EU overreach meets Belgian reality

Welcome to Rapporteur. This is Nicoletta Ionta, with Eddy Wax in Brussels. Got a story we should know about? Drop us a line – we read every message.

Need-to-knows:

• EUCO: Belgium balks at legal and financial risks of using frozen Russian assets
• Gaffe: Friedrich Merz’s premature Mercosur victory claim falls flat
• Parliament: EU leaders urge Roberta Metsola to corral votes for red tape-cutting push

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In the capital

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Belgium has torpedoed the European Commission’s flagship plan to fund Ukraine using immobilised Russian assets, leaving Ursula von der Leyen’s much-trumpeted reparation loan in tatters.

What was supposed to be a bold, defining moment for the EU has been reduced to a bureaucratic shrug: the Commission is now merely “invited to present options” at the next Council in December.

The watered-down language, signed off by EU leaders last night, marks a significant reversal for von der Leyen, who floated the scheme in her September State of the Union address as a daring bid to secure long-term financing for Kyiv. Her original proposal envisioned leveraging €140 billion in cash balances linked to immobilised Russian central bank assets.

Compared with an earlier draft, the final text deletes any mention of “concrete proposals involving the possible gradual use of the cash balances associated with immobilised Russian assets” – replacing it with the kind of Brussels language that signals retreat: a vague promise to “present options” later.

However well-intentioned, von der Leyen may have overplayed her hand, pushing a plan that was neither legally airtight nor politically feasible.

Belgium, which hosts most of the assets in question, quickly raised the red flag. Prime Minister Bart De Wever made clear he wouldn’t shoulder the legal and financial fallout alone, warning of lawsuits, arbitration claims, and a potential hit to the stability of Euroclear, the Belgium-based institution that holds the funds. “We all have questions about legal sustainability,” one diplomat said, and was echoed by several others – a polite way of saying that the Commission’s plan is not universally popular.

At a press conference, von der Leyen insisted that the leaders’ main option remained the reparations loan, and that all that is needed now is a bit more work.

For von der Leyen, the setback is political as much as procedural. The plan was meant to showcase EU unity and leadership in sustaining Kyiv’s war effort beyond spring 2026, when the current G7 loan arrangement expires. Now, that momentum risks fizzling out amid growing caution among member states.

And not everyone is convinced. De Wever stood firm on Belgium’s conditions, telling reporters: “I asked my colleagues: who is ready? This question was not answered with a tsunami of enthusiasm around the table,” my colleague Thomas Moller-Nielsen reports.

Grilled on which member states might provide a liquidity safety net, he added: “Not an overwhelming number. Very few,” but “not zero.”

For now, the only thing being leveraged in Brussels is patience. The rest will have to wait until December 18.

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Merz’s Mercosur mix-up caps fractious EU summit

Germany’s Friedrich Merz caused late-night confusion at Thursday’s European Council after claiming that EU leaders had agreed to sign the long-delayed EU-Mercosur trade deal – an assertion swiftly denied by others in the room.

Merz told reporters that “all 27 agreed that the permanent representatives could sign,” calling it a “clear mandate,” and said Parliament would only need to ratify before a final deal could be signed on 19 December, according to my colleagues Elisa Braun and Nikolaus J. Kurmayer.

But European Council President António Costa insisted that “there has not been a discussion about that,” while France’s Emmanuel Macron said “work continues” as Paris reviews new clauses aimed at avoiding political backlash over what has become a sensitive issue at home.

An EU diplomat later clarified that leaders had merely granted a procedural green light, not approval to conclude the deal. Leaders meeting at EUCO are only expected to give broad political targets, not sign off on issues like trade deals.

Leaders tell Parliament: find the votes, fast

EU leaders want Parliament to work with whatever majorities it takes to speed up the bloc’s red tape-slashing agenda, President Roberta Metsola said at a press conference after meeting with national leaders on Thursday.

Both EU and national chiefs have been pushing to cut back bureaucracy to boost the bloc’s economy and competitiveness. But on Wednesday, lawmakers unexpectedly rejected a compromise, cobbled together by centrist forces in the chamber, that would have rolled back a slew of EU sustainability rules for big corporations, my colleague Magnus Lund Nielsen reports.

“To be very clear, the message to me from the Council is: ‘get the numbers where you find them’,” Metsola told press afterwards.

