This was supposed to be an EU summit about the EU’s long-term budget. But things are never easy for EU leaders, and world events have a nasty habit of making their way onto the itinerary.

That meant this European Council had a lot more on the agenda than the last handful of summits, at least: Energy, migration, enlargement, Ukraine, and more besides were covered — and very little, if anything, was decided.

Have FOMO because you weren’t there? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s POLITICO’s rapid roundup of what we learned at the European Council.

1) Energy stole the show right out of the gate

The summit’s first major clash came Thursday morning, with EU leaders split over whether to delay ETS2, the bloc’s second phase of carbon pricing, to address high energy prices, triggering a three-hour-long standoff.

Italy and Greece joined the Visegrád Four — Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — in calling for a delay, a push rejected by the majority of countries.

The debate dragged on, delaying lunch (spare a thought for our hungry leaders!) and leading to the cancellation of a press conference on Thursday night.

2) Budget negotiations are a marathon…

Negotiations on the bloc’s next long-term budget were expected to be one of the summit’s most contentious topics. But they were a nothingburger, with most leaders repeating positions they have held for months. The summit brought them no closer to a breakthrough.

Many countries, of course, want a smaller budget, with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson telling reporters that his country is “not an ATM for the EU.”

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, meanwhile, said he had no choice but to be frugal at the European level, arguing he is used to tightening his belt at home because his wife is Dutch. Think of Bart next time your Dutch friends ask you to pay them back for that coffee.

3) … and a sprint

European Council President António Costa is still aiming to get a budget deal before the end of the year, according to two EU officials. He announced that leaders will hold a special summit at the end of November to try and make progress (and there’s a December summit too). But that timing leaves them up against the clock to reach a deal by year’s end.

See you all back here on Nov. 26!

4) EU leaders may need to bring extra luggage next time

If leaders do hope to agree on the EU’s long-term budget this year, they should prepare for long negotiations in November and December.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested the pre-Christmas summit could last longer than the scheduled two days. “For the December summit, we should pack a few more shirts than usual,” he said. Gulp!

5) Your next holiday to Cyprus might be a little easier

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters he hopes EU leaders will discuss his country’s bid to join the Schengen travel zone at the December summit.

“All technical preparations have already been completed, and we hope that the matter will be discussed by the relevant council in December so that the final political decisions can be made,” he said.

6) Rose-colored glasses have come off when it comes to Costa

European Council President António Costa drew the ire of some leaders over his handling of negotiations to curb high energy prices, which had become a “mess,” three EU diplomats told POLITICO, with another two diplomats saying that leaders were fuming at Costa for allowing talks to go off the rails.

7) Drink (a little) less beer to help Ukraine

Ahead of the summit, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told reporters that supporting Ukraine costs each European the equivalent of one beer a year.

“That one beer is just a cost [for EU citizens]. There, it’s a cost of life. We drink less, their lives are saved,” he said. “Simple as that.”

He didn’t say whether he meant a beer bought in Stockholm or Prague. As anyone in Belgium knows, not all beers are created equal — or cost the same.

8) The EU Parliament wants you to know it matters too

The European Parliament’s two lead negotiators on the EU budget made the rounds of the press room to make sure journalists heard their views. Siegfried Mureșan (of the European People’s Party) and Carla Tavares (Socialists and Democrats) both stressed that the Parliament’s position is important.

Meanwhile, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola joined leaders for the first part of the summit. Metsola said she had made it clear to them that “the Parliament is not a rubber-stamp and never will be.”

9) Talking China (without mentioning China)

Leaders discussed trade imbalances (read: China) over lunch on Thursday and welcomed the deal the European Commission struck with China last week to curb imports of Chinese hybrid vehicles. Czech PM Andrej Babiš even went so far as to call the deal “fantastic.”

POLITICO scooped that the European Commission is expected to work on trade measures tackling imports of chemicals and industrial machinery in an effort to protect European industry from unfair Chinese competition.

10) New bromance brewing

Hungarian PM Peter Magyar posted a late-night selfie with Dutch PM Rob Jetten on social media after day one of the summit. The two were all smiles and “tired, but not sad”, as Magyar put it in his tweet.

In reaction to the tweet, Jetten told reporters, “We are more or less of the same generation and a tad more direct and pragmatic than some colleagues in the European Council, so there’s a click.”

We started at 7:30 this morning in Brussels. The second shift begins after 10 PM, with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten @MinPres.
Tired, but not sad. pic.twitter.com/dmtSMbqG4m

— Magyar Péter (Ne féljetek) (@magyarpeterMP) October 15, 2026

11) Back to the castle

António Costa announced that another competitiveness summit at Alden Biesen castle in the Belgian countryside will take place in February 2027, three EU diplomats told POLITICO.

Leaders already visited the castle earlier this year, and they clearly loved the Belgian countryside so much they want to return (or Costa is forcing them to go).

12) Still reeling from Ceuta

Ahead of Friday’s talks, 16 EU leaders met to discuss migration over breakfast (before discussing migration over lunch with everyone else).

According to one EU diplomat, leaders broadly agreed that the EU should be able to suspend asylum applications when faced with a sudden influx of migrants that may have been engineered on purpose. But would that mean the EU will implement pushbacks (which are banned under EU law)?

13) Denmark, Italy and Poland want to be tougher on migration

The three leaders joined forces to argue that migration is a concern for many EU citizens and is contributing to rising crime rates. That caused a delay to an already shockingly long summit.

14) There were some agreements

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez found some time on the sidelines of the summit to chat about Rome’s restrictions on Spanish nationals sparked by the Ceuta crisis.

Plus, France and Germany said they had struck a deal to favor European-made cars under the Industrial Accelerator Act in exchange for weakening a 2035 vehicle emissions target, ending months of wrangling between the bloc’s two biggest economies.

15) EU leaders get the good stuff to eat

Thursday’s lunch menu featured a “full-flavored vegetable jus.” Not a little flavor, not a medium amount of flavor, but the full flavor. Then on Friday there was a “rich jus”. There was also a Champagne sauce. Only the best for our leaders!

16) The same can’t be said for reporters

Some POLITICO journalists lamented the lack of vegetarian options at the Council canteen. Pray for us.

17) No harsh words from EU to Zelenskyy

At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked whether EU leaders had expressed annoyance at his recent tone toward U.S. President Donald Trump. The question followed reports that some capitals were frustrated with him and worried he was further riling the White House.

But it was all love from Zelenskyy, who said there had been no harsh words during his time in the summit room. “I heard from my European colleagues support and only support, and I’m grateful for this,” he said.

18) No hugs for Fico

As Zelenskyy entered the European Council building, he was seen hugging and kissing fellow leaders — with one exception: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico received no hug. That may well have been because Slovakia is preparing to revive a dormant cooperation forum with Moscow.

19) 20M Ukrainians could flee to Europe if Russia wins war

Zelenskyy issued a stark warning to Europe: if Russia wins the war, as many as 20 million Ukrainians could be forced to flee to Europe. Over 4 million Ukrainians already live in EU countries under temporary protection status, according to Eurostat. 

20) EU leaders have forgotten about Britain … or have they?

There was plenty of talk across the Channel this week about the U.K. potentially rejoining the bloc, but the subject did not come up at the summit, even with an EU-U.K. summit due next month. EU leaders have more pressing issues on their minds.

Still, some had things to say about the U.K.’s relationship with the EU. Foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “all our friends are welcome to join,” naming Britain alongside Canada, Norway and Iceland as partners seeking closer ties.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs suggested the U.K. “should come back to the family,” although he also said that Russia “had its hands on Brexit.”

