BRUSSELS — The leaders of Denmark, Italy and Poland are pushing the European Union to significantly harden its stance on irregular migration, according to three EU diplomats and draft language seen by POLITICO.

Migration “represents a concern for many European citizens and poses a challenge for the cohesion of our societies … and [is] negatively affecting crime rates,” reads a draft of summit conclusions circulated ahead of a lunchtime discussion on the topic at a leaders’ summit in Brussels, backed by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen and Poland’s Donald Tusk.

“The European Council further underlined the importance of ensuring full control of irregular arrivals, including by avoiding measures that could create incentives for illegal migration,” reads the draft seen by POLITICO.

The bloc’s 27 leaders were due to discuss migration during a special session on Thursday requested by Meloni and Frederiksen following a tense back-and-forth with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in June.

Tensions have risen further after Spain’s Ceuta exclave was overwhelmed by migrants during the summer and as far-right parties have made gains around the bloc.

The draft also “calls the Commission to explore [a] possible consultation mechanism to encourage coordination on national measures potentially affecting other Member States while respecting national competencies.”

While the last phrase does not name any one country, Sánchez has clashed with Meloni over his handling of the Ceuta migration crisis as well as Spanish measures to regularize around 1 million migrants.

However, language discussing the impact of migration on social housing was removed from the draft over concerns that it could be perceived as provocative toward Spain.

One of the diplomats — who, like the others, was granted anonymity to discuss confidential information — said the updated draft was unlikely to win unanimous support from all the leaders, but had been proposed to bring the language closer in line with political sentiment and spark debate.

BRUSSELS — EU leaders will go back to the drawing board in November as they race to finalize a deal on the bloc’s next seven-year budget by the end of the year.

During the first day of a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday, European Council President António Costa announced he was convening an additional gathering on Nov. 26 in a bid to overcome disagreements and lay the ground for a final deal in December. To bring the sides closer to an agreement, he will present new budget figures before the meeting, according to an EU official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential planning.

Costa is pressing leaders to finalize negotiations by the end of the year — before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 threaten to derail the talks.

In a speech to the leaders, Costa warned that going past the end-of-year deadline will delay EU payments to farmers and researchers past Jan. 1, 2028, when the new budget is scheduled to come into force.

If leaders fail to reach a deal in December, the electoral calendar might push an agreement to May or even October 2027, Costa warned leaders in his concluding remarks, according to two EU diplomats briefed on the discussions.

Pressure on governments

Costa’s plan received a major boost on Thursday from French President Emmanuel Macron, who told fellow leaders that he won’t have a political mandate to sign a deal close to the French presidential elections in April 2027.

This is a major reversal for France, which has previously been unwilling to commit to the end-of-year deadline.

Macron’s words put more pressure on governments to advance the talks over the coming weeks — although some cast doubt on his good intentions.

“There are so many elections next year. [French far-right leader Marine] Le Pen herself [said] it’s undemocratic if we were now to agree,” said one EU diplomat.

Just hours before the leaders’ gathering, Le Pen renewed calls to halve France’s contributions to the EU budget if she wins the presidential elections next year.

She said that rushing the budget agreement before the French elections would be “a democratic scandal.”

The new frugal

Costa is stuck between messy domestic politics across Europe and hardening stances among the EU’s 27 leaders.

The so-called frugal EU countries pushing for major budget cuts — Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Finland — have publicly said that an Irish proposal envisioning €159 billion cuts doesn’t go far enough.

On Thursday, the six hardliners were joined by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who joked in a press conference after the summit that “I’m married to a Dutch person so I’m very frugal also in my personal life.”

However, behind closed doors the budget hardliners employed a more conciliatory tone.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — the unofficial leader of the frugal camp — said that the Irish proposal has achieved progress despite reductions still being needed, said two EU diplomats briefed on the discussions.

He pointed to EU payouts to poorer regions, as opposed to farmer’s subsidies, as an avenue for cuts.

On the other side of the spectrum, Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — who will try to cling on to power in an election on Nov. 29 — insisted that the budget is way too small.

“It is a distribution of misery,” he told fellow leaders during the discussions, according to the diplomats. He was joined by Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — an ideological foe on most issues, but an ally of sorts in the budget battle. She insisted that no further cuts to the budget will be accepted.

To bring sides together closer to a deal, Costa promised to advance progress on EU-wide taxes, or own resources, to finance the next seven-year budget and reduce national contributions.  

He will explore the European Parliament’s proposed taxes on crypto firms, online gambling and tech giants as well as a Greek idea to funnel future national sales of 6G mobile spectrum to the EU budget.

But given the level of opposition, getting EU countries to agree to any of these options will no be no mean feat.

“It is time to be realistic and work on what is plausible and reasonable, instead of wishful thinking,” said another EU diplomat.

BRUSSELS ― The EU should consider approving a three or four-year budget instead of trying to plan the bloc’s financial needs for seven years, the president of Cyprus told POLITICO.

“We’re discussing the budget in 2034 and now we’re in 2026,” Nikos Christodoulides said in an interview on the sidelines of Thursday’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels.

