Europe’s Green party has called on the European Commission to exercise the powers it previously used during the Ukraine war to tax the exceptional profits made by big oil and gas companies during the ongoing conflict in Iran.
“There are models in Europe that we can use to tax these super profits,” German MEP Rasmus Andresen told a European Parliament debate in Strasbourg on Wednesday (7 October), in his call to crack down on Iran-crisis profiteering.
The Strasbourg debate came after Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain wrote to Ireland’s finance minister in August calling for an EU-wide framework to tax windfall profits.
Ireland holds the rotating EU presidency and can set agendas in the EU Council until the end of the year.
Several of those in the group of six EU states already put in place energy windfall taxes since this summer, ranging from 60 percent levies on excess fuel profits in Poland to 33 percent in Portugal.
Many other EU countries oppose introducing another tax at European level, which would require unanimity among all 27 member states to put in place.
But for his part, the Greens’ Andresen told MEPs in the hemicycle on Wednesday: “I don’t understand how despite the fact that there is this initiative from these six member states, that the commission is not taking action.”
Estimates from NGO Transport and Environment found that excess profits of €7.5bn were seen by eight oil companies alone in the first half of 2026 in Europe.
The figures were twice what they had made in the previous quarter.
The EU had reacted to soaring energy prices after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with a special “solidarity” tax on oil and gas firms, said groups on the Parliament’s left.
A commission assessment found that the measure raised €28bn in 2022-2023.
A senior official representing the Irish presidency, Thomas Byrne, said on Wednesday that windfall taxes “could be considered to respond to the concern related to the rising cost of living“.
But energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen poured cold water on appeals for EU-level action, saying “corporate taxation falls mainly in the realm of national competence” in legal terms.
If they were not taxed, “how can they be exonerated from all responsibility in the rise of prices at the gas station?,” said the French vice-president of the Greens group.
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What Ukrainian officers say about the changes brought by the new commander-in-chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi.
He has appointed people in their thirties and forties to important positions, often those who did not suit Syrskyi.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, Ukrainians are preparing a war plan to clarify the Ukrainian army’s long-term objective.
Russians attacked Ukrainian cities during Putin’s birthday, damaging apartment blocks and killing at least 11 people.
Charts of the day: How far production at Russian refineries has fallen; exports of oil and oil products have declined, but Trump is indirectly keeping profits from them high.
Videos of the day: a blazing sunset in Sochi; the music plays on; an unmanned Humvee; a robot’s duel with a drone; what the road to Crimea looks like.
Two and a half months have passed since major general Mykhailo Drapatyi became commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. That may not be enough time for major reforms. But in recent days, articles have begun to appear about how the new commander is trying to change the Ukrainian army.
Unlike his predecessor, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Drapatyi does not promote himself much on social media. He has not made a single Facebook post since July, and his Telegram profile has similarly remained silent.
Ukrainska Pravda journalist Olha Kyrylenko tried to fill this “information vacuum”. She spoke with around 20 senior officers in the Ukrainian army.
Based on their anonymous testimonies, she sought to convey how Drapatyi had changed the Ukrainian army over those two and a half months.
The army is currently performing well at the front: Russians are suffering heavy losses and advancing very slowly, if at all. The protection of military, industrial and civilian sites in the rear against Russian air attacks is worse.
The article she wrote presents Drapatyi in a very positive light. According to Kyrylenko, the first word brigade and corps commanders use to describe the changes he has brought is “freedom”.
Drapatyi gives units considerable freedom and does not seek to micromanage everything at the front, as Syrskyi did.
“Unlike his predecessor, who told some brigade commanders how and where they should fight — and even specified the coordinates where they should establish a position — Drapatyi chose a different approach. He decided to decentralise command and abandon ‘micromanagement’,” Kyrylenko wrote.
Drapatyi is not as concerned with what is happening on each section of the front. He is more interested in statistics, analyses and the broader picture of the war.