21) At POLITICO, we save the best for last

Covering European Councils often involves a lot of waiting around, but during this summit conditions were a little tougher because of a phantom farter among reporters waiting for Zelenskyy’s press conference. POLITICO went viral in Brussels’ diplomatic and journalistic circles for reporting the hard facts on our live blog.

While this summit’s agenda was packed, in the end not many concrete decisions were taken. Some might say the summit was a load of hot air.

ABERDEEN — The SNP-led Scottish government is set to drop its long-standing opposition to new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

Two senior members of the Scottish government — granted anonymity to discuss a strategy not yet ready for publication — told POLITICO the government will revise its energy plans to take a more pro-oil and gas exploration position.

Tests on compatibility with the government’s climate targets will remain, but Scotland will no longer begin from a position of opposition to new oil and gas projects. The move marks a major change in the Scottish government’s energy policy.

The Scottish government — led by the SNP since 2007 — released a draft energy strategy in 2023 which set out its “presumption against” new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

That draft strategy is “out of date,” one senior Scottish government official said. They said a new strategy, expected by the summer, will not contain this wording. A second person with knowledge of the policy said the new strategy will “reflect the world as it is.”

The shift in policy comes with the U.K. government widely expected to give the go-ahead to the Jackdaw gas field next week.

While the Scottish government has little power over the granting of new licenses for projects such as Jackdaw or the Rosebank oil field — where a decision is expected to come separately and at a later date — it has an important symbolic role, and can apply pressure to the U.K. government to approve licenses. 

SNP politicians at the party’s conference in Aberdeen privately admitted the stance on Jackdaw has hurt the party electorally. 

The party passed a resolution at its conference Friday which stated that the “utilisation of domestic production” of oil and gas is “clearly preferable to importation”. This was seen as a further softening of the position of the SNP — which governed in a quasi-coalition with the anti-exploration Scottish Greens until as recently as 2004.

This resolution, which changes the party’s official policy, will be used as the government writes its new energy strategy, the two people quoted above said.

In the summer, the SNP lost a key parliamentary by-election in Aberdeen to the pro-drilling Conservative Party, where their North Sea messaging was a key focus. “It was bruising ,” the official quoted above said. “But we’d been shifting our position for a while.” 

Speaking in the debate at the party’s conference Friday, the defeated SNP candidate in that by-election said the victorious Conservatives had hung the words ‘presumption against’ around “our necks lie an albatross.”

”We need to put to bed any suggestion that our party, or our government, supports a ‘presumption against’,” Richard Thomson said. 

BRUSSELS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Friday that as many as 20 million Ukrainians could be forced to flee to Europe if his country falls to Russia.

“Russia is killing us,” Zelenskyy told reporters at a press conference on Friday during a summit of European Union leaders, adding Ukrainians were being “pushed” out of their country. “They [Russia] don’t want to stop.”

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, millions of Ukrainians fled their homes in Europe’s fastest and largest refugee crisis since World War II. Today, over 4 million Ukrainians live in EU countries under temporary protection status, with the largest populations in Germany, Poland and Czechia, according to Eurostat. 

Zelenskyy’s stark warning comes as Ukraine heads into a brutal fifth wartime winter under Russian bombardment. Kyiv faces a budget shortfall of $30 to $35 million next year, according to projections from the International Monetary Fund — even accounting for a €90 billion loan Brussels agreed to provide last year. 

The Ukrainian president traveled to Brussels to meet with European leaders and shore up financial support for his embattled country. While the EU is Ukraine’s staunchest backer, the bloc’s list of priorities is stacked with rising energy costs, looming elections, geopolitical crises and an impasse over its €2 trillion budget. 

BRUSSELS ― António Costa is supposed to be the dealmaker who brings European leaders together. Increasingly, his efforts are going unrewarded.

At a summit of the bloc’s national leaders on Thursday, Costa — who, unlike most of the EU’s current big beasts, is a Socialist — suffered his most stinging criticism since taking the role of European Council president nearly two years ago. The ire centered on his handling of unrelated negotiations over curbing energy prices and the EU’s next seven-year budget.

Governments were looking for both debates to show signs of progress at the two-day gathering, which was scheduled to continue on Friday. What they got was, at best, stalemate ― at worst, mounting division. And a day of talking that dragged on for 14 hours with little to show for it.

The longer budget negotiations last, the “more difficulties we will have,” Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told POLITICO. “So we have to work to find a solution this year. I understand very well that it is difficult. A huge challenge.”

The stakes could barely be higher. The EU is desperate to ease the cost of living crisis and get a deal on the budget before national elections next year make finding an agreement much tougher. Disunity between the bloc’s 27 members looks even starker when Donald Trump makes moves to take Russia’s side in the Ukraine war, the economy is struggling to match the might of China and anti-EU nationalists get closer to power in Europe’s biggest capitals.

All 16 diplomats and officials who POLITICO spoke to for this article were granted anonymity to allow them to speak on a sensitive issue. They were all either in the summit room on Thursday or were immediately briefed by leaders who were. While most were critical of Costa, others spoke more positively.

Costa’s spokesperson declined to comment.

Bogged down

Costa, a former Portuguese prime minister, is appointed by leaders to chair their summits and corral them into agreement. As Brussels Playbook reported on Thursday, EU officials judge he’s entering a defining period of his presidency, racing against time to overcome huge divisions on the budget. He is widely expected to push for reappointment for a second two-and-a-half-year term next year, officials said.

Thursday’s summit was dominated by discussions unraveling on the second phase of the bloc’s carbon pricing regime, known as ETS2.

The showdown over the Emissions Trading System — both the current one, and the second iteration which is already legislated and will put a carbon price on heating and transport from 2028 — became so bogged down it forced Costa to cancel the summit’s planned press conference and delay further talks until after dinner, because they had become a “mess,” three EU diplomats told POLITICO.

With German Chancellor Friedrich Merz incensed by what Berlin saw as his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni’s intransigence, fiery negotiations pitted a coalition made up of Germany, Spain, France, Portugal, the Nordics and the Netherlands against a stubborn bloc of Italy with Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland (known as the Visegrád Four). Rome and the V4 group wanted the EU to postpone ETS2 because of the burden it would place on energy bills, according to five diplomats.

Leaders were fuming at Costa for allowing talks to go off the rails, two EU diplomats from different member countries said. While the pre-summit conclusions didn’t point to any rethink of ETS2, the countries tried to unpick the legislation in the summit room, leaving Costa flustered, one of them said.

Costa “wants to have conclusions ready from [pre-summit meetings of ambassadors] and not to open them during EUCO,” the diplomat said. “He is not a fan of drafting on the spot.”

Another said there was “huge frustration,” calling the tug-of-war over the wording of the energy policy “insane chaos.”

“They just went on with Italian drafts and disregarded texts that were handed in before by others, seemingly not understanding the political nuances of the whole ETS discussion,” they added.

Another accused Costa of “losing control of the room,” saying he had failed to keep track of proposed amendments and present them to EU leaders in time for the discussions. As a result, leaders were left debating without them, contributing to negotiations going on past midnight.

One diplomat and one EU official separately compared Costa with his immediate predecessors, Charles Michel ― who governments frequently criticized for a lack of dealmaking know-how ― and Donald Tusk, who enjoyed broad support throughout his term in office.