The clock change that’s frozen in time

Clocks go back by an hour across the EU on Sunday, but there’s a renewed political push to kill the tradition once and for all.

In Strasbourg on Thursday, Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas railed against the twice-yearly clock changes, telling MEPs they “no longer serve any purpose.” “What’s the Commission doing about it? Preparing a study?” he asked.

Irish EPP lawmaker Seán Kelly has been driving the push to revive the issue, which has been gathering dust since the Commission proposed scrapping the practice in 2018. “Hopefully now we can gather momentum, get a resolution again, and get the Council to view this favourably,” Kelly told Rapporteur.

Kelly said that the move would fit into the broader simplification push, and might even win the EU points with Donald Trump, who has said he wants to end seasonal clock changes in the US.

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez also put the topic on the agenda at Monday’s Energy Council. His government circulated a short paper linking to research suggesting it rarely delivers energy savings – the rationale for introducing daylight saving in the 1970s. Finland and Poland backed up Spain at the meeting last week.

Deepfake drama hits Irish election

Ireland heads to the polls today to elect its next president – but the race has been upended by a deepfake scandal. An AI-generated video falsely showing frontrunner Catherine Connolly announcing her withdrawal went viral this week before being debunked, my colleagues Anupriya Datta and Maximilian Henning report.

The country’s media regulator has oversight of Facebook under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which obliges major platforms like Meta to mitigate risks to democratic processes, including disinformation.

The Commission has had an open proceeding against Meta since April 2024 over suspected DSA breaches, including failures to tackle disinformation campaigns, but has yet to close any of these probes.

A Meta spokesperson told Euractiv the company had removed some videos related to Connolly for violating its policies on voter interference. However, Meta could not confirm whether the specific deepfake video circulating widely on Facebook had been taken down.

Lange’s terms for US trade deal

Bernd Lange, the Parliament’s lead trade MEP, has spelled out his wish list to amend a proposal for EU trade concessions to the US. The deal – agreed by von der Leyen and Trump on a golf course in Scotland this summer – imposes a 15% baseline tariff on most EU products, while Brussels is proposing to cut tariffs to zero on hundreds of industrial and agricultural imports.

Lange laid out five conditions for his backing, starting with slashing the 50% US tariffs on EU steel in exchange for Brussels’ zero-tariff offer. He’s also pushing for an 18-month “sunset clause” to kill the deal if it doesn’t move toward WTO compliance, and a Mercosur-style safeguard mechanism to protect EU producers from surges in American imports.

Liberal politicians call out Ukraine under-spenders

Politicians from the liberal ALDE family are getting fed up with countries that, they say, are not pulling their weight when it comes to supporting Ukraine. In a declaration ahead of a party congress in Brussels today, the group warned that uneven burden-sharing risks undermining Europe’s credibility and unity.

“While several Member States – particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic region – are contributing significantly above their relative economic capacity, others continue to fall short,” said the statement. “This imbalance weakens Europe’s collective credibility and risks signalling to Moscow that our unity and resolve are eroding.”

Signatories include MEPs Morten Løkkegaard and Sophie Wilmès.

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The capitals

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PARIS 🇫🇷

PM Sébastien Lecornu sought to allay opposition concerns on Thursday over how the government will fund the suspension of key provisions of the 2023 pension reform, promising that “funding measures will be debated in Parliament.” Trade unions CFDT and CGT warned against options under consideration, including higher mutual insurance contributions, which they said would weigh on “current and future retirees.” CFDT’s Yvan Ricordeau also rejected any “pension deindexation” that could result in “two blank years” in 2026–27. Meanwhile, the far-right National Rally presented its counter-budget, calling for lower energy VAT, a full tax allowance for second children, and cuts to EU contributions and foreign aid.

ROME 🇮🇹

Italy’s Bologna Court of Appeal on Thursday delayed its ruling on the extradition of Serhii Kuznietsov, a former Ukrainian army officer accused by Germany of involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. The case was returned to Bologna after Italy’s Supreme Court annulled a previous extradition order last week due to procedural errors. Kuznietsov’s lawyer argued that his client should benefit from functional immunity, saying the pipeline was a legitimate military target during the war in Ukraine. The defence also pointed to a Polish court’s recent refusal to extradite another Ukrainian suspect in the same case.

