again,” Michal Vašečka, a political scientist at the Bratislava Policy Institute, said.

BRUSSELS — European leaders like Romania’s Nicușor Dan spent most of 2025 trying to work out how to live with Donald Trump. Or — even worse — without him. Since the great disruptor of international norms returned to the White House in January, he has made clear just how little he really cares for Europe — some of his key lieutenants are plainly hostile.  The U.S. president slashed financial and military aid to Ukraine, hit the European Union with tariffs, and attacked its leaders as “weak.” His administration is now on a mission to intervene in Europe’s democracy to back “patriotic” parties and shift politics toward MAGA’s anti-migrant goals.  For leaders such as Romania’s moderate president, the dilemma is always how far to accept Trump’s priorities — because Europe still needs America — and how strongly to resist his hostility to centrist European values. Does a true alliance even still exist across the Atlantic? “The world [has] changed,” Dan said in an interview from his top-floor Brussels hotel suite. “We shifted from a — in some sense — moral way of doing things to a very pragmatic and economical way of doing things.” EU leaders understand this, he said, and now focus their attention on developing practical strategies for handling the new reality of Trump’s world. Centrists will need to factor in a concerted drive from Americans to back their populist opponents on the right as the United States seeks to change Europe’s direction. Administration officials such as Vice President JD Vance condemned last year’s canceled election in Romania and the new White House National Security Strategy suggests the U.S. will seek to bend European politics to its anti-migrant MAGA agenda. For Dan, it is “OK” for U.S. politicians to express their opinions. But it would be a “problem” if the U.S. tried to “influence” politics “undemocratically” — for example, by paying media inside European countries “like the Russians are doing.” WEAK EUROPEANS Relations with America are critical for a country like Romania, which, unusually, remained open to the West during four decades of communist rule. On the EU’s eastern edge, bordering Ukraine, Romania is home to a major NATO base — soon to be Europe’s biggest — as well as an American ballistic missile defense site. But the Trump administration has announced the withdrawal of 800 American troops from Romania, triggering concern in Bucharest. As winter sun streamed in through the window, Dan argued that Europe and the U.S. are natural allies because they share more values than other regions of the world. He thought “a proper partnership” will be possible — “in the medium [term] future.” But for now, “we are in some sense of a transition period in which we have to understand better each other.” Dan’s frank assessment reveals the extent of the damage that has been done to the transatlantic alliance this year. Trump has injected jeopardy into all aspects of the Western alliance — even restoring relations with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin.  At times, Europeans have been at a loss over how to respond.  Does Dan believe Trump had a point when he told POLITICO this month that European leaders were “weak”?  “Yes,” Dan said, there is “some” truth in Trump’s assessment. Europe can be too slow to make decisions. For example, it took months of argument and a fraught summit in Brussels last week that ended at 3 a.m. to agree on a way to fund Ukraine. But — crucially — even a fractious EU did eventually take “the important decision,” he said. That decision to borrow €90 billion in joint EU debt for a loan for cash-strapped Kyiv will keep Ukraine in the fight against Putin for the next two years.  WAITING FOR PEACE According to EU leaders who support the plan (Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia won’t take part), it makes a peace deal more likely because it sends a signal to Putin that Ukraine won’t just collapse if he waits long enough. But Dan believes the end of the war remains some way off, despite Trump’s push for a ceasefire.  “I am more pessimistic than optimistic on short term,” he said. Putin’s side does not appear to want peace: “They think a peace in two, three months from now will be better for them than peace now. So they will fight more — because they have some small progress on the field.”  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at last week’s European Council summit that he wanted Trump to put more pressure on Putin to agree to a ceasefire. Does Dan agree? “Of course. We are supporting Ukraine.” But Trump’s “extremely powerful” recent sanctions on Russian oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil are already helping, Dan said. He also welcomed Trump’s commitment to peace, and America’s new openness to providing security guarantees to bolster a final deal.