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Tag: Negotiations

  • Kamala Harris at climate summit: World must ‘fight’ those stalling action

    Kamala Harris at climate summit: World must ‘fight’ those stalling action

    DUBAI — The vast, global efforts to arrest rising temperatures are imperiled and must accelerate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told the world climate summit on Saturday. 

    “We must do more,” she implored an audience of world leaders at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai. And the headwinds are only growing, she warned.

    “Continued progress will not be possible without a fight,” she told the gathering, which has drawn more than 100,000 people to this Gulf oil metropolis. “Around the world, there are those who seek to slow or stop our progress. Leaders who deny climate science, delay climate action and spread misinformation. Corporations that greenwash their climate inaction and lobby for billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies.” 

    Her remarks — less than a year before an election that could return Donald Trump to the White House — challenged leaders to cooperate and spend more to keep the goal of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. So far, the planet has warmed about 1.3 degrees since preindustrial times.

    “Our action collectively, or worse, our inaction will impact billions of people for decades to come,” Harris said.

    The vice president, who frequently warns about climate change threats in speeches and interviews, is the highest-ranking face of the Biden White House at the Dubai negotiations.

    She used her conference platform to push that image, announcing several new U.S. climate initiatives, including a record-setting $3 billion pledge for the so-called Green Climate Fund, which aims to help countries adapt to climate change and reduce emissions. The commitment echoes an identical pledge Barack Obama made in 2014 — of which only $1 billion was delivered. The U.S. Treasury Department later specified that the updated commitment was “subject to the availability of funds.”

    Meanwhile, back in D.C., the Biden administration strategically timed the release of new rules to crack down on planet-warming methane emissions from the oil and gas sector — a significant milestone in its plan to prevent climate catastrophe.

    The trip allows Harris to bolster her credentials on a policy issue critical to the young voters key to President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign — and potentially to a future Harris White House run. 

    “Given her knowledge base with the issue, her passion for the issue, it strikes me as a smart move for her to broaden that message out to the international audience,” said Roger Salazar, a California political strategist and former aide to then-Vice President Al Gore, a lifetime climate campaigner. 

    Yet sending Harris also presents political peril. 

    Biden has taken flak from critics for not attending the talks himself after representing the United States at the last two U.N. climate summits since taking office. And climate advocates have questioned the Biden administration’s embrace of the summit’s leader, Sultan al-Jaber, given he also runs the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil giant. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, has argued the partnership can help bring fossil fuel megaliths to the table.

    Harris has been on a climate policy roadshow in recent months, discussing the issue during a series of interviews at universities and other venues packed with young people and environmental advocates. The administration said it views Harris — a former California senator and attorney general — as an effective spokesperson on climate. 

    “The vice president’s leadership on climate goes back to when she was the district attorney of San Francisco, as she established one of the first environmental justice units in the nation,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call previewing her trip. 

    Joining Harris in Dubai are Kerry, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi and John Podesta, who’s leading the White House effort to implement Biden’s signature climate law. 

    Biden officials are leaning on that climate law — dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act — to prove the U.S. is doing its part to slash global emissions. Yet climate activists remain skeptical, chiding Biden for separately approving a series of fossil fuel projects, including an oil drilling initiative in Alaska and an Appalachian natural gas pipeline.

    Similarly, the Biden administration’s opening COP28 pledge of $17.5 million for a new international climate aid fund frustrated advocates for developing nations combating climate threats. The figure lagged well behind other allies, several of whom committed $100 million or more.

    Nonetheless, Harris called for aggressive action in her speech, which was followed by a session with other officials on renewable energy. The vice president committed the U.S. to doubling its energy efficiency and tripling its renewable energy capacity by 2030, joining a growing list of countries. The U.S. also said Saturday it was joining a global alliance dedicated to divorcing the world from coal-based energy. 

    Like other world leaders, Harris also used her trip to conduct a whirlwind of diplomacy over the war between Israel and Hamas, which has flared back up after a brief truce.

    U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Harris would be meeting with “regional leaders” to discuss “our desire to see this pause restored, our desire to see aid getting back in, our desire to see hostages get out.”

    The war has intruded into the proceedings at the climate summit, with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas both skipping their scheduled speaking slots on Friday. Iran’s delegation also walked out of the summit, objecting to Israel’s presence.

    Kirby said Harris will convey “that we believe the Palestinian people need a vote and a voice in their future, and then they need governance in Gaza that will look after their aspirations and their needs.”

    Although Biden won’t be going to Dubai, the administration said these climate talks are “especially” vital, given countries will decide how to respond to a U.N. assessment that found the world’s climate efforts are falling short. 

    “This is why the president has made climate a keystone of his administration’s foreign policy agenda,” the senior administration official said.

    Robin Bravender reported from Washington, D.C. Zia Weise and Charlie Cooper reported from Dubai. 

    Sara Schonhardt contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

    Robin Bravender, Zia Weise and Charlie Cooper

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  • Germany chokes on its own austerity medicine

    Germany chokes on its own austerity medicine

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    BERLIN — Germans gave the world schadenfreude for a reason. And southern Europe couldn’t be more pleased.

    For countries that spent years on the receiving end of Europe’s German-inspired fiscal Inquisition, there’s no sweeter sight than to see Germany splayed on the high altar of Teutonic parsimony. 

    The irony is that Germany put itself there on purpose and has no clue how it will find redemption.

    A jaw-dropping constitutional court ruling earlier this month effectively rendered the core of the German government’s legislative agenda null and void left the country in a collective shock. In order to circumvent Germany’s self-imposed deficit strictures, which give governments little room to spend more than they collect in taxes, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition relied on a network of “special funds” outside the main budget. Scholz was convinced the government could tap the money without violating the so-called debt brake.

    The court, in no uncertain terms, disagreed. The ruling raises questions about the government’s ability to access a total of €869 billion parked outside the federal budget in 29 “special funds.” The court’s move forced the government to both freeze new spending and put approval of next year’s budget on hold.

    Nearly two weeks after the decision, both the magnitude of the ruling and the reality that there’s no easy way out have become increasingly clear. Though Scholz has promised to come up with a new plan “very quickly,” few see a resolution without imposing austerity.

    The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more.

    In the meantime, his government is on edge. While Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green, has been telling any microphone he can find that Germany’s economic future is hanging in the balance, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has triggered panic and confusion by announcing a series of ill-defined spending freezes.

    On Thursday, the government was forced to deny a report that a special fund created to bolster Germany’s armed forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be affected by the cuts. 

    At a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni late Wednesday, Scholz endured the humiliation of a reporter asking his guest whether she considered Germany to be a reliable partner given its budget crisis. A magnanimous Meloni, whose country knows a thing or two about creative accounting, gave Scholz a shot in the arm, responding that in her experience he was “very reliable.” 

    Greek accounting

    Between the lines, the justices of Germany’s constitutional court suggested the use of the shadow funds by Scholz’s coalition amounted to a bookkeeping sleight of hand — the same sort of accounting alchemy Berlin upbraided Greece for more than a decade ago. Perhaps unwittingly, the court ruling echoed then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unsolicited advice to Athens during Greece’s debt crisis: “Now is the time to do the homework!”

    For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again. From 2010 onwards, they found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to explain to Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s taskmaster finance minister, how they planned to return to the path of fiscal rectitude. At Schäuble’s urging, Greece nearly ditched the euro altogether.

    The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

    In recent months, Germany has once again assumed the role of the fiscal scold in Brussels, where officials have been negotiating a new framework for the eurozone’s rulebook on government spending, known as the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact, which dates to 1997, has been suspended since the pandemic hit, but it is set to take effect again next year. Many countries want to loosen the rules given the huge budget pressures that have followed multiple crises in recent years. Berlin is open to reform but skeptical of granting its fellow euro countries too much leeway on spending.

    The latest budget mess certainly won’t help the Germans make their case.

    Simple hubris

    The allure of the strategy the court has now deemed illegal was that the government thought it could spend money it salted away in the special funds without violating Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.

    Put simply, Scholz’s coalition wanted to have its cake and eat it too, creating a veneer of fiscal discipline while spending freely to finance an ambitious agenda.

    Despite ample warning from legal experts that the government’s plan to repurpose a huge chunk of emergency pandemic-related funds might not withstand a court challenge, Scholz and his partners went ahead anyway. What’s more, they staked their entire political agenda on the assumption that the strategy would go off without a hitch.

    Last week’s court decision is the national equivalent of a rich kid being cut off from his trust fund: Daddy’s money is still there, but junior can’t touch it and has to exchange his Porsche for an Opel.

    What many in Berlin cite as the main reason for what they are calling der Schlamassel  (fiasco), however, is simple hubris.

    Scholz’s mild-mannered public persona belies a know-it-all approach to governing. A lawyer by training who has served for decades in the top ranks of German government, Scholz, at least in his own mind, is generally the smartest person in the room.  

    During coalition negotiations in 2021, Scholz sold the budget trick idea to his future partners — the conservative liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens — as a way to square the circle between the welfare agenda of his own Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens’ expensive climate agenda, and the FDP’s demands for fiscal rigor (or at least the appearance thereof).

    Indeed, it’s doubtful the coalition would have ever been formed in the first place without the plan. The Greens and FDP happily went along; after all Scholz, Germany’s finance minister from 2018-2021, knew what he was doing. Or so they thought. 

    Finance minister or ‘fuck-up’?

    Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu, for the simple reason that it was his ministry that oversaw the strategy. 

    During the coalition talks in 2021, Lindner was torn between a desire to govern and the fiscal strictures long championed by his party. Scholz offered him what appeared to be an elegant way to do both. 

    Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

    When Lindner, who had never served in an executive government role before, was poised to secure the finance ministry, some critics questioned his qualifications to lead the financial affairs of Europe’s largest economy. 

    POLITICO once asked the question more directly: “Finance minister or ‘fuck-up’?” 

    Many Germans have no doubt made their determinations in recent weeks. 

    Green machine 

    In contrast to the FDP, the Greens, had no qualms about endorsing Scholz’s bookkeeping tricks. 

    When it comes to realizing the Greens’ environmental goals, the ends have long justified the means. 

    In the early 2000s, for example, party leaders sold Germans on the idea of switching off the country’s nuclear plants and transitioning to renewables. They won the argument by promising that the subsidies consumers would be forced to finance to pay for the rollout of solar and wind power wouldn’t cost more every month than a “scoop of ice cream.”

    In the end, the collective annual bill for German households was €25 billion, enough to have cornered the global ice cream market many times over. 

    The Greens’ ice cream strategy — secure difficult-to-reverse legislative commitments and worry about the financial details later — also informed their approach to what they call the “social, ecological transformation,” a plan to make Germany’s economy carbon neutral. 

    That’s why the shock of the court decision has hit the Greens hardest. After more than 15 years in opposition, the Greens saw the alliance with Scholz and Lindner as the culmination of their effort to convince Germans to embrace their ecological vision for the future. Just as the hoped-for revolution was within reach, it has slipped from their grasp.

    Habeck, the face of the Green transformation, has looked like a man at his wits’ end in recent days, making dire predictions about the coming economic Armageddon.

    “This marks a turning point for both the German economy and the job market,” Habeck told German public television this week, predicting that it would become much more difficult for the country to maintain the level of prosperity it has enjoyed for decades. 

    Road to perdition 

    For all his candor, Habeck failed to address the elephant in the room: It’s a fake debt crisis.

    There is no objective reason for Germany to be in this dilemma. A best-of-class credit rating means Berlin can borrow money on better terms than almost any country on the planet. With a budget deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP last year and a total debt load amounting to 66 percent of GDP, Germany is also well above average compared to its eurozone peers in terms of fiscal discipline — even counting the debt raised for the special funds. 

    The only reason Germany can’t spend the money in the special funds is not because it can’t afford to, but rather because it remains beholden to an almost religious fiscal orthodoxy that views deficit debt as the road to perdition. 

    That conviction prompted Germany to anchor the so-called debt brake in its constitution in 2009, thereby allowing the government to run only a minor deficit, barring a natural disaster or other emergency, such as a war. 

    For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

    The constitutional amendment passed by a comfortable margin with broad support from both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the SPD, which shared power in a grand coalition led by Merkel. At the time, Germany was still recovering from the shock triggered by the 2008 collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers and had to commit billions to shore up its banking sector.

    The country’s federal government and states had begun planning a reform of fiscal rules even before the crisis. The emergency gave them additional impetus to pursue a debt brake enshrined in the constitution as a way to restore public trust. 

    In that respect, it worked as planned. As countries such as Greece and Spain struggled with their public finances in the years that followed, Germany’s debt brake looked prescient. 

    Even as southern Europe struggled, the German economy went into high gear powered by strong demand for its wares from Asia and North America, allowing the government to not just balance its budget but to run a string of surpluses, peaking in 2018 with a €58 billion windfall.

    Goodbye to all that

    The good times ended with the pandemic. Germany, along with the rest of the world, was forced to dig deep. It had the fiscal capacity to do so, however, as the pandemic justified lifting the debt brake in both 2020 and 2021.

    The fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine forced the government to do so again in 2022. 

    By drawing from special funds, Scholz and Lindner believed they could avoid a repeat in 2023. But the court’s ruling dashed that plan. 

    Long before the current crisis, it had become clear to most in government — both conservative and left-leaning — that the debt brake was a hampering investment in public infrastructure (Merkel’s coalition emphasized paying down debt instead of investing the surpluses) and, by extension, Germany’s economic competitiveness. Hence the liberal use of the now-closed special fund loophole. 

    Trouble is, even as many politicians have woken up to the perils of the debt brake, the public remains strongly in favor of it. Nearly two-thirds of Germans continue to support the measure, according to a poll published this week by Der Spiegel. 

    Repealing or even reforming the brake would require Germany’s political class not just to convince them otherwise, but also to muster a super majority in parliament, which at the moment is unlikely.  

    Late Thursday, the finance minister signaled that the debt brake would have to fall for 2023 as well. That means the government will have to retroactively declare an emergency — likely in connection with the war in Ukraine — and then hope that the constitutional court buys it. 

    Matthew Karnitschnig

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  • Dutch election is wide open as voting begins

    Dutch election is wide open as voting begins

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    ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — As Dutch polling stations open on Wednesday, any one of four rival party leaders could yet win power.

    Volatile polls in the final days of the campaign have left the outcome on a knife-edge, with the big surprise a sudden surge in support for the far-right party of Geert Wilders.

    His anti-Islam and anti-EU Freedom Party (PVV) appears to be making a dramatic comeback — one poll put him level in first place with outgoing premier Mark Rutte’s group, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). 

    The Labour-Green alliance, led by EU veteran Frans Timmermans, and a new party of centrist outsider Pieter Omtzigt are trailing behind in third and fourth place, according to pollster Maurice de Hond. Other polls put Timmermans’ party tied in first position with Wilders, closely followed by the VVD.

    However, the differences are small and, most importantly, 63 percent of voters had not yet settled on their final choice one day ahead of the election, according to one report.

    Read more: How to watch the Dutch elections like a pro – POLITICO

    A return for Wilders would be a seismic moment for politics in the Netherlands. For the last 10 years, mainstream party leaders have refused to work with him in power-sharing arrangements.

    But the new leader of Rutte’s party, Dilan Yeşilgöz, said early in the campaign that she would not exclude Wilders’ PVV from coalition negotiations. Wilders has taken a more moderate tone since. 

    He told television current affairs show Nieuwsuur that his views on Islam are taking a back seat because “there are more important priorities” to deal with after the election, citing healthcare and social security. The first thing Wilders said during a televised debate on Monday was that “he was available” as a coalition party. 

    However, his anti-Islam rhetoric is still very much part of the PVV’s election program. Launched 13 years ago, the party has been campaigning to ban mosques and the Koran, as well as Islamic headscarves from government buildings. 

    Wilders is also openly hostile to the European Union. He wants a so-called “Nexit” referendum and on leaving the bloc has called for all weapon supplies to Ukraine to stop. 

    Polling frenzy

    The unexpected surge of public support for Wilders’ party was first signaled by pollster de Hond – who overestimated Wilders’ share by five seats in the last election. In a survey of almost 7,000 people on 17 November, he found that the PVV and VVD were neck and neck in 26 of the 150 seats, thanks to a five-seat surge for Wilders. 

    POLITICO’s Poll of Polls showed Yeşilgöz leading with 18 percent as the campaign drew to its finale, closely followed by the parties of Wilders and Timmermans with 16 percent each. Omtzigt’s party has fallen back a little in recent days, to 15 percent in the Poll of Polls. Once the results are in, he could still emerge as kingmaker in coalition talks.

    NETHERLANDS NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    Even if the poll from de Hond proves to be a reliable prediction, the question is whether, and to what extent, the other parties want to work together with Wilders in government. 

    With his characteristic peroxide platinum hair, Wilders is the most experienced MP in parliament with 25 years under his belt. But his extreme views have kept him out of power-sharing coalitions, apart from in 2010, when he backed a Rutte minority cabinet for two years. 

    On Sunday, Yeşilgöz distanced herself from the PVV. “I refuse to shut out a single voter … [but] the PVV has policies like wanting the Netherlands to leave Europe, it wants a Nexit, it ignores climate problems, which would completely destroy this country,” she said. 

    Omtzigt has firmly ruled out joining forces with Wilders, saying his anti-Islam policies go against freedoms of expression and religion that are enshrined in the Dutch constitution.

    Although Wilders emerging from the election as one of the biggest parties would be a nightmare scenario for supporters of the Green-Left alliance. Team Timmermans hopes that prospect might convince undecided and more progressive people to vote tactically for them to exclude the far right.

    “It’s clear that Yeşilgöz has opened the door for Wilders in the government. This would mean someone participating in running the country who dismisses a million Dutch [Muslims] as second-class citizens,” Timmermans said.

    Beyond the late surge for the far-right, the campaign has been dominated by three core issues: the cost of living, migration and climate change.

    Against a backdrop of rising prices and a housing shortage that have left an estimated 830,000 people in poverty, most of the parties agree on the need to build more homes and spend more on welfare measures. 

    Wilders, Yeşilgöz and Omtzigt want to limit the number of asylum seekers and foreign workers — a plan that might prove difficult with the free movement of people under EU law. Timmermans is against limits but has proposed spreading asylum seekers more fairly across the country and reducing tax incentives for expats.  

    On climate, all main parties agree that the Netherlands needs to be climate neutral by 2050, except for Wilders who wants to leave the Paris agreement. Parties also agree that there is a need to reduce livestock and fertilizer use. The main disagreement has centered on nuclear energy. More rightwing and center parties are in favor of building new nuclear plants, but Timmermans has opposed this idea, saying it is risky, expensive, and challenging. 

    Eline Schaart

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  • Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

    Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.

    LONDON — World leaders will touch down in Dubai next week for a climate change conference they’re billing yet again as the final off-ramp before catastrophe. But war, money squabbles and political headaches back home are already crowding the fate of the planet from the agenda.