A three or four-year budget might be “easier” for some member countries to swallow, he suggested. “Why not open the political discussion?”

“You don’t know what’s going to be the situation in 2030, 2031,” he added. “I mean, look what happened with Covid, with the Ukrainian war … It’s not possible to declare all your priorities today.”

The EU’s seven-year, roughly €2 trillion budget has to be agreed by all 27 member countries but has two deeply entrenched camps on either side: The so-called frugals, comprised of Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and others who want a smaller budget, and the friends of cohesion, a loose grouping of 17 countries that do not want major cuts to agriculture and regional funds.

An EU official close to the budget negotiations said the idea of a shorter timeframe was weird.

EU law allows a budget of “at least five years,” though every budget has been seven years since 1993.

The odds of the budget being approved by the end of the year are increasingly slim, with an election in Spain in November, which polls indicate Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will lose to the center-right and far-right, potentially blowing out the timeline for consensus to 2027.

“Everybody used to understand that we need to finish … a political agreement by the end of the year,” Christodoulides said. “Now, with the situation in Spain, elections there,” that is less likely to happen.

Christodoulides also said he expected the budget to be cut by around a 10th compared to the budget proposed by the European Commission. Last week, the Irish government proposed an 8% cut compared to the Commission’s proposal.

“I think we may end up on 10% or 11%,” he said. “Double digits.”

Zoya Sheftalovich contributed reporting.

The West Nile virus is spreading across the EU at record levels and is reaching new regions of the continent, health authorities said Thursday.

In a statement, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said 1,715 cases were reported this year, with 130 people dying from the virus, which is mainly transmitted through mosquito bites.

Greece, Italy and France are the worst affected countries, but the virus is spreading further north, authorities say.

“Recent detections in people and animals in Belgium and the Netherlands show that the virus is now circulating further north, a trend that is expected to continue in the coming years,” the ECDC said.

The Netherlands has reported 59 human cases so far this year, while Belgium has reported 15.

The West Nile virus is asymptomatic in 80% of humans — but can lead to fever and, in severe cases, cause neurological diseases and become deadly.

Preventive measures against mosquito bites are recommended to reduce West Nile virus risks.

“Anyone living in or visiting areas where WNV is circulating can reduce their risk by using mosquito repellent, wearing loose-fitting long clothing in the evening and at night, and using window screens, mosquito nets, or air conditioning where appropriate,” the ECDC said.

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.

BRUSSELS ― Political pressure is leaving Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz poorly placed to break the deadlock over the EU’s next seven-year budget.

As EU leaders gather for a two-day summit in Brussels from Thursday, the heads of the bloc’s two largest countries hold the keys to breaking the impasse between capitals that has persisted for months, as a Germany-led group advocating a smaller budget clashes with those like France which are resisting reductions.

“Delays and persisting divisions in the Council [representing EU governments] are worrying,” said Siegfried Mureșan, co-leading the European Parliament’s work on the MFF, the multiannual financial framework. “The EU budget can only be built through compromise … The faster we adopt the budget, the faster we can implement it and become more competitive, safer, help farmers and researchers and protect our borders and cyberspace.”

Sealing agreement on the EU’s long-term central budget, worth approximately €2 trillion, is the biggest challenge over the next few months facing leaders, all of whom must sign up to the final numbers. While it isn’t just up to Macron and Merz, getting the chiefs of the bloc’s two most powerful countries to overcome their differences would be a massive step in making all the pieces of the jigsaw slot into place.

But with Macron soon to leave office and Merz under severe pressure domestically, officials and diplomats in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin are playing down hopes of a Franco-German breakthrough this week.

“If the French and German leaders come hand in hand, I think that could change the game,” an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said. “You need [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni and [Polish Prime Minister Donald] Tusk, but it starts with Merz and Macron.”

While Merz and Macron may talk bilaterally during the summit, according to an Elysée official, there were no firm plans for a more formal sit-down, two EU diplomats said, adding they were expecting them to use the two-day meeting to hash out positions.

Domestic political weakness makes both leaders less likely to yield ground, three EU diplomats said.

Backfiring

For the French president, who leaves office next year, the fear is that making big concessions — like accepting cuts demanded by Berlin — could be weaponized by presidential candidates vying to replace him.

“Macron should not appear too conciliatory” in budget talks, said an ally of the French president. “It would backfire in the presidential campaign.”

Indeed, Macron may be wary of striking a deal that could lead to attacks from far-right leader Marine Le Pen or far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, both of whom argue that France receives too little value for its contributions to the EU pot.

During a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday evening, Le Pen accused negotiators of speeding up talks as “an attempt to stifle future democratic choices before they even take place” — effectively warning Macron against locking in an agreement before France’s April presidential election and votes in other major EU countries, such as Spain, which goes to the polls next month, and Italy, which is due to hold a poll next year.

“All this is not serious,” Le Pen told reporters on the 26th floor of The Hotel in Brussels.

It’s complicated

Merz faces similar political pressures.