“Syrskyi listened to reports from everyone every day and could give specific instructions on how to respond to developments, including where units should advance. Drapatyi does not do this; it is the task of the commanders of military groupings. Drapatyi focuses on strategic and systemic issues,” an unnamed senior military officer told Ukrainska Pravda.
The newspaper also adds that Drapatyi travels to visit units less frequently.
After taking up the post of commander-in-chief, he made several personnel changes. Broadly speaking, he is promoting younger commanders proven in the current war to replace older officers of the old Soviet school.
By contrast, he is moving the latter to rear-area and training roles, or they are retiring.
They are being replaced by younger commanders; Drapatyi himself is only 43. For example, Denys Prokopenko, a general with a far-right past, was put in charge of the important area near Dobropillia, where Russians are currently exerting the greatest pressure, despite being only 35.
Drapatyi has also rehabilitated some commanders who fell out of favour with the command under Syrskyi because of their criticism. One example is Serhii Sobko (42), who resigned last year from command of a brigade after the high command refused to send him reinforcements and would not allow his units to withdraw from a threatened area. Drapatyi appointed him as his deputy.
Emil Ishkulov (39), meanwhile, was sidelined after criticising the previous command over the campaign in the Kursk region, which ultimately ended with the withdrawal of Ukrainian soldiers. Drapatyi made him commander of the 11th Army Corps.
Ukrainska Pravda mentions an example from early summer under Syrskyi, when the 7th Corps was moved from Dobropillia to the Belarusian border in the Volyn region. The command said this would deter a possible Russian attack from Belarus.
After taking office, Drapatyi reversed this decision and sent the corps to defend the Zaporizhzhia region. The units themselves said they had had nothing to do at the Belarusian border for two weeks.
Ukrainska Pravda writes that a war plan is being prepared under Drapatyi. It is intended to define the Ukrainian army’s real long-term objectives and how to achieve them in this war.
“We need a grand strategy for 30 years, so that we as commanders know where we should be heading,” one of the corps commanders said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. The National Security and Defence Council is currently working on the plan.
Journalist Kyrylenko says this is probably the first such plan. However, the Thornpill account wrote that similar plans had already been prepared in 2017 under General Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
The Kyiv Post also published an article headlined that Ukraine’s army is winning under Drapatyi.
“Drapatyi is reshaping Ukraine’s armed forces to focus on drone-intensive warfare, decentralised command and younger combat commanders,” it wrote.
However, the steps taken by the previous command have also had a major influence on the current situation. For example, Operation Vivaldi, through which Andrii Biletskyi’s 3rd Army Corps has been liberating territory north of Lyman, has been under way since May, although its results are only being published now.
Ukrainska Pravda also recalls that Syrskyi handed Drapatyi an army in a better position than the one he had “inherited” in 2024 from the dismissed General Zaluzhnyi. At that time, the Russians were advancing rapidly and captured Avdiivka, for example.
The current commander-in-chief had an “easier start” in July.
“Drapatyi took office at a time when the front had been relatively stabilised, with Ukrainian armed forces even holding the advantage on the battlefield in some places. According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, the corps reform initiated by Syrskyi played a key role in this. Not all corps managed to develop into strong units, but the 3rd Corps, for example, substantially strengthened and literally retrained the relatively weak brigades it had received for combat duty,” Ukrainska Pravda added.
Nevertheless, several Western analysts shared the current reports about Drapatyi’s initial changes, especially his granting greater freedom to commanders. “It is a pity that Syrskyi was not replaced by Drapatyi much earlier — Ukraine would be in a better position now,” said Jakub Janovský, an OSINT analyst at Oryx, for example.
Russia again attacked Ukraine overnight into Wednesday. This time, it deployed at least five ballistic missiles, nearly 50 cruise missiles and 130 drones, 46 of them jet-powered. The fairly respectable 83-percent interception rate for jet-powered drones is noteworthy.