Costa performed “worse than Charles Michel” on Thursday, the diplomat said. The official said “there is frustration that things are not being dealt with a bit more Tusk-style.”

Honest broker

The annoyance went beyond the energy debate. While governments weren’t expecting a breakthrough on the EU budget on Thursday, they have started raising questions about Costa’s handling of that topic too.

Costa is determined to secure an agreement by the end of the year. In his job, the Council president must act as a honest broker and facilitate a deal among 27 governments.

Northern EU countries are worried he’s favoring southern countries, according to a further four EU diplomats.

One EU diplomat accused Costa of being two-faced and not acting as an honest broker in the budget negotiations.

Another diplomat, from a country that wants the budget to be smaller, said: “Costa personally and politically belongs to the other camp.”

“There is some skepticism on how he will take the process further from here,” they said. The so-called frugal countries are calling on Costa to propose further cuts ahead of a special EU summit on the budget that was confirmed Thursday for Nov. 26.

‘Superb deal maker’

Many governments still believe Costa may succeed over the long term. Even those who acknowledge that his honeymoon is over ― a period when he was roundly praised for being a safe pair of hands and avoiding diplomatic faux-pas ― retain faith in him.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever defended Costa as “capable” and “shrewd” after the first day of the summit — praising the Council president for largely avoiding drafting on the day, unlike Michel.

Costa “avoids negotiation about the wording on the table which happened all the time under his predecessor and which annoyed the hell out of everybody because then you are here until three o’clock to discuss about syllables, commas and words that the next morning you cannot see the difference anymore,” De Wever said. “You don’t even know anymore what you are negotiating about.”

Other diplomats said the disarray wasn’t Costa’s fault, and blamed the leaders who tried to unpick the energy legislation, notably Meloni. “He did not want to reopen the conclusions, it was the V4 and Italy who did so,” one said. “I don’t see what he could have done differently.”

Another EU official defended the sheer difficulty of the task faced by the Council president. “Discussing drafting at leaders’ level is not the most straightforward thing in general.” On energy, the official said leaders wanted to have “proper consideration” of the different proposals by countries, which had “opposing interests.”

One of the diplomats more critical of his political leanings on the budget said Costa was “impeccable” in his behavior. “He’s a superb deal maker.”

The next few weeks will show how true that turns out to be.

Hanne Cokelaere, Camille Gijs, Sebastian Starcevic, Gerardo Fortuna and Hans von der Burchard contributed to this article.

BRUSSELS — It was meant to be a debate on how to curb Europe’s soaring energy prices.

But the first session of talks at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels Thursday quickly descended into a three-hour fight over whether the EU should put a carbon price on driving cars and heating buildings.

The delay got so bad, the roast veal and fig tartlet lunch awaiting European leaders was driven well into the afternoon.

Countries including Italy, Poland, Czechia and Hungary called for ETS2 — an already-legislated law that will put a carbon price on heating and transport from 2028 — to be delayed for two more years. Estonia suggested it could be scrapped altogether.

The push was rejected by a majority of the bloc, with several EU diplomats telling POLITICO it was, as one put it, an “unacceptable” offer. Another said the ETS2 launch date would never be changed. But the debate reflects a growing sense from right-leaning governments that the EU’s ambitious green agenda runs against their push to bring down energy costs. 

While the main topic of today’s discussion was ETS2, its predecessor, the Emissions Trading System — which puts a price on carbon emissions from factories and power plants — was arguably the real target.

Put together, these two emissions trading schemes will be the EU’s most powerful policy tool for bringing down planet-warming emissions.

A proposed reform of the original ETS is currently being debated in the European Parliament and in the Council of the EU. Italy and Poland have been leading a gang of 10 member-countries which have been railing against the ETS since American and Israeli bombs started falling on Iran in March. 

What they want is for the European Commission’s July review of the ETS to be further weakened, even though the proposal already softens carbon restrictions over the next decade to give industry more time to invest in cleaner production methods.

But by framing the ETS as a scourge on household bills, both Warsaw and Rome have found ready audiences at home and abroad. On Monday, hours before a meeting of EU environment ministers convened in Luxembourg, Poland led a meeting of member countries with concerns on the ETS. Their gang, which originally counted 10 countries in March, had now grown to 16.

While Italy and Poland did manage to get Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Greece to back their ask for a “reassessment of the ETS2” and to “further postpone its entry into force until at least 2030,” inside the room of European leaders the position mostly fell flat.

Five EU diplomats granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations said Nordic countries and the Netherlands were firmly against changes to ETS2 — a position backed by France and Germany.

But Paris and Berlin’s long-term reliability as ETS defenders is in doubt. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz both face threats from the far-right, where the ETS has become a dirty word.

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which is no fan of the ETS, is politically ascendant, having won the largest share of votes in two regional elections in September. In France, with elections only months away in 2027, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is leading in the polls. 

How Le Pen would deal with the ETS isn’t certain, but Jordan Bardella, the French far-right lawmaker and rising star of National Rally, offered a clue  in recent comments.

“ETS: three letters, an acronym that reeks of detached bureaucracy, with one question that keeps coming up: who’s going to pay?” he said to European Parliament in May.

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants EU leaders to look into the idea of developing bloc-wide strategic gas reserves amid concerns the continent faces a winter shortage, three diplomats and two EU officials told POLITICO.

Europe’s existing gas storage caverns — which are typically refilled over the course of the year by commercial actors — are running at record lows this year after high summer prices linked to the war in Iran undercut market incentives to restock, leaving the bloc underprepared for winter.

While it wasn’t immediately clear to diplomatic officials what form the reserve idea would take, one senior EU official described it as a long-term measure to cushion the bloc against future supply risks, as countries already do with oil and refined products. The Commission president’s comments came at a major summit of European leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Documents detailing November plans to revamp the bloc’s gas security architecture, seen earlier this year by POLITICO, include plans to encourage better crisis management by companies. However, they stop short of explicitly endorsing strategic reserves that governments would have to fill to a set level to offset supply shortages, regardless of market conditions.

Countries that typically rely on commercial refilling have already been forced to change tack this year as the limits of the existing model became clear. The Netherlands has moved to subsidize energy purchases, costing it almost €1 billion, while Germany is exploring whether to develop its own strategic stockpile.

A separate Commission proposal to set up an EU-wide mechanism to carry out joint energy purchases was received without enthusiasm by EU leaders on Thursday, two diplomats said.

EU leaders meet today for their first chance to beef about the budget face to face.

On the show, Zoya Sheftalovich and Sarah Wheaton dive deeper into why leaders look increasingly unlikely to reach an agreement on the EU’s next money pot by December. Plus, Zoya obtained a document revealing deepening relations between Russia and Slovakia. Will that be a cause for concern around the Council table?

Next up, Zoya spoke with Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius on stage yesterday. His main message? Europe should boost its defense capabilities and stop relying so heavily on U.S. military support.

And finally, ECB President Christine Lagarde plugged her upcoming memoir at a press conference … is she allowed to do that? 

If you have a question or comment, don’t hesitate! message us on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• “How to watch the EU leaders’ summit like a pro.”
• “Slovakia deepening ties with Russia, document shows.”
• “Lagarde’s book plug raises questions about ECB ethics standards.”
• “Weakened Macron and Merz sink hopes of a quick EU budget deal.”

BRUSSELS — Slovakia is reviving a dormant cooperation forum with Moscow, putting Russia’s gas and oil supplies, nuclear fuel and the treatment of Russian athletes high on the agenda of their first such meeting in five years, according to a Russian government note obtained by POLITICO.

