It’s energy crisis day. In Brussels, the air is thick with questions about whether the European Commission will follow through on the more headline-grabbing recommendations it’s floated to citizens in recent weeks.
Dan Jørgensen, the bloc’s energy commissioner, has endorsed calls to expand teleworking, close public buildings and even curb business travel by air.
My colleague Nikolaus J. Kurmayer told me those ideas cropped up in an early draft of the ‘AccelerateEU’ plan as part of the response to market disruption triggered by the Iran war. But will that guidance survive contact with reality when the Commission presents it later today?
Early indications suggest that in the face of a historic energy crisis, the Commission’s first instinct has been to gingerly step back.
“There is no need at this point to intervene in how people live, work and travel,” Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the transport chief, told reporters yesterday.
Perhaps the caution is understandable. After all, commissioners don’t even agree among themselves on the severity of the crisis. And floating changes to the way people travel is politically risky.
Donald Trump said last night that he would extend a ceasefire with Iran, originally set for two weeks, to allow more time for negotiations, while ordering the US military to maintain its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global oil supplies.
If the Commission ultimately guts its most eye-catching proposals, the result will look less like decisive crisis management and more like a weeks-long communications flub.
Von der Leyen tells it like it is – then backtracks
“Too often lately Europe has remained silent,” Ursula von der Leyen told Die Zeit at an event marking the German newspaper’s 80th anniversary on Sunday. As controversy grows around her remarks on Turkey at the same event, she might wish she too had stayed quiet.
“We must succeed in unifying the European continent so that it is not influenced by Russia, Turkey, or China. We need to think on a larger scale and in geopolitical terms,” she said. The inclusion of a key NATO ally alongside two of the EU’s major rivals – Russia foremost – caused outrage.
The European Parliament’s point person on Turkey lambasted her, and at a press conference on Tuesday, a Turkish journalist from state-run news agency Anadolu asked what exactly she meant.
Can you, dear reader, make sense of the reply from Paula Pinho, the Commission’s chief spokesperson? Here it is in full:
“In fact, the president referred to Turkiye, as you rightly mention and what was said here is that Turkiye precisely as a candidate country also has an additional responsibility in the neighbourhood and we do not oversee the influence that it has in the neighbourhood, so in that sense it is also expected that it will act in the neighbourhood, and in this case the reference was to Western Balkans, in line with EU values, that was the context in which the president referred to Turkiye. Other questions?” Nope, thought not.
It’s little wonder then that the Commission followed up in a further statement to Turkish media hours later, describing Turkey as an “important partner” and reiterating its candidate status.
Entertaining Turkey’s prospects of joining the EU has long been an exercise in painstaking political fiction, never more so than now, amid rising tensions over Cyprus. But you’re not really meant to say that aloud, and certainly not three months before a major NATO summit in Ankara. For a moment, von der Leyen’s mask slipped.
So much for that Erdogan invitation
It would have been rather extraordinary for Cyprus to invite Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s strongman, to this week’s informal EU summit. Turkey doesn’t even recognise Cyprus.
That’s why it made waves when Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides floated the idea last year ahead of the country’s EU presidency. “Just as we will invite all leaders, we will also invite the Turkish President,” he said. He repeated this as recently as November.
In the event, it did not materialise. Marilena Raouna, the Cyprus’ EU affairs minister, put it down to vague “geopolitical developments.”
Sweden drives Taliban outreach
Stockholm confirmed it will play a central role in facilitating renewed contacts with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, as Brussels steps up efforts to coordinate returns of Afghan nationals.
On Monday, Euractiv first reported that a Taliban delegation is expected in Brussels within months for talks on deportations, at the invitation of Sweden and the Commission.
Italy, Germany block movement on Israel
A fresh push to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement has failed after opposition from Germany and Italy. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday the proposal had been “definitively shelved” due to a lack of support.
Spain, Ireland and Slovenia put the issue back on the table, citing Israel’s approval of the death penalty as a breach of fundamental rights. A similar effort last year to sanction certain Israeli ministers and partially suspend the agreement was blocked by the same countries, along with Hungary.
Liberals for Várhelyi
Despite calls from PM-elect Péter Magyar for Orbán-appointees to step aside, Hungary’s EU health commissioner Olivér Várhelyi retains support in Brussels, including from some of Orbán’s critics.
Renew Europe MEP Stine Bosse praised his performance. “He has been fast, he has been to the point, he has been visiting our new [health] committee frequently, he has listened,” Bosse told Euractiv’s Magnus Lund Nielsen. “He has actually done a good job as a commissioner.”
Bosse also told Magnus the EU should reform its voting rules before fleshing out its nascent mutual defence clause. Read the full interview.
Kyiv cools hopes on CAP entry
Ukraine could face a long delay in accessing the EU’s farm subsidies even if it joins the bloc within the next year, Deputy PM Taras Kachka has warned, suggesting full participation in the Common Agricultural Policy may not come until the 2034 cycle.
He added that while smaller farmers would merit support, some larger Ukrainian agribusinesses may opt out of the scheme altogether to avoid regulatory constraints. Read Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro’s full story.
Schuman roundabout
PLINTH PLEDGE: Estonia and Lithuania vowed to build a memorial in Brussels to honour the victims of totalitarian regimes.
GUARDIAN PROMOTES MEP: Kathleen Van Brempt, a Belgian socialist, was described as a “Belgian vice chair of the European Parliament” in a Guardian article on Israel. That’s news to Sophie Wilmès!
JON GONE: Jon Worth, a self-described ‘independent railway commentator’ and ‘troublemaker,’ says he has been let go from his part-time teaching gig at the College of Europe in Bruges. The EU bubble veteran had taught there for over a decade, lately a course on communication that was deemed to have too few students attending.
Worth hit back on his blog: “You don’t succeed there by being diligent. By being fair. Or by being honest. You succeed by being passive-aggressive, like in politics generally.” He argued scheduling issues were to blame. The College declined to comment.