Getting co-decision powers on the budget, finally enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty after more than a decade of inter-institutional battles, was one of the European Parliament’s big wins.
The challenge facing MEPs in the coming months is whether they are really going to use those powers on the 2028-34 budget.
The early signs are that they are spoiling for a fight. The Irish government’s compromise proposal tabled on Saturday (10 October) – an 8 percent cut worth €141bn to the European Commission’s spending plan – isn’t exactly butchery.
But it does display a startling lack of ambition, in particular on the raft of ‘own resources’ proposed by MEPs to make the budget process less vulnerable to member states wanting to reduce or at least freeze their annual contributions
This time round, MEPs have proposed a digital services levy, an online gambling levy, and a levy on crypto-asset capital gains.
Put together the parliament reckons that these new taxes could bring an additional €30bn to the EU’s budget, on top of the €57.4bn that the EU commission believes can be raised from other levies, such as the emissions trading scheme and the carbon border levy.
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“The issue is, do we have another leader to replace Pedro Sánchez?”.
Former Spanish congresswoman Hana Jalloul Muro is among her prime minister’s closest allies in the European Parliament.
“It has not been an easy mandate. Every day is a survival day, all the challenges that prime minister Pedro Sánchez has faced have been unprecedented,” the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP told EUobserver.
They had faced the Covid pandemic, a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands in 2021, and the migrant crisis in the Ceuta enclave in north Africa in the summer of 2026, she said – not to mention the corruption allegations levelled at his close relatives.
Sánchez’ PSOE party is trailing behind the centre right people’s party (PP) in the polls, which is also growing closer allied to the increasingly successful far-right Vox party.
“These elections will pit two models against each other,” Jalloul said.
“On the one hand, a progressive government that defends public services, improves wages and pensions, expands rights and protects the social majority. And on the other, a model represented by the PP and Vox, which, wherever they govern, have opted for privatisations and policies that risk widening inequalities,” she said.
Ceuta-linked election
Jalloul, who spoke to EUobserver at the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, used to lecture on international terrorism at the University of Madrid, before she became vice-chair of the EP’s foreign affairs committee.
And she recalled the heated debate on the Ceuta incident on 31 July, including accusations that Morocco had engineered it to gain leverage over Spain.
“This is a crisis that we could not expect,” she said.
But had there not been a “good relationship with Morocco, [we] would never be able to return 90 percent of the 70,000 people that came in less than 72 hours,” she added.
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A lethal plume of toxic smoke was blowing towards us from a blaze at a battery manufacturing plant in Kaliningrad.
Troops in the Russian exclave had been ordered to help put the fire out: untrained and under-equipped, they mutinied. Terrified civilians were thronging the borders.
The Kremlin, oblivious to the unfolding humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, blamed the West for sabotage and incitement, and demanded a transit corridor across Lithuania.
The crisis scenarios were hypothetical; the aim was to explore the dilemmas and trade-offs they created. (You are the Lithuanian government. Do you let the mutineers in? Or leave them to be massacred?)
The games-master provided regular “injects” – new developments – such as ill-written social media posts from US president Donald Trump. He blamed the authorities in “Lithvastonia” for having started the fire in “Kaliningradia”.
An amusing parody, we thought. A few hours later, the real US president published news of his deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin on sanctions-busting diesel imports, then blamed Ukraine for being invaded.
Not so amusing, especially for our Ukrainian participant, a senior military commander there.
As we were leaving (us to safety, him to danger), news broke that Russia is stepping up its assassination attempts in Europe, targeting defence industry bosses (and perhaps Polish politicians). Our scenarios seemed tame in comparison.
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They looked like Russian “porcupines” and fought where the Kremlin considers Russian rear territory. They were protected by their own drone.
Drones also struck Yandex’s third data centre.
The battle for Dobropillia on a new type of map.
Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles caused the largest single massacre of senior Russian officers of the entire war in August.
Maps of the day — Dobropillia, Kharkiv region
Videos of the day — Abrams as a porcupine; MANPADS against a Geran; Russian port during an air raid; nighttime FPV drone combat; Kyiv resident narrowly escapes death at a playground
They looked like Russian “porcupines” and fought where the Kremlin considers Russian rear territory. They were protected by their own drone. Both the Russian and Ukrainian armies are continuing their efforts to return tanks and combat vehicles to the battlefield.