The note, written by Russian Science and Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov, says Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár agreed during an Aug. 20 video call to hold a meeting of the Russian-Slovak Intergovernmental Commission in Moscow.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said Wednesday the meeting is scheduled for Nov. 25. The Russian note — which is dated Sept. 10 — initially set the date of the meeting as Oct. 26-27.

The IGC, which covers economic, scientific and technical cooperation, has been dormant since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The last meeting was the commission’s 21st session, held in Bratislava on Nov. 12, 2021.

The meeting comes as Moscow finds openings in other international arenas. The U.S. has invited Vladimir Putin to December’s G20 summit in Miami, while the International Olympic Committee has provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and urged sports bodies to ease restrictions on Russian athletes.

Asked about the purported agenda for the IGC, the Slovak foreign ministry directed POLITICO to Blanár’s public statements after the Aug. 20 call. “We pursue a policy in all directions and maintain dialogue with all countries that are interested in pragmatic cooperation with us for the benefit of the Slovak Republic’s national interests,” Blanár said at the time.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The renewed push for warmer Slovak-Russian relations follows Fico’s May 9 visit to Moscow, where he met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during Victory Day commemorations. It comes after Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s April election, which cost Putin one of his closest partners in Europe and forced him to look elsewhere for EU allies.

Months before losing the election to Péter Magyar, Orbán rebooted the Russian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, which had been suspended for several years after the 2022 invasion. Magyar’s government did not confirm to POLITICO whether the commission would go ahead next year.

EU leaders, including Fico, will gather in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit focused on issues including energy prices and support for Ukraine, with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expected to join them for a conversation on Friday.

Oil imports and cultural integration

In the August video call, Blanár raised Slovakia’s opposition to the EU’s phaseout of Russian gas imports and asked to discuss supplies at the Moscow meeting, according to the document, which POLITICO could not independently verify but bears the hallmarks of a legitimate Russian ministerial note. Slovak representatives also stressed the importance of continued Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline and welcomed regular shipments of nuclear fuel for Slovak power plants, according to the note.

Slovakia remains heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, and Fico has argued that ending imports would raise costs. When the two leaders met in Moscow on May 9, Putin said Russia would do everything to meet Slovakia’s energy needs.  

The agenda for the meeting next month reaches beyond energy, according to the document. The sides plan to explore working groups on culture, tourism, agriculture and environmental protection, and to discuss the status of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Bratislava.

Falkov also records Blanár’s opposition to what the note calls the “discrimination against Russian athletes” at international competitions, noting the issue is to be discussed at the IGC meeting.

The International Olympic Committee lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee in July and said its previous recommendations restricting Russian athletes’ participation no longer applied. World Archery lifted restrictions on Russian athletes and officials in August. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has also called for Russia to be allowed back into international football.

The approach echoes Moscow’s recent effort to lock in closer ties with Orbán’s Hungary. Budapest and Moscow in December agreed on a 12-point plan to expand cooperation in areas including energy, trade and culture. The plan was signed by then Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko after talks in Moscow in December. The Slovak note points to a similar breadth of ambition.

The Kremlin’s outreach to Fico shows how Moscow can use energy ties to pull individual EU countries away from a united stance on Ukraine. Putin made a similar pitch in Washington last weekend: After a call with the Russian leader, President Donald Trump said Russia would supply diesel to U.S. and global markets to bring down fuel prices. The deal would provide revenue to Moscow while weakening efforts to maintain a united front against the Kremlin.

But there are questions over whether Putin can follow through on his pledge to Trump. Ukraine has been stepping up drone strikes on Russian refineries, aiming to disrupt fuel supplies and cut revenue for Moscow’s war effort. Kyiv said this month that strikes had disabled 51 percent of Russia’s oil-refining capacity.

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.

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The Ukraine war’s spillover into the Black Sea is creating a growing European security and commercial risk: Drones are hitting ships and killing sailors, grain routes are under strain, and insurers and investors are weighing the cost of operating through Ukraine’s ports.

Five commercial vessels have been hit in Bulgarian and Romanian waters over the past week alone, leaving at least four people dead, several sailors missing and others injured. In response, Black Sea countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have raised the issue at NATO, asking for more focus toward the region and joint support, according to two alliance diplomats.

“The attack within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone is absolutely unacceptable. It constitutes a serious breach of maritime and international law and will further jeopardise safe navigation in the Black Sea,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on X after the attacks last week.

Russia has been attacking Ukrainian ports and cities in the area since the start of its full-scale invasion. But the recent strikes have brought the spillover into NATO territory. If they continue, EU leaders will face pressure to protect Black Sea shipping and keep Ukrainian trade moving.

Those questions will be top of mind at Thursday’s European Council summit. According to draft conclusions obtained by POLITICO, leaders are expected to discuss the “immediate restoration of safe passage for grain cargo ships.”

A wider problem

Russia is not the only country using naval drones in the Black Sea. Ukraine has also used them against Russian-linked shipping. In June, a Ukrainian sea drone exploded in Romania’s Constanța port after Kyiv said it had veered off course because of Russian electronic interference.

“The Black Sea situation is quite dangerous because attacks are coming from both [sides],” said an EU shipping representative, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “You have to worry about both.”

Attribution can also be difficult. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Wednesday that investigators still have not proven that Russia is behind the strikes — although some have attributed his reticence to his broadly softer approach toward the Kremlin.

Drone operations by both Russia and Ukraine are likely to continue as long as each has the money and production capacity to sustain them, said Cristian Vlas, assistant research manager for Eastern Europe at the think tank ACLED.

Oleksii Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and founder of the Black Sea Security Forum, told POLITICO that a “serious diplomatic initiative” was needed, bringing together Ukraine, Russia and a third-party guarantor, such as Turkey, “to restore freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.”

Grain routes under pressure

The security risk is disrupting routes that carry Ukraine’s harvest to market, with consequences for EU transport links. Black Sea ports are Ukraine’s main export gateway, handling around 95 percent of the country’s grain exports, as well as significant volumes of iron ore. Shipping traffic has fallen as the security risk has grown.

Some cargo is being rerouted to the River Danube, but capacity there has been stretched in recent months as drought pushes water levels to record lows. Operators are trying to add rail capacity, but that risks moving the bottleneck westward to Romania.

Moving more Ukrainian grain overland also risks reviving tensions with farmers in neighboring EU countries, Vlas said. Romanian farmers have worried that Ukrainian produce meant only to transit could stay on the domestic market, he added, while transport operators are already juggling competing demands for capacity.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi has warned that millions of tons of unsold grain is piling up, and that farmers who can’t sell won’t be able to afford to resow all their land.

Bulgaria is working with Romania and Turkey on a joint initiative to protect freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, which Radev plans to bring to EU leaders on Thursday.

Following the Black Sea countries’ request at NATO, military officials are likely to look into possible options such as shifting counter-drone systems to the region, the two alliance diplomats said. Radev said Sofia will convene his counterparts in Ankara and Bucharest to examine further proposals, while a senior Bulgarian official called for new joint anti-drone systems with Romania, partly financed by the EU.

Investment at risk

The attacks also threaten what had started to look like a renewed bet on Ukraine’s ports. MSC, the world’s largest container line, was among the biggest and newest investors, reportedly acquiring a majority stake in a container terminal at a port near Odesa in May.

Ukraine has also been offering investors a long-term concession at the Chornomorsk terminal near Odesa. This terminal is one of Ukraine’s largest planned port public-private partnerships and part of what is expected to be a multibillion-euro reconstruction effort involving European companies.