However, Russian missiles and drones also struck several locations and residential buildings. “Today, on Putin’s birthday, the Russian army ‘gave’ him the destruction of a residential building in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region. It was an ordinary five-storey building. Unfortunately, according to current information, five people were killed and 26 injured, including five children. People may still be trapped beneath the rubble,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The Russian attack damaged five apartment blocks in Dnipro and four in the city of Kremenchuk. This is what the situation in Kremenchuk looked like.
This is my hometown in the video, and today it suffered too. This is Kremenchuk – a city in Ukraine whose name doesn't pop up in news feeds very often, but tonight it got hit as well. One of the missiles hit a courtyard between high-rises: windows, cars parked in the yards, and… pic.twitter.com/PeeUkU19dZ
As can be seen in these photographs, a ballistic missile fell in Kyiv but did not explode; Ukrainian bomb disposal experts tried to render it harmless.
An unexploded Russian Iskander 9M723 ballistic missile lies among residential buildings in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, where Ukrainian bomb disposal teams are conducting a complex operation to neutralize it.
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 7, 2026
Chart of the day
Ukrainians claim that their attacks on refineries have put more than 50 percent of Russia’s oil-processing capacity out of action. Michael Bohnert, an analyst at the RAND think tank, wrote on X that this was not entirely accurate. According to his calculations, current fuel production at Russian refineries stands at 3.22 million barrels per day. Before the war, it was usually around 5.5 million barrels per day, meaning a fall of about 40 percent.
There has also been a monthly decline of 0.36 million barrels per day, apparently owing to the latest attacks on refineries, for example in Moscow and Samara.
Ukraine says its strikes have taken out more than half of Russia’s refining capacity. Live crude runs do not show that.
My bottom-up tracker (41 refineries plus the mini-tail, version 2) puts national throughput at about 3.22 mb/d as of 6 Oct. That is down 0.36 mb/d over the… pic.twitter.com/RhXrzGlnJS
According to Bohnert, this is the third time Ukrainians have managed to reduce Russian oil processing so substantially. There was a drop of around 40 percent last autumn and in July this year. “3.2m barrels per day is roughly the point at which things start becoming uncomfortable for Moscow,” he wrote.
Unlike last year, however, Russia is helping itself through imports. The country, once the world’s third-largest fuel exporter, has sharply curtailed its exports. At the same time, it is partially making up for the shortfall in domestic production through imports.
South Korea is also helping it in this respect. According to information from the Guardian, 176,000 tonnes of fuel, mainly diesel, arrived from South Korea at Russian ports in the Far East in July and August. Seven tankers made a total of 14 voyages to Russia. Three of the tankers are on the European Union’s sanctions list.
Overall, Russia imported 368,000 tonnes of petroleum products by sea in August, a third of them from South Korea. The country, which once supported Ukraine not only verbally but also through non-military aid, is now helping Russia cope with Ukrainian attacks on refineries.
High petrol prices are also working in Russia’s favour. Analysts at the Kyiv School of Economics Institute published a chart showing that Russia exported the least oil and petroleum products in August since 2018. As the final bar in the left-hand chart shows, this was mainly due to a decline in petroleum-product exports.
Nevertheless, revenue from sales remains at last year’s level (the purple line in the left-hand chart). This is mainly due to the rise in their prices on global markets as a result of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
1/9 🛢️ Russia’s crude oil and oil product exports fell to their lowest level since 2018 in August. Despite higher prices, oil export revenues increased by just $0.3B to $13.9B. September Russian Oil Tracker by @KSE_Institute 👉 https://t.co/Rk4hd5OiA6pic.twitter.com/KdVMj4QjVV
This was the sunset seen by residents of the Russian coastal city of Sochi on Tuesday. A tanker sailing under the Liberian flag was burning close to shore. Footage showed that it was ablaze along virtually its entire length.
The Russian Rybar channel wrote that it had been hit by naval drones. It was therefore probably a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s shadow fleet, which exports oil around the world and thereby finances the war.