Russia recently attacked near Dobropillia with tanks fitted with upgraded Arena-M active protection systems.
The system itself proved effective, but was ultimately unable to withstand the flood of drones, and the attack ended in defeat and the destruction of the tanks deployed.
Last week, we also wrote about a successful operation by Ukrainian tanks from the 475th Assault Regiment.
And the same Ukrainian unit, also known as CODE 9.2, demonstrated a new use of heavy armoured equipment over the weekend.
Compared with the first case, this one revealed an important detail about the operation of accompanying drones and, thanks to geolocation, can also be used to verify the accuracy of Russian maps.
The battle took place in the Kharkiv region and involved a US-made Bradley combat vehicle as well as a tank. According to one source, it was an Abrams of Australian origin, although the appearance of its gun barrel does not suggest this.
In a video released by the unit, the Bradley advances first towards Russian positions and begins laying down covering fire. The tank joins it later, firing directly at the target.
While the Bradley’s turret has retained its mobility, the tank has effectively become an assault gun of the type known from the Second World War.
Its turret does not appear to be capable of moving, and the crew must aim the entire tank at the target. This reduces the effectiveness and speed of firing, while increasing its chances of survival.
A tank modified in this way is virtually indistinguishable from similar Russian adaptations. What distinguishes these attempts is, once again, the involvement of accompanying drones.
Aside from the heavy Vampire, first seen at 1:30, this primarily includes an FPV drone which, at 1:58, neutralises in an aerial duel the same type of Russian weapon that had attempted to strike the tank.
This is another example of how heavy equipment must be accompanied by drones at this stage of the war if it is to remain combat-capable.
Despite air support, another drone strikes it at 2:16 — after another had narrowly missed earlier. The tank remained mobile and withdrew successfully.
Beyond the operation itself, its location is also noteworthy: near the village of Anishchyne in the north-eastern part of the Kharkiv region, on the axis Russia calls the Velykyi Burluk direction.
The Ukrainian Telegram account Petrenko, which also provided the map below, precisely identified the site of the battle.
“The video reveals a discrepancy between reality and Russian claims of an alleged massive advance, the encirclement of Ukrainian units and the capture of more than 65 settlements,” the author wrote.
He noted that both vehicles operated in territory that most Russian maps mark in red — as a “Russian” zone.
This is the same area about which we have written repeatedly. For comparison, below is a map by the Russian state agency Ria Novosti. The village of Anishchyne does not appear on it, but the settlement of Vilkhuvatka — Olkhovatka in Russian — serves as a reference point in the centre-right.
The tank and Bradley were fighting around five km north of a location that Russia marks as securely captured.
Drones also struck Yandex’s third data centre. Graphs circulated online, particularly on Sunday, suggesting that Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s largest internet provider had restricted the operations of Russian bots around the world.
However, this has not yet been objectively proven. Russia has indeed reported outages affecting various internet-based services after each attack, but that is so far the only confirmed effect.
On this occasion, French analyst Clément Molin pointed out that the Russian Varyag drone brigade had attacked data centres in Ukraine in recent weeks and had boasted, among other things, of damaging Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest operator.
The situation has now been reversed, as it was previously with attacks on ships and warehouses. This time, however, to Russia’s disadvantage.
Russia 🇷🇺 bombed multiple data centers in Kyiv, Dnipro or Odesa these last few weeks and proudly showed footage about it
Now, Ukraine is bombing Yandex data centers and causing much more harm to Russia than Russia did to Ukraine.
The first centre hit was in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region, followed by a second in Kaluga, in the Kaluga region. On Sunday, the third of Yandex’s four largest centres was struck, this time in Vladimir, in the Vladimir region.
“This complex houses one of the company’s Galushkin supercomputers, which is among the most powerful in Russia,” Kommersant wrote, adding that the facility had been taken out of service, affecting 10 core Yandex services, including its email service.