But people who work in Ukraine’s ports say the case for rebuilding is collapsing.

“No one is ready to invest and rebuild, since you know that tomorrow there will be another missile, another pack of drones,” Oleg Grygoriuk, chairman of Ukraine’s Marine Transport Workers’ Trade Union, said.

LONDON — Andy Burnham offered his “rock-solid” support to Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to visit the U.K. Wednesday.

The British prime minister urged international allies to strengthen sanctions on Russia and called on President Vladimir Putin to agree to an energy ceasefire ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit to Downing Street. It will be the first visit to a European capital by the Ukrainian president since Donald Trump temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian diesel last Friday.

In a statement issued by No. 10 ahead of the visit, Burnham said: “Our rock-solid support to Ukraine is vital for keeping us safe here in the UK and ensuring those on the frontlines have the equipment they need to push back Russia.

“My message to the Ukrainian people could not be clearer, we are with you for as long as it takes, and we will go further and faster in our support to back your courageous fight for peace in Europe. It is not just the right thing to do, but it’s the necessary thing to do. Russia’s aggression cannot be allowed to succeed on our continent.”

Downing Street said the U.K. prime minister has asked ministers to draw up proposals for further sanctions, military aid, and fiscal packages to support Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Britain will deliver £45 million of surface-to-air missiles and implement a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

Britain will also accelerate deliveries of more than 5,000 Lightweight Multirole Missiles to Ukraine over the next four years with £1.6 billion funding, Downing Street added.

Chancellor John Healey will use meetings at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Bangkok to urge other countries to impose an equivalent LNG ban, arguing it would “curtail the war chest funding Putin so desperately wants.”

European leaders are expected to use a European Council summit Thursday to back stronger sanctions on Moscow after Trump struck a deal with Russia to ease restrictions on its diesel exports.

KYIV — Russia caught the Ukrainian capital off guard with its latest attack, hitting the country with over 100 drones and five ballistic missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.

“Intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches helps save lives, and this is one of the most critical issues. This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed — when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said.

He added: “Regarding this strike, unfortunately, there was no warning from partners.”

Kyiv usually receives a tip-off about impending Russian missiles via the Battlespace Command and Control Center system, which is operated and controlled by the United States’ military and NATO members, among others.

However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said at the Warsaw Security Forum Tuesday that intelligence sharing through the platform is ongoing.

“They [Americans] told Ukrainians no warning happened because of bad weather conditions, which is seen as not an adequate reason in Kyiv. Thus many are getting increasingly worried this might not have been the case,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO on condition of anonymity.

The missile warning system has malfunctioned before. “At times this information doesn’t get through. This isn’t the first instance … If there were specific technical issues this time, I think the specialists will sort it out. And they will resolve this problem together with our partners,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ignat said Tuesday.

The U.S. reportedly threatened to cut intelligence sharing once again last week if Kyiv does not stop stricking Russian oil refineries. Zelenskyy did not publicly confirm the threat, but has backed down.

“Ukraine has not carried out strikes on Russian oil refineries or the energy sector in general for the two days since the American President announced an energy ceasefire. But Russia did not heed the American President,” Zelenskyy said, appealing to the U.S. to lead peace negotiations.

“The Russians have attacked both our energy facilities and our critical infrastructure, sending absolutely clear signals that they have no intention of refraining from strikes on Ukraine. Nineteen regions of our country have come under attack in these two days alone,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Monday that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire because he said so — “and if it was violated, they both violated it.”

“Actually [Russian President Vladimir Putin] wants to make a deal, and we have to get Zelenskyy to want to make a deal,” Trump said.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, Katie Zacharia, the president’s new press secretary, demurred when asked if the U.S. has stopped sharing intel with Ukraine.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said.

Speaking to reporters at the White House later on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. has not stopped sharing intel with Ukraine.

“But we are really helping them get to a final answer,” Trump said. “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end.”

He reiterated that he is helping to broker a deal between Putin and Zelenskyy. “There is a lot of hatred there between the two of them. They both want it to end, they don’t know how to get there. We’re gonna get them there,” he said.

Russia has not yet commented on the ballistic strikes, but issued a general statement saying it had struck military and weapons production facilities across Ukraine.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Zelenskyy did not deserve a pause in fighting in response to the energy ceasefire: “I don’t think that he deserves a break. I don’t think that we will buy assurances and promises again,” he said.

This article was updated with comments from the White House and Donald Trump. Elleiana Green and Casey He contributed reporting.

Governments should not go back and forth on energy policy and decarbonization targets if they want to attract investors, said Catherine MacGregor, the CEO of French energy giant Engie.

“Without trust, we cannot invest,” MacGregor said at POLITICO’s competitiveness summit in Paris on Tuesday.

In the French government’s 2027 budget proposal, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu proposed backtracking on a number of renewable energy contracts, arguing that subsidies for green energy projects, particularly solar panels, were a major financial burden for the state.

MacGregor said such a move could imperil future investments in France.

“A contract is a contract,” she insisted, adding that “trust is very important” for investors to be able to spend money on energy projects in the long term.

France’s deteriorating public finances have become a central political issue ahead of the country’s presidential election next year. President Emmanuel Macron’s embattled minority government has been looking for ways to cut costs in a bid to bring down a stubbornly high budget deficit projected to come in at 5.4% of gross domestic product.

At the European Union level, Ursula von der Leyen’s second term at the helm of the European Commission has been marked by political pushback against the bloc’s core green policies, including Brussels’ landmark ban on combustion engines by 2035 and its emissions trading scheme.

But the bloc’s commitment to decarbonization gives investors the framework they need to plan ahead, MacGregor argued.

“Europe has one advantage: It moves slowly and that offers a certain level of stability which is very interesting for investors,” she said.

MacGregor defended the competitiveness of renewable energy projects as a means to produce energy locally and quickly, especially with gas prices so high.

“Renewable projects, when we do them well, in an organized manner and at scale … we are able to be competitive,” she added.

WARSAW — European leaders are preparing to demand tougher sanctions on Russia at a summit on Thursday, putting them at odds with Donald Trump just days after the U.S. president struck a deal with Vladimir Putin to ease restrictions on Russian diesel exports.

The leaders plan to call for further sanctions and measures targeting Moscow’s oil revenues at the European Council, according to a recent draft joint statement obtained by POLITICO, as EU governments reject Trump’s claim to have secured an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

The disagreement exposes a widening divide over how to bring Moscow to the negotiating table. While Trump is seeking to bring down U.S. fuel prices by allowing more Russian diesel onto global markets, European leaders argue that restricting the Kremlin’s energy revenues remains essential to forcing Putin to end the war.

“Russia is not interested in deescalation, ceasing fire or peace,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a security conference in Warsaw on Monday. “That is why I will go to Brussels to ask my partners to consider seriously increasing sanctions against Russia.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also called for further restrictions, pointing to Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure despite Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire.

“Russia will only negotiate in good faith under pressure,” Merz said Monday. “Following Moscow’s reckless attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy supply, we must even tighten [sanctions] further.”

The push comes after EU foreign ministers on Monday approved the bloc’s largest-ever addition to its Russia sanctions list, targeting more than 1,600 individuals and entities. The European Commission is also preparing a 23rd package of sectoral sanctions, which Kyiv expects to be circulated to EU governments by the end of the year, according to a senior Ukrainian official who was, like others in this article, granted anonymity to speak frankly on the sensitive negotiations.