    The breakdown of the Earth’s climate has for decades been the most important yet somehow least urgent of global crises, shoved to one side the moment politicians face a seemingly more acute problem. Even in 2023 — almost certainly the most scorching year in recorded history, with temperatures spawning catastrophic floods, wildfires and heat waves across the globe — the climate effort faces a bewildering array of distractions, headwinds and dismal prospects.

    “The plans to achieve net zero are increasingly under attack,” former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who set her country’s goal of reaching climate neutrality into law, told POLITICO.

    The best outcome for the climate from the 13-day meeting, which is known as COP28 and opens Nov. 30, would be an unambiguous statement from almost 200 countries on how they intend to hasten their plans to cut fossil fuels, alongside new commitments from the richest nations on the planet to assist the poorest.

    But the odds against that happening are rising. Instead, the U.S. and its European allies are still struggling to cement a fragile deal with developing countries about an international climate-aid fund that had been hailed as the historic accomplishment of last year’s summit. Meanwhile, a populist backlash against the costs of green policies has governments across Europe pulling back — a reverse wave that would become an American-led tsunami if Donald Trump recaptures the White House next year.

    And across the developing world, the rise of energy and food prices stoked by the pandemic and the Ukraine war has caused inflation and debt to spiral, heightening the domestic pressure on climate-minded governments to spend their money on their most acute needs first.

    Even U.S. President Joe Biden, whose 2022 climate law kicked off a boom of clean-energy projects in the U.S., has endorsed fossil fuel drilling and pipeline projects under pressure to ease voter unease about rising fuel costs.

    Add to all that the newest Mideast war that began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

    On the upside, investment in much of the green economy is also surging. Analysts are cautiously opining that China’s emissions may have begun to decline, several years ahead of Beijing’s schedule. And the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that global fossil fuel demand could peak this decade, with coal use plummeting and oil and gas plateauing afterward. Spurring these trends is a competition among powers such as China, the United States, India and the European Union to build out and dominate clean-energy industries.

    But the fossil fuel industry is betting against a global shift to green, instead investing its profits from the energy crisis into plans for long-term expansion of its core business.

    The air of gloom among many supporters of global climate action is hard to miss, as is the sense that global warming will not be the sole topic on leaders’ minds when they huddle in back rooms.

    “It’s getting away from us,” Tim Benton, director of the Chatham House environment and society center, said during a markedly downbeat discussion among climate experts at the think tank’s lodgings on St James’ Square in London earlier this month. “Where is the political space to drive the ambition that we need?”

    Fog of war

    The most acute distraction from global climate work is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The conflagration is among many considerations the White House is weighing in Biden’s likely decision not to attend the summit, one senior administration official told POLITICO this month. Other leaders are also reconsidering their schedules, said one senior government official from a European country, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive diplomacy of the conference.

    The war is also likely to push its way onto the climate summit’s unofficial agenda: Leaders of big Western powers who are attending will spend at least some of their diplomatically precious face-time with Middle East leaders discussing — not climate — but the regional security situation, said two people familiar with the planning for COP28 who could not be named for similar reasons. According to a preliminary list circulated by the United Arab Emirates, Israeli President Isaac Herzog or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the talks.

    A threat even exists that the conference could be canceled or relocated, should a wider regional conflict develop, Benton said. 

    The UAE’s COP28 presidency isn’t talking about that, at least publicly. “We look forward to hosting a safe, inclusive COP beginning at the end of November,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement. But the strained global relations have already thrown the location of next years’ COP29 talks into doubt because Russia has blocked any EU country from hosting the conference, which is due to be held in eastern or central Europe.

    The upshot is that the bubble of global cooperation that landed the Paris climate agreement in 2015 has burst. “We have a lot of more divisive narratives now,” Laurence Tubiana, the European Climate Foundation CEO who was one of the drafters of the Paris deal, said at the same meeting at Chatham House.

    The Ukraine war and tensions between the U.S. and China in particular have widened the gap between developed and developing countries, Benton told POLITICO in an email. 

    Now, “the Hamas-Israel war potentially creates significant new fault lines between the Arab world and many Western countries that are perceived to be more pro-Israeli,” he said. “The geopolitical tensions arising from the war could create leverage that enables petrostates (many of which are Muslim) to shore up the status quo.”

    Add to that the as yet unknown impact on already high fossil fuel commodity prices, said Kalee Kreider, president of the Ridgely Walsh public affairs consultancy and a former adviser to U.S. Vice President Al Gore. “Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition.”

    The Biden administration’s decisions to approve a tranche of new fossil fuel production and export projects will undermine U.S. diplomacy at COP28, said Ed Markey, a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

    “You can’t preach temperance from a barstool, and the United States is running a long tab,” he said.

    U.N. climate talks veterans have seen this program before. “No year over the past three decades has been free of political, economic or health challenges,” said former U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, who now heads the consulting firm onepoint5. “We simply can’t wait for the perfect conditions to address climate change. Time is a luxury we no longer have — if we ever did.”

    The EU backlash

    Before the Mideast’s newest shock to the global energy system, the war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s energy dependence on Russia — and initially galvanized the EU to accelerate efforts to roll out cleaner alternatives.

    But in the past year, persistent inflation has worn away that zeal. Businesses and citizens worry about anything that might add to the financial strain, and this has frayed a consensus on climate change that had held for the past four years among left, center and center right parties across much of the 27-country bloc.

    In recent months, conservative members of the European Parliament have attacked several EU green proposals as excessive, framing themselves as pragmatic environmentalists ahead of Europe-wide elections next year.  Reinvigorated far-right parties across the bloc are also using the green agenda to attack more mainstream parties, a trend that is spooking the center. 

    Germany’s government was almost brought down this year by a law that sought to ban gas boilers — with the Greens-led economy ministry retreating to a compromise. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has joined a growing chorus agitating for a “regulatory pause” on green legislation.

    If Europe’s struggles emerge at COP28, the ripple effect could be global, said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank. 

    The “EU has established itself as the global laboratory for climate neutrality,” he said. “But now it needs to deliver on the experiment, or the world (which is closely watching) will assume this just does not work. And that would be a disaster for all of us.”

    U.K. retreats

    The world is also watching the former EU member that stakes a claim to be the climate leader of the G7: the U.K.

    London has prided itself on its green credentials ever since former Prime Minister May enacted a 2019 law calling for net zero by 2050 — making her the first leader of a major economy to do so.

    According to May’s successor Boris Johnson, net zero was good for the planet, good for voters, good for the economy. But under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the messaging has transformed. Net zero remains the target — but it comes with a “burden” on working people.

    In a major speech this fall, Sunak rolled back plans to ban new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030, bringing the U.K. into line with the EU’s 2035 date. With half an eye on Germany’s travails, he said millions of households would be exempted from the gas boiler ban expected in 2035.

    In making his arguments for a “pragmatic” approach to net zero, Sunak frequently draws on the talking points of net zero-skeptics. Why should the citizens of the U.K., which within its own borders produces just 1 percent of global emissions, “sacrifice even more than others?” 

    The danger, said one EU climate diplomat — granted anonymity to discuss domestic policy of an allied country — was that other countries around the COP28 negotiating table would hear that kind of rhetoric from a capital that had led the world — and repurpose it to make their own excuses.

    Sunak’s predecessor May sees similar risks.

    “Nearly a third of all global emissions originate from countries with territorial emissions of 1 per cent or less,” May said. “If we all slammed on the brakes, it would make our net zero aspirations impossible to achieve.”

    Trump’s back

    The U.S., the largest producer of industrial carbon pollution in modern history, has been a weathervane on climate depending on who controls its governing branches.

    When Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, it created a major drag on Biden’s promise to provide $11.4 billion in annual global climate finance by 2024.

    Securing this money and much more, developing countries say, is vital to any progress on global climate goals at COP28. Last year, on the back of the pandemic and the energy price spike, global debt soared to a record $92 trillion. This cripples developing countries’ ability to build clean energy and defend themselves against — or recover from — hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires.

    Even when the money is there, the politics can be challenging. Multibillion-dollar clean energy partnerships that the G7 has pursued to shift South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and India off coal power are struggling to gain acceptance from the recipients.

    Yet even more dire consequences await if Trump wins back the presidency next year. 

    A Trump victory would put the world’s largest economy a pen stroke away from quitting the Paris Agreement all over again — or, even more drastically, abandoning the entire international regime of climate pacts and summits. The thought is already sending a chill: Negotiations over a fund for poorer countries’ climate losses and damage, which Republicans oppose, include talks on how to make its language “change-of-government-proof” in light of a potential Trump victory, said Michai Robertson, lead finance negotiator for a bloc of island states.

    More concretely for reining in planet-heating gases, Trump would be in position to approve legislation eliminating all or part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden’s signature climate law included $370 billion in incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles and other carbon-cutting efforts – though the actual spending is likely to soar even higher due to widespread interest in its programs and subsidies – and accounts for a bulk of projected U.S. emissions cuts this decade.

    Trump’s views on this kind of spending are no mystery: His first White House budget director dismissed climate programs as “a waste of your money,” and Trump himself promised last summer to “terminate these Green New Deal atrocities on Day One.”

    House Republicans have attempted to claw back parts of Biden’s climate law several times. That’s merely a political messaging effort for now, thanks to a Democrat-held Senate and a sure veto from Biden, but the prospects flip if the GOP gains full control of Congress and White House.

    Under a plan hatched by Tubiana and backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, countries would in the future log their state and local government climate plans with the U.N., in an attempt to undergird the entire system against a second Republican blitzkrieg.