The defence ministry is also working on the issue in an effort to protect the company’s remaining facilities. Citing its sources, Kommersant said replacing the damaged capacity could take up to six months.
The battle for Dobropillia on a new type of map. As the war evolves, so do the ways it is mapped. This Ukrainian OSINT profile, for example, has depicted the fighting for the important Donbas town — which protects the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration from the south-west — on a dynamic map.
Among other things, it shows that Russian forces are infiltrating the town through the village of Hanivka from the Nove Shakhove area.
Mashovets Dobropillia Russia wants Kramatorsk, to the north-east. Its strongest attack here heads west, into Dobropillia: up to 40 men a day along the Byk river.
If Dobropillia and Druzhkivka hold to late December, Russia would have to replan the offensive. pic.twitter.com/OXg8F1WYXy
For a clearer picture, we are also including a static DeepStateUA map, as the previous one is rotated and does not follow the usual compass orientation.
The two maps are rotated by around 90 degrees in relation to each other. On the following one, Dobropillia is in the centre-left. Nove Shakhove, from where Russian infiltrators are advancing, is almost at the centre, exactly 10 km to the east as the crow flies. A small arrow directly next to the settlement’s name indicates the direction of Russian attacks.
The green area in the upper part of the map is the so-called Dobropillia salient, which was fought over a year ago.
Russia reported nothing significant concerning Dobropillia after the weekend. “On the Dobropillia axis, our forces continue to push forward, but Ukrainian units retain the ability to counterattack. Heavy fighting is under way,” the Two Majors wrote, for example.
The Ukrainian Telegram channel Petrenko published a map over the weekend showing sites of new infiltrations. Its interpretation differs considerably from DeepStateUA’s version. Russian forces are shown closer to the town, but the direction of their advance is the same as in the two previous sources.
The sites of the recorded incursions were established on the basis of videos showing drones killing Russian soldiers attempting to advance further west.
Storm Shadow missiles caused the largest single massacre of senior Russian officers in August. On Friday (9 October), a joint project by Russian exile newspaper Meduza and the BBC’s Russian service added another 17,124 names to its list of Russian war casualties. This was the number it had counted since 21 September. In total, 276,113 Russian soldiers killed in the war are now known by name.
On the same day, the project’s authors published a detailed analysis of events in Donetsk on 26 August. The Ukrainian air force had attacked a building in Donetsk with Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles.
The strike was so intense that the target must have been something significant. Almost immediately, there was speculation that the building housed an important Russian headquarters.
Meduza and the BBC counted 20 high-ranking Russian military personnel killed during a joint meeting of the headquarters of the Centre group of forces and its subordinate 41st Army — 18 at the scene and another two from their injuries in the following days.
This week, in our update of Russian losses in Ukraine: – 17,000 names added to our list since September 21https://t.co/lBGxPNvv8z
They included seven colonels, six lieutenant colonels, five majors, one captain and one senior non-commissioned officer. They were identified thanks to access to nominal lists of headquarters staff as of 25 July and after that date.
It also emerged that this was not the first time officers of the 41st Army had had a bad day. During an attack on 8 September 2025, it lost a lieutenant colonel, two majors and a lieutenant. The toll on 4 August 2026 was even worse, when the army lost two lieutenant colonels, three majors, two captains and one lieutenant at once.
The following images illustrate the scale of destruction caused by the strike on 26 August:
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 26, 2026
Videos of the day
As Russian jet-powered drones become more widespread, videos are also appearing more frequently of Ukrainian soldiers shooting them down with man-portable air-defence systems, known by the English acronym MANPADS. This is one of them.
A Ukrainian soldier shot down a Russian jet-powered Geran-4 drone using an Igla-1 MANPADS over Ukraine’s Rivne region this morning. pic.twitter.com/4onx7UNclQ
Despite its best efforts, air defences at one of Russia’s ports were unable to shoot down a Ukrainian drone, which subsequently struck a Black Sea Fleet vessel. Note the beams of light used to assist with targeting.