Other European countries are taking a similar position. Britain and Norway have also pledged to increase pressure on Moscow.

“It’s important to sanction Russia not to finance the war,” Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told POLITICO, calling for loopholes in existing restrictions to be closed.

Trump’s election calculation

Behind closed doors, many European diplomats see Trump’s abrupt shift toward easing restrictions on Russian energy as driven primarily by domestic political concerns ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections.

That is the “broadly held view” among EU officials, according to one senior official.

The president is under mounting pressure over fuel prices, which have surged since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Having promised during his 2024 campaign to bring gasoline prices below $2 a gallon, Trump now faces an electorate paying more than twice that amount, with Republicans at risk of losing control of Congress.

His agreement with Putin is intended to release an additional 4.8 million tons of Russian diesel onto global markets over the coming months, easing pressure on fuel supplies and prices.

But European and Ukrainian officials question whether the additional supply will make a meaningful difference, saying that the total volume promised amounts to only around 10 days of U.S. demand. They feel the deal risks undermining efforts to deprive Moscow of the revenues funding its invasion.

“The reality” is that the additional fuel will have a “minimal” impact on U.S. prices, the senior EU official said.

“This is about the midterms,” a second EU official said. “He said he would bring down prices, but then he decided to go to war with Iran.”

The officials also question whether Putin intends to honor Trump’s purported energy ceasefire. Russia has continued striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the announcement, while Kyiv says it was not consulted on the arrangement.

For now, most European officials are reluctant to criticize Trump publicly, despite any doubts about the agreement. The EU and Ukraine should maintain their position over the coming weeks, when the administration’s longer-term intentions toward Kyiv may become clearer, one diplomat said, adding that Trump might even change course again if Putin fails to deliver the promised diesel.

Pressure on Washington

The dispute has also revived European calls for Washington to enforce its own sanctions against Moscow.

Tusk urged Europe and the United States to act together to show Russia they were prepared to impose tougher measures, while EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called on Washington to align its approach with Brussels.

Kallas pointed to sweeping Russia sanctions legislation championed by the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, which Trump signed into law last month but has yet to fully implement.

The legislation gives Washington additional tools to target Russia’s energy trade and those helping sustain its war effort. European officials want the administration to use them rather than loosen restrictions on Russian exports.

Some Republicans are also calling for tougher action.

“I think we need to be implementing the Russia sanctions bill,” Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw told the Warsaw conference.

The disagreement is raising wider questions in Europe about its dependence on Washington, particularly amid reports that U.S. officials have threatened to restrict Ukraine’s access to American weapons unless Kyiv stops attacking Russian oil refineries.

There is currently “no sign” Washington is following through on those threats, a NATO official told POLITICO, arguing that restricting sales would also hurt American weapons manufacturers.

“PURL is a good deal for the Americans,” the official said, referring to the NATO initiative under which European allies finance purchases of U.S. weapons for Ukraine.

European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, without directly addressing the reports, said Europe needed to take “primary responsibility” for its own defense more urgently as Washington reduces its military presence on the Continent.

The immediate test, however, comes on Thursday, when EU leaders will seek to maintain pressure on Moscow even as their most powerful ally moves in the opposite direction.

Victor Jack and Sebastian Starcevic contributed reporting from Brussels, James Angelos contributed reporting from Berlin, Esther Webber contributed reporting from London.

PARIS — Edouard Philippe was once seen as the only man capable of defeating Marine Le Pen in next year’s French presidential election. But his lackluster campaign as the country’s voice of reason is putting his allies on edge — and some of them are starting to wonder if he has what it takes.

The former center-right prime minister promised a “massive” campaign platform that would fix France, put its finances back on track and restore the country’s standing in the world. And while Philippe has upped his campaign tempo in recent weeks, his proposals tend to fall flat.

POLITICO spoke to six members of Philippe’s political family, some of them campaign team members, who shared doubts about his strategy and chances of success. Some were granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal matters.

“It’s unbelievable how nothing is making an impact,” a campaign official told POLITICO ahead of Philippe’s decision to announce his plans for a flagship pensions reform. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Philippe is still the best-placed mainstream candidate to challenge far-right Le Pen, who commands a substantial lead in the polls. But his poll ratings have stalled over the past year, and he is now locked in a tight race with far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon to clinch a second place which would qualify him for the runoff. MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, who trails the duo in most surveys, could see a boost for his campaign after scoring a decisive victory in the recent center-left primary.

Philippe is facing a pileup of problems: He has yet to unite the center behind him, remains burdened by a decade of centrist rule and is struggling to gain traction among voters with his pitch as the plain-speaking pragmatist fighting populism.

“Philippe is the most honest guy I know,” said an ally, “but he needs to unite and find a project that rallies people around him.”

Meanwhile, Le Pen and Mélenchon are dominating headlines with political one-upmanship and at times inflammatory proposals. The two populists locked horns last week over school protests, with Le Pen accusing Mélenchon of fueling the violence, and the far left positioning themselves as the protectors of France’s youth against police violence.

“The risk is great” that Le Pen and Mélenchon will squeeze him out of the race, Philippe’s ally added.

Stale marriage

Philippe, who left his position as prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron in 2020, has been planning his bid to succeed him for years. But things haven’t quite gone to plan on the campaign trail, where he has faced upsets and distractions.

When Philippe recently announced his unpopular proposal to push back the retirement age to 65, it was supposed to be a make-or-break moment in his campaign. Instead, it went almost unnoticed.

First, he was forced to delay his flagship announcement because Macron decided to address the nation about Russian threats and spiraling fuel costs. When he finally got round to it, it was overshadowed by antisemitism allegations against National Rally leader Jordan Bardella.

Ultimately, his 20-minute speech detailing his pensions plans on YouTube garnered only 70,000 views.

A day later, Mélenchon livestreamed a two-hour Q&A session with students from HEC, one of France’s top business schools. It got 550,000 views.

But according to Philippe’s campaign spokesperson Arnaud Péricard, the battle will be won in the long run.

“We’re not firing an arrow and then running away … Voters shouldn’t be underestimated; they can understand why our pensions system needs fixing,” he said. “But we aren’t mere accountants … We want a return of a powerful France that can lead on energy, industry; that’s why we need to balance our books.”

But a mix of economic realism and European ambition sounds all too familiar after a decade of Macron’s presidency — and even insiders know there’s little appetite for it. “There’s no desire for the centrist bloc. It’s a bit like marriage after 10 years,” said the same ally quoted above.

But for Philippe, a pro-European who was one of Macron’s coalition partners, there’s not much else he can offer.

“It’s difficult for the moderates: They know what state the country is in. They understand interest rates, debt and deficits,” said OpinionWay pollster Bruno Jeanbart. “They have to campaign as if things will get better, but it’s going to be difficult. We’ll have to work longer, accept more social spending, less benefits. There is no good news.”

Cornered

The silver lining for Philippe is that while he’s not doing too well, his immediate rivals aren’t doing any better. Conservative leader Bruno Retailleau is stuck on single-digit polling figures, while centrist Gabriel Attal, leader of Macron’s Renaissance party, has relentlessly campaigned throughout the summer but is still lagging behind and looks increasingly isolated.

Party insiders are confident Philippe will prevail, but admit the drawn-out centrist battle is dragging their champion down.

“We are at a bit of a standstill, and letting ourselves get boxed into a duel with Attal,” complained a senior official from Philippe’s Horizons party.

