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Michel to cut China trip short as Orbán issues fresh threat over Ukraine’s EU bid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

European Council President Charles Michel will cut his trip to Beijing short, according to an EU official, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán threatens to derail an end-of-year EU leaders’ summit.Michel, who is traveling to China for the first in-person EU-China summit since 2019, “will return to Brussels to continue his discussions with leaders on a way forward,” the official told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.In a letter dated December 4 and obtained by Playbook, Orbán urged Michel to take accession negotiations with Ukraine off the agenda at the upcoming European Council summit. “I respectfully urge you not to invite the European Council to decide on these matters in December as the obvious lack of consensus would inevitably lead to failure,” Orbán wrote.The Hungarian leader has adamantly opposed opening accession negotiations with Kyiv, after the European Commission approved the start of membership talks in November, and has threatened to veto a planned €50 bill...

Make-or-break national election looms over Belgian EU presidency

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.BRUSSELS — Ceci n’est pas une campagne électorale. As Belgium gears up for its six-month stint at the helm of the Council of the European Union from January 1, the country’s political attention is already fixed on another date: June 9, Belgium’s next election.Belgian diplomats and advisers will make clear to their bosses that the EU presidency — complete with its photo-ops, red carpets and informal summits — could be a very useful tool for their heated national electoral campaigns.“Other presidencies before us have faced similar circumstances, such as France in 2022 — or more recently, Spain. This has not prevented them from honoring their presidencies,” Belgian Foreign and EU Minister Hadja Lahbib told POLITICO. However, unlike in Belgium’s election, leading parties on those other national ballots did not question the very existence of the country. Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang pa...

Help wanted: Belgian ambassador (f)

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.BRUSSELS — When all of Belgium’s ambassadors gathered for a family photo in Brussels in mid-November, Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib, Minister for Development Cooperation Caroline Gennez, and other women were front and center. But upon closer observation, there was one object dominating the photo: ties. The image illustrates a problem that Belgian diplomacy has been struggling with for years: gender balance. The country has 13 female to 71 male ambassadors. Belgium is not the only country struggling with the problem. According to the “Shecurity” index of women in foreign and security policy, Malta, Portugal, and Slovakia hovered around the 15 percent mark when it came to female ambassadors in 2020 (the last year for which consistent numbers were available). Figures from the preceding year suggested Germany and Hungary weren’t far off. Only Austria, Finland and Sweden were approaching ...

Belgium, itself divided on trade, eyes role of honest broker at EU helm

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.BRUSSELS — French-speaking and Dutch-speaking Belgians find it hard to agree on anything — and trade is no exception.Yet that may make it easier for Belgium to agree with the rest of Europe when it takes the helm of the Council of the European Union in the first half of next year.The very fact that Belgium falls into both camps — free trade and protectionist — could help it play the role of honest broker as the EU tries to push key trade files to the finish line before next June’s European election.In the south, Francophone Wallonia is more critical toward free trade. If trade deals are struck, the left-leaning region will insist on strict environmental and human rights standards.But north of Brussels, Dutch-speaking Flanders is led largely by right-wing nationalists who consider trade deals a way for business to prosper. The wealth of Flanders, with its large Antwerp port, is export-driven.And the national...

Belgium’s tech bro: Alexander De Croo

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.BRUSSELS — Government leaders are rarely the biggest technology enthusiasts. Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is, however, an exception. At 48, he is among the European Union’s youngest leaders and has managed a political high-wire act in holding together a broad seven-party coalition for more than three years — after nearly two years when Belgium had no government.But before he started leading the country in October 2020, De Croo was a tech geek. He joined a startup in the early 2000s and later beame Belgium’s telecoms and digital minister for six years. Even now, as prime minister, he oversees the country’s cybersecurity center. That digital savvy is a boon to tech professionals as Belgium prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 1. Belgium will be in the European hot seat as the EU tries to regulate artificial intellig...

Belgium leads the charge on the EU’s medicines reshoring plans

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.In the mountain town of Kundl, Austria, 10 fermenting vats — the largest 250,000 liters in volume — bubble with the Continent’s pharmaceutical future.The new plant, inaugurated by pharmaceutical company Sandoz on November 10, doesn’t bring just jobs and money to Kundl. It also brings scale to antibiotics production in Europe.“The site has the capacity to produce a minimum 4,000 [metric] tons of active pharmaceutical ingredient [annually],” explained the site’s director, Hannes Woerner. Though destined for the international market, that would be enough to supply all of Europe’s demand for amoxicillin, the most common form of the antibiotic penicillin.The plant is an early green shoot in an EU-wide attempt to revive the industry of pharmaceutical production, once dominant in Europe. According to an analysis by bank ING, the European Union can currently only meet a quarter of its own d...

How to navigate Belgium’s EU presidency policy agenda like a pro

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

This article is part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU special report.All eyes are on next June’s European election — and it’s up to the Belgians to close out the current five-year mandate. With the European Union going into full campaign mode ahead of the vote, Belgium has even less time than usual to make the most of its run heading the Council of the EU. With the sun setting on this European Parliament and European Commission, there’s no time to waste. Despite the best efforts of Spain, which we previewed a half year ago, many files in Belgium’s in tray are leftovers. Others are new or adapted initiatives in response to a shifting political landscape. Here is a sampling of the files that will define the Belgian presidency.Enlarging the EUName of legislation: European Union membership applications for Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and the Western BalkansWhy it matters: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has put EU enlargement back on the political agenda. Incorporating Ky...

UK tries new Rwanda treaty to get controversial asylum flights off the ground

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

LONDON — British Home Secretary James Cleverly landed in Kigali Tuesday morning to sign a new treaty with the Rwandan government which he hopes will finally see flights deporting asylum seekers to the east African nation take off.It’s the first and most eye-catching development in the government’s two-part plan to get the controversial Rwanda scheme back on track, after it was thrown out by the Supreme Court last month. It comes amid mounting pressure from Conservative MPs to reduce U.K. asylum numbers.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government wants to deport people who make “dangerous, unnecessary and illegal journeys” to Rwanda, with their asylum claims processed and decided on by Rwandan authorities. Successful applicants would be settled in Rwanda, not the U.K.Britain has already struck a multi-million pound deal with Rwanda to make that happen. But no flights have yet taken off and the policy has been mired in legal challenge. The Supreme Court last month dealt the late...

Fewer pills please: Stop prescribing antidepressants for mild symptoms, say doctors 

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

LONDON — A group of psychiatrists, psychologists and politicians in the U.K. have called for a halt to new antidepressant prescriptions for patients with mild conditions, arguing that growing prescription rates are not associated with improvements in mental health. Nearly 1 in 5 British adults are prescribed antidepressants, with the number of annual prescriptions jumping from around 47 million in 2011 to 86 million in 2022/23.The signatories of an open letter published in the British Medical Journal Tuesday — who include professors of psychiatry and psychology, GPs, former NHS chief Nigel Crisp and former care minister Norman Lamb — want to see a reversal of this trend. The authors’ main concern is that the uptick in prescriptions has not seen a corresponding improvement in population level mental health outcomes. Some measures show that these have in fact worsened, they write.The letter comes as a new All Party Parliamentary Group called Beyond Pills launches Tuesday, c...

4 Republicans qualify for fourth 2024 presidential debate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

(CNN) — Four candidates have qualified for the fourth GOP presidential primary debate taking place Wednesday night in Alabama, the Republican National Committee and debate broadcaster NewsNation announced Monday.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will face off in Tuscaloosa in what will be the smallest debate stage lineup so far this year. Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, will skip the event, as he has all previous debates and will instead attend a fundraiser in Florida for a super PAC supporting his candidacy.Monday’s announcement comes with just six weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses open the 2024 GOP nomination calendar and as DeSantis and Haley compete fiercely to be seen as the top primary rival to Trump.To make the Tuscaloosa stage, candidates had to meet higher donor and polling criteri...