The eye of Hurricane Simon was just off the Pacific coast of Mexico early Sunday and was expected to move inland later in the day as an extremely powerful storm.
The eye of Hurricane Simon was just off the Pacific coast of Mexico early Sunday and was expected to move inland later in the day as an extremely powerful storm.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Saturday Simon's maximum sustained winds increased to 145 mph (230 kph). A storm of that strength is considered a major hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Saturday Simon's maximum sustained winds increased to 145 mph (230 kph). A storm of that strength is considered a major hurricane.
Isaias weakened overnight and was no longer considered a hurricane but flash flooding threats and the potential for tornadoes persisted Saturday as the storm moved inland.
Isaias weakened overnight and was no longer considered a hurricane but flash flooding threats and the potential for tornadoes persisted Saturday as the storm moved inland.
Environmental NGOs have threatened to sue the owner of Tefal, a leading French kitchenware company, over failing to phase out forever chemicals from their products, at a high price for consumer health.
The organisations allege that Groupe SEB, the parent company of known brands, such as Tefal cookware, Calor irons, and Moulinex kitchen appliances, fails to curtail harmful chemicals in its products.
And the environmentalist groups have threatened to file a lawsuit if the firm fails to makes a change to its policy within three months.
Companies have a duty to identify and address the impact of their work and products under the French law, for instance the pollution they cause or human rights they might violate.
Environmental NGOs ClientEarth, Générations Futures and Notre Affaire à Tous say Groupe SEB should swap harmful chemicals in its products to existing alternatives, such as ceramic coating or cast iron, to limit harm to human health and the environment.
The company uses teflon for non-stick, high-temperature suited coatings of their products.
The substance is one of the ‘PFAS’ polymers, often dubbed forever chemicals, because they break down very slowly, remaining in the environment and human body for a long time.
PFAS are widely used for food pots, clothes, packaging, and waterproof products.
But since they take so long to decompose, they are often found in soil and groundwater. Many of the substances cause cancer, others are harmful to babies in the womb.
Teflon is allegedly “not absorbed by the human body” and is approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for contact with food, the company’s website says.
However, a recent risk assessment by the EU’s Chemical Agency’s (ECHA), quoted by the NGOs, points out that when overheated or scratched, teflon releases PFAS particles.
It also releases substances harmful to the environment during the manufacturing process, ECHA’s research found in March.
And a new European law on the issue will provide a “more consistent basis for corporate due diligence litigation,” Hélène Duguy, ClientEarth’s lawyer in the case, told EUobserver.
An EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence directive, inspired by French legislation, will oblige all companies based in the EU to address the impact of their operations on the environment and human rights.
Member states must implement national laws fulfilling the obligation by summer 2028.
SEB can show stopping PFAS use is “necessary and feasible,” setting a precedent for others, Duguy said.
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The European Commission is preparing to give fossil-fuel exporters another year of flexibility under the EU’s methane regime as Brussels responds to high energy prices, pressure on European refineries and concerns over security of supply.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced an additional year of flexibility for energy exporters facing new EU methane requirements, marking the latest adjustment to climate legislation as Brussels attempts to contain rising energy costs.
Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, von der Leyen said Europe remained exposed to high energy prices and volatile international fossil-fuel markets and confirmed that exporters would receive “one more year” to prepare for the methane rules.
She also announced a strategic dialogue with the European refining sector aimed at reducing costs and protecting supplies, according to the Commission’s published remarks.
The announcement affects a regulation that has increasingly become an energy-security issue rather than solely an emissions policy.
The EU’s Methane Regulation, adopted in 2024, introduced progressively stricter requirements for companies supplying oil, natural gas and coal to the European market. Importers have already been required to provide information about the origin of fuel and the systems used to measure and reduce methane emissions.
A more demanding stage was due from January 2027. Importers would have to demonstrate that fuel supplied under contracts concluded or renewed since August 2024 came from producers operating monitoring, reporting and verification systems equivalent to EU standards.
The rules are technically complex because European importers do not always buy directly from producers. Gas and oil may pass through traders, hubs, blending systems and several contractual relationships before reaching Europe.
The Commission’s own guidance for importers acknowledges those difficulties, particularly where companies must trace production information through complicated supply chains.
That pressure can also be seen in the cost of imported energy. EU Today reported last month that the value of EU petroleum imports had risen by 55.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 even though the physical volume purchased increased by only 1.2 per cent.
Von der Leyen’s intervention therefore comes against a different market background from the one in which the methane legislation was originally adopted.
The Commission has not abandoned its objective of reducing methane emissions from fossil-fuel production. Methane remains one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, and the regulation is intended to use the size of the European energy market to influence production standards outside the EU.
Instead, Brussels is attempting to adjust implementation so that regulatory requirements do not further restrict supply at a time of elevated energy prices.
The precise legal form of the additional year of flexibility has not yet been detailed in von der Leyen’s announcement. Existing requirements remain contained in Regulation (EU) 2024/1787, meaning that changes to deadlines or enforcement will have to be translated into the appropriate legal or administrative measures.
The Commission had already moved towards greater flexibility earlier this year. In July it issued recommendations designed to clarify contractual arrangements and advised national authorities on the application of penalties to importers while security-of-supply concerns persisted.
The broader problem is European energy competitiveness.
Von der Leyen told Parliament that Brussels intends to begin a strategic dialogue with refineries. European refining capacity has contracted over the longer term, leaving the continent more dependent on imported diesel and other finished petroleum products when individual plants close or external supply routes are disrupted.
The Commission is also expected to propose measures aimed at increasing electricity’s share of European energy consumption as part of its attempt to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The latest methane adjustment therefore fits a wider shift in Brussels. Climate targets remain formally intact, but implementation is increasingly being examined alongside energy prices, industrial competitiveness and the security of physical supplies.
The extra year gives exporters additional time. It also gives the Commission another year to resolve a question that has become much more urgent in 2026: how far Europe can tighten conditions on imported energy while remaining heavily dependent on those imports.
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France and Germany are moving towards a possible compromise over the future of Europe’s automotive industry, linking negotiations over EU vehicle-emission rules with a separate dispute over how strongly European-made products should be favoured in subsidies and public procurement.
The negotiations bring together two issues that have divided Paris and Berlin: Germany’s demand for greater flexibility in rules governing combustion-engine vehicles and France’s campaign for stronger “Made in Europe” requirements in EU industrial policy.
Officials involved in the discussions believe a broader Franco-German agreement may now be possible, although differences remain over how European content should be defined and whether products made in countries with EU free-trade agreements should receive similar treatment.
The automotive dispute follows the Commission’s decision in December 2025 to propose significant changes to rules that had originally required a 100 per cent reduction in tailpipe CO₂ emissions from new cars from 2035.
Under the revised automotive package, manufacturers would instead face a 90 per cent tailpipe-emissions reduction requirement from 2035.
The remaining 10 per cent could be compensated through mechanisms linked to low-carbon steel produced in the EU and the use of e-fuels and biofuels.
Germany has continued to argue for a technology-neutral approach.
Berlin wants legislation to leave scope for combustion engines operating on renewable or low-carbon fuels rather than treating battery-electric vehicles as the only route towards lower emissions.
That position is particularly important for Germany because of the scale of its automotive sector and the large industrial supply chain built around combustion-engine technology.
France’s priority is different.
Paris wants EU industrial policy to ensure that public subsidies and procurement increasingly support products manufactured inside Europe.
The argument centres on the Commission’s Industrial Accelerator Act, proposed in March as part of a wider strategy to strengthen European manufacturing.
The legislation introduces “Made in EU” and low-carbon requirements for public procurement and public support schemes covering strategic sectors including automotive manufacturing, steel, cement and aluminium.
The dispute is over what “European” should mean.
France favours a relatively strict definition focused principally on production inside the EU’s 27 member states.
Germany has advocated what Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has described as a “Made with Europe” approach, under which some products from close trading partners could qualify if those countries provide equivalent market access to European companies.
That could potentially include states such as Norway and Switzerland and partners including Canada.
Spain has been among countries seeking a middle position between the French and German approaches.
The issue matters because modern automotive supply chains do not stop at the EU’s external border.
Battery materials, semiconductors, electric motors and other components can pass through several countries before final assembly, while Britain and Turkey remain deeply integrated into European vehicle production.
The EU-UK relationship is particularly sensitive because stricter rules of origin for electric vehicles are due to apply from 2027.
Manufacturers must therefore make investment decisions while several important elements of the regulatory framework remain under negotiation.
Factory conversion, battery plants and new vehicle platforms require investments planned years in advance. The conditions applying after 2030 will directly affect where those investments are made.
A Franco-German understanding would not determine the final EU rules. The European Parliament, Commission and other member states remain part of both legislative negotiations.
It could, however, bridge two of the most important disputes: Germany’s demand for greater technological flexibility in the 2035 vehicle regime and France’s demand that public money be used more directly to support European production.
The negotiations now underway suggest Paris and Berlin are increasingly treating those questions as parts of the same industrial bargain.
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Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg have called on the European Commission to establish a specific EU renewable-energy target for 2040 as Brussels prepares the next stage of the bloc’s climate and energy legislation.
The three governments have written to Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen arguing that a post-2030 renewables target would give investors greater certainty, accelerate deployment and reduce European dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Their intervention comes as the Commission prepares a new renewable-energy framework covering the decade after 2030.
The EU currently has a legally binding target requiring renewable sources to account for at least 42.5 per cent of final energy consumption by 2030, with an ambition to reach 45 per cent.
There is, however, no equivalent renewables target for 2040.
Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg want that framework to contain a numerical target rather than rely solely on the EU’s overall greenhouse-gas reduction objective.
The proposal creates a policy divide with governments that want Brussels to use a broader definition of low-carbon or “clean” energy.
France, Sweden and Finland are among countries that have supported an approach allowing nuclear generation to contribute alongside renewable sources towards European decarbonisation targets.
France in particular operates the EU’s largest nuclear fleet and has repeatedly argued that European energy legislation should treat nuclear power according to its low carbon emissions rather than exclude it from frameworks designed specifically around renewable technologies.
Luxembourg, by contrast, has long opposed nuclear energy and has raised concerns about radioactive waste, safety and the financing of new reactors.
The argument is therefore not simply about the scale of the 2040 ambition. It concerns the structure of European energy investment over the next 15 years.
Renewables accounted for 26.2 per cent of EU energy consumption in 2025, according to Commission figures.
Investment will have to increase substantially if the Union is to meet its existing target before any higher post-2030 requirement is introduced.
Grid capacity is another constraint. Wind and solar generation can be built faster than many traditional power stations, but projects increasingly depend on new transmission lines, interconnectors, storage and distribution infrastructure.
The latest initiative also sits alongside the EU’s legally binding 2040 climate target.
In March, the Union formally approved legislation requiring net greenhouse-gas emissions to fall by 90 per cent from 1990 levels by 2040. EU Today reported on the final approval of the 2040 target, which is intended to bridge the gap between the bloc’s 2030 commitments and climate neutrality by 2050.
How that 90 per cent reduction is achieved is now moving to the centre of the policy debate.
For Spain and Portugal, greater renewable generation is also tied to their ambitions to expand electricity exports from the Iberian Peninsula into the rest of Europe. Limited interconnection capacity across the Pyrenees has historically restricted those flows.
The Commission’s post-2030 framework will therefore have consequences beyond environmental policy. It will influence investment decisions in power generation, grids, industrial electrification, hydrogen, storage and manufacturing.
The political question confronting the Commission is whether those decisions should be driven by a dedicated renewable-energy benchmark or by a technology-neutral emissions objective under which nuclear and renewable generation compete for investment.
With the 2040 climate target already fixed in law, the next dispute is increasingly about the energy system that will be built to reach it.
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