When Philippe and Attal announced their education proposals simultaneously last month, “people didn’t notice our proposals, they just saw the squabbling with Gabriel Attal,” the official added.

A member of Philippe’s campaign team said there was “little bandwidth” to make an impact because there were “too many” centrist candidates. “Maybe we’ll have to wait before addressing some campaign topics,” the official said.

In the coming weeks, Philippe’s team hopes to drain Attal’s support among lawmakers and local representatives, according to two allies, and force him to throw in the towel.

But that’s unlikely to provide Philippe with a much-needed boost, said a centrist senator, as enthusiasm is flatlining at the local level too. “There’s no real movement anywhere,” the senator said. “And the French aren’t really listening.”

Pauline de Saint Remy and Elisa Bertholomey contributed reporting.

European governments rebuked U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to import hundreds of thousands of tons of Russian diesel, and vowed to keep isolating Moscow and supporting Ukraine as it heads into a brutal wartime winter.

Trump said over the weekend he would import 300,000 tons of Russian diesel, weeks ahead of U.S. midterm elections in which the Republicans are polling badly and in which energy prices and cost-of-living concerns are expected to play a major role.

But his announcement — which included a claim that Russia and Ukraine had agreed an “energy ceasefire” and a call for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to step down — drew skepticism and scorn from European capitals and the EU.

“This deal doesn’t help neither the price of oil products nor the unity of the transatlantic community,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said at a gathering of the bloc’s foreign ministers on Monday morning, adding “it is not the European way.”

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee called Trump’s announcement of a deal with Moscow “concerning,” while German Minister of State for Europe Gunther Krichbaum said every dollar spent on Russian energy funded the purchase of weapons used against Kyiv.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, reminded Washington that “Russia has started this war. We should not forget this.”

On Monday, Zelenskyy suggested that Washington had other motives for pursuing an energy agreement with Moscow, arguing that the Russian fuel involved would make little difference to global supplies.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Zelenskyy said proposed Russian diesel deliveries were insignificant compared with global monthly consumption of roughly 120 million tons.

“I don’t think that this will have a tangible impact,” Zelenskyy said. “I believe that there are different rationales behind this decision.”

Zelenskyy also suggested Washington should consider an alternative arrangement with Kyiv. “Why doesn’t America then conclude a diesel deal with Ukraine?” he asked. “Let’s propose a diesel deal with Ukraine.”

He also revealed that Kyiv had not been informed beforehand of Trump’s announcement that he had secured an energy ceasefire. “No, we did not know about that,” Zelenskyy said. “We’ve learned that from the media as well.”

On their way into their meeting, the EU’s foreign ministers remained united in their insistence that increasing pressure on Moscow was the only way forward.

“Obviously our position has not changed — pressure on Russia, sanctions, support to Ukraine, Russia’s isolation is the way to peace,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže said.

The British Foreign Office’s minister of state Stephen Doughty said London was “not planning to follow suit with” purchasing Russian energy and would ratchet up “economic pressure” on Moscow.

“Pressure, pressure, pressure on Russia,” Lithuania’s Budrys said.

What ceasefire?

Trump’s claim that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” drew confusion from Kyiv and its allies over the weekend, with Zelenskyy saying the truce and its terms were “news” to him but that he would support it nonetheless — provided Moscow followed suit.

Just hours after Trump’s announcement, however, Russian bombs fell on Ukrainian power plants, causing widespread blackouts.

Kyiv is bracing for its fifth winter since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, which Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last month could prove “tragically critical” for Ukraine due to Russia’s near-constant strikes on infrastructure.

At the opening session of the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, Tusk slammed “anyone who is trying to introduce any symmetries, who suggests it is Ukraine responsible for the war,” saying doing so “gives a valuable present, gift, to the aggressor, to Putin.”

Kallas said any ceasefire shouldn’t “only apply to the refineries, where Ukraine has one and Russia has plenty,” adding that would “definitely [be] in the benefit of the Russians.”

She also called on Washington to join Brussels and London in imposing harsh sanctions on Russia. “Of course the U.S. is our biggest ally,” she said, “but our message is clear: If we want to end this war, the only way we can do this is putting more pressure on Russia.”

Ukraine’s financial needs are set to come up at a meeting of European heads of state and government on Thursday in Brussels. The IMF estimated that Kyiv will face a financing gap of $30 billion to $35 billion next year.

“Ukraine will be front and center at this week’s European Council,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Sunday night after a phone call with Zelenskyy, adding the war was entering a “new, grimmer phase.”

Zoya Sheftalovich contributed reporting from Brussels. Nick Vinocur contributed reporting from Warsaw.

The startup says its fuel cells are super efficient and cut fuel costs during a time when the tech industry can’t get enough electricity.

In mid-September, Chinese scientists announced a breakthrough in extracting hydrogen and fresh water from the ocean with about 15% better energy efficiency than older techniques. Their research, published in Nature Energy on Sept. 15, underscores that China continues to dominate in the renewable energy race, generating so much that the country can’t even use it all. As Reuters reported in August, “China turned away enough clean energy to power Mexico ​for a year in the six months through June as its grids hit their limits.” At the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8, Youyuan Huang, executive vice chairman of BTR New Material Group, the world’s top maker of battery anode materials, said “China’s grid is a very strong and stable one . . . but we’ve installed too much green energy.”

Boy, the U.S. could sure use some of that excess juice. Currently, this country is embroiled in a self-inflicted energy crisis, largely a result of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, that is sending deep ripple effects across the globe as oil prices spike. In the U.S. alone, diesel prices have risen around 70% since before the war began on Feb. 28, hitting a record $6.52 on Sept. 22, and in the last two months, at least 16 trucking companies, both large and small, have been bankrupted. The world’s richest nations are trying to staunch the bleeding, recently vowing to release up to 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil within four months. But on Monday, Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, cautioned that this is little more than a Band-Aid and that long-term supply issues remain. Until the Strait of Hormuz “fully reopens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify,” Nasser said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London.

Some “crude reality” would be another nice-to-have for those helming U.S. policy. The rising fury against the war and high energy prices threatens to clobber Republicans in the midterm elections. So the Trump administration is frantically trying to drive down diesel prices, first by floating the idea of banning exports. This tactic, criticized as “unwise” by some oil executives, has been abandoned for now, but at a Monday rally in Nebraska — where Trump also seemed to promote the idea of Iran attacking two California cities — he signed an executive order promoting the use of red-dyed diesel. Normally reserved for agriculture operations, red diesel is exempt from highway fuel taxes, but experts caution that expanding its use probably won’t help much because major fuel suppliers are unlikely to go along with it. For one, the taxes are only deferred, meaning companies could end up paying them later. But red dye, when used, can also gum up tanks and fuel systems. “We do not expect most reputable diesel retailers and fuel marketers to do this,” the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America and the National Association of Truck Stop Owners said in a note to their members, citing “limited upside.”

On Friday, Trump announced his latest bid to reduce prices: buying oil from Russia. Shortly afterward, the Treasury Department issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel to be supplied to the global market. Though details were scarce, this undermines the president’s own sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month. Regardless, it doesn’t look like it will do much to lower prices. “It’s kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic,” Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, told the Associated Press. “If we get diesel from Russia, basically it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they’ll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now.”

With diminishing options — besides the obvious one of ending the Iran war immediately, which Trump can do whenever he wishes — the administration’s primary strategy is to blame everyone else. On Monday, he repeated claims on social media that Ukraine is most at fault for high oil prices thanks to their continued attacks on Russian oil refineries, and that “What’s driving up gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz.” The president also said the closure of oil refineries in “blue states” is part of the problem. 