    The U.S. isn’t the only place where climate action is on the ballot, Benton told the conference at Chatham House on Nov. 1.

    News on Sunday that Argentina had elected as president right-wing populist Javier Milei — a Trump-like libertarian — raised the prospect of a major Latin American economy walking away from the Paris Agreement, either by formally withdrawing or by reneging on its promises.

    Elections are also scheduled in 2024 for the EU, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Russia, and possibly the U.K. 

    “A quarter of the world’s population is facing elections in the next nine months,” he said. “If everyone goes to the right and populism becomes the order of the day … then I won’t hold out high hopes for Paris.”

    Zack Colman reported from Washington, D.C. Suzanne Lynch also contributed reporting from Brussels.

    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

    Karl Mathiesen, Charlie Cooper and Zack Colman

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  • Netanyahu scrambles to quell revolt by far right over Gaza fuel

    Netanyahu scrambles to quell revolt by far right over Gaza fuel

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    TEL AVIV — Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled to quell a revolt by religious nationalists and settler leaders within his increasingly unruly governing coalition demanding he reverse a decision to let two fuel trucks per day enter Gaza — a concession the Israeli prime minister made amid growing U.S. and international pressure. 

    Rebellious coalition partners demanded to have more say over the conduct of the war after Netanyahu’s decision was announced Friday. They argued there should be no delivery of fuel, however limited, to the Palestinian coastal enclave — or any other humanitarian concessions — until Hamas frees the 240 Israeli hostages the group seized on October 7, when gunmen launched an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, Israeli officials say.

    Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, insisted the war cabinet be expanded from three people, including Netanyahu, so that all seven parties in the coalition government have a seat. Smotrich said allowing fuel in “is a grave mistake.”

    In recent weeks, as Western allies attempt to persuade Netanyahu to restrain Israeli military action — which has killed nearly 11,500 Palestinians in 42 days, according to separate counts by both the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-run government in Gaza, a number which some Israeli officials dispute — he has to contend with coalition partners who are set against conceding. 

    The religious nationalists and settler leaders also were critical of his decision last week, made again after arm-twisting by the Biden administration, to pause for a few hours daily its aerial bombardment and ground operations to allow Palestinians to flee south from the most intense fighting in northern Gaza.

    The eruption within the coalition government over the fuel concession illustrates the dilemma Netanyahu faces in trying to balance far-right religious nationalists in his government and Israel’s Western allies, who are increasingly pressing him to ease the plight of Gaza civilians. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under air, land and sea blockade by Israel since 2007 — when Hamas wrested power over the Strip from Fatah — relied heavily on humanitarian aid before the war, including fuel to clean water, operate sewage systems and power now-shut-off telecommunications. Egypt has upheld a blockade on its border crossing at Rafah with Gaza since 2007.

    Israeli officials say the decision to let in small amounts of fuel daily, a fraction of the fuel allowed before the war, was allowed as a gesture to Western allies and to avoid a breakdown of Gaza’s sewage and water systems, which would risk spreading disease, impacting civilians and Israeli troops. 

    “If plague were to break out, we’d have to stop the war,” National Security Council chairman Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters Friday.

    But Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister overseeing Israel’s police, dismissed that argument, saying “so long as our hostages don’t even get a visit from the Red Cross, there’s no sense in giving the enemy humanitarian gifts.” Permitting fuel, he said, “broadcasts weakness, gives oxygen to the enemy and allows [Hamas Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar to sit comfortably in his air-conditioned bunker, watch the news and continue to manipulate Israeli society and the families of the abductees.”

    Scrounging for fuel

    Israel cut off all fuel deliveries to Gaza at the start of the war, forcing the enclave’s only power plant to shut down, and it has been highly reluctant to allow fuel into Gaza, claiming it could be used to keep generators working to pump oxygen into Hamas’ huge network of tunnels. “For air, they need oil. For oil, they need us,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said as the war commenced. 

    But civilians need fuel as well. Gaza hospitals have been scrounging to find fuel to run their generators to power incubators and other life-saving equipment. And the U.N. has been urging fuel deliveries. Midweek, Israel allowed in a small amount to keep United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid delivery trucks operating. 

    Netanyahu has agreed to no more than 140,000 liters being transported every two days into Gaza.

    An official in the prime minister’s office told POLITICO: “60,000 liters of fuel (about two trucks) were approved, which is about 3.5 percent of the amount that came in before the war, in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis and enable the continued destruction of Hamas-ISIS. It will prevent the sewage system from collapsing. The long-term policy will be discussed tonight in the cabinet.”

    President Biden asked Netanyahu for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

    President Joe Biden expressed frustration last week about how long it took to get Israel to agree on brief humanitarian pauses. He had asked the Israeli leader not only for daily pauses but also for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas. On the latter he has so far been rebuffed but on the former, he said it had “taken a little longer than I hoped.”

    Netanyahu has struggled to keep his rambunctious far-right coalition partners in line. Last week he urged ministers to pipe down and “be careful with their words” when they talk about the war on Hamas. “Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy,” the prime minister said at a full cabinet meeting. “We must be sensitive,” he added, saying speaking out of turn harms Israel’s international legitimacy. 

    His warning came after his agriculture minister, Avi Dichter, envisaged the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip becoming a permanent uprooting. He dubbed it the “Gaza Nakba of 2023,” a reference to the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, known as the nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic). “That’s how it’ll end,” Dichter said during a television interview. 

    Just days earlier, Amihai Eliyahu, the heritage minister, prompted an outcry in Israel and abroad when he suggested one option in the war could be to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Netanyahu quickly disavowed the comment, and then suspended Eliyahu from cabinet meetings.

    And on Thursday, before the coalition eruption over Netanyahu’s backtracking on previous pledges not to allow a drop of fuel to enter Gaza, Ben Gvir said the West Bank should be flattened like Gaza following an attack by Hamas gunmen on a checkpoint south of Jerusalem. 

    “We need to deal with Hamas in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority which has similar views to Hamas and its heads identified with Hamas’ massacre, exactly like we are dealing with Gaza,” Ben Gvir said. 

    Netanyahu’s coalition partners are unlikely though to walk out of the government. None of the seven parties will want to set in motion the circumstances for a snap election. A poll Friday found that the Netanyahu-led coalition would be roundly beaten if elections for the Knesset were held today. 

    The Israeli prime minister isn’t getting any boost from the war, unlike Benny Gantz, a retired general and one of the leaders of the center-right National Unity party. He agreed to serve in the war cabinet for the duration of the fight, despite personal and political differences with Netanyahu. When asked who they would prefer as prime minister, 41 percent of respondents said Gantz; only 25 percent said Netanyahu. 

    Jamie Dettmer

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  • Only ‘minor’ obstacles blocking Israel-Hamas deal on hostages: Qatar PM

    Only ‘minor’ obstacles blocking Israel-Hamas deal on hostages: Qatar PM

    The deal to release hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its terrorist attack on Israel now only depends on “minor” practical issues, the Qatari prime minister said on Sunday in Doha. 

    His comments came after the White House denied that an agreement had been reached, following a report by the Washington Post that Hamas was close to agreeing to free 50 hostages in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also denied that a deal had been reached.

    “The challenges facing the agreement are just practical and logistical,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a press conference in Doha, alongside the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell. 

    Negotiations toward an agreement have seen “ups and downs from time to time throughout the last few weeks,” he said. “I’m now more confident that we are close enough to reach a deal that can bring the people safely back to their home,” he added.

     The Biden administration said Washington was working “hard” to get a deal between Israel and Hamas. 

    Israel’s Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will not agree to a cease-fire until all the hostages have been released.

    Qatar, which hosts a Hamas political office and has donated millions of dollars in financial aid to Gaza, was involved in the mediation that led to the release of four hostages in October, including an American woman and her daughter, and two Israeli women.

    “I appreciate a lot the constructive role Qatar is playing … in fostering peace and stability,” Borrell said at the press conference, praising Qatar’s approach as “a key mediator.”

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  • Israel, Hamas at critical juncture in negotiations for hostage deal

    Israel, Hamas at critical juncture in negotiations for hostage deal

    TEL AVIV — Israeli officials are becoming guardedly optimistic that a hostage deal with Hamas can be reached, but any agreement is likely to be interim and limited.

    A deal is likely to involve just a few dozen captive Israeli children and elderly, among them some dual nationals, including Americans, according to two Israeli officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic of hostages.

    The formalizing of humanitarian pauses in northern Gaza has helped progress the talks via the Qataris and Egyptians, the two officials acknowledged. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its bombings in Gaza after almost two weeks of pressure from the Biden administration.

    But the two officials cautioned that there are still several outstanding issues that could easily derail a deal, including the Hamas militants withholding a complete list of the hostages being held in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas military leadership is also demanding a cease-fire, or a longer humanitarian pause of as much as a week, the Israeli officials said.

    David Meidan, a former Mossad intelligence officer, who served for a time as Benjamin Netanyahu’s coordinator on hostage issues, believes that “something is moving under the surface” regarding the hostages. The humanitarian pauses that Netanyahu has agreed to “might lead to some positive steps,” Meidan said in an exclusive interview with POLITICO.

    More than a decade ago, Meidan negotiated the deal to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, a young Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006, in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Meidan, who has been counseling the families of the Israeli hostages, has been consulted by U.S. diplomats and Netanyahu’s newly appointed hostage envoy, Gal Hirsch.

    Meidan advised Hirsch and the Americans not to waste time juggling different channels of communication and to focus their efforts on identifying mediators able to reach the key decision-makers — namely the Hamas military leaders in Gaza. He said he told them that “the political leaders outside Gaza in Qatar are not so relevant.” They can serve just as go-betweens for messages to the Hamas military leaders, Meidan explained.