BERLIN 🇩🇪

Germany’s meat industry and its fast-growing plant-based rivals are clashing after the European Parliament backed a ban on words such as “burger” and “sausage” for vegan products. While Berlin’s conservative agriculture minister supports clearer labelling, coalition partners and industry groups accuse Brussels of shielding a declining livestock sector from competition. Consumer advocates called the move “absurd,” arguing it will raise costs for companies like Rügenwalder Mühle and deter investment in alternative proteins – one of the nation’s few expanding food markets.

MADRID 🇪🇸

Catalonia’s separatist party Junts may withdraw its backing for Pedro Sánchez’s minority government, party spokesperson Míriam Nogueras told Spanish media, adding that “all options,” including a no-confidence vote, remain on the table. The party’s leadership is due to meet in Perpignan on Monday, convened by exiled leader Carles Puigdemont, who is still wanted in Spain for allegedly misusing public funds to organise the 2017 independence referendum. Nogueras said Sánchez’s coalition had “failed to deliver” on commitments ranging from full implementation of the amnesty law to greater linguistic, fiscal, and migration powers for Catalonia.

WARSAW 🇵🇱

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said during a visit to Islamabad that Poland would seek to show support for Trump’s peace initiative in Gaza. “The idea is more of an Arab-Islamic initiative – but Poland will also want to at least show its flag there,” he said. A memorandum on Polish-Pakistani cooperation was signed between the foreign ministries. Sikorski also discussed the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, warning that the ongoing migration crisis forms part of a hybrid war being waged by Belarus with Russia’s backing, and that “Pakistani citizens are also being used in these operations.”

STOCKHOLM 🇸🇪

Sweden’s JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets will not be delivered to Ukraine “in any foreseeable future,” Ukrainian spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in a televised interview, according to Ukrinform. “The path is full of technological and political challenges – these are complex machines that take a long time to produce,” he said, noting that transfers require government-to-government deals, making the process “extremely complicated.” Still, Ihnat described last week’s memorandum of understanding with Sweden as an “important and positive signal” as Kyiv looks to modernise its fleet over time.

REYKJAVIK 🇮🇸

Iceland on Friday marks 50 years since the landmark 1975 women’s strike, when an estimated 90% of women stopped work and household duties to protest gender inequality. The anniversary is being observed with a full-day strike and a renewed call for equal pay, stronger childcare policy, and an end to gender-based violence. Unions and feminist groups have urged employers not to dock pay for participants. The message echoes well beyond Reykjavik: if women stop, the country stops.

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Schuman roundabout

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WETSTRAAT, 175: As if in response to our scoop that the Justus Lipsius building will be renovated to the tune of up to €1 billion, the Council was forced to put out giant buckets to catch the raindrops that entered the building during Thursday’s summit. See the photo snapped by Elisa Braun.

IT WAS ALL A SCAM: That “green” Commission plan to slap a price tag on ketchup, crumbs, and napkins to promote sustainability in its own cafeterias? Total scam.

An internal email seen by Rapporteur this week claimed that “dedicated scales equipped with e-payment systems will be installed gradually on site,” with extra charges for “excessive food waste or leftovers” in the cafeterias. Turns out, that was a “phishing exercise”. It was a bit too much even for the Commission.

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Also on Euractiv

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Europe is looking to Tokyo for survival tips. After China throttled rare-earth exports this spring, Brussels began sending commissioners to Japan at record pace, seeking guidance from a country that learned the hard way in 2010 how to diversify away from Beijing. The flurry of visits signals a broader rethink of Europe’s China strategy – less talk of “decoupling,” more of Japan-style “de-risking.”

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While Brussels celebrates its latest sanctions package, Euractiv columnist Ilana Bet-El, a historian and political analyst, contends that Europe’s deeper malaise is political.

A class of professionalised leaders – lawyers, bankers, and consultants turned career politicians – has replaced statesmen with managers, she argues in her latest op-ed, leaving the EU adrift in a world demanding conviction and strategic clarity. At a moment of geopolitical flux, Europe’s leaders are proving alarmingly small.

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Agenda

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Contributors: Nikolaus J. Kurmayer, Thomas Møller-Nielsen, Jacob Wulff Wold, Elisa Braun, Magnus Lund Nielsen, Laurent Geslin, Alessia Peretti, Charles Szumski, Inés Fernández-Pontes, Aleksandra Krzysztoszek

Editors: Christina Zhao, Sofia Mandilara