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at last week’s European Council summit that he wanted Trump to put more pressure on Putin to agree to a ceasefire. Does Dan agree? “Of course. We are supporting Ukraine.” | Olivier Hoslet/EPA It is clear that Dan hopes Putin doesn’t get the whole of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, but he doesn’t want to tie Zelenskyy’s hands. “Any kind of peace in which the aggressor is rewarded in some sense is not good for Europe and for the future security of the world,” Dan said. “But the decision for the peace is just on the Ukrainian shoulders. They suffer so much, so we cannot blame them for any decision they will do.” Romania plays a critical role as an operational hub for transferring supplies to neighboring Ukraine. With its Black Sea port of Constanța, the country will be vital to future peacekeeping operations. Ukrainian soldiers are training in Romania and it is already working with Bulgaria and Turkey to demine the Black Sea, Dan said.  Meanwhile, Russian drones have breached Romanian airspace more than a dozen times since the start of the full-scale war, and a village on the border with Ukraine had to be evacuated recently when drones set fire to a tanker ship containing gas. Dan played down the threat.  “We had some drones. We are sure they have not intentionally [been] sent on our territory,” he said. “We try to say to our people that they are not at all in danger.” Still, Romania is boosting its military spending to deter Russia all the same. CORRUPTION AND A CRISIS OF FAITH Dan, 56, won the presidency in May this year at a tense moment for the country of 19 million people. The moderate former mayor of Bucharest defeated his populist, Ukraine-skeptic opponent against the odds. The vote was a rerun, after the first attempt to hold a presidential election was canceled last December over allegations of massive Russian interference and unlawful activity in support of the far-right front-runner Călin Georgescu. Legal cases are underway, including charges against Georgescu and others over an alleged coup plot. But for many Romanians, the cancelation of the 2024 election merely reinforced their cynicism toward the entire democratic system in their country. They wanted change and almost half the electorate backed the far right to deliver it.  Corruption today remains a major problem in Romania and Dan made it his mission to restore voters’ faith. In his first six months, however, he prioritized painful and unpopular public-sector spending cuts to bring the budget deficit — which was the EU’s biggest — under control. “On the big problems of society, starting with corruption, we didn’t do much,” Dan confessed. That, he said, will change. A recent TV documentary about alleged corruption in the judiciary provoked street demonstrations and a protest letter signed by hundreds of judges. Dan is due to meet them this week and will then work on legislative reforms focused on making sure the best magistrates are promoted on merit rather than because of who they know. “People at the top are working for small networks of interests, instead of the public good,” Dan said. But for many Romanians, the cancellation of the 2024 election merely reinforced their cynicism toward the entire democratic system in their country. | Robert Ghement/EPA He was also clear that the state has not yet done enough to explain to voters why the election last year was canceled. More detail will come in a report expected in the next two months, he said. RUSSIAN MEDDLING One thing that is now obvious is that Russia’s attack on Romanian democracy, including through a vast TikTok influence campaign, was not isolated. Dan said his country has been a target for Moscow for a decade, and other European leaders tell him they now suffer the same disinformation campaigns, as well as sabotage. Nobody has an answer to the torrent of fake news online, he said. “I just have talks with leaders for countries that are more advanced than us and I think nobody has a complete answer,” he said. “If you have that kind of information and that information arrived to half a million people, even if you’re coming the next day saying that it was false, you have lost already.” The far-right populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians party is ahead in the polls on about 40 percent, mirroring the pattern elsewhere in Europe. Dan, who beat AUR leader George Simion in May, believes his own team must get closer to the people to defeat populism. And he wishes that national politicians around Europe would stop blaming all their unpopular policies on Brussels because that merely fuels populist causes. Dan said he has learned that EU politics is in fact a democratic process, in which different member countries bring their own ideas forward. “With my six months’ experience, I can say that it’s quite a debate,” he said. “There is not a bureaucratic master that’s arranging things. It’s a democracy. It’s a pity that the people do not feel that directly.” But what about those marathon EU summits that keep everyone working well beyond midnight? “The topics are well chosen,” Dan said. “But I think the debates are a little bit too long.”

Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is picking a fight with the country’s influential central bank over gold reserves, stepping up a conflict between the government and the country’s technocratic elite. Last month, Lucio Malan, who is chief whip for the Brothers of Italy in the Senate and a close ally of Meloni, introduced an amendment to the 2026 budget that would assert the Italian state’s ownership of close to €290 billion worth of gold reserves held by the Bank of Italy.  At first glance, it seems clear enough why this amendment came into being. Italy has a staggering amount of debt on its books, around 140 percent of the national gross domestic product, and is under strict EU orders to rein in its deficit, resulting in a perennial budget squeeze.  So it might seem logical to raid the world’s third-largest reserve of gold to pay down Europe’s second-largest debt pile. The temptation to do so has been getting stronger by the day: The value of the Bank’s hoard has risen 60 percent over the past year, thanks to a global rally driven largely by other central banks’ buying. But as usual in Italy, it’s not so simple. For one, the amendment doesn’t imply putting the gold to any specific use, but merely claims that the gold is property of the Italian people. “Nothing is going to be transferred,” Malan himself told POLITICO over the weekend. “That gold has always belonged to the Italian people, and that’s going to stay the same.” He pushed back at “even the most distant hypothesis that even the smallest part of the gold reserves are going to be sold off.”  Just as well. Three previous prime ministers — Romano Prodi, Silvio Berlusconi and Giuseppe Conte — have all had a sniff at similar schemes to bring the gold under more direct government control. But those schemes — the last of which was only six years ago — all foundered on the objections of the European Central Bank. The ECB published a withering opinion on the legality of the proposal on Wednesday, bluntly reminding Rome that the EU Treaty gives the Eurosystem exclusive rights over holding and managing the foreign reserves of those countries that use the euro (and pointing out that it said exactly the same thing six years ago). “This proposal has no chance of materializing,” said Lucio Pench, a professor specializing in economic governance and a fellow at the think tank Bruegel, pointing to the “clear conflict” with the EU treaty. But if the amendment is essentially just gesture politics, the question arises — what exactly is its purpose? A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW Some see in it a warning shot at the Bank of Italy, arguing that Malan, as Meloni’s chief Senate whip, is unlikely to have acted without the premier’s consent (Malan himself didn’t comment on whether Meloni approved the amendment). In the corridors of the Bank itself, behind its neoclassical facade on Via Nazionale in the heart of Rome, the move prompted consternation at the highest levels.  “I can tell you that people at the bank are furious,” fumed one official, adding that the proposal is illegal under EU law. “Our government — even if made up of thieves — cannot steal from the central bank, even if it writes it into a law.” Lucio Malan, a close ally of Meloni, introduced an amendment to the 2026 budget that would assert the Italian state’s ownership of close to €290 billion worth of gold reserves held by the Bank of Italy. | Simona Granati/Getty Images The Bank of Italy declined to comment on that point, but several Bank officials admitted privately that the move is consistent with a growing sense of antagonism from Meloni’s government. The Bank has always drawn the ire of the populist right, which blames it variously for the erosion of real wages over three decades and for the fall of the late Silvio Berlusconi.  But such antagonism is also consistent with a broader trend across the Western world, where deeply indebted governments are leaning on their central banks, as fiscal needs become more pressing and as dissatisfaction with the technocratic management of the economy grows. U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve this year have been the clearest example of that but, as one ECB official told POLITICO, the “independence of central banks is not only the problem of the U.S. — there is some encroachment globally happening.” There have been signs that the once close relations between Meloni the Bank’s governor Fabio Panetta — whom she brought home expressly from ECB headquarters in Frankfurt — have cooled. Indeed, Panetta was initially derided by some within the Bank for his apparent deference to the premier. However, some officials believe that relationship was strained when the Bank’s head of research, Fabrizio Balassone, criticized a government budget draft last month, suggesting that tax cuts aimed at the middle classes were more beneficial to wealthy Italians than poor ones. Bank officials maintained the analysis was purely technical and apolitical — “It was, like, two plus two,” one said in defense of Balassone — but it caused a storm in the right-wing, Meloni-supporting press.  The Bank’s leadership worried that the government was not respecting the 132 year-old institution’s “traditions of independence,” said another. Others see the amendment as being of a piece with a broader struggle against Italian officialdom: Francesco Galietti, a former Treasury official and the founder of political risk consultancy Policy Sonar, noted that in recent months, Meloni has pushed through a bill to rein in what she sees as a politicized judiciary, and also clashed with the head of state, President Sergio Mattarella, over an article that suggested he was plotting to prevent her from being reelected. Malan himself insisted that the gold initiative was not directed “against anybody at all.” He nevertheless described the move as emblematic of the Brothers of Italy’s “battle” — without elaborating. BROADER PLAY  Toothless though the bill is now, it still represents an interesting test case for how robustly the EU is willing to defend its laws against national governments who, across the continent, are becoming more and more erratic as they struggle with the constraints of economic stagnation and demographic decline. Earlier this