Following humiliating state election defeats to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, the Chancellor is wary of concessions that could be framed as sending more taxpayer money to Brussels. Berlin prefers no deal at all to one that increases the overall budget, Merz said.

But Paris and Berlin’s positions may not be as far apart as public statements suggest.

“It’s complicated because France and Germany both need to step outside of their comfort zone,” said the Macron ally. “But it will end with a deal between France and Germany,”

France’s Europe minister Benjamin Haddad told reporters on Tuesday that discussions should focus on raising money via taxes, or “own resources” as they’re known in the EU —such as online gambling levies—rather than “massive cuts.”

However, Paris also wants to “stabilize national contributions” ― in other words, keep its own payments level.

Berlin was “open to examine new own resources, but we are more skeptical than the French that it will generate enough money,” a German official said.

France is betting that when push comes to shove, Merz will give in to pressure from other countries — and German captains of industry — to abandon his demands for far-reaching cuts.

“I see that there is also a real debate in Germany as well on the fact of having a position that would only be focused on cuts to the detriment of future policies,” an Elysée official said Wednesday. This week, Germany’s industrial lobby BDI and top industry groups urged their government to defend a more ambitious EU budget.

Macron and Merz showed unity earlier this month by jointly urging the European Commission to toughen its stance on China. But they still struggle to agree on another major deal—first reported by POLITICO in July—where Berlin accepts stronger “Made in Europe” rules in exchange for France backing relaxed car emission targets and the 2035 combustion engine ban.

EU Industry chief Stéphane Séjourné told POLITICO on Tuesday he supported the deal to finalize both files. Macron recently called the agreement “imminent,” suggesting progress depended on German coalition talks. But their failure to present an agreement at this week’s Paris car show confirms Paris and Berlin still disagree on terms, with the Elysée confirming negotiations remain ongoing.

When Maroš Šefčovič set out his strategy for engaging with China to European Union ambassadors in July, he had a warning for governments urging tougher action on trade against Beijing.

“Sometimes, it’s even popular to start a trade war, but it’s very difficult to finish it,” the EU trade chief recalled later in an interview with POLITICO.

Three months on, Šefčovič has secured a first breakthrough, reaching a deal in Beijing last week to sharply reduce imports of Chinese hybrid cars. The symbolic win marks a small step toward stabilizing a trading relationship that Brussels believes has reached a dangerous tipping point.

The agreement, which will initially cap imports at 350,000 vehicles a year, marks a significant concession from Beijing, whose carmakers have been flooding the European market with increasingly competitive vehicles. 

For Šefčovič, who negotiated last year’s tariff truce with Donald Trump, the agreement suggests his strategy of engagement backed by the threat of tougher trade measures may be starting to pay off.

Šefčovič agreed to launch the trade dialogue at a meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Brussels in late June.

By focusing initially on cars — an area where the EU has leverage as one of the few major markets still open to Chinese manufacturers — the Slovak commissioner hoped to secure a confidence-building win before tackling thornier questions, from critical raw materials to China’s vast industrial overcapacity.

At the same time, he worked to coalesce European governments behind a parallel effort to strengthen the bloc’s trade defenses, reinforcing his negotiating position with the threat of tougher action to bring down the EU’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with China.

The hybrid deal, however, is only the opening move in a much bigger contest.

EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday to take stock, weighing the benefits of continued engagement against demands for more aggressive action to protect European industry from a surge in Chinese imports.

The meeting will test whether a commissioner who has made a career of finding compromises with difficult partners can maintain Europe’s support for a strategy whose success is far from assured.

“You have to deal with the same partner across the table,” Šefčovič said of the risks of starting a trade war, in the interview with POLITICO in August. “So if you can avoid this, it would be much better.”

Market power

Šefčovič’s opening move was to focus on an area where Europe still has leverage: access to its market of 450 million people.

China’s fiercely competitive manufacturers have become global powerhouses, but they are struggling with weak demand at home. A prolonged property slump has weighed on consumer spending, while cutthroat competition has triggered price wars. Domestic sales of passenger vehicles fell 28% in September from a year earlier.

That makes overseas markets increasingly important. With the U.S. shutting out Chinese imports, Europe remains one of the most lucrative markets still open to Chinese manufacturers.

Šefčovič gambled that Beijing would prefer to accept limits on exports rather than risk losing access to the European market altogether.

He set his sights on the automotive sector, where Chinese manufacturers have been making rapid inroads. Chinese carmakers accounted for just 2% of both the European hybrid and plug-in hybrid markets in 2024; by the first half of 2026, their respective shares had risen to 14% and 25%, industry figures show.

The Commission was preparing to restrict hybrid imports even without an agreement. But a negotiated settlement also offered Šefčovič something valuable politically: evidence that engagement with Beijing could deliver tangible results.

The negotiations were intense, according to a person familiar with the talks on the Chinese side.

“It was very, very tough,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations. “Both sides hadn’t seen such intensity in a long time. No summer break, no holidays. They worked around the clock even one, two days prior to Šefčovič’s trip to Beijing.”

While pursuing dialogue, Brussels also wanted to convince Beijing that it was prepared to take tougher action if the negotiations failed.