Один из Z-блогеров опубликовал видео работы ПВО в гавани (Новороссийск?) и попадание дрона ВСУ в военный корабль. Дата съемки неизвестна, однако, уже видны те самые синие лучи, которые пару лет назад решили ввести как лучшее средство подсветки цели. Покупали их военные обычно за… pic.twitter.com/WvDuR369Z3
The Russian soldiers in this nighttime video appear relaxed. They were probably moving through an area they still considered relatively safe. But a waiting drone equipped with a thermal camera was tracking them.
A Ukrainian FPV drone lying in ambush at night spots a passing Russian assault group of four soldiers on a quad bike, waits for the right moment, then takes off and strikes them. pic.twitter.com/MD83B4RkKk
A Kyiv resident narrowly avoided a Russian drone at the last moment as it crashed into a playground.
A man narrowly escaped a Russian drone strike on the grounds of a kindergarten in Ukraine’s Kyiv region yesterday. pic.twitter.com/aOwWNAa6Vj
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 9, 2026
What are the losses
No update on Friday.
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 Ukraine, 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 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 own dead 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 based exclusively on photographically documented equipment losses since the start of the war.
The American humorist Will Rogers observed that there are three kinds of people in this world: those who learn by reading; those who learn by observation; and the rest, who have to learn by peeing on the electric fence for themselves.
In Europe, we have been learning things the hard way.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting turmoil came as a shock to our energy system. More recently, the conflict in the Gulf has sparked fresh shock waves.
Having built on our experience of the energy crisis in 2022, Europe was better prepared. But the fact of the matter is that we were still left exposed to external shocks.
Since the start of the conflict, the EU spent more than €100bn more on imported oil and gas, compared to the same period last year. We are not only learning the hard way – we are learning the expensive way.
And the lesson could not be clearer: we need to free ourselves from fossil fuel imports, as much as possible and as soon as possible.
The more clean energy that we produce – from homegrown sources like renewables, nuclear, and geothermal – the lower our bills become. At the same time, we also strengthen our energy security, cut our emissions, and reinforce our energy independence.
That’s the direction we are taking
Last year, we added 89 gigawatts of renewable energy to our energy system. One gigawatt is enough to provide electricity for up to 1m households.
And for the first time ever, the EU produced more electricity from solar and wind than from fossil fuels.
In other words, more of our energy is being “made in Europe”, which makes us less reliant on fossil imports. Since 2022, we have decreased our gas consumption significantly, to the order of 17 percent.
But it’s not just about how Europe generates electricity – it’s about how we share it. Over the past decades, EU countries have linked up their electricity markets to a degree not seen elsewhere in the world.
This makes it much easier to support each other with supplies in times of need, as well as to buy and sell electricity across borders at the best price.
This progress has firmed up the foundations of our energy system. But can these foundations withstand our uncertain times? I believe that they can and they will – as long we stick to a solid strategy.
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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:
European gas storage levels are unusually low for this time of year, reaching their lowest autumn level since 2011.
With Russian gas imports set to end in 2027, could Europe face a tougher challenge in the months ahead?
First, how do Europe’s gas reserves work? EU countries fill underground gas storage sites during spring and summer, when demand is lower, and draw on these stocks during the winter, when heating pushes consumption up.
Since 2022, the EU has required member states to ensure their gas storage facilities reach 90 percent of capacity by a deadline between 1 October and 1 December. That helps secure supplies ahead of winter.
But this year, stocks are well below that target, at just over 70 percent in early October. They still have time to rise before the deadline, but the situation is attracting attention.
Does that mean Europeans are at risk of running out of gas this winter? According to the European Commission, no. It acknowledges that storage levels are low compared with previous years, but says the EU’s gas system should still be flexible enough to meet demand this winter.
That said, a colder or longer winter than expected, or disruptions to supplies in other parts of the world, could put additional pressure on the market. Especially at a time when the EU is preparing to phase out Russian gas imports in 2027.
The EU has adopted a gradual ban, with transitional arrangements for existing long-term contracts.
Russian liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is due to be phased out completely from January 2027 only. Russian gas delivered by pipeline will follow later, with the deadline set for the end of September 2027.
And Russian gas still accounted for around 12 percent of EU gas demand through May 2026. Imports even increased in the first months of this year compared with the same period in 2025, amid disruptions to energy flows linked to the war in the Middle East.