The oil-laden tanker was travelling from Novorossiysk to India. Local residents reported an explosion and feared that oil would spill into the sea.
🔥🚢 A dramatic view from the Russian Sochi right now, where the burning oil tanker off the port has turned into a massive wall of fire pic.twitter.com/oFKrLRTIuw
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 6, 2026
This is a rather surreal continuation of the previous video. A man is playing guitar on the promenade in Sochi while an oil tanker burns behind him, sending up an enormous plume of smoke.
Recorded on October 6, 2026, in Sochi, Russia. A street musician continues to play music on the waterfront while an oil tanker burns offshore in the background. pic.twitter.com/5lcfiOqZD2
Ukrainians are experimenting with remotely controlled vehicles. This video shows how a US Humvee off-road vehicle was converted into a remotely operated ground drone. It was loaded with wooden beams, which it delivered to soldiers building fortifications.
A Ukrainian HMMWV converted into a remotely controlled UGV is being used for frontline logistics, delivering timber for the construction and reinforcement of defensive positions. pic.twitter.com/NxQnuoa6Xf
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 7, 2026
This video shows a duel between a Ukrainian robot and a Russian FPV drone. In this case, the robot ultimately won, neutralising the drone by ramming it.
A Ukrainian ground robotic system rammed and destroyed a Russian FPV drone on the Pokrovsk axis. The UGV, operated by the 25th Sicheslav Airborne Brigade of Ukraine’s 7th Air Assault Corps, was returning from a combat mission when the FPV began pursuing it. The operators… pic.twitter.com/dIPGuEMVVC
Ukrainian attacks on the land route to Crimea continue. This is what one of the roads to Crimea currently looks like, with numerous damaged and destroyed lorries visible.
This is only part of the road now referred to as the land corridor to Crimea. Another road has turned into a "road of death" for the Russians. pic.twitter.com/D0fKAXQdGo
By Monday (5 October), Russia had verifiably lost 24,170 pieces of heavy equipment (24,138 on Tuesday, 22 September). Of these, 19,133 (19,105) were destroyed by Ukrainians, 1,003 (1,000) were damaged, 1,194 (1,194) were abandoned by their crews, and 2,840 (2,839) were captured by the Ukrainian army. This includes 4,452 (4,448) tanks, of which 3,357 (3,353) were destroyed in combat.
Ukraine has lost 12,238 (12,175) pieces of equipment, of which 9,633 (9,579) were destroyed, 711 (702) damaged, 695 (695) abandoned and 1,199 (1,199) captured. This includes 1,466 (1,464) tanks, of which 1,126 (1,125) were destroyed in combat.
Note: Neither side regularly reports its fatalities or destroyed equipment. Ukraine publishes daily figures for Russian casualties and destroyed equipment, which cannot be independently verified. This overview uses data from the Oryx project, which has compiled a list of equipment losses documented exclusively by photographs since the start of the war.
The EU should not accept any cuts to the proposed allocation of funds to defence and security in the next long-term EU budget, German MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
“Without security, we have no discussion anymore about anything,” the chair of the European Parliament’s committee on defence and security (SEDE) told the European Newsroom (enr) on the sidelines of Parliament’s plenary session.
The European Commission has proposed €131 billion for investment in defence, security and space under the European Competitiveness Fund in the EU’s 2028–2034 budget. This represents a five-fold increase compared with the current budget period.
Asked what compromise she would accept on the size, funding or allocation of defence spending to secure a budget agreement, Strack-Zimmermann said: “We need everything without compromises.”
The next long-term budget requires unanimous agreement among EU member states and the European Parliament’s consent.
Support for Ukraine
Strack-Zimmermann accused Russia of trying to deter European leaders from visiting Kyiv and undermine their support for Ukraine following attacks during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit last Sunday.
Asked about accelerating deliveries to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s war of agression, Strack-Zimmermann said funding was available but action required approval from national governments.
Ukraine needed humanitarian, military and economic assistance, including money to produce more weapons to protect its people, she said.