Šefčovič had earlier flagged plans for a new “diversification instrument” that would require businesses in critical sectors to source essential inputs from at least three suppliers — a move to reduce China’s ability to exploit Europe’s dependence on its critical raw materials.

Then, just three days before Šefčovič’s trip to Beijing, France and Germany raised the stakes.

President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for a powerful new trade weapon that would allow Brussels to restrict — or even shut off — access to the European market within days for countries deemed to have severely distorted the bloc’s single market.

The proposal did not explicitly name China, but Beijing was its obvious target. 

Keeping it together

EU leaders are expected to welcome the agreement but also press the Commission to act quickly to strengthen the bloc’s trade defenses, according to several diplomats. The understanding reached in Beijing has bought time, but hasn’t settled how far Brussels should go if Chinese exports keep rising or negotiations stall.

“We’re losing thousands of jobs in industry; olive oil and ice cream won’t solve the core issue,” said one EU diplomat after Šefčovič briefed ambassadors on Sunday, referring to reported deliverables from the talks.

A senior German official welcomed the Beijing deal as a first step in the right direction. “It’s a positive sign — which, of course, doesn’t fully solve the problem of the trade deficit with China,” the official said.

But Berlin’s support for a tougher line might prove short-lived.

Alicia García-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, argued that Beijing’s concessions had been calculated to assuage Berlin, given the importance of the automotive industry to the German economy.

“I’m just hoping Merz doesn’t turn away from the letter he sent to the Commission,” she said. With the German chancellor politically weakened at home, García-Herrero fears he may be reluctant to risk a prolonged confrontation: “I worry Merz will take this quick win and run.”

That leaves Šefčovič facing a balancing act: keeping EU governments on board with continued engagement with China while maintaining a credible threat of tougher action if the talks break down. 

“I expect [leaders] to give the Commission a nod to move ahead with other trade defense measures. China may see this as a betrayal. If that is the case, we could return to conflict very quickly,” said Noah Barkin, a senior adviser at the Rhodium Group’s China practice.

The battle ahead

For Šefčovič, the challenge now is to turn a limited breakthrough on cars into a broader rebalancing of trade with China — while buying Europe time to strengthen its defenses should the negotiations fail.

“There is an argument for doing to China what China had done to Europe for years — bogging Beijing down in dialogue and process while Europe gets its tools in place. But the EU needs to make full use of the time that these talks provide,” said Rhodium’s Barkin. 

The trade chief is expected to hold a video call with Wang in January, before the two meet again next March. Those talks will test whether Beijing is prepared to make further concessions in sectors where European industry is increasingly on the defensive, including chemicals.

Another priority is critical raw materials, where China has agreed to continue issuing export licenses for rare earths. Beijing’s grip on their supply gives it considerable leverage over European manufacturers, underscoring the limits of Šefčovič’s negotiating position.

The Commission is also preparing two proposals for December: the diversification instrument, aimed at reducing dependence on Chinese supplies, and a mechanism to shield European industries and regions from retaliation.

The scale of the challenge is daunting. Chinese hybrid imports were worth €6.7 billion in the first half of 2026, against an EU-China trade deficit of €360 billion last year. The agreement offers some relief to European automakers but does little to address the underlying imbalance.

Brussels hopes the hybrid safeguard can serve as a blueprint for protecting other industries facing a surge in Chinese imports.

“We hear our industry. That includes the chemical industry, the wind industry, the furniture industry. We know where there’s a surge, and we know what hits the hardest in terms of our deindustrialization,” a senior Commission official said on Monday.

Šefčovič acknowledged the limits of dialogue in his August interview, warning that negotiations would become harder to sustain without tangible progress.

“What would be very important is to come back to say there is acknowledgment of the issue and there are already some pilot schemes which we want to test and to see if they are working,” he said.

“But if simply there will be no action, then of course it will be much more difficult for us just to talk about these issues.”

Jordyn Dahl in Brussels and Hans von der Burchard in Berlin contributed reporting. 

PARIS — Conservative presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau said France should seek a rebate on its contribution to the EU budget ahead of a key European summit in Brussels this week.

France pays more in to the EU budget than it gets out, but it is struggling to reduce a severe budget deficit.

“It’s crazy,” Retailleau, the leader of the conservative party Les Républicains, said at POLITICO’s Competitiveness Summit in Paris. “Why should we contribute more when we know how dire our public finances are?”

European leaders are meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss the bloc’s long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework, which is pitting the so-called frugal countries against those who want a bigger EU budget. France sits in neither camp.

Retailleau singled out structural funds — money that is invested in poorer European regions — as an area where savings could be made.

“We’ve given billions to countries so they would catch up with us. Well they have, and in a couple of years they’ll probably have a higher standard of living. Sorry, but stop,” he said.

However, Retailleau, who is trailing center-right presidential candidate Edouard Philippe and far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen in the polls, did not put a figure on the rebate he would demand if he came to power. Le Pen, who is the front-runner ahead of next year’s presidential election, and her party have proposed slashing France’s yearly contribution by €11.1 billion as early as next year.

Retailleau said he would seek “a negotiation,” rather than unilaterally impose a lower contribution, as Le Pen says she would do.

“I’m not going to behave like Marine Le Pen, I’m pro-European,” said Retailleau.

Retailleau argued that France’s defense and nuclear deterrence investments should also be included in the country’s contribution calculation, because the concept of forward deterrence benefits France’s European neighbors.

Germany has rejected Ireland’s proposal for the EU’s next seven-year budget, despite €159 billion in cuts. And it’s not alone: Governments are divided over where the cuts should fall, while the European Parliament is threatening to block the deal.

Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur unpack the backlash and what it means for this week’s EU leaders’ summit.

Plus, Zoya interviews Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner about Europe’s efforts to curb irregular migration and plans to tighten restrictions on Russian visitors and former soldiers.

And why the influencers expected at this week’s EU summit won’t be showing up after all.

Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

BRUSSELS — Europe will lose out because of €159 billion in cuts to the bloc’s next long-term budget, the European Commission has warned days before EU leaders gather in Brussels for talks on the bloc’s future spending plans.

In an unusual attack, the Commission told governments that scrapping billions from several rainy-day funds will leave Europe less equipped to deal with crises during the next seven-year budget cycle, said four EU diplomats briefed on the talks, granted anonymity to speak freely about confidential discussions.

The Commission’s top budget official, Stéphanie Riso, delivered the warning to the EU’s 27 ambassadors during a closed-door meeting on Sunday, a day after the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which is steering the talks, proposed cutting around 8% from the bloc’s total budget from 2028 to 2034.

The Commission is “very concerned about cuts to flexibility,” said one of the EU diplomats.

As a result of the changes, “we will have no ways left to help farmers and regions when crises hit, because of climate change or geopolitical tensions,” they added.

EU ambassadors gathered to discuss the Irish plan, which envisages cuts of €159 billion in current prices from the Commission’s nearly €2 trillion proposal. Of that amount, €38 billion was cut from foreign aid, €75 billion was axed from competitiveness, and at least €22 billion was slashed from rainy-day funds.

But even those reductions were criticized as insufficient by a German-led group of states pushing for cuts of several hundred billion. During the closed-door meeting, a rival bloc of 17 countries, known as the Friends of Cohesion, welcomed the fact that the Irish presidency had spared agriculture and regional payments from cuts.  

EU governments are racing to finalize a deal on the budget among themselves by the end of the year — before elections in France, Italy and Poland that threaten to disrupt the negotiations.

A leaders’ summit on Thursday and Friday will give early signals as to whether the end-of-year deadline is achievable — or whether leaders should start preparing contingency plans.

One EU diplomat said the pressure is now on those leaders: “What could make a difference is if Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron show up, hand-in-hand, and say we live in a new world.”

Cuts to the future

The Commission warned that cuts such as those put forward by Ireland will shrink the next budget — excluding repayments to post-Covid debt — below the current one.

The cuts overwhelmingly affect EU-wide priorities such as competitiveness, defense and foreign aid while leaving traditional policies untouched such as agriculture and regional payouts, which make up almost half the budget.

The changes undermine the Commission’s proposal, which envisaged more flexibility and steered hundreds of billions of euros toward new priorities.

In a further setback for the Commission, Ireland also downsized — or even scrapped — several financial cushions to shelter EU countries from unforeseen events such as natural disasters or public health emergencies.

The EU executive argues these changes will make spending in the next budget more rigid than in the current one — and potentially warrant a midterm review of the budget further down the line.

However, Ireland’s Europe Minister Thomas Byrne disputed this claim in a press conference on Saturday, saying the budget proposal “offers increased flexibility … in response to the clear call from member states for a simplified and more flexible, modern [budget].”

Another source of tension in the next budget came from Ireland’s watering down the link between EU payouts and economic reforms.

The Commission has repeatedly defended using regular budget payments as a carrot to nudge governments to undertake reforms that will make them more competitive.

However, Ireland’s ambassador to the EU, Aingeal O’Donoghue, said during the meeting that the new text will not link EU cash disbursements and “fiscal reforms,” according to one of the diplomats.

BRUSSELS — Germany and its allies rebuffed Ireland’s plan to downsize the bloc’s next seven-year budget, arguing that the proposed cuts are not enough.

On Saturday, the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which is steering the talks, proposed cutting around 8% from the bloc’s total budget from 2028 to 2034 in a bid to assuage a German-led camp demanding reductions of several hundred billions euros.

But Dublin’s hopes of facilitating a deal were immediately dashed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one the key players in the negotiations as his country contributes to approximately one-quarter of the bloc’s common budget.

“We are still a long way from an agreement. The amount of the new proposal is not a basis for an agreement. The EU budget must be affordable for those who bear the brunt of the financing,” Merz wrote in a statement on Saturday.

Germany leads a group of six “frugal” countries — Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria — which contribute 40% of the Union’s common budget.