So, from January, Europe will lose one source of supply. Which means Europe should try and reduce its gas consumption.
But it’s easier said than done, particularly as winter approaches. Heating needs depend heavily on temperatures, and households cannot simply stop heating their homes.
Still, Europe has shown in the past that consumption can fall significantly. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Commission called on member states to reduce their gas demand by 15 percent.
And they succeeded: their gas demand fell of around 18 percent, compared with the previous five-year average. A few months ago, following the escalation of the war in the Middle East, the Jacques Delors Institute recommended reviving efforts to reduce gas demand.
That being said, the reduction achieved in 2022 was partly helped by a mild winter and greater use of alternative energy sources, including coal and nuclear power.
Those options may help again, but they come with limitations. Much will depend on the weather and how long the winter lasts.
Which doesn’t mean Europe should not call for lowering the demand and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.
Nearly three decades after the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country remains deeply divided along ethnic and political lines.
The agreement brought peace, but its complex political system has done little to overcome those divisions. Republika Srpska, the predominantly Serb entity, has pursued an increasingly divergent political course, while Serbia and Croatia maintain close ties with different parts of the country.
And for Christian Schmidt, the international community’s high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (2021-26) the main threat is no longer a return to war, but political stagnation and growing frustration.
He says that weak civic engagement, slow progress towards EU membership and the influence of Russia and neighbouring countries are reinforcing Bosnia’s divisions. Young people, he says, are increasingly responding by leaving the country.
In this interview, Schmidt discusses foreign influence, the EU’s role, the legacy of Dayton, and why Bosnia’s future may depend on whether it can build a stronger political community across its ethnic divisions.
A country that remains divided
You started your work in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021 and were there for five years. It was a period of major changes, with COVID and then the war in Ukraine. What were your experiences of these moments. How has the situation in Bosnia evolved?
I think there has not been sufficient involvement. Civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not very strong. It is, more than just politically, somehow divided on political issues. This prevents a joint political position or commitment from civil society to make more progress in democratic development and European integration.
So far, I don’t see that this has changed very much. It has also not changed that some parties, especially the SNSD, [Serb nationalist Milorad] Dodik’s party, but honestly not only them, are counting on ethnic differences as an argument for supporting their party instead of having a multi-ethnic approach. One can be doubtful about their real pro-European commitment.
Russia and its influence
When civil society is not engaged and when countries are not politically stable, we know that they are prone to interference from other states or political entities. Is this being seen in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
It is evident that neighbouring countries, especially Serbia and Croatia, have a kind of preferred relationship with parts of the country. This is, by the way, also established in the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina [also known as the Dayton Peace Agreement]. So it is not necessarily something that is not in line with Dayton [Agreement].
But there is beyond this more interference if I refer, for example, to Serbia’s reaction on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of 2024 about establishing an international day of commemoration for the Srebrenica genocide. There was a really remarkable attack against this, despite the fact that Serbia was not named in the resolution. There were only named individuals who had committed war crimes or genocide.
But it was used to create a “Pan-Serbian declaration”, which can be seen as a way of bringing cultural issues of the same ethnic group closer together. It has to be seen additionally as a tool to try to gain more political influence in the other part of the country.
You mentioned Croatia and Serbia. Is Russia also playing a role in these interferences?
Yes, but not ethnic interference. It is more through traditional good relations, especially with the Orthodox community, which is basically the Serb Orthodox community, where there are relations and a lot of activities, including in the media and on social media.
They [Russia] try to influence a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially Banja Luka and Republika Srpska, and Dodik is somehow to act as an influencer for Russian interests. This is indeed the case. Dodik has been sitting together with [Russian president Vladimir] Putin for the 11th time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. This is really remarkable.
How important is Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dodik for Russia and for Putin?
The economic and political-strategic importance is nearly zero. But it can be used as a way of distracting from European and somehow American activities, just by giving them a negative impact on everything. So this is more seen as a tool, rather than an area of influence.
EU— only accession talks?
Does the EU have a role in fighting such interference — Russian, but also the ethnic interference from Croatia and Serbia?