All in on SAFE
Strack-Zimmermann urged countries to move faster on joint defence procurement, backing the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument.
SAFE provides up to €150 billion in competitively priced loans to member states aimed at accelerating large-scale investment in critical capabilities.
“We have more than 150 different weapons systems and to protect Europe we need this SAFE program,” the German politician said.
She said the programme had attracted interest both within and outside the EU. According to the European Commission, 19 EU member states have submitted defence investment plans, such as France, Italy and Poland, but not Germany.
The first non-European country to participate in SAFE was Canada, which concluded an agreement with the EU in June.
Every major technological shift reshapes not just the economy but the tax system that pays for it. When big corporations emerged, corporate and payroll taxes followed. When mass car ownership took hold, fuel duties emerged to pay for the roads it required.
As AI shifts work from people to machines, it will force a rethink of who gets taxed, on what, and where. Nowhere is that question more urgent than in Europe, which funds the world’s most comprehensive welfare states primarily through taxes on work.
Taxes on work make up 51.5 percent of all tax revenue in the EU-27, according to the European Commission’s latest Taxation Trends data — a share that rose in 2024. These charges are taken straight from the payslip. They’re hard to avoid, and scale with employment.
AI, by replacing human work with software and machines, eats away at exactly this tax base.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that around 40 percent of jobs worldwide are exposed to AI. If that leads to fewer workers, it will also mean fewer payslips, pension contributions and social charges, weakening the revenue streams that fund Europe’s pension and healthcare systems. This is not a distant problem; the costs are already mounting.
Shift the burden to corporate profits
The obvious response is to shift more of the tax burden onto corporate profits, which will increasingly reflect the gains firms make by deploying AI instead of hiring workers.
Unlike a tax on machines and equipment themselves, a profit tax falls mostly on excess profits and need not distort investment. The case for shifting weight from payroll taxes to profits is strong and strengthens as AI replaces more workers with machines.
But profits, unlike payrolls, move. A company can locate its intellectual property in a low-rate jurisdiction — a pattern Europe knows well from decades of profits routed through Ireland and Luxembourg — and ensure that profits are booked far from where the jobs are lost. It is how the world’s largest technology and AI firms already operate.
Two-pillar answer
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Inclusive Framework was designed to address exactly this: profits shifted across jurisdictions to avoid tax, and e-commerce allowed sales where firms have no physical presence. AI makes these reforms more urgent.
Pillar One of the framework put forward by the Paris-based wealthy nations’ club addresses where a corporation is taxed. It shifts partial taxing rights for the largest multinationals away from where they are headquartered and toward where their customers and users are located.
Still under negotiation, it would apply only to a handful of the largest firms, but many AI companies would qualify.
These firms are concentrated in a select number of countries, very few of them European, but the displacement they cause, and the public services that displaced workers will require, will weigh heavily on European budgets.
Pillar Two of the OECD framework introduces a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent on multinationals with revenues above €750m.
The EU moved first and furthest: Council Directive (EU) 2022/2523 made the minimum tax binding across the Union from 2024, and 22 of the 27 member states now apply it in full. The United States, notably, has not implemented the rules.
Politics is undermining the fix
But the obstacles are real. US ratification of the OECD proposals is unlikely, and many of the largest companies are headquartered there.
The pressure is already reshaping Europe’s own rules: under the G7’s June 2025 ‘side-by-side’ agreement, US-parented groups would be exempt from the EU’s minimum-tax rules: a carveout the European Commission confirmed in January 2026 and which several member states consider legally fragile.
The Commission also dropped its proposed EU digital levy under US trade pressure, leaving a patchwork of national digital services taxes in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and elsewhere.
Such exceptions and carveouts show that big-power politics can hollow out the framework. These reforms were designed to address the tax challenges for an AI-economy. They were good policy then. They are fiscal necessities now. Fairer corporate taxation will not be enough, but it is a start.