    The key players

    “When I led negotiations 12 years ago, I did not understand in the beginning exactly who the key players were. Finally, I understood that the key person at the time was Ahmed Jabari,” Meidan said.

    Jabari in 2006 was commander of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He was killed subsequently in 2012 in a targeted Israeli airstrike. Now Meidan says Yehya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip and one of the founders of the organization’s military wing, is the key player — along with Mohammed Deif, who planned the October 7 terror attack on southern Israel, and Marwan Issa, who is the deputy chief of Hamas’ military wing. “It is those three,” he said.

    “The Americans are deeply involved. I have the impression that on the American side there’s a very high level of engagement and it is coming straight from the top,” Meidan said. But the American role can only be limited, and Washington is not best placed to be a negotiator. “What it can do is pressure the Egyptians and Qataris and instill a sense of urgency,” he says. Last week, Mossad chief David Barnea and CIA Director William Burns were in Qatar to discuss ways to win the release of the hostages in Gaza with the Qatari prime minister, according to media reports.

    Meidan said the negotiations this time round will be more difficult than what he encountered a dozen years ago. First, he was bartering for just one soldier, not for around 240 captives, mostly civilian; and he wasn’t negotiating against the backdrop of an all-out war.

    And though he couldn’t sit opposite Jabari because of Israeli laws, he and the Hamas leader were in adjacent rooms in Cairo during the final stages with the Egyptians ferrying messages back and forth as they bargained. Meidan knew a deal was near when Jabari started to accept that it would be impossible for Israel to release some of the Palestinians that Hamas wanted freed. “That was when I knew he was turning pragmatic,” he said.

    ‘More complex’

    Egyptian generals were crucial in pulling off the Shalit deal, according to Meidan. He thinks they will be key again — including one general who led the Egyptian team in 2006.

    “Now it is even more complex,” Meidan said. No one is in adjacent rooms, and it is much more laborious and time-consuming.

    “What you have now is the Israelis and the Americans talking with the Qataris, who are then passing messages to the Hamas political leaders in Doha, who then communicate with Gaza. And you have Egyptians talking with Hamas leaders in Gaza. The Israelis draft proposals and the Americans tweak them. The Qataris and the Egyptians make suggestions. The final version is sent to Gaza via the Hamas leaders in Doha,” he added.

    Hamas has different ways of communicating between the political and military leaders, including using cell phones, which are easily monitored. “Each round of bargaining takes two to three days” slowing the process and drawing out the bargaining, says Meidan. “It takes a lot of time but, alas, time is of the essence,” he said.

    Meidan had wanted Israel to prioritize hostage negotiations much sooner — and before Israel started to pummel Gaza and launch military ground operations. 

    “Now we are in a different situation,” he said. He faults Netanyahu for dragging his feet. “I listened carefully to the statements of the Hamas leaders, and I got the impression they were taken aback at the international outrage after the terrible October 7 attack and were trying to argue that the worst of what happened wasn’t carried out by their fighters,” Meidan said.

    Meidan said the best way to engineer a deal now is to use the humanitarian pauses to push a humanitarian line on Hamas and argue they should reciprocate by freeing captive babies, children, the elderly and the infirm. “But it is very difficult,” he said.

    ‘Rollercoaster of emotions’

    The families of the hostages are getting ever more impatient and desperate, he said. Most are holding off calling for a cease-fire, leaving it to the government to determine the best ways of getting their relatives back, Meidan said. Most are arguing that Netanyahu should release all and any Palestinians held in Israeli jails that Hamas wants freed.

    But that could change soon. “They are going through a rollercoaster of emotions and can say different things from day to day — you have to remember there are many relatives involved and they don’t all agree,” Meidan said. But with each passing day, more are saying to me that there should be a cease-fire to save as many hostages as possible,” he said.

    If the hostage families as a group begin to call for a cease-fire, it could shift domestic Israeli politics dramatically, presenting Netanyahu with a potentially explosive political moment, say opposition politicians. The war aims to wreck Hamas’ military capabilities, defang the organization to prevent any repetition of October 7 has enormous public backing, but if Israel is faced with a stark choice of choosing between the hostages and the military campaign, then Israelis will prioritize getting the captives released, say some opposition politicians.

    “Basically, if you ask me, the hostages have to come first, we should get them home,” Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party and leader of the opposition, told POLITICO. Although he said he thought in practical terms Israel won’t be faced with such a black-and-white dilemma. But if it is, “we will have our chance to kill whoever we need to kill afterwards. If we are faced with a choice, then we must go with the hostages because that is the basic contract the country has with the families,” he added.

    Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agrees that there doesn’t have to be a clear-cut choice. “I am not sure it will come to an either-or. I don’t think that if Israel stops now, then we’ll get the hostages. And I don’t think that if we don’t stop, we will lose the hostages,” he said.

    “When we negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit, we were still confronting Hamas and killing terrorists and they never harmed him because they understood he was an asset and a bargaining chip which they didn’t want to lose. They protect the assets,” he said. But he and other politicians acknowledge say that if the families of the hostages call en masse for a cease-fire, it will roil Israel’s domestic politics.

    Jamie Dettmer

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  • US-EU unity ruptures over climate damage payments

    US-EU unity ruptures over climate damage payments

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    A Brussels promise has exposed the yawning gap between the United States and European Union over payments to climate-ravaged countries — just ahead of a major climate summit.

    The vow came Monday from Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate commissioner, who said the EU was “ready to announce a substantial financial contribution” for a new climate damage fund. 

    The pronouncement flew in the face of the more cautious U.S. approach — and will inevitably raise pressure on Washington and other wealthy governments to follow suit. 

    The emerging divide reflects how contentious the debate is over a fund to support countries scarred by extreme weather and other global warming harms, often referred to as “loss and damage.” Even settling on a framework for the fund faced challenges until climate negotiators reached a fragile agreement earlier this month in Abu Dhabi. 

    The dispute has often pitted rich, heavy-emitting countries like the U.S. and the EU against the developing countries facing the impacts of those emissions. But long-simmering differences between Brussels and Washington are now also bubbling over as the new fund takes shape — especially as calls mount for wealthy countries to pay up.

    In Abu Dhabi, Germany’s lead negotiator went out of her way to clarify that even though she was speaking for a group of developed countries, “our constituency is not one single group with one single voice.” 

    That transatlantic divide risks complicating rich countries’ efforts to get developing nations to sign up for more ambitious climate action at the COP28 climate summit starting later this month in Dubai. Cracks in the EU-U.S. alliance will make negotiating against the likes of China and Saudi Arabia trickier, and Washington’s reluctance to pay is impeding efforts to build trust between the poorest and most vulnerable nations and those with the resources to help them. 

    U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told an event on Friday he was “confident” that Washington would contribute “several millions,” though it’s unclear when it could be delivered. The Biden administration has struggled to get finance for international climate efforts through Congress and tends to take a more hardline stance on climate disaster funding — for both strategic and ideological reasons. 

    The EU is no longer waiting around. 

    “We, the EU, are not only prepared to lead, but we are capable of showing leadership,” a senior EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter, told POLITICO. 

    Differing philosophies 

    The divide stems partly from a different sense of the moral responsibility borne by the U.S. and EU. 

    As the climate talks earlier this month concluded in Abu Dhabi, European representatives reluctantly supported the framework, while the U.S. continued to press for changes even after the meeting had ended, claiming the adopted text was “not a consensus document.” 

    A house destroyed by the sea on the island of Carti Sugtupu, in the Indigenous Guna Yala Comarca, Panama | Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images

    A State Department official told POLITICO the U.S. “did not consider it sufficiently clear what the members were being asked to agree to, particularly on the issue of sources of funding.” The text has now been clarified, the official added, putting the U.S. in a position to welcome the negotiators’ recommendations. 

    “So I hope we’re going to avoid an implosion in Dubai because we now have agreed … on the way in which we can manage this fund,” Kerry said on Friday. 

    But the tiff over punctuation — the Americans were largely concerned about the placement of a comma they argued could indicate developed countries had a particular responsibility to pay — is another sign of the divergence between Washington and Brussels. 

    The EU and the U.S. are aligned on core issues: Both want a fund for vulnerable countries that doesn’t pin a unique responsibility on developed countries to provide the cash. 

    But Europe has been more comfortable with a document calling on wealthy nations to take the lead on money. “These distinctions can cut in both directions — if we’re taking the lead, then we’re expecting someone else to follow,” the EU diplomat said. 

    The EU’s more relaxed approach stands in contrast to Washington’s obsession with legally watertight language. The U.S. worries that any suggestion that rich polluting nations might have a responsibility toward countries hit by climate disasters could lead to legal obligations to pay compensation. 

    “As always, the European team is more flexible, and they’re the first who are ready to invest,” said Gayane Gabrielyan, Armenia’s deputy environment minister, who participated in the Abu Dhabi talks.

    America’s political trump card

    Cash-strapped countries argue such financial pledges are the incentive they need to make their own emissions-slashing commitments.

    “You can’t ask developing countries to have a faster, greater green transformation than any developed country ever did and then on the other side say, ‘Oh, well we feel no obligation, and feel no responsibility for their climate loss and damage,’” said Avinash Persaud, climate envoy of Barbados, who participated in the talks in Abu Dhabi. 

    “I think the Europeans get that but our American partners don’t always appear to — or local politics trumps that,” he added. 

    Those politics are quite tricky for the U.S., however. President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress — a momentous challenge given the Republican-controlled House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, not to mention a potential looming government shutdown that would stall all funding bills. 

    Officials bring that challenge with them into climate finance negotiations, observers say. 

    President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress | Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

    “They try to create funds or agreements that are going to be more palatable in Congress,” said Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. “But historically, the results of that has been the U.S. has just consistently watered stuff down and has not been a reliable partner in joining agreements or contributing funds.”

    That’s true for all kinds of climate funding, not just loss and damage. When Germany hosted a replenishment conference of the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund last month, Berlin put forward a record €2 billion, with other EU countries also contributing. The U.S. pledged nothing. 

    In another interview on Friday in Singapore, Kerry promised that Washington would “make a good-faith effort” when it comes to helping victims of climate disasters. 

    “But we need everyone to take part — it can’t be just a few countries, we need everyone to help to the degree that they can,” he said. 

    Leading or ceding leverage?

    Some see the Europeans’ flexibility as a strategic mistake. 

    A former U.K. official, granted anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, said that at last year’s COP27 in Egypt, the European Commission team undermined the position of other wealthy countries by backing a climate disaster fund before developing countries had agreed to cut emissions in return.

    The EU appears to have taken that message on board this year, with Hoekstra strongly implying Brussels will use climate disaster funding as a bargaining chip to obtain emission-cutting concessions.

    If countries make enough pledges at COP28 to slash emissions, the new climate disaster fund “can be launched in Dubai, with the first pledges, too,” he said in a speech in Kenya last week. “Because if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, no amount of money will be able to pay [for] the damages.” 

    But the EU is already gathering money. A senior European climate negotiator, who could only speak on condition of anonymity because of their sensitive position, said Hoekstra had been touring European capitals asking them to prepare contributions, something the Commission would not confirm but did not deny. 

    No official POLITICO spoke to would say on the record whether and how much their country would pay into the fund — except for Denmark’s climate minister Dan Jørgensen. 

    “We were the first country to pledge money last year … and we will also be ready to do that again now,” Jørgensen told POLITICO and four European newspapers last week, promising a “generous pledge.” 

    Asked for more details later, his office asked POLITICO not to publish the comment — implying that the minister should not have revealed Denmark’s intention to pay just yet. 

    Still, the EU let the cat out of the bag on Monday with its promise to pay into the fund, even as it declined to detail how much. The precise amount, a diplomat from a European country represented at the recent loss and damage talks, was the “big fat carrot” in the COP28 negotiations.  

    But asked if Brussels was also bringing a stick to Dubai, the diplomat conceded: “I think the Americans are the ones swinging a stick.” 

    Abby Wallace contributed reporting. 

    Zia Weise, Sara Schonhardt and Karl Mathiesen

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  • Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

    Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

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    TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be digging in for a “long and difficult war” but former leader Ehud Barak fears Israel has only weeks left to eliminate Hamas, as public opinion — most significantly in the U.S. — rapidly swings against its attacks on Gaza.

    In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the former prime minister and chief of the Israel Defense Forces also suggested a multinational Arab force could have to take control of Gaza after the military campaign, to help usher in a return of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to take over from Hamas. Even with that change of the political order in Gaza, however, Barak stressed the return to diplomacy aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state was a very remote prospect.

    Barak, who led Israel between 1999 and 2001, observed the rhetoric of U.S. officials had shifted in recent days with a mounting chorus of calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. The sympathy generated toward Israel in the immediate wake of October 7, when Hamas launched the deadliest terrorist attack on Israel in the Jewish state’s 75-year history, was now diminishing, he worried.

    “You can see the window is closing. It’s clear we are heading towards friction with the Americans about the offensive. America cannot dictate to Israel what to do. But we cannot ignore them,” he said, in reference to Washington’s role as the main guarantor of Israel’s security. “We will have to come to terms with the American demands within the next two or three weeks, probably less.”

    As he was speaking, Israeli military officials told reporters the ground campaign was reaching a new dangerous phase with troops penetrating deep inside Gaza City, further than in previous operations in 2009 and 2014.

    Barak spoke with POLITICO in his book-lined office in a high-rise apartment building in downtown Tel Aviv.

    On the walls are photographs recording different stages of his storied career as a special forces soldier and statesman. One was snapped in May 1972 when he led an elite commando unit, which included Netanyahu, to rescue passengers from Sabena Flight 571, which was hijacked by Black September gunmen.

    Under the photograph, there’s a piano. A trained classical pianist, Barak says he has recently been playing Chopin Ballade No. 1. A performance of that piece is central to the plot of the 2002 film The Pianist, which moves a German Nazi officer to hide Władysław Szpilman.

    Barak added it would take months or even a year to extirpate the Islamist militant group Hamas — the main war aim set by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet – but noted Western support was weakening because of the civilian death toll in Gaza and fears of Israel’s campaign sparking a much broader and even more catastrophic war in the region.

    Western nations are also anxious about their nationals among the 242 hostages Hamas is holding captive in Gaza, he continued.

    “Listen to the public tone — and behind doors it is a little bit more explicit. We are losing public opinion in Europe and in a week or two we’ll start to lose governments in Europe. And after another week the friction with the Americans will emerge to the surface,” Barak said.

    Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before | Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

    Last week, President Joe Biden raised the need for a “humanitarian pause” in the campaign.

    And this week on his fourth trip to Israel, and his third to the region since October 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed the case with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet telling them they should now prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza and minimize civilian casualties.

    Blinken’s efforts so far have been spurned by Netanyahu but Barak didn’t think the Israeli war cabinet would be able to fend off the Biden administration and Europeans for much longer.

    Political and military veteran

    Barak has plenty of experience of dealing with Israel’s allies and adversaries alike.

    As prime minister he negotiated with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, in a 2000 summit hosted by President Bill Clinton, where they came close to striking a deal. A former defense minister and chief of staff, Barak was an elite commando and one of the key planners of Operation Thunderbolt, the rescue from Entebbe, Uganda, of the passengers and crew of an Air France jet hijacked by terrorists.

    Barak said Israel rightly set the bar high in its Gaza war aim. “The shock of the attack was huge. This was an unprecedented event in our history, and it was immediately clear that there had to be a tough response. Not in order to take revenge, but to make sure that it cannot happen ever again.”

    And even if the military campaign falls short of its maximum goal of the full eradication of Hamas, severe damage will have been inflicted on the Iran-backed Palestinian group, he explained. It will then be important to constrain Hamas from pulling off a resurgence, he continued.

    Barak poses with members of the LGBTQ+ community in Tel Aviv in 2019 | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

    To change the political landscape, he believed a multinational Arab force could take over Gaza after the Israeli military campaign.

    “It is far from being inconceivable that backed by the Arab League and United Nations Security Council, a multinational Arab force could be mustered, with some symbolic units from non-Arab countries included. They could stay there for three to six months to help the Palestinian Authority to take over properly,” he said.

    Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before.

    Back in 2008-2009, when Israel and Hamas fought a three week-war, Barak, then Israeli defense minister, discussed with the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak the possibility of Egypt and other Arab nations stepping in to administer the Gaza Strip. “I remember his gesture,” says Barak. “He displayed his hands and said, ‘I will never ever put my hands back in the Gaza.’”

    Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was equally dismissive.

    Abbas told Barak he could never return to Gaza supported by Israeli bayonets. “I didn’t like the answer. But you can understand his logic. Fifteen years ago, it was impossible because there was no one who would do it but a lot has changed since then,” Barak said.

    Displaced Palestinians wait at a food distribution at a U.N.-run center | Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

    Hamas battled the PLO-affiliated Fatah party for control of Gaza in 2007 in a clash that effectively split Palestinian political structures in two, with Hamas controling Gaza and Fatah predominating in the West Bank.

    Barak noted Israel, Egypt and Jordan had deepened their anti-terrorism cooperation and Israel had signed “normalization” accords with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, a process that he thought Arab states would not want to row back from.

    “Arab leaders also need to be able to tell their own peoples that something is changing, and a new chapter is opening, one where there is a sincere effort on all sides to calm down conflict. But they need to hear that Israel is capable of thinking in terms of changing the direction it has been on in recent years,” he adds.

    That doesn’t mean Israel should or can rush into revived negotiations over a two-state solution, he cautioned. Getting back to the era of when he was negotiating with Arafat might not be possible, for a very long time.

    “History does not repeat itself. So I do not think that something exactly like that can be repeated. But as Mark Twain used to say, history can rhyme.”

    He added: “It won’t happen quickly, and it will take time. Trust on all sides has gone – the distrust has only deepened.”

    Jamie Dettmer

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  • EU, Russia and US held secret talks days before Nagorno-Karabakh blitz

    EU, Russia and US held secret talks days before Nagorno-Karabakh blitz

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    Top officials from the United States and the EU met with their Russian counterparts for undisclosed emergency talks in Turkey designed to resolve the standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh, just days before Azerbaijan launched a military offensive last month to seize the breakaway territory from ethnic Armenian control.

    The off-diary meeting marks a rare — if ultimately unsuccessful — contact between Moscow and the West on a major security concern, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 upended regular diplomacy.

    A senior diplomat with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO the meeting took place on September 17 in Istanbul as part of efforts to pressure Azerbaijan to end its nine-month blockade of the enclave and allow in humanitarian aid convoys from Armenia. According to the envoy, the meeting focused on “how to get the bloody trucks moving” and ensure supplies of food and fuel could reach its estimated 100,000 residents.

    The U.S. was represented by Louis Bono, Washington’s senior adviser for Caucasus negotiations, while the EU dispatched Toivo Klaar, its representative for the region. Russia, meanwhile, sent Igor Khovaev, who serves as Putin’s special envoy on relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

    Such high-level diplomatic interaction is rare. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came face to face on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in India — but Moscow insisted the exchange happened “on the move” and no negotiations were held.

    In a statement provided to POLITICO, an EU official said “we believe it is important to maintain channels of communications with relevant interlocutors to avoid misunderstandings.” The official also observed Klaar had sought to keep lines open on numerous fronts over the “past years,” including in talks with Khovaev and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department declined to comment on the meeting, saying only that “we do not comment on private diplomatic discussions.”

    However, a U.S. official familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters explained the discussions came out of an understanding that the Kremlin still holds sway in the region. “We need to be able to work with the Russians on this because they do have influence over the parties, especially as we’re at a precarious moment right now,” the American official said.

    Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, sending tanks and troops into the region under the cover of heavy artillery bombardment. Karabakh Armenian leaders were forced to surrender following 24 hours of fierce fighting that killed hundreds on both sides. Since then, the Armenian government says more than 100,000 people have fled their homes and crossed the border, fearing for their lives.

    Azerbaijan insists it has the right to take action against “illegal armed formations” on its internationally recognized territory, and has pledged to “reintegrate” those who have stayed behind. European Council President Charles Michel described the military operation as “devastating,” while Blinken has joined calls for Azerbaijan “to refrain from further hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and provide unhindered humanitarian access.”

    Nahal Toosi, Gabriel Gavin and Eric Bazail-Eimil

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  • Rishi Sunak to sign UK-India trade deal without binding worker or environment pledges

    Rishi Sunak to sign UK-India trade deal without binding worker or environment pledges

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    LONDON — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s trade deal with India will not include legally enforceable commitments on labor rights or environmental standards, five people briefed on the text have told POLITICO.

    British businesses and unions now fear the deal’s already-finalized labor and environment chapters will undercut U.K. workers’ rights and efforts to combat climate change.

    Sunak’s government is racing to score a win with the booming South Asian economy ahead of the 2024 election. His plans for a return trip to India in October with the aim of sealing the pact are still on track.

    Sunak and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi added impetus to negotiations when they met on the sidelines of the G20 in New Delhi early this month. The 13th round of talks continues in London this week.

    Just days after Sunak’s meeting with Modi, Badenoch’s team shared the deal’s labor and environment chapters with businesses, unions and trade experts on a September 13 briefing call.

    Key enforceable dispute resolution powers which the U.K. set out to negotiate are missing from those chapters, said the five people briefed on the text. It means neither London nor New Delhi can hold the other to their climate, environmental and workers’ rights commitments.

    Businesses, unions and NGOs now fear the deal could undercut British firms because Indian firms operate to less stringent and expensive environmental and labor standards. Firms and unions say their access to the negotiations was curtailed earlier this year as talks progressed.

    “Industry also wants binding commitments — partly for greater certainty, partly because businesses are made up of people who themselves want to be properly treated and to avoid climate catastrophe,” said a senior British businessperson from the services sector briefed on the chapters. They were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the negotiations.

    “Suppression of trade unions, child labor and forced labor are all widespread in India,” said Rosa Crawford, trade lead at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) — the largest coalition of unions in Britain. “But the labor chapter that the U.K. government has negotiated cannot be used to clamp down on these abuses and could lead to more good jobs being offshored to exploitative jobs in India.”

    The Department for Business and Trade said it does not comment on live negotiations and that it will only sign a deal that benefits the U.K. and its economy.

    ‘Everyone was deeply unhappy’

    At the outset of the talks, the British government committed to negotiating enforceable labor and environment chapters as it laid out its strategic approach. “We remain committed to upholding our high environmental, labour, food safety and animal welfare standards in our trade agreement with India,” the government said in January 2022.

    Indian and British officials say the labor and environment chapters are now closed and are not up for discussion. The U.K.’s first post-Brexit trade pacts with Australia and New Zealand have dispute settlement mechanisms in both these chapters. Three people POLITICO spoke to for this piece said it was an achievement in itself that Britain was able to get such chapters in a deal with India.

    Businesses, unions and NGOs have all been concerned after Kemi Badenoch closed the key forums in February to carry out a required review of their activities | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

    But, as the U.K.-India deal stands, if either country were to weaken its environmental standards or workers’ rights “the other party would not have recourse to initiate consultations on changes in laws,” said a person familiar with the content of the chapters. “There is no dispute settlement in the environment and labor chapters.”

    British firms and unions are also concerned that the pact the EU is negotiating with India has enforceable chapters “bound by sanctions in case the parties don’t comply,” the same person said. Those EU-India chapters are not yet finalized.

    British stakeholders “are totally up in arms,” said a former trade department official familiar with the briefing. “Everyone was deeply unhappy.”

    India has changed its labor laws to deprive workers of the right to strike. Over the past year several Indian states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, have weakened their workers’ rights laws making 12-hour daily shifts and overnight shifts for women legal as Apple iPhone maker Foxconn sets up multiple semiconductor factories and assembly plants throughout India.  

    Adding enforceable chapters would only slow down negotiations, said an Indian government official. “If you put in too much of these things into a trade deal, then it delays the process.” The U.K. and India are already “bound by” their international commitments on labor and climate, they added.

    The deal “is dire for working people because trade unions were excluded from the trade talks,” said the TUC’s Crawford. Nearly three years ago, ministers pitched the idea of involving unions in 11 influential Trade Advisory Groups (TAGs) that gave input on ongoing trade negotiations.  

    Businesses, unions and NGOs have all been concerned after Britain’s trade chief Kemi Badenoch closed the key forums in February to carry out a required review of their activities. International Trade Minister Nigel Huddleston received officials’ recommendations to restructure the groups in mid-August. A final decision is expected before the end of the year.

    With 40-50 people on the U.K. government’s current briefing calls about the India trade deal there’s little businesses or unions can do to feed into negotiations. Officials can “only really be in transmit mode,” said a business representative familiar with the briefings.

    “What this means in real terms is that decisions are being made about the future of people’s livelihoods, people’s health, and the environment we all depend on without any input from those who will be impacted,” said Hannah Conway, trade and agriculture policy advisor at the NGO Transform Trade.

    “It’s crucial,” she said, “that the government addresses its democratic deficit on trade policy by undertaking meaningful consultation with civil society and businesses.”

    “It’s high time the government rethinks its approach,” said the TUC’s Crawford, “and includes unions in trade talks — that’s how you get trade deals that work for working people.”

    Graham Lanktree

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  • After Brexit, Britain and Europe embrace ever-closer union

    After Brexit, Britain and Europe embrace ever-closer union

    LONDON — It was the gleaming smiles and mutual backslapping of two 40-something banker bros which signalled a new era of U.K.-EU relations. 

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron looked like natural bedfellows as they riffed off one another at a friendly Paris press conference in March, announcing a sizeable £478 million package to deter migrant crossings through the English Channel.

    The contrast with the petty name-calling of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss eras was clear to see.

    Sunak’s warm and productive summit with Europe’s most high-profile leader confirmed a more collaborative relationship with the EU and its national capitals after the turmoil of the Brexit era. Less than two weeks earlier, the British PM’s landmark Windsor Framework agreement with Brussels had finally resolved post-Brexit trading issues in Northern Ireland.

    “My hope is that [the agreement] opens up other areas of constructive engagement and dialogue and cooperation with the EU,” Sunak told POLITICO en route to the Paris summit.

    Six months on, his words have been borne out.

    In addition to the Windsor Framework and English Channel agreements, Britain has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Brussels on regulatory cooperation in financial services, and this month rejoined the EU’s massive €96 billion Horizon and Copernicus science research programs — a major result for the U.K.’s research and university sectors after two years of uncertainty.

    Next on the agenda is a cooperation deal between the British government and the EU’s border protection agency Frontex — another move that brings Britain closer to the EU in a small but meaningful way.

    The deal, confirmed by the Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday, is expected to be similar to other deals Frontex has with non-EU countries, like Albania, which allow the sharing of data on migration flows.

    “We have seen concrete steps created by a new climate of good faith,” said a London-based European diplomat, granted anonymity — like others in this article — to speak candidly about diplomatic relations.

    “We missed that before, and so that’s the Sunak effect. I wouldn’t say he’s done an amazing job, but he’s changed the state of mind — and therefore he has changed everything.”

    A new hope

    In addition to a renewed focus on relations with fellow leaders, Sunak has impressed EU diplomats with his willingness to face down the vocal Brexiteer wing of his own party, which has long seemed — to European eyes — to hold outsized influence over successive Tory prime ministers.

    Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proclaimed a “new chapter” in post-Brexit relations with the European Union after securing a breakthrough deal to regulate trade in Northern Ireland | Pool photo by Dan Kitwood/AFP via Getty Images

    Earlier this year Sunak enraged Tory right-wingers by abandoning a controversial pledge to scrap or rewrite thousands of EU-era regulatory laws which remain on the British statute book by the end of this year, to the delight of EU capitals.

    “The improving relationship is built on the fact there’s now a willingness to find solutions and engage in a way that wasn’t there in the previous administrations,” a second London-based European diplomat said.

    Negotiations continue between Sunak’s government and Brussels over other outstanding areas of dispute — chief among them tough new tariffs due to be imposed in January on electric vehicles (EVs) being shipped in and out of the U.K. which do not conform to strict sourcing requirements for electric batteries.

    On Wednesday the U.K.-EU Trade Specialised Committee will meet to discuss the issue, with British ministers increasingly hopeful Brussels will agree to scrap the end-of-year deadline after heavy lobbying from German automakers and its own European Commissioner for trade, Valdis Dombrovskis.

    Catherine Barnard, a European law professor at Cambridge University, said overall Sunak had overseen a “much more positive relationship” with Europe, albeit one conducted on a “pay-as-you-go basis.”

    “This is looking much more positive and it’s putting some meaning on dealing with our European neighbors as friends, rather than as foes,” she said.

    “But equally, we’re not talking about a comprehensive and thorough renegotiation — quite the contrary.”

    No. 10 Downing Street agrees the shift is less profound than some media observers — or grumbling Tory MPs — would like to think.

    A No. 10 aide said Sunak sees his diplomatic efforts as “normal government,” noting that “we’ve just forgotten what it looks like” after the turmoil of the post-Brexit era.

    “I know it’s following Brexit and all that nonsense we’ve seen over the last few years, and it’s nice to see any small win or small argument to bridge that divide, but this is just normal government relations,” the aide said.

    Labour pains

    Sunak, of course, is 18 points behind in the opinion polls and faces an uphill struggle to stay in office at a general election expected next year.

    But his opponent, U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer, has made clear he too wants closer cooperation with Europe should he seize power.

    A senior moderate Tory MP said that despite the attacks on Starmer, Sunak is “not overly ideological when it comes to the EU” | Kiran Ridley/Getty Images

    Starmer said this month a future Labour government would use the upcoming review of the post-Brexit trade deal, expected in 2025 or 2026, as a chance to reduce border checks through the signing of a veterinary agreement and to increase U.K.-EU mobility for some sectors of the economy.

    And he told a conference in Montreal last weekend that that “we don’t want to diverge from the EU” in areas such as working conditions or environmental standards.

    These comments were seized upon by Tory ministers as evidence that Starmer would bring the U.K. even further into the EU’s orbit than he has publicly admitted — something the Labour leader denies. Tory campaigners hope to use such comments in campaign attacks painting Starmer as an anti-Brexit europhile.

    But some observers suggest such political attacks are ironic, given Sunak’s own direction of travel. Barnard, quoted above, says that “what Keir Starmer was saying in Canada last week is pretty much a description of where we’re at at the moment.”

    A senior moderate Tory MP said that despite the attacks on Starmer, Sunak is “not overly ideological when it comes to the EU.”

    “There’s always been a belief in Brussels that we would inevitably come crawling back to them, and we’re seeing that a bit now,” they said.

    Nevertheless, it is unclear how much closer Britain and the EU can get without a fundamental renegotiation of the terms of Brexit — something all sides insist is off the table.

    One area for agreement is the need for enhanced security and defence links, with next year’s European Political Community Summit in Britain providing a potential opportunity for further announcements.

    Some in Westminster speculate that this could come in the form of Britain joining individual projects of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation — a body which coordinates the bloc’s security and defence policy. The European Council invited Britain to join its “military mobility project” alongside Canada, Norway and the U.S. in November 2022.

    Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank , said he’s “not convinced” of the potential benefits for Britain, considering the U.K.’s existing position in NATO and other organizations.

    He believes the British government will run out of road in finding mutually beneficial areas of cooperation with Brussels.

    “The EU is relatively happy with the status quo,” Menon said. “It’s only in the U.K. where people say we need to move closer … There are so many bigger fish to fry for the EU.”

    Stefan Boscia

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  • The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict explained

    The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict explained

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    Fierce firefights and heavy shelling echo once again around the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh, an isolated region at the very edge of Europe that has seen several major wars since the fall of the Soviet Union.

    On Tuesday, the South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan announced its armed forces launched “local anti-terrorist activities” in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is inside Azerbaijan’s borders but is controlled as a breakaway state by its ethnic Armenian population.

    Now, with fighting raging and allegations of an impending “genocide” reaching fever pitch, all eyes are on the decades-old conflict that threatens to draw in some of the world’s leading military powers.

    What is happening?

    For weeks, Armenia and international observers have warned that Azerbaijan was massing its armed forces along the heavily fortified line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh, preparing to stage an offensive against local ethnic Armenian troops. Clips shared online showed Azerbaijani vehicles daubed with an upside-down ‘A’-symbol, reminiscent of the ‘Z’ sign painted onto Russian vehicles ahead of the invasion of Ukraine last year.

    In the early hours of Tuesday, Karabakh Armenian officials reported a major offensive by Azerbaijan was underway, with air raid sirens sounding in Stepankert, the de facto capital. The region’s estimated 100,000 residents have been told by Azerbaijan to “evacuate” via “humanitarian corridors” leading to Armenia. However, Azerbaijani forces control all of the entry and exit points and many locals fear they will not be allowed to pass safely.

    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s top foreign policy advisor, Hikmet Hajiyev, insisted to POLITICO the “goal is to neutralize military infrastructure” and denied civilians were being targeted. However, unverified photographs posted online appear to show damaged apartment buildings, and the Karabakh Armenian human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, reported several children have been injured in the attacks.

    Concern is growing over the fate of the civilians effectively trapped in the crossfire, as well as the risk of yet another full-blown war in the former Soviet Union.

    How did we get here?

    During the Soviet era, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region inside the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, home to both ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but the absence of internal borders made its status largely unimportant. That all changed when Moscow lost control of its peripheral republics, and Nagorno-Karabakh was formally left inside Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.

    Amid the collapse of the USSR from 1988 to 1994, Armenian and Azerbaijani forces fought a grueling series of battles over the region, with the Armenians taking control of swathes of land and forcing the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis, razing several cities to the ground. Since then, citing a 1991 referendum — boycotted by Azerbaijanis — the Karabakh-Armenians have unilaterally declared independence and maintained a de facto independent state.

    For nearly three decades that situation remained stable, with the two sides locked in a stalemate that was maintained by a line of bunkers, landmines and anti-tank defenses, frequently given as an example of one of the world’s few “frozen conflicts.”

    However, that all changed in 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a 44-day war to regain territory, conquering hundreds of square kilometers around all sides of Nagorno-Karabakh. That left the ethnic Armenian exclave connected to Armenia proper by a single road, the Lachin Corridor — supposedly under the protection of Russian peacekeepers as part of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement.

    What is the blockade?

    With Russia’s ability to maintain the status quo rapidly dwindling in the face of its increasingly catastrophic war in Ukraine, Azerbaijan has moved to take control of all access to the region. In December, as part of a dispute supposedly over illegal gold mining, self-declared “eco-activists” — operating with the support of the country’s authoritarian government — staged a sit-in on the road, stopping civilian traffic and forcing the local population to rely on Russian peacekeepers and the Red Cross for supplies.

    That situation has worsened in the past two months, with an Azerbaijani checkpoint newly erected on the Lachin Corridor refusing to allow the passage of any humanitarian aid, save for the occasional one-off delivery. In August, amid warnings of empty shelves, malnourishment and a worsening humanitarian crisis, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, published a report calling the situation “an ongoing genocide.”

    Azerbaijan denies it is blockading Nagorno-Karabakh, with Hajiyev telling POLITICO the country was prepared to reopen the Lachin Corridor if the Karabakh-Armenians accepted transport routes from inside Azerbaijani-held territory. Aliyev has repeatedly called on Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh to stand down, local politicians to resign and those living there to accept being ruled as part of Azerbaijan.

    Why have things escalated now?

    Over the past few months, the U.S., EU and Russia have urged Azerbaijan to keep faith during diplomatic talks designed to end the conflict once and for all, rather than seeking a military solution to assert control over the entire region.

    As part of the talks in Washington, Brussels and Moscow, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a series of unprecedented concessions, going as far as recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory. However, his government maintains it cannot sign a peace deal that does not include internationally guaranteed rights and securities for the Karabakh-Armenians.

    The situation has worsened in the past two months, with an Azerbaijani checkpoint newly erected on the Lachin Corridor refusing to allow the passage of any humanitarian aid | Tofik babayev/AFP via Getty Images

    Aliyev has rejected any such arrangement outright, insisting there should be no foreign presence on Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory. He insists that as citizens of Azerbaijan, those living there will have the same rights as any other citizen — but has continued fierce anti-Armenian rhetoric including describing the separatists as “dogs,” while the government issued a postage stamp following the 2020 war featuring a worker in a hazmat suit “decontaminating” Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Unwilling to accept the compromise, Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of stalling the peace process. According to former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, a military escalation is needed to force an agreement. “It can be a short-term clash, or it can be a war,” he added.

    Facing growing domestic pressure amid dwindling supplies, former Karabakh-Armenian President Arayik Harutyunyan stood down and called elections, lambasted as a provocation by Azerbaijan and condemned by the EU, Ukraine and others.

    Azerbaijan also alleged Armenian saboteurs were behind landmine blasts it says killed six military personnel in the region, while presenting no evidence to support the claim.

    What’s Russia doing?

    Armenia is formally an ally of Russia, and a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military bloc. However, Russian peacekeepers deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh have proven entirely unwilling or unable to keep Azerbaijani advances in check, while Moscow declined to offer Pashinyan the support he demanded after strategic high ground inside Armenia’s borders were captured in an Azerbaijani offensive last September.

    Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko previously said Azerbaijan has better relations with the CSTO than Armenia, despite not being a member, and described Aliyev as “our guy.”

    Since then, Armenia — the most democratic country in the region — has sought to distance itself from the Kremlin, inviting in an EU civilian observer mission to the border. That strategy has picked up pace in recent days, with Pashinyan telling POLITICO in an interview that the country can no longer rely on Russia for its security. Instead, the South Caucasus nation has dