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Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House casts a shadow over the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels today and tomorrow. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns Trump of the security risks if Ukraine is forced into a “bad deal” with Moscow. A dictated peace would make the USA and Europe appear weak.
The foreign ministers discuss various scenarios, including a possible European protection force in Ukraine following a ceasefire and a potential NATO invitation to Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken takes part for the last time, while the new Ukrainian chief diplomat Andrij Sybiha is likely to call for defense systems against the Russian medium-range missile Oreschnik. In the face of weak governments in Berlin and Paris, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte take the initiative.
We wish you a good read!
France’s Prime Minister and head of government Michel Barnier summarized the situation on Monday at the lectern of the National Assembly: Either the MPs would take responsibility and vote in favor of the social budget proposed by his government, or they would lead the country “into unknown territory.”
The left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) and the far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) opted for the second option. Both groups declared that they would not vote in favor of the text and each submitted a motion of censure, which will be put to the vote on Wednesday. It is considered likely that a majority of MPs will then vote no confidence in the government.
“If that happens, Michel Barnier will fall,” said one parliamentarian to Table.Briefings. Emmanuel Macron would then have to come back to Paris from his visit to Saudi Arabia to look for a new prime minister again. “However, given the political circumstances and the difficulties associated with Michel Barnier’s name, the possibility of getting a new prime minister quickly remains uncertain,” the parliamentarian continued.
This is likely to be in the interests of the two largest political groups, La France Insoumise (LFI) and the RN, who are only superficially concerned with Barnier’s budget. Their real goal: President Macron should leave the Élysée Palace. MP Mathilde Panot, parliamentary group leader of the left-wing populist LFI, had previously made this clear in front of the cameras, repeating a constant demand of her party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Marine Le Pen “appears to be pursuing the same strategy” with the RN, according to parliamentary circles. The trial against Le Pen for embezzling public funds has just ended and she now faces a ban on eligibility. However, the verdict will not be handed down until the end of March 2025. “This means she provokes Macron’s departure, early elections are called and she can be elected before the trial,” says the political advisor in parliament.
According to recently published polls, 63% of French people want Macron to resign from office in the event of a vote of no confidence in his government. The main reason cited by respondents was the political instability into which the French president had led the country with his decision to dissolve parliament.
A vote of no confidence in the Barnier government would be mathematically possible if the MPs of the left-wing alliance voted for it together with the RN and the right-wing UDR group of renegade republican Éric Ciotti. Together, they would have 332 out of 577 votes. According to the constitution, a motion of censure “can only be adopted by a majority of the members of the Assembly,” i.e. by at least 289 elected MPs.
If the motion of censure is passed, Barnier’s government would be the second in the history of the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958, to be toppled by the parliamentary opposition. However, it would be unique in terms of its duration: after just over three months in office, it could become the shortest-lived government since its foundation.
The President of the French Court of Auditors, former Economy Minister and EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici reminded the public of what is at stake. “A dissolution has consequences,” he told the public broadcaster. “Our financial situation is dangerous. We have €3.2 trillion in debt, 110 percent of GDP in public debt, and a debt burden of €70 billion compared to €25 billion three years ago.”
The political instability is also fueling mistrust among investors. Interest rates charged by banks to the French state rose to the level of Greek interest rates at the end of November. This announcement caused the French benchmark index CAC40 to fall by 1.4 percent over the course of trading.
It is not often that politicians apologize. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis did so on the national holiday of Dec. 1, 2024. On the day that Romanian citizens elected their new bicameral parliament, Iohannis summed up his ten years in office as head of state and asked “for forgiveness, because over the course of time, I have made decisions that have left you dissatisfied.”
In fact, he entered the presidency in 2014 as a beacon of hope. Many of his supporters expected him to create more trust in politics, which had been lost due to the corrupt behavior of many politicians. In recent years, however, he himself has attracted increasing criticism.
Now he is leaving the highest office in the land in a politically critical situation. With a view to the run-off election for his successor in office next Sunday, President Iohannis warned the Romanian people that they are facing an “existential choice between democracy and the fundamental values that have guided us as a modern European nation, and isolationism, extremist mysticism and hatred of Western pluralism.”
With his warning, President Iohannis was primarily referring to the presidential election run-off next Sunday, in which the right-wing populist Călin Georgescu is running against Elena Lasconi from the liberal Union Save Romania (URS). On Monday evening, the Romanian Constitutional Court rejected challenges to the first round of voting and confirmed that the run-off election will be held next Sunday.
Georgescu’s victory in the first round of voting shook Romania’s political public opinion and led to a sharp increase in voter turnout in last Sunday’s parliamentary elections. It is likely to have contributed to the fact that the far-right political forces feared by some did not make a breakthrough. Instead, the previously ruling post-communist Social Democrats (PSD) emerged from the election as the strongest political force with a good 22% of the vote.
However, it was followed by the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) with around 18%. In addition, two other nationalist parties came in behind the National Liberals (PNL), which governs with the PSD, with around 14%, and the reform-oriented URS with around 12%: the pro-Russian S.O.S. Romania (SOS) with just under 8% and the Party of Young People (POT) with around 6%. The pro-Western Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) received a good 6%.
This means that the Euro-Atlantic-oriented political forces still represent a small majority of Romanians in parliament, while the united nationalists represent just under a third. The trend towards nationalist political forces in Romania, which was already apparent at the European elections in June 2024, has now been confirmed by the presidential and parliamentary elections.
With seven parties, the Romanian parliament is more fragmented than ever before, which could make forming a government more difficult. It also depends on the outcome of the presidential election on Sunday. Although Lasconi from the USR is considered the favorite, if Georgescu is elected, it cannot be ruled out that he will give the far-right parties a mandate to form a government.
The leaders of the nationalist parties are sensing the wind of change. AUR leader George Simion spoke on Monday of a “turning point” at which “Romania will be reborn through a common will.” And the leader of SOS, MP Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă, who was running in the election for the first time, called on “all patriotic, sovereigntist, nationalist forces to form a nationalist government,” even if it is a minority government.
Even if the established pro-Western parties agree to form a coalition government, the two rounds of voting last week show that Romania’s clear positioning on the side of the EU and NATO is no longer unanimously shared by the population.
There is growing criticism from those who fear being drawn into a war with Russia through military support for Ukraine. Domestically, the nationalist parties are also benefiting from the dissatisfaction of many Romanians with increasingly difficult economic conditions, high inflation, and national debt, as well as growing resentment towards the established parties, which are perceived as corrupt and clientelistic.
Although the new EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen recently rejected the idea of pricing agricultural emissions, Denmark is leading the way. Last week, a broad parliamentary majority approved an agreement that includes a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – the first of its kind in the world. The revenue is to flow back into the sector via support programs. Farmers’ associations and environmentalists were involved in the talks and support the agreement, which also includes measures against nitrate pollution and the rewetting of moors, among others.
Jørgen Eivind Olesen, head of the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University, attributes the fact that this was politically possible in Denmark – despite some heated discussions beforehand – to several factors:
From 2030, livestock farmers will initially be subject to a tax of 300 Danish kroner (€40) per ton of CO2 equivalents emitted, rising to 750 kroner (€101) by 2035. However, they will receive a basic amount back through tax relief – according to government estimates, on average around 60 percent of the additional costs. “The idea is to tax emissions above a certain threshold – in other words, those emissions that livestock farmers can avoid through climate-friendly practices,” explains Olesen. For example, through feed additives that minimize methane emissions or climate-friendly manure processing.
Reducing livestock numbers, on the other hand, is deliberately not the goal. Otherwise, production could simply move abroad, according to the scientist. Mathieu Mal from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) therefore believes that the model does not go far enough. This is because drastically reducing the number of animals is the “only real solution” to reducing emissions in the sector. The tax is “too low, comes in too late, and more than half of the emissions are exempt,” criticizes the environmentalist.
Olesen also acknowledges that the tax only covers a very limited proportion of emission sources, but argues that the first step is to develop a functioning implementation model before hopefully applying the new instrument more widely in the future. Many questions regarding the implementation of the step that has now been decided also still need to be clarified. For example, how the amount of CO2 equivalents for which a company has to pay the tax will be calculated, as the emissions cannot be measured directly.
From the researcher’s point of view, a model in which a certain amount of emissions per animal is calculated is plausible. If a farm demonstrably implements measures to reduce emissions, this value would be reduced by a certain factor. This can be implemented without excessive effort because the number of options for reducing emissions in animal husbandry is limited.
From a practical point of view, Olesen believes that the model could be transferred to EU level without major difficulties. Politically, however, it seems rather unlikely that Germany or the EU will follow suit in the near future. In Brussels, it is not only the Agriculture Commissioner who is opposed to carbon pricing. Officials at the Directorate-General for Climate Action, which was actually considered to be more open to the idea, have also been reluctant recently. And the possible next Federal Minister of Agriculture, Günther Felßner, recently stated in an interview with Agrifood.Table that keeping animals does not harm the climate.
Nevertheless, Copenhagen is hoping to become a role model with the new tax. “I hope that this will show the world that it is possible to introduce a CO2 tax for the agricultural sector,” said Danish Climate Minister Lars Aagaard last week. The initiative should serve as “inspiration” for the debate on the future of EU agricultural policy. Environmentalist Mal also believes that the momentum from Denmark could advance the debate in Brussels: “The Danish agreement is far from perfect, but despite its weaknesses, it shows that more ambition and commitment to climate and environmental protection measures in the agricultural and food sector are possible.”
The journalists’ expectations were high. Less blah blah blah, more useful answers. Less lecturing, more respect. Less top-down, more dialog. It was the hope of a break with the outdated practices of the spokesperson’s service that had recently made the EU Commission’s “Midday Briefing“ difficult to bear.
At first, everything looked quite good. Paula Pinho, the new chief spokesperson for the Spokespersons’ Service (SPP), put on a broad smile in front of a packed press room and made euphonious announcements. “We are always there for them,” said Eric Mamer’s successor. “We are all in the same boat.”
But this quickly proved to be an illusion. The new Commission’s team of spokespeople – including old acquaintances such as Arianna Podesta, Stefan de Keersmaecker, and Anitta Hipper – were still able to parry the first few questions to some extent. But when it came to foreign policy at the latest, the boat began to rock violently.
Kaja Kallas, the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, is to blame. During her inaugural visit to Kyiv on Sunday, Kallas declared that the EU would support Ukraine until “victory”. From now on, it will no longer be “as long as it takes” (the previous formula), but “whatever it takes”. Several correspondents wanted to know whether this was a new foreign policy line. But Kallas’ new press spokespersons were unable or unwilling to answer the question. So the new chief spokesperson had to step in.
The EU has always said that it wants to lead Ukraine to success, said Pinho. But a victory is something other than a success, countered several journalists. Kallas has unmistakably changed the EU’s tone, but the spokespeople were unable to explain it properly the day after.
Questions about the planned free trade agreement with the Mercosur states also remained unanswered. “The talks are continuing at a technical level” – that was all that could be elicited from the new Commission’s communication experts, even when asked. Frustration spread quickly in the press room.
Will communication remain as hermetic as it was under the old Commission? Will the speaking notes still come from the cabinet of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen? Pinho and her team raised more questions than they answered on their first day of work in the press room.
Perhaps they really believe that everyone is in the same boat. But then they must also be able to say clearly where the boat is heading – concerning Ukraine, Mercosur, and other burning issues of European policy. “We want real answers,” said one journalist. Expectations are high – for now. Eric Bonse
Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House casts a shadow over the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels today and tomorrow. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns Trump of the security risks if Ukraine is forced into a “bad deal” with Moscow. A dictated peace would make the USA and Europe appear weak.
The foreign ministers discuss various scenarios, including a possible European protection force in Ukraine following a ceasefire and a potential NATO invitation to Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken takes part for the last time, while the new Ukrainian chief diplomat Andrij Sybiha is likely to call for defense systems against the Russian medium-range missile Oreschnik. In the face of weak governments in Berlin and Paris, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte take the initiative.
We wish you a good read!
France’s Prime Minister and head of government Michel Barnier summarized the situation on Monday at the lectern of the National Assembly: Either the MPs would take responsibility and vote in favor of the social budget proposed by his government, or they would lead the country “into unknown territory.”
The left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) and the far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) opted for the second option. Both groups declared that they would not vote in favor of the text and each submitted a motion of censure, which will be put to the vote on Wednesday. It is considered likely that a majority of MPs will then vote no confidence in the government.
“If that happens, Michel Barnier will fall,” said one parliamentarian to Table.Briefings. Emmanuel Macron would then have to come back to Paris from his visit to Saudi Arabia to look for a new prime minister again. “However, given the political circumstances and the difficulties associated with Michel Barnier’s name, the possibility of getting a new prime minister quickly remains uncertain,” the parliamentarian continued.
This is likely to be in the interests of the two largest political groups, La France Insoumise (LFI) and the RN, who are only superficially concerned with Barnier’s budget. Their real goal: President Macron should leave the Élysée Palace. MP Mathilde Panot, parliamentary group leader of the left-wing populist LFI, had previously made this clear in front of the cameras, repeating a constant demand of her party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Marine Le Pen “appears to be pursuing the same strategy” with the RN, according to parliamentary circles. The trial against Le Pen for embezzling public funds has just ended and she now faces a ban on eligibility. However, the verdict will not be handed down until the end of March 2025. “This means she provokes Macron’s departure, early elections are called and she can be elected before the trial,” says the political advisor in parliament.
According to recently published polls, 63% of French people want Macron to resign from office in the event of a vote of no confidence in his government. The main reason cited by respondents was the political instability into which the French president had led the country with his decision to dissolve parliament.
A vote of no confidence in the Barnier government would be mathematically possible if the MPs of the left-wing alliance voted for it together with the RN and the right-wing UDR group of renegade republican Éric Ciotti. Together, they would have 332 out of 577 votes. According to the constitution, a motion of censure “can only be adopted by a majority of the members of the Assembly,” i.e. by at least 289 elected MPs.
If the motion of censure is passed, Barnier’s government would be the second in the history of the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958, to be toppled by the parliamentary opposition. However, it would be unique in terms of its duration: after just over three months in office, it could become the shortest-lived government since its foundation.
The President of the French Court of Auditors, former Economy Minister and EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici reminded the public of what is at stake. “A dissolution has consequences,” he told the public broadcaster. “Our financial situation is dangerous. We have €3.2 trillion in debt, 110 percent of GDP in public debt, and a debt burden of €70 billion compared to €25 billion three years ago.”
The political instability is also fueling mistrust among investors. Interest rates charged by banks to the French state rose to the level of Greek interest rates at the end of November. This announcement caused the French benchmark index CAC40 to fall by 1.4 percent over the course of trading.
It is not often that politicians apologize. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis did so on the national holiday of Dec. 1, 2024. On the day that Romanian citizens elected their new bicameral parliament, Iohannis summed up his ten years in office as head of state and asked “for forgiveness, because over the course of time, I have made decisions that have left you dissatisfied.”
In fact, he entered the presidency in 2014 as a beacon of hope. Many of his supporters expected him to create more trust in politics, which had been lost due to the corrupt behavior of many politicians. In recent years, however, he himself has attracted increasing criticism.
Now he is leaving the highest office in the land in a politically critical situation. With a view to the run-off election for his successor in office next Sunday, President Iohannis warned the Romanian people that they are facing an “existential choice between democracy and the fundamental values that have guided us as a modern European nation, and isolationism, extremist mysticism and hatred of Western pluralism.”
With his warning, President Iohannis was primarily referring to the presidential election run-off next Sunday, in which the right-wing populist Călin Georgescu is running against Elena Lasconi from the liberal Union Save Romania (URS). On Monday evening, the Romanian Constitutional Court rejected challenges to the first round of voting and confirmed that the run-off election will be held next Sunday.
Georgescu’s victory in the first round of voting shook Romania’s political public opinion and led to a sharp increase in voter turnout in last Sunday’s parliamentary elections. It is likely to have contributed to the fact that the far-right political forces feared by some did not make a breakthrough. Instead, the previously ruling post-communist Social Democrats (PSD) emerged from the election as the strongest political force with a good 22% of the vote.
However, it was followed by the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) with around 18%. In addition, two other nationalist parties came in behind the National Liberals (PNL), which governs with the PSD, with around 14%, and the reform-oriented URS with around 12%: the pro-Russian S.O.S. Romania (SOS) with just under 8% and the Party of Young People (POT) with around 6%. The pro-Western Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) received a good 6%.
This means that the Euro-Atlantic-oriented political forces still represent a small majority of Romanians in parliament, while the united nationalists represent just under a third. The trend towards nationalist political forces in Romania, which was already apparent at the European elections in June 2024, has now been confirmed by the presidential and parliamentary elections.
With seven parties, the Romanian parliament is more fragmented than ever before, which could make forming a government more difficult. It also depends on the outcome of the presidential election on Sunday. Although Lasconi from the USR is considered the favorite, if Georgescu is elected, it cannot be ruled out that he will give the far-right parties a mandate to form a government.
The leaders of the nationalist parties are sensing the wind of change. AUR leader George Simion spoke on Monday of a “turning point” at which “Romania will be reborn through a common will.” And the leader of SOS, MP Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă, who was running in the election for the first time, called on “all patriotic, sovereigntist, nationalist forces to form a nationalist government,” even if it is a minority government.
Even if the established pro-Western parties agree to form a coalition government, the two rounds of voting last week show that Romania’s clear positioning on the side of the EU and NATO is no longer unanimously shared by the population.
There is growing criticism from those who fear being drawn into a war with Russia through military support for Ukraine. Domestically, the nationalist parties are also benefiting from the dissatisfaction of many Romanians with increasingly difficult economic conditions, high inflation, and national debt, as well as growing resentment towards the established parties, which are perceived as corrupt and clientelistic.
Although the new EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen recently rejected the idea of pricing agricultural emissions, Denmark is leading the way. Last week, a broad parliamentary majority approved an agreement that includes a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming – the first of its kind in the world. The revenue is to flow back into the sector via support programs. Farmers’ associations and environmentalists were involved in the talks and support the agreement, which also includes measures against nitrate pollution and the rewetting of moors, among others.
Jørgen Eivind Olesen, head of the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University, attributes the fact that this was politically possible in Denmark – despite some heated discussions beforehand – to several factors:
From 2030, livestock farmers will initially be subject to a tax of 300 Danish kroner (€40) per ton of CO2 equivalents emitted, rising to 750 kroner (€101) by 2035. However, they will receive a basic amount back through tax relief – according to government estimates, on average around 60 percent of the additional costs. “The idea is to tax emissions above a certain threshold – in other words, those emissions that livestock farmers can avoid through climate-friendly practices,” explains Olesen. For example, through feed additives that minimize methane emissions or climate-friendly manure processing.
Reducing livestock numbers, on the other hand, is deliberately not the goal. Otherwise, production could simply move abroad, according to the scientist. Mathieu Mal from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) therefore believes that the model does not go far enough. This is because drastically reducing the number of animals is the “only real solution” to reducing emissions in the sector. The tax is “too low, comes in too late, and more than half of the emissions are exempt,” criticizes the environmentalist.
Olesen also acknowledges that the tax only covers a very limited proportion of emission sources, but argues that the first step is to develop a functioning implementation model before hopefully applying the new instrument more widely in the future. Many questions regarding the implementation of the step that has now been decided also still need to be clarified. For example, how the amount of CO2 equivalents for which a company has to pay the tax will be calculated, as the emissions cannot be measured directly.
From the researcher’s point of view, a model in which a certain amount of emissions per animal is calculated is plausible. If a farm demonstrably implements measures to reduce emissions, this value would be reduced by a certain factor. This can be implemented without excessive effort because the number of options for reducing emissions in animal husbandry is limited.
From a practical point of view, Olesen believes that the model could be transferred to EU level without major difficulties. Politically, however, it seems rather unlikely that Germany or the EU will follow suit in the near future. In Brussels, it is not only the Agriculture Commissioner who is opposed to carbon pricing. Officials at the Directorate-General for Climate Action, which was actually considered to be more open to the idea, have also been reluctant recently. And the possible next Federal Minister of Agriculture, Günther Felßner, recently stated in an interview with Agrifood.Table that keeping animals does not harm the climate.
Nevertheless, Copenhagen is hoping to become a role model with the new tax. “I hope that this will show the world that it is possible to introduce a CO2 tax for the agricultural sector,” said Danish Climate Minister Lars Aagaard last week. The initiative should serve as “inspiration” for the debate on the future of EU agricultural policy. Environmentalist Mal also believes that the momentum from Denmark could advance the debate in Brussels: “The Danish agreement is far from perfect, but despite its weaknesses, it shows that more ambition and commitment to climate and environmental protection measures in the agricultural and food sector are possible.”
The journalists’ expectations were high. Less blah blah blah, more useful answers. Less lecturing, more respect. Less top-down, more dialog. It was the hope of a break with the outdated practices of the spokesperson’s service that had recently made the EU Commission’s “Midday Briefing“ difficult to bear.
At first, everything looked quite good. Paula Pinho, the new chief spokesperson for the Spokespersons’ Service (SPP), put on a broad smile in front of a packed press room and made euphonious announcements. “We are always there for them,” said Eric Mamer’s successor. “We are all in the same boat.”
But this quickly proved to be an illusion. The new Commission’s team of spokespeople – including old acquaintances such as Arianna Podesta, Stefan de Keersmaecker, and Anitta Hipper – were still able to parry the first few questions to some extent. But when it came to foreign policy at the latest, the boat began to rock violently.
Kaja Kallas, the new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, is to blame. During her inaugural visit to Kyiv on Sunday, Kallas declared that the EU would support Ukraine until “victory”. From now on, it will no longer be “as long as it takes” (the previous formula), but “whatever it takes”. Several correspondents wanted to know whether this was a new foreign policy line. But Kallas’ new press spokespersons were unable or unwilling to answer the question. So the new chief spokesperson had to step in.
The EU has always said that it wants to lead Ukraine to success, said Pinho. But a victory is something other than a success, countered several journalists. Kallas has unmistakably changed the EU’s tone, but the spokespeople were unable to explain it properly the day after.
Questions about the planned free trade agreement with the Mercosur states also remained unanswered. “The talks are continuing at a technical level” – that was all that could be elicited from the new Commission’s communication experts, even when asked. Frustration spread quickly in the press room.
Will communication remain as hermetic as it was under the old Commission? Will the speaking notes still come from the cabinet of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen? Pinho and her team raised more questions than they answered on their first day of work in the press room.
Perhaps they really believe that everyone is in the same boat. But then they must also be able to say clearly where the boat is heading – concerning Ukraine, Mercosur, and other burning issues of European policy. “We want real answers,” said one journalist. Expectations are high – for now. Eric Bonse