Europe’s choice
The EU has instruments on the table, the BEFIT common corporate tax base and the proposed Corporate Resource for Europe, but both remain politically contested.
European governments that fail to act will be managing the social costs of technological disruption with a tax system built for the industrial age, while the profits that fund their rivals accumulate beyond their reach.
Even if Europeans work less, their needs for health care, pensions, and consumption remain. As wage-based contributions shrink, Europe must shift more of the tax burden onto corporate profits and close off the routes that let those profits move beyond the reach of the states bearing the costs of automation.
Productivity gains may soften the arithmetic; they will not repeal it. The tax base must follow the economy.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
Chinese carmakers are taking an increasing share of the European car market, particularly when it comes to electric vehicles. Why are European carmakers now opening their factories to their Chinese competitors?
Until recently, the main concern in Europe was Chinese-made electric vehicles being imported into the EU. That’s why, two years ago, the EU imposed hefty tariffs on Chinese electric cars.
But Chinese manufacturers have found another way into the European market: they are setting up production here. Some are building factories of their own. Others are entering partnerships with European carmakers and using their existing production sites.
That’s the case with Stellantis and Chinese manufacturer Leapmotor. And now Dongfeng is also negotiating to produce cars at the French plant of Rennes La Janais. Because by moving production to Europe, Chinese manufacturers may be losing one of their main advantages, which is cheap labour.
But low labour costs are only one part of their competitive edge.
Chinese manufacturers also continue to benefit from state support. And setting up production in Europe doesn’t necessarily mean building brand-new factories.
In many cases, Chinese companies are looking to partner with European manufacturers and use factories that are already there — factories that are no longer operating at full capacity. That means they can save significantly on investment costs. And they can also rely on their European partners’ existing sales and distribution networks.
So how big is this Chinese presence in Europe becoming? For 2028, there are already 12 projects involving Chinese carmakers setting up production in Europe. Several are in Spain, with others in France, Belgium, Slovakia, Hungary, Sweden and Austria.
Now, why would European manufacturers allow their Chinese competitors to produce cars in their own factories? Part of the answer is that European carmakers are struggling to keep up in electric vehicles sells. And that is contributing to factory closures and job losses.
European manufacturers have to meet EU targets on average CO2 emissions each year. And producing more electric vehicles is necessary to meet those requirements.
So partnerships with Chinese manufacturers can serve two purposes: they can help European companies fulfilling their green cars objectives, while also keeping existing factories and jobs running.
Though there is a longer-term risk for European manufacturers. The more Chinese companies establish themselves in Europe, the more competitive pressure they could put on European brands — potentially even leading to takeovers. That has happened before: Volvo Cars, for example, was acquired by Chinese group Geely in 2010.
In Germany, carmakers are for now refusing to open the doors of their production sites to the Chinese. But they do have partnerships with Chinese companies to produce vehicles in China, where they can benefit from lower production costs. That explains why they were very much opposed to imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
But the situation is now changing. Volkswagen closed its Dresden factory last year, and other German plants are also facing closure risks. Germany’s car industry is therefore increasingly joining calls for stronger protection against Chinese competition.
And that brings us back to the Franco-German paper that is circulating in Brussels, which calls for measures to restrict Chinese access to the European market.
Because this debate goes well beyond cars. The EU is increasingly concerned about Chinese competition and dependence in a range of strategic industries. This will be discussed next week, when EU leaders meet in Brussels.
The European Commission could also present a new so-called “diversification” tool, either at the summit or around it. One possibility would be to require companies not to rely exclusively on China for certain critical materials. Something which could trigger what we call a trade war. I’ll be following that very closely!
Media-Society.com // Presented in Warsaw, the OSCE chairpersonship’s plan turns established human rights obligations into practical measures for detention, investigation and survivor support Switzerland presented an 18-point roadmap for preventing and eradicating torture at the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference on Tuesday, setting out practical measures for police stations, prisons, courts and independent monitoring bodies across […]
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