BRUSSELS — European leaders came for the budget. They’re staying for everything else.

A two-day European Council starting Thursday was supposed to be all about the money. Instead, leaders of the 27 EU member countries are heading into one of their most crowded summits in years, with a succession of geopolitical crises threatening to hijack the EU’s carefully laid plans.

European Council President António Costa originally wanted the gathering to accelerate negotiations on the bloc’s next seven-year budget, hoping to seal a deal before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 make an already difficult agreement even harder.

But the world had other plans. Soaring energy prices, tensions with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine (and U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambiguity over it), migration and turmoil in the Middle East have all elbowed their way onto the agenda.

The result is a two-day marathon covering virtually every major challenge facing the EU, from keeping European factories competitive to ensuring the world’s most important shipping lanes stay open.

For anyone trying to follow the action without spending 48 hours glued to Brussels, here’s your guide to what matters.

With the usual warning: EU leaders are notorious for letting discussions drag on or reshuffling the agenda — that’s what our liveblog is for.

Thursday at dawn: The pre-match warm-up

Before the summit even starts, Europe’s political families will gather at the crack of dawn.

The European People’s Party meets from 7:30 a.m. at the Sofitel Brussels Europe — the place to be if you can get in, given how many center-right leaders will be at the summit table.

The Socialists gather from 8:30 a.m. at PES headquarters, with Costa, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen expected.

Renew kicks off at 8 a.m. at the Palais d’Egmont, with French President Emmanuel Macron and top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas among those expected.

Even without leaders in the summit room, the far-right Patriots got a head start Wednesday, with Marine Le Pen delivering a scathing attack on the state of the EU.

Thursday morning: The energy blame game and China

Leaders kick off with discussions on Europe’s struggle for economic competitiveness, starting with energy — potentially the most politically explosive debate.

Governments want immediate relief from soaring energy prices as a result of the war in Iran, and will push the Commission to introduce new measures on top of the wide-ranging but somewhat toothless package it announced back in March.

Expect finger-pointing between capitals and Brussels over who should act, and for climate policies like the upcoming Emissions Trading System on heating and transport to come under fire.

Next comes China. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will brief leaders on efforts to tackle the EU’s enormous trade imbalance with Beijing, following trade chief Maroš Šefčovič’s negotiations with Chinese officials.

Leaders are expected to renew their demand for Brussels to “urgently” tool up with further trade defenses to prevent further deindustrialization of the bloc and to shield further industrial sectors from Chinese competition.

There’s also time for the familiar fight over EU red tape, with calls for Brussels to stop legislating.

Thursday afternoon: Costa’s budget gamble

This was supposed to be the main event. Leaders will discuss Ireland’s negotiating proposal for the EU’s 2028–2034 budget slashed by €159 billion from the Commission’s original proposal.

The positions are well known: The self-styled “modernists” — essentially the old frugals in disguise — want to contain costs, while countries benefiting from EU spending are determined to defend their allocations, under the less glamorous banner of “friends of cohesion.” Positions on new EU-wide taxes are similarly entrenched.

But the real story is timing.

Governments have watered down a commitment to secure an agreement by December, according to draft conclusions seen by POLITICO. Costa wants a deal before a series of high-stakes elections in 2027 complicate negotiations; capitals fear a deadline could weaken their bargaining power.

Most importantly, Costa is moving into the driving seat as budget talks enter their most politically sensitive stage. Watch for clues about a possible extraordinary summit in late November — and whether December remains a credible deadline or leaders quietly start preparing for negotiations to spill into 2027.

Thursday dinner: Making room for new members

Over dinner, leaders will tackle enlargement and the EU reforms needed to accommodate new members — after all, October’s summit has historically been devoted to the bloc’s hopefuls.

Montenegro is edging closer to completing accession negotiations, while progress elsewhere raises questions about whether the bloc is institutionally and financially ready to grow.

The Commission has outlined proposals to prepare the EU for enlargement, and leaders will discuss how internal reforms should accompany the accession process. Watch for a positive signal to Montenegro and commitments on reforming the bloc itself.

Friday morning: Ukraine’s wish list

The second day begins with Ukraine and an expected appearance by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Declarations of European solidarity are all but guaranteed. The more interesting question is what leaders are actually prepared to do.

Kyiv needs air defense systems, interceptors and financing as Russian attacks intensify. Leaders could discuss tougher action against Moscow’s shadow fleet and visa restrictions for Russians. And while EU financing for Ukraine has already been agreed for 2026, the country’s needs beyond that remain an increasingly pressing issue.