Most frugal countries criticized Ireland’s proposed €159 billion in cuts in current prices from the Commission’s nearly €2 trillion proposal, saying they were insufficient.

Sweden’s Europe minister Jessica Rosencrantz described the negotiating document, or negobox, on X as a “wildly unaffordable increase,” as the overall amount would still be higher than the current budget.

Austrian Europe Minister Claudia Bauer echoed that criticism, saying that the new budget remained “miles away from an Austrian yes.”

Tensions will come to a head during a summit of EU leaders next Thursday and Friday, where they will discuss the negobox.

EU governments are racing to reach a budget deal among themselves by the end of the year — before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 threaten to derail negotiations.

But Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen warned on Saturday that “at this rate, there will be no deal by the end of the year.”

Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne, who leads the negotiations, dismissed criticism and described the proposal as a balanced compromise.

“The negotiating box acts to bridge the many differences between the Member states,” Byrne told reporters on Saturday.

Divided Union

The EU is split between frugal countries pushing for cuts across the board and a rival camp of southern and eastern states, the Friends of Cohesion, opposing reductions to farmers’ subsidies and regional payouts known as cohesion policy.

These areas account for almost half of the total budget and are politically sensitive because of pressure from farmers’ lobbies and regions.

In a concession to the 17 Friends of Cohesion, Ireland left the agriculture and regional budgets untouched and focused cuts on other priorities such as competitiveness, defense and development aid.

“There was a strong support for heading one [agriculture and cohesion] from almost all of the member states, including some of the countries who would be considered to be net contributors” to the budget, Byrne told reporters.

Reactions to the negobox from the Friends of Cohesion were more conciliatory than those of their frugal peers.

“It’s an excellent starting point to have recovered the money for the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy], but we’re still not satisfied,” said Italy’s Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida.

Poland’s Europe minister Ignacy Niemczycki welcomed the fact that his country “continues to receive the largest allocation,” but noted that the “change in the overall size of the budget does not match the EU’s ambitions.”

The frugals were also are disappointed that the cuts disproportionately target innovative policies such as defense and competitiveness, which they favor.

“They’re cutting the future to protect the past,” said one EU diplomat from the frugal camp.

BRUSSELS — The bloc’s next seven-year budget suffered a €159 billion cut from the Commission’s original proposal, according to a new plan unveiled Saturday.

The Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which is steering the talks, proposed cutting around 8% to the bloc’s total budget from 2028 to 2034 to appease a German-led camp demanding major cuts.

The Irish negotiating document, or negobox, envisages cuts of €122 billion in current prices from the previous negobox presented by the Cyprus presidency in June. It sets the scene for fraught discussions among the EU’s 27 leaders during a summit next week.

The bloc is split between frugal countries demanding cuts of several hundred billions to the nearly €2 trillion proposal on the table and a rival camp of southern and eastern states, known as the Friends of Cohesion, opposing reductions.

In a concession to the Friends of Cohesion, Ireland shielded farmers’ subsidies and regional payouts, that account for half of the total budget and are politically sensitive, from any cuts.

Instead, the bulk of the reductions came from foreign aid which was cut by €38 billion; competitiveness which was axed by €75 billion and the EU’s administrative costs which were reduced by €10 billion.

Dublin also scrapped a rainy day fund, known as the “EU Facility cushion,” that allowed the European Commission to deploy cash to tackle unforeseen emergencies throughout the seven-year budget cycle.

Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne, who leads the negotiations, defended the proposal as a balanced compromise between 27 countries.

“We protected … the traditional policies of the Union, which are very important for the European Union and the single market. But we also very much look to the future,” Byrne told reporters.

However, Ireland’s proposal is unlikely to satisfy the frugals, who have warned against disproportionate cuts to new EU-wide priorities such as competitiveness, defense and development funding.

“The Irish proposal is a disappointment and not even close to a landing zone. The steep increase in MFF spending compared to today is unaffordable and financially not viable at all. By favouring policy priorities of the 20th century the proposal fails to prepare the EU for the 21st century,” an EU diplomat said.

They added: “This negobox is no basis for an agreement among member states. We urgently need more financial realism and less financial La La Land.”

Germany and its allies criticized the previous Cyprus Council presidency for cutting only €32 billion in the last negobox in June.

The new negobox will also be a hard sell to the European Parliament.

“The Irish Presidency has delivered little progress, no meaningful new solutions and a weaker budget,” the European People Party’s budget negotiator Siegfried Mureșan wrote in a statement shortly after the proposal was published.

He added: “Parliament is not bluffing: the budget proposed by the Irish Presidency will not receive our consent.”

The EU’s 27 ambassadors will react to the negobox during a meeting on Sunday, where they will also prepare the leaders’ discussion on Thursday.

Governments are racing to agree on a budget deal among themselves by the end of the year, before elections in France, Poland and Italy threaten to disrupt the negotiations.

Tax tweaks

The Irish presidency made no major changes to a package of five new EU-wide taxes, or own resources, that were proposed by the Commission last year to generate a total of €66 billion for the budget.

This comes as a disappointment for countries such as France, which had been pressuring Dublin to add the European Parliament’s proposed levies on digital giants, online gambling and crypto firms to the negobox to increase the potential revenue.  

Some of the Commission’s ideas — including a corporate tax, known as CORE, and a levy on polluting firms (ETS) — have been challenged by EU governments for more than a year of negotiations and are seen as unlikely to come to fruition.

Despite pressure to drop the most criticized options, Ireland has kept the five taxes on the table and merely suggested technical changes to overcome opposition.

It suggested phasing in ETS contributions for poorer countries that are overwhelmingly hit by the tax, and increasing EU budget contributions from a levy on carbon imports that is accepted by most governments.

Tensions on own resources will come to a head during Thursday’s leaders’ discussions. The president of the European Council, António Costa, said he intends to “fix” a package of potential taxes that are acceptable to governments during that meeting.

This article was updated.

BRUSSELS ― EU governments expect the proposed size of the bloc’s next seven-year budget to be slashed by €100 billion to €200 billion from the previous plan announced in June, 12 EU diplomats told POLITICO.

Ireland, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU and is steering the talks, will unveil the proposal on Saturday, setting the scene for fraught discussions among EU leaders at their summit next week.

The bloc is split between so-called frugal countries — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and others — that want to slash several hundred billion euros from the nearly €2 trillion proposal on the table, and a rival coalition of southern and eastern countries, the Friends of Cohesion, that opposes the cuts.

Dublin is expected to cut the budget by between €100 billion and €200 billion as a goodwill gesture to the German camp, the diplomats said. However, the Irish plan to shield agriculture and regional spending from major cuts as a concession to the Friends of Cohesion.

At next week’s summit, EU leaders will react to the latest numbers, known as the “negobox” because it gives governments something to negotiate on, and signal early whether an agreement is possible by the end of the year.

Governments are rushing to secure a deal among themselves before national elections in France, Poland and Italy in 2027 threaten to derail the negotiations.

As a neutral broker in the discussions, Ireland hasn’t publicly disclosed its intentions on the negotiating document. 

Dublin’s European Affairs Minister of State Thomas Byrne told the European Parliament earlier this week that EU member countries have made “substantial progress” toward an agreement. But he warned: “we cannot satisfy everybody.”

Germany and its allies criticized the previous Cyprus Council presidency for cutting only €32 billion in the last negobox in June.

Ireland’s looming cuts

The frugals’ calls for budget savings have ignited fears among the Friends of Cohesion. 

The 17 countries — including heavyweights Italy, Spain and Poland — issued a joint statement last week opposing cuts to agriculture and cohesion. 

In a concession to this camp, Ireland is expected to propose budget savings in other policy areas. Governments are bracing for major reductions to the Global Europe fund, the EU’s €200 billion pot of development aid and external relations cash, and the €410 billion European Competitiveness Fund to boost the bloc’s industrial capacity. 

Cuts to administrative costs, with €118 billion earmarked for the EU’s institutions and staff, are also popular among EU governments, though they will yield fewer savings.

However, frugals have warned against shielding agriculture and cohesion from a smaller budget. They argue instead that more money should be steered away from traditional priorities towards new challenges such as defense and competitiveness.

“We are very concerned that Ireland would decide to smash funding for research and external action, which is a major issue for development, our economic interests and migration,” said one EU diplomat, granted anonymity like others in this article to speak frankly about their expectations for the sensitive negotiations.

Tax game

Another sensitive issue is EU-wide taxes — known as “own resources” — to finance the budget and reduce national contributions.

In 2025, the European Commission proposed five new levies that are expected to generate €66 billion per year. During negotiations, governments opposed levies that would overwhelmingly affect their economies.

Several European governments lobbied Ireland to remove a corporate tax, known as CORE, that is unpopular across the bloc. But Dublin is expected to refrain from doing so, and keep the Commission’s five levies in the negobox.

To make CORE more palatable, Dublin might exempt small and medium enterprises from the scope of the levy. It could also make tweaks to a tobacco levy that is opposed by many.

Instead, the European Parliament’s proposed taxes on digital levies, online gambling and crypto firms are expected to be left out entirely from the negobox.  

An EU diplomat criticized these incremental changes as “disappointing and minimal.”

MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has finally done something the far right approves of — calling a snap election on Nov. 29 that the anti-immigrant Vox party is hailing as “Spain’s last chance to be Spain again.”

Polling third in the race, Vox is Spain’s leading nationalist, euroskeptic force and it sees next month’s contest as its prime opportunity to remold the country after eight years of Sánchez’s socialist premiership by getting its people into top ministerial jobs.

Party leader Santiago Abascal greeted Monday’s election announcement as “excellent news.” His delight is hardly surprising given that polls suggest Vox is on track to make the biggest gains of any major party.

While the center-right People’s Party is expected to come first — with about 33% of the vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls — it will almost certainly have to team up with Vox, which commands support of about 18%, to build a stable coalition.