 

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has also spread these claims, appearing Oct. 4 on “Face the Nation” to blame Ukraine and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the latter for closing two refineries. (In fact, Newsom had nothing to do with the refinery closures.) Wright insisted that fuel prices will drop soon, as Trump has been claiming for months now. He also said that Trump was warned before attacking Iran that it might create an energy crisis — “he was well aware of the risk to energy flows that were coming out of the Persian Gulf region” — but the president insisted it would all be worth it to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Wright has been especially busy lately trying to instill a sense of optimism around the energy sector, dismissing climate change as a non-issue while laundering Trump’s vision of “energy dominance.” All of this is remarkably myopic. Half of it is an artificial war against renewable energy projects, including the cancellation of almost $8 billion in Biden-era clean energy grants, and using specious claims about “national security” to cancel offshore wind projects. The other half is accelerating oil, gas and coal extraction while slashing protections for endangered species threatened by drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. But here’s the rub: Neither approach has made fuel cheaper, and it doesn’t seem that will change any time soon.

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There’s little wonder why: Wright founded Liberty Energy in 2011, one of the fossil fuel giants that led that decade’s fracking boom, and he has attacked renewable energy projects almost as enthusiastically as Trump, saying they can never fully meet increasing energy demands. China and other countries have conclusively proved that false, but it’s not an either-or situation. Despite being the world’s No. 1 renewable energy producer, China is also rapidly expanding its coal industry. “The growth of renewable electricity is not incompatible with maintaining, and sometimes developing, fossil-fuel capacity,” science and technology historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz explains in his 2025 book “More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy.” 

In other words, human energy consumption is rising so fast that we’re continuing to grow all energy sectors rather than entirely replacing fossil fuels with renewables. (That’s not great news for the climate, of course.) But only the U.S. is leaning quite so hard into 19th-century fossil fuels instead of 21st-century solutions.

Why would the Trump administration push so hard for retrograde technology? Perhaps it’s time to admit that the president actually has no interest in driving down consumer prices or the cost of living, let alone ending the war, whether it hurts his party’s electoral chances or not. Trump is deeply invested in oil and gas companies, which have enjoyed obscene profits throughout the conflict. As Reuters reported in late September, “The ​five largest Western oil companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — are expected to report combined third-quarter profits of around $53 billion, according to RBC Capital Markets estimates, up from $48 billion ‌in the second quarter and more than double year-earlier levels.” 

Trump has caught plenty of these profits, with an August report from the Joint Economic Committee finding that the president “owned as much as $45.6 million in oil and gas company stocks in 2025, a portfolio that is now worth as much as $61.1 million given the surge in oil and gas stocks driven by Trump’s war in Iran.”

No wonder Trump continues to hint that the Iran war will heat up again after the midterms: He has a vested interest in keeping it going and inflating gas prices, so maybe it makes sense to call his bluff here. After all, truckers may be dropping more than $1,000 every time they fill up, or losing their jobs entirely, but the ultra-rich aren’t feeling much stress from all this. They are well positioned to buy up bankrupt trucking companies and jack up prices, further consolidating their monopolistic or oligarchic power. It’s the classic “shock doctrine,” in which corporations exploit disaster conditions, created intentionally or not. 

It would be more sensible to follow China’s lead on renewable energy, just as it would probably be smart to retreat on Iran rather than get entrenched in another forever war. But that just wouldn’t generate such spectacular windfall profits for Trump or those in his orbit. The solution is to nail these people to the consequences of their decision. They don’t want to end this crisis, so we must make them.

The post Trump gets richer while gas prices soar appeared first on Salon.com.

BRUSSELS — The EU is facing a winter gas shortage that could leave it scrambling to replace lost energy supplies equivalent to the power used by 12 million homes, according to new reports shared with POLITICO.

The shortfall raises the prospect of a winter of soaring power bills and forced energy saving measures if the bloc fails to find adequate supplies elsewhere.

As the war in Iran continues to disrupt global energy supplies, the EU faces an overall shortfall this winter of up to 14 billion cubic meters of natural gas — around 7% of the bloc’s demand and enough to power between 10 and 12 million European households, according to a report by the Institution for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a U.S.-based energy think tank.

Those conclusions are echoed in a key report by a top European body of gas network operators that was presented to national energy officials on Thursday.

Natural gas is used widely to heat Europe’s buildings, power its industry and generate its electricity. But the EU’s gas reserves have fallen to their lowest level for the time of year since records began in 2011, at just above 70%, after high prices made it more attractive for traders to sell gas in the summer rather than store it for later use in the winter.

With gas prices at near-four-year highs and supply constrained due to the U.S.-Israeli war in the Middle East, Europe has limited supply options if the coming winter proves as cold as the last, IEEFA found.

While that doesn’t necessarily mean the bloc will run out of gas, it does mean there could be 7 billion fewer cubic meters of stored gas to draw upon. That could force countries to buy gas at high prices on increasingly volatile global markets, or even require consumers to cut demand if fresh supplies are unavailable.

The EU’s record-low reserves leave the bloc “with less of a buffer” against global supply disruptions, leaving it “vulnerable to price spikes,” Ana Jaller-Makarewicz, IEEFA’s lead European energy analyst, said in a statement. If countries are forced to exhaust stocks this year, that would also leave them with more to refill next year, continuing the feedback loop of low reserves and higher prices, she added.

The same risks were outlined in a 2026-2027 winter supply outlook published Thursday by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSO-G), an association of gas operators. The report warns that if imports of liquefied natural gas are limited or even “optimal” in the context of a cold winter, storage levels could fall as low as 11%, a baseline needed for strategic reserves that can’t be easily tapped into.

If countries hope to restore their reserves to 30% by the end of winter — or else face increased exposure to future cold spells — volumes equivalent to 7% of the demand will either have to be curtailed or simply withheld from consumers, ENTSO-G warns.

Part of that pressure comes from a looming EU-wide ban on long-term supply contracts for Russian LNG, due to take effect in January, which will reduce European gas imports by an additional 7 billion cubic meters, according to the IEEFA report. Russian gas has been historically used to offset “swings in demand” over the winter, it said. “Now Europe depends on storage to get through winter.”

To make matters worse, the IEEFA report argues, gas demand over winter has crept up in the past two years, while imports to the bloc have flatlined. That’s left the EU leaning harder on its reserves over the winter period, with net drawdowns rising to 22.6 billion cubic meters in January this year, up from 18.8 billion cubic meters in January 2025 and 17.8 billion cubic meters in January 2024.

The alternative would be to import fresh LNG, a seaborne fuel that the EU increasingly sources from the U.S. But at current prices, importing the lost volumes would cost Europeans an additional €3 billion, a 12% rise over what the same volume would have cost last year, on top of already sky-high prices, according to the report. U.S. LNG production is also near full capacity, meaning those additional imports would further squeeze supply, Jaller-Makarewicz told POLITICO.

To some, a rise in prices is more likely. While ENTSO-G’s tight market scenario assumes a “global deficit” that sees available LNG imports into Europe reduced by 20%, Laurent Ruseckas, a senior gas market analyst at S&P Global Energy, argues that reserves can only ever fall so low, “since a rapid drawdown early in winter will drive up prices,” drawing cargoes to Europe from Asia.

“There is not much demand to destroy in Europe,” he added, pointing out that the war in Ukraine already destroyed 20% of the bloc’s industrial demand. “And it didn’t come back.”