The ethnic relationships are within the framework of Dayton, and they are acceptable. But I think it is very important that the EU makes it clear that European integration is not based on ethnic differences, but on uniting in diversity.
This is something that is very complicated. You cannot do this only with programmes or money. I think these challenges are the typical issues that you can address through European commitment, but in the details, it has not delivered.
Milorad Dodik has a great support even as he has been sentenced to one year in prison and barred from public office for six years in a first-instance verdict for disobeying the decisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s international envoy, High Representative Christian Schmidt. Source: EPA/Nidal Saljic.
Unfortunately, maybe the European Union should sit down again and think about more tools and opportunities, especially addressing civil society, to give more attraction to the European idea.
How would that work?
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The EU’s annual rule of law report, tackling advancements in corruption and fundamental rights, shares overly optimistic improvement that is far from the reality on the ground, a civil liberties group revealed.
Presented on a sweltering Friday in July, the EU commission’s 2026 rule of law report failed to avoid scrutiny, with NGO Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) observing a gap between professed achievements in member states and the reality of a significant lack of implementation of Brussels’ recommendations.
“This year’s Report shows continued positive progress across many Member States. And that is precisely why our Rule of Law Report matters. It has become a reference point, helping to shape national debates and drive reforms across our Union,” EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said back then in a statement.
But of all recommendations in the July report, Liberties’ Gap analysis report revealed that only four percent had been fully implemented, while 54 percent show limited to no progress.
“The Commission’s Rule of Law Report has the potential to be one of the EU’s strongest tools for preventing democratic backsliding,” said Kersty McCourt, Liberties’ rule of law expert. “But when recommendations are repeatedly issued without being implemented, and new threats are not identified early enough, the system loses its power”.
The report, published on Monday (12 October) and shared in advance with EUobserver, found that almost all recommendations issued in 2026 were regurgitations of those given in previous years, with only seven new recommendations being introduced this year.
The commission’s annual report “fails to unpack why some problems remain so entrenched,” Liberties said.
In its own study, the Berlin-based NGO suggested the reasons for slow movement to be bound from a lack of willingness from member states, a vacuum in the EU’s enforcement mechanisms, or issues becoming “so entrenched that progress is effectively impossible.”
This reduces the function of the report as a warning system for identifying early signs of democratic backsliding, since recommendations on emerging issues remain unaddressed and even if are formally adopted, often don’t translate into effective implementation.
Liberties observed this to be evident in the example of Nordic countries, which have grown to be exempt from scrutiny due to their traditionally strong reputations.
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Money and how to make more of it are among the top issues to be discussed among EU leaders as they gather for a two-day summit in Brussels, while they also struggle with ongoing problems on Ukraine, the Middle East, migration, defence, and new rules for EU-hopefuls, such as Montenegro.
The official talks kick off on Thursday (15 October) on how to make the 27 EU states more competitive in a turbulent world dominated by US tariffs, Chinese innovation, and Iran-war linked chokeholds in the Strait of Hormuz, which have forced the G7 wealthy nations to release 100m barrels of diesel and crude oil.
Gas prices have risen by 140 percent since the end of February with imported fossil fuels now costing an extra €100bn, says the European Commission.
In Europe, a grand scheme, a so-called “One Europe, One Market”, aims to spike European fortunes by saving an estimated €37.5bn for EU businesses by 2029.
The drive is part of a larger initiative to cut red tape and remove internal market barriers, including the eventual launch of a so-called EU Inc.
Ireland, which is currently steering the EU’s rotating presidency, had already announced that the summit would start with the competitiveness theme. And leaked draft conclusions, seen by EUobserver, lead with a sales pitch to step up ambitions over the ‘One Europe, One Market’ proposal.
It also gives a nod to the German car industry, by citing efforts needed to stop China from making too much money off Europeans. The goal is to get Europeans to spend more on European products, even if they are more expensive and less innovative.
The ‘more money’ talks dovetail into how to spend it (or not) in the EU’s next long-term budget, spanning 2028 to 2034.
António Costa, the president of the European Council, is hoping for an agreement of the nearly €2 trillion budget before the end of the year. People need predictability and stability, he said, in a invitation letter sent to the 27 EU states.
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