Abascal will then be able to demand the inclusion of key elements of Vox’s agenda as its price for that partnership. Its goals include deportations of undocumented migrants, a benefits preference for Spaniards over foreign nationals, slashing EU health and safety rules in the farming sector and rolling back support for gender equality and the LGBTQ+ community.

Vox secured 33 of the 350 seats in Congress in 2023, but is now set to double that. Under the PP’s coalition leadership, it should be able to form part of a comfortable majority.

“This time round, Vox is much stronger,” José Antonio Fúster, spokesperson for the party and a member of the Madrid regional parliament, said. “We are going into a very important election, not so much for us, as for Spaniards … This is the last hope for Spain to be Spain again.”

Fúster would not be drawn on which ministries his party has set its sights on, warning against “selling the bearskin before it has been hunted.”

Pointing to talks with the PP in recent months in four regions where the two parties now govern in coalition, he said the shaping of policy was being prioritized ahead of institutional power. “That is the last thing we negotiate because it is the least important,” he said.

Pet portfolios

In August, Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé told POLITICO that forming part of the government was not the only option open to his party, but that in a hypothetical coalition with the PP, his party would seek a number of ministries “in proportion to our vote share.”

That would amount to a significant percentage. If current polls translate into results in November, Vox would be in a position to claim about a third of ministerial posts.

Analysts expect Vox to press for portfolios that focus on its pet policies, such as agriculture, domestic policy, immigration and industry. The culture and education portfolios could also be of interest to the party, given their relevance in the hard right’s campaign against so-called wokeism.

The regions where the PP and Vox currently govern together — Andalusia, Aragón, Castile and León, and Extremadura — offer clues: The government departments that Vox controls are mainly linked to agriculture, welfare benefits and the family.

The party is heading into the election campaign espousing three main ideas: the concept of “national priority” — ensuring that Spaniards have access to public services and benefits ahead of foreign nationals — a clampdown on immigration and broad deregulation.

Although Vox’s rise to prominence was driven by its fierce stance against Catalan nationalism nearly a decade ago, that debate has faded from the political arena. Now, its focus is, like its European far-right counterparts, more firmly on immigration-related matters.

“Before, Vox talked about immigration, but it wasn’t the nuclear issue it has become,” said Guillermo Fernández Vázquez, a political scientist at Carlos III University and author of a book about the European far right. “Now, when Vox talks about social security payments, it talks about immigration; when it talks about the economy, it talks about immigration. Immigration is the issue that dictates everything.”

Vox also subscribes to the “remigration” policy being touted by many far-right parties, under which undocumented migrants and those who commit crimes would be deported. The PP has appeared to respond to Vox’s hard line by toughening its own stance, calling for the expulsion of foreign criminals and opposing a government migrant legalization program.

In each of the regions where the two parties are in coalition, Vox has ensured that its senior partner agreed to formally include the national priority principle in their governing agreement.

“But when it comes to national priority, the PP has added the caveat that it has to be implemented in line with the law,” said Miguel González, a journalist at the El País daily newspaper and author of a book about Vox. Legislation prevents discrimination against foreign nationals when it comes to accessing public benefits and services, meaning the policy is currently little more than symbolic in those regions. 

“In reality, in order to implement this properly, you’d have to change the immigration law,” González added.

Vox is eyeing an overhaul of that legislation to make it a workable policy.

“It’s very possible to change laws that are bad for Spaniards, so we have to roll them back and introduce new laws, making sure that Spaniards are not last in line,” Fúster said.

Deregulation nation

Deregulation also offers a platform from which to attack EU health-and-safety norms that are reviled by the farming sector, one of Vox’s main voter bases.

Fúster accepted that this could lead to clashes with the European Commission, but insisted that pressure from what he described as a rising tide of European parties sharing Vox’s values would “make sure that Brussels returns to the path of common sense.”

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has criticized phytosanitary restrictions on farmers but has shown little appetite for conflict with European institutions.

In social policy, González said Vox might use the broader notion of deregulation to dismantle funding for gender equality and LGBTQ+ departments and projects, as it has done on a local level. Fúster was reluctant to be drawn on this: “We believe in the equality of Spaniards,” he said. “We don’t believe that anyone should have privileges above others.”

Fernández Vázquez of Carlos III University said that the origins of Vox suggest a bumpy ride for the PP. Vox would be the first far-right party to enter government in half a century since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 — and there would likely be clashes.

The far-right party formed in 2013 as a breakaway from the conservatives in frustration at what its founders saw as the pusillanimity of the PP in the face of Catalan separatism. 

“I think the relationship between Vox and PP [in government] will be a bad one,” the researcher said. “Abascal and his colleagues are going to enjoy showing up Feijóo whenever they can, portraying him as lukewarm and weak.”

Fúster accepted “it could be a difficult relationship,” adding that the PP “don’t see things the way we do and we don’t share their vision.”

“We’re not willing to make concessions, we’re willing to have a frank, open and reasonable negotiation.”

But for now, the priority is simply to remove the Socialists. In his traditionally combative style, Abascal insisted the election was a chance to hold on to “the peace, prosperity and freedom that a mafioso government wants to snatch from us forever.”

Max Griera contributed to this article.