year, the European Commission stood by while Meloni’s government strong-armed UniCredit, one of Italy’s largest banks, into abandoning a takeover that didn’t suit it. EU antitrust authorities only launched an infringement procedure after UniCredit dropped its bid in frustration. Reports also suggest that pressure from Rome is set to scupper a planned merger between the asset management arm of Generali, Italy’s largest insurer, with a French rival, out of fear that the new company would be a less reliable buyer of Italian government debt. If unchallenged, the latest initiative could soon become an existential challenge for the Bank of Italy, said a former official who maintains close connections to Bank leadership. “If you take the gold from the Bank of Italy, it no longer has any reason to exist,”he said. And while Governor Panetta collaborated happily with Meloni at first, “there’s always a limit,” the official said. “When it comes to independence, that’s where it ends — this is only the beginning of a war.” This article has been updated to include the ECB’s legal opinion.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen is trying to quash mounting speculation that she could get sidelined by National Rally President Jordan Bardella on her road to the Elysée after a series of flattering polls for her protégé.  Le Pen, who is currently banned from running in the 2027 presidential election pending an appeal of her embezzlement conviction, is in an increasingly awkward situation after two recent polls showed that 30-year-old Bardella is gaining traction as a presidential candidate at Le Pen’s expense. Asked Tuesday on TV station BFMTV why Bardella was only a plan B candidate considering his favorable polling, Le Pen said: “Because we decided as much.”   “We are the ones who decide, Jordan and me,” she said. Le Pen was found guilty last year of embezzling European Parliament funds and sentenced to an immediate five-year ban from running for public office. She will return to court in January after appealing all charges, which she has repeatedly denied and framed as politically motivated. She has said Bardella will run in her place if the appeal court upholds the election ban, but a decision won’t be known before spring.  SHIFTING DYNAMIC But while Bardella is officially his party’s plan B, polls show he is starting to outshine his boss. In an IFOP-Fiducial poll unveiled Tuesday, 44 percent of respondents said they wanted Bardella to run in the 2027 presidential election against 40 percent for Le Pen. Last week, a survey from pollster Odoxa showed Bardella winning against all the other candidates polled, beating the likes of center-right Edouard Philippe to leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Le Pen wasn’t even polled. While polls this early before an election have to be taken with a serious grain of salt, the dynamic hasn’t gone unnoticed. Renaud Labaye, the National Rally group’s secretary-general in the National Assembly and a close adviser to Le Pen, said the poll was good news for the party, showing “the dynamic was on [their] side.”  Privately, party heavyweights say they don’t doubt Bardella’s loyalty but admit his rise raises uncomfortable questions for their camp.  While Le Pen must constantly face off questions over her viability as a candidate, Bardella is triumphantly touring the country to promote his newest book, drawing crowds in what many see as an ideal launching pad for a presidential run.  A National Rally lawmaker close to Le Pen, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Le Pen’s truly believes Bardella supports her. But, the lawmaker admitted, the book tour can also be seen as Bardella laying the groundwork for his own presidential candidacy.  

Italy’s Senate on Thursday approved Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s flagship justice reform, marking significant progress for the right-wing plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary. With 112 votes in favor, 59 against and nine abstentions, the Senate passed the constitutional amendment in what officials described as the fourth and final reading. The judicial reform is one of the Meloni government’s key initiatives, alongside plans to strengthen the prime minister’s powers, redefining the balance between Italy’s branches of government. It seeks to create separate career paths for judges and prosecutors, ending the possibility of moving between the two roles, and to create distinct governing councils, one for judges and one for prosecutors, responsible for appointments, promotions, transfers and disciplinary procedures within their respective branches. The Italian government says the changes will improve accountability and efficiency within the judicial system, but critics — including opposition parties and judicial associations — warn they could weaken prosecutorial independence and politicize the judiciary. Meloni has long been at odds with the country’s judiciary, accusing magistrates of blocking her government’s priorities and framing the reform as part of a broader institutional reset. Thursday’s stage was crucial: Under the Italian constitution, amendments require multiple votes, and Senate approval marks the final parliamentary step. The reform now moves to a confirmatory referendum, where Italians will decide its fate. If approved, the changes will enter into force. Meloni described the vote as a “historic milestone,” affirming that both the government and parliament had “done their part” before leaving the final decision to Italian citizens. Opposition senators from the Democratic Party, 5Star Movement and other parties staged protests in the chamber, warning against granting what they called “full powers” to the executive. The reform, long championed by late Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was celebrated by his Forza Italia party as the fulfillment of a historic ambition. After the vote, party members took to the streets in Rome in celebration, carrying large portraits of Berlusconi and chanting slogans in his honor. Forza Italia Senator and former MEP Licia Ronzulli invoked Berlusconi’s legacy, declaring: “Our president up there must be very happy; the magistrates have even brought down governments!” Giulia Poloni contributed to this report.

PARIS — Five additional suspects have been arrested over their potential involvement in the spectacular heist at the Louvre Museum, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Thursday. Beccuau said in an interview with RTL radio that one of the individuals detained Wednesday evening is suspected of having directly taken part in the robbery in which the perpetrators smashed a window and grabbed an estimated €88 million worth of jewelry once belonging to members of France’s royal and imperial families, before fleeing on scooters. She did not clarify what role the other four are suspected of having played in the theft. The arrests took place in and around Paris, Beccuau said. She added that if the stolen goods — which have not been found — are returned, judiciary authorities “will take that into account” and reduce sentences of any suspects found guilty. Beccuau told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that two other suspects arrested Saturday had partially admitted involvement in the theft. The duo was identified by DNA traces left on an abandoned scooter and on the window they allegedly broke. Both men are in their 30s and hail from the northeast Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers, Beccuau told reporters. One is an Algerian man who had booked a one-way ticket back to his home country. He was arrested at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. The other is a French national who had already been sentenced for theft in 2008 and 2014 and is set to be tried in November in a third case. He was arrested at home, Beccuau said. The brazen daylight robbery at the world’s most-visited museum drew global attention and quickly turned political in France, with strong reactions notably from far-right politicians. The president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jordan Bardella, called the incident a “humiliation” and the result of a “breakdown of the state.” Culture Minister Rachida Dati and Louvre President Laurence des Cars came under fire after the break-in, with critics accusing them of failing to allocate sufficient resources to museum security — though concerns about the Louvre’s decaying infrastructure have been brewing for years. Dati told lawmakers in the French Senate’s cultural committee on Tuesday that “security failures had existed” and pledged an additional €80 million to install more surveillance cameras in the Louvre. Victory Goury-Laffont contributed to this report.

ANTWERP — Prime Minister Bart De Wever needs to get serious about the fraying rule of law in Belgium, a top judge said Tuesday. Bart Willocx, whose role is first president of the Antwerp Court of Appeal, told POLITICO in an interview that the Belgian justice system must be funded properly — after “decades” of under-financing — to fight a rising tide of drug-fueled violence and corruption. “Help us to secure the functioning of justice … We need budget, otherwise there are problems for normal citizens and functioning and it won’t end in a good way,” Willocx said, when asked what message he had for the Belgian government, which is currently locked in intractable budget talks. Willocx said that the rule of law in Belgium, like elsewhere in Europe and the U.S., is under pressure. “A very simple way to suppress the courts is when you don’t give them enough budget, because then they are not working well, they can’t do what they should do,” he said. His blunt intervention comes the day after another Antwerp judge published an anonymous letter decrying that Belgium was on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.” De Wever, prime minister since February this year, spent more than a decade as mayor of Antwerp demanding more federal money to address narcotics-related issues, but Willocx notes action hasn’t been forthcoming since he ascended to the Belgian premiership. “He was the mayor and now he is the prime minister. I’m sure that safety and security and these kind of things are very important to him, but we ask his government to invest more, to stop this,” said Willocx. “As a mayor he said we need money from the federal government, but now he is the prime minister … We are waiting and he refers to the minister of justice, and the minister of justice refers to the government, but we are waiting for more support,” he added, exasperatedly. De Wever’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the judge’s criticism. The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics — particularly cocaine coming from Latin America — to enter Europe, and turf wars have spilled onto streets across Belgium, with shootings and bombings taking place both in Antwerp and Brussels. Complicating the quest to solve the problem, De Wever is embroiled in tense negotiations with coalition partners to hammer out a new budget to balance Belgium’s strained finances. He has given the parties until Nov. 6 to resolve the budget crisis and threatened to quit if there is no agreement. Belgium is one of four eurozone countries that failed to deliver its draft budget by the European Commission’s Oct. 15 deadline. In Willocx’s opinion, gangs have been successful in corrupting officials like port workers, police and customs agents, and in order to tackle the society-wide problem, money must be invested in overcrowded prisons and social rehabilitation. Employees of the courts and the public prosecution service have been leading a campaign to highlight the issues for months now, and recently published a list of 100 proposals to be addressed. “We have a certain power and responsibility and we want to do it in a way that is serving our society and in this moment we see important risks. If this doesn’t change, we won’t be able to do what we should do,” Willocx warned. “We don’t do this only for ourselves. When you become a magistrate, it’s not to become rich or get power, but to push things in a better direction. We want to secure normal citizens so they are not afraid,” Willocx said.