Could this mean reopening the debate on using frozen Russian assets to plug future funding gaps? That remains a question mark — although no immediate breakthrough is expected.

Friday pre-lunch: Defense and three dangerous waterways

Before breaking for lunch, leaders will turn to Russian hybrid attacks, maritime security and the Middle East.

In the Black Sea, recent attacks on civilian shipping threaten Ukraine’s crucial grain export route. Turkey has floated new protected shipping corridors, while countries including Romania and Bulgaria are pushing to give the issue more attention.

Will leaders back concrete measures or stop at condemnation? That’s the question.

Discussions then turn to the Middle East and two other critical shipping routes: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. The fallout from the Iran–U.S. war, increased Iranian attacks around Hormuz and renewed Houthi threats in the Red Sea have disrupted global trade and energy flows.

The EU’s Aspides naval mission is short of vessels, and Kallas wants governments to contribute more. Watch whether leaders put ships behind their promises.

The broader Middle East discussion will also touch on Iran, Yemen, the West Bank and Lebanon.

Friday lunch: The migration showdown

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen are worth watching as leaders discuss migration over lunch, following the crisis in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta.

Irregular arrivals have been declining, but disagreements remain over border crises, solidarity and tougher migration controls.

And with an election looming in Spain on Nov. 29, this could be Sánchez’s last tango — and a final chance to defend his government’s handling of the crisis while venting his frustration over the lack of European solidarity.

Watch whether the debate produces agreement or another political clash, as happened last time.

Bonus: Two pressers are better than one

With such a packed agenda, leaders won’t wait until the end of the summit for the usual joint press conference by von der Leyen and Costa. An additional one is planned for Thursday, after the budget debate.

On Thursday, watch Costa’s language on the budget deadline and whether von der Leyen offers any concrete measures on energy prices.

On Friday, look for promises of additional support for Ukraine, whether commitments on maritime security come with actual ships and resources — and commentary on how the migration showdown over lunch went.

Martina Sapio contributed to reporting.

August Hanning spent seven years at the top of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, with access to some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets. Then came a second act: private consulting, corporate intelligence and business stretching across Europe, into Russia and Asia.

Now, the 80-year-old former spymaster is himself at the center of an espionage investigation, after German federal prosecutors arrested him Tuesday on suspicion of treasonous espionage, attempted treason and other espionage offenses. They allege he obtained a stream of secret intelligence from his former chief of staff and used the material to benefit his private consulting business.

“It’s catastrophic for Germany and for Western intelligence services. Everyone is in shock. The scale of it is enormous, especially at a moment like this,” said one EU intelligence official, who — like others in this report — was granted anonymity to discuss a clandestine arena. “And given that investigators stumbled across this while working on an entirely separate case, we’re likely to learn much more.”

For the BND, the case comes at an uncomfortable moment. Just last week, German parliamentarians began debating a new law proposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to grant the agency sweeping new authority, as part of an effort to return Berlin’s foreign intelligence service to the top ranks of global espionage. The timing is equally awkward for European intelligence more broadly. With Russian hybrid attacks continuously targeting Europe, governments across the bloc are rewriting decades-old security laws to give their spy agencies greater powers and be taken more seriously.

Prosecutors say Hanning’s former chief of staff, identified under German privacy rules as Manfred D., supplied him with roughly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and June 2022. Many contained classified information intended exclusively for internal intelligence work, including material used to brief senior German officials.

In comments to German newspaper WELT, a lawyer representing Hanning said some of the allegations against the ex-spymaster were true but that he did not harm Germany.

“He was in possession of confidential documents. Incorrect, however, is the accusation that he had passed on information contained therein to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany — let alone [for] payment. Further investigations will show that,” he said.

In one case, prosecutors suspect Hanning used classified material to prepare an analysis for an employee of foreign intelligence service. They also allege he maintained a relationship with a representative of another foreign intelligence service for several years, passing along political information that was partly based on material obtained from Manfred D.

Prosecutors have not publicly identified either foreign service but German media has named Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan has denied any connection.

“In intelligence services, everything is logged — who accesses which documents and when. If an analyst working on right-wing extremism suddenly started looking at intelligence on China, that would raise red flags. But the position of chief of staff has access to virtually everything, so it wouldn’t look suspicious because of the seniority of the position,” said a second EU intelligence official.

Chiefs of staff often stay on when directors change, unless they don’t get along with the incoming boss, the official added.

“Every intelligence service will now be looking at what information it shared with the BND and assessing what damage may have been done,” he said.

Revolving door

Hanning led the BND from 1998 to 2005, before serving as state secretary at Germany’s interior ministry until 2009. Once out of government, he wasted little time entering the private sector.

In July 2010, Hanning and his wife established Hanning Consult. It was in the spring of that same year that Manfred D. agreed to provide him with intelligence from inside the BND in exchange for payment, according to the prosecutor’s statement. Hanning then used that information in his private consulting activities, they added.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a Christian Democrat lawmaker on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament, said that within Germany there is a “very widespread network” of people who use the contacts and knowledge acquired while they were in service to influence Berlin’s policy on behalf of foreign governments like Russia and China.

“It’s not only sad, it’s damaging the reputation of Germany,” Kiesewetter told POLITICO. “You could also say if you want to talk to Russia, take former members of the government or former members of the secret services.”

Hanning also became involved with Samuel Danilowitsch, a German businessman, who led the Swiss corporate intelligence consultancy, Pluteos. There, Hanning eventually became chairman and the two were listed as attending a 2019 Moscow gathering focused on Europe-Russia relations, attended by Russian political and business figures, where the annexation of Crimea was brought up as a “necessity” rather than a choice. Pluteos did not respond to a request for comment.

From around 2014, Hanning joined British consultancy G3 as a senior adviser, according to archived web pages seen by POLITICO. He later oversaw its work involving Russia and the former Soviet republics, according to German media outlet Correctiv. G3 did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2019, Hanning was invited as a “guest of honor” to a gathering organized by Russia’s Security Council of officials and experts from Arctic Council countries. It was chaired by former secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, one of the most powerful figures in President Vladimir Putin’s security orbit. As part of the cultural program, the group visited the remote Valaam Island monastery where Hanning was pictured next to Patrushev.

Hanning has also publicly ventured into some of the more politically explosive questions surrounding Russia’s war on Ukraine.

In 2024, he told WELT TV that he considered it “very likely” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew about the 2022 operation that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines. Days later, Hanning went further, suggesting an agreement between senior Ukrainian and Polish figures was behind the attack. Germany has since charged a Ukrainian national it identified only as Serhii K., with his trial due to begin in Hamburg in October.

None of those business relationships, contacts or statements establishes a connection to the espionage case now facing Hanning, though they paint a picture of the influence he continued to amass after leaving the German government. Prosecutors have not accused him of spying for Russia.

The steakhouse heiress

Investigators got onto Hanning’s trail starting with an extraordinary custody dispute involving Christina Block, an heiress to a German steakhouse empire.

Block is accused by the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office of orchestrating the abduction of her two youngest children from their father in Denmark. Prosecutors in that case say Block and two men commissioned an Israeli security team to seize her children, then aged 10 and 13, from their father, Stephan Hensel.

According to the indictment, masked men beat Hensel and took the children across the Danish-German border, to southern Germany. The children were reunited with their father in Denmark four days later, under a court order. Block denies knowing about the abduction.

In September 2025, Hamburg investigators searched Hanning’s home and business premises in connection with the Block case, according to local media. Prosecutors suspected Hanning and a retired police officer had accepted a contract worth more than €100,000 to intercept the children on their way to school in November 2022. The plan ultimately failed as their father noticed suspicious figures and alerted Danish police. 

German broadcaster Taggeschau reported that the investigators, in the search of Hanning’s premises, discovered around 2,000 digital BND documents that ultimately triggered scrutiny of his handling of sensitive government information. Federal prosecutors took over the resulting investigation in May 2026.

Manfred D. had been Hanning’s chief of staff at the intelligence service and subsequently served several of Hanning’s successors, remaining in a senior position until March this year. 

Both men are now in custody.

“He’s reflecting the Germany between 1998 and 2011, so he has not the feeling of having done something evil,” said Kiesewetter. “He was just mirroring [the] state policy of the center-right Christian Democratic and conservative political alliance.”

Hans von der Burchard contributed to this report. 

LONDON — Germany wants the U.K. to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for protection from Made in Europe rules, according to a person familiar with Berlin’s position.

Friedrich Merz’s government believes the move would show reciprocity on trade and counter accusations from other EU member states that Britain is trying to “cherry pick” the benefits of EU membership, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.

It comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham met with the German chancellor on his first official visit to the country this week.

Burnham and Merz were due to talk about possibilities for Britain’s future relationship with the EU — after the British prime minister put rejoining the bloc back on the table of U.K. politics for the first time in a decade.

Berlin’s position on EV tariffs is significant as Germany has broadly backed a tolerant policy towards the U.K. on trade matters since Brexit — in contrast to more hard-line positions taken by countries like France.

The EU is in the process of drawing up new Made in Europe rules that would favor European producers over those outside the bloc — in response to trade practices by competitors like China and the United States.

The U.K. is worried that the measures will hit British business — especially automakers — and wants assurances from Brussels that it will get an opt out. If Berlin gets its way, those assurances could be dependent on emulating EU trade policy with regard to Chinese EVs.

Predatory strategy

Germany’s vaunted car industry, arguably the jewel in the country’s economic crown, has faced stiff competition from Chinese imports in recent years.

EU countries have accused China of dumping low-cost, state-subsidized electric vehicles into the European market and in December 2024 imposed countervailing duties as high as 35.3. percent on some manufacturers.

Industry Commissioner Stephane Séjourné accused China of pursuing a deliberate “predatory strategy” with state subsidies to the tune of €10,000 per vehicle.

The U.K.’s Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told POLITICO last month that the government was keeping tariffs “under review, to be frank, more closely than lots of other issues” and that “different parts of our own sector want different things from” the government’s policy.

Hamish Falconer, the U.K.’s minister for European relations, told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Podcast this week that he was “surprised” at reports tariffs might be a condition of Made in Europe opt-outs, adding: “That’s not the kind of conversation that I’m having with my European counterparts.”

Going ahead with higher tariffs risks alienating Beijing, which has expressed serious concerns about the policy. It would also raise the price of electric vehicles on the market, potentially making it harder for the government to meet its decarbonization targets.

BRUSSELS — The EU will only conduct further releases of oil and diesel reserves after the International Energy Agency has made it clear such a move would not be damaging to the bloc’s energy security, three diplomats familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

The Group of Seven — which includes Italy, Japan, Germany the U.K., France and the U.S. — agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel after U.S. officials threatened to ban diesel exports if they didn’t tap stockpiles.

However, the IEA appeared to confirm Wednesday that that release would draw from stocks pledged under an agreement in March and not include additional supplies. In other words, it would not amount to a new release at all, but would simply fulfil prior promises.

In a meeting Wednesday afternoon, EU officials endorsed the position, pledging to defer any future drawdowns “pending a clearer IEA assessment of market conditions and security-of-supply risks,” said one of the diplomats. Countries need to know “how low we can go,” said another.

While diesel prices are high as a result of airstrikes on energy infrastructure in Russia and the Middle East, some EU countries warned that releasing stocks now could leave them vulnerable in the event of a supply crisis.

There remain enough untapped stocks among IEA members to satisfy the pledge to release 100 million barrels.

Of the 400 million barrels pledged in March, 325 million have been released, with some countries releasing “greater volumes than they initially pledged,” the IEA said in a statement following an emergency ministerial meeting. That leaves around 100 million left that countries can still release under that agreement, it added.

It said the fresh commitment would represent a “completion” of that March agreement. The IEA’s 32 members include wealthy European, North American and East Asian countries.

POLITICO reported earlier Wednesday that France and Germany — which hold some of Europe’s most significant stockpiles — had signalled they would release no or minimal supplies on top of those already pledged.

It remains unclear what share of the releases non-EU members of the IEA will accept, after Japan, another member, ruled out any further releases.

Further details on the breakdown of the G7 release will be discussed at a meeting of the IEA’s governing board next week, the second diplomat said.

One of the key arguments for a great power — other than the great power itself wanting to be one — is that they act as a guarantor of stability and the status quo. That is far from the only public or global good. And a great power will ensure that status quo on its own terms and mostly to its own advantage. But if you have any acquaintance with history, you know you can do a lot worse than relative peace and the status quo. Trump’s Iran War has been a bracing illustration of all these realities. Once the great power starts letting things break, those breakages can start multiplying very fast. Eventually you’ll find a new equilibrium, of course. But eventually can take a long time. And again, even a passing acquaintance with history tells us that things can suck without end for extended periods of time.

There’s an interesting New York Times piece from over the weekend that illustrates all these things. We know the outline. But it provides new details. As a knock-on effect of the U.S. war with Iran, the ongoing battle between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebel government in Yemen has again become hot. In recent weeks, the Houthis have partly cut off Saudi Arabia’s other path to the ocean. Put simply, the Saudis can export oil through the Strait of Hormuz or the Red Sea. The former has been mostly closed for months. Now the Houthis are in de facto or near control of the second. That’s a big crisis for the Saudis. This is part of the larger U.S.-Iran battle because the Houthis are clients of Iran. And Iran’s core strategy has been to create enough pain for the U.S.’s regional allies that they will force the U.S. to end the war. Remember, each time the U.S. attacks Iran, they respond by attacking the various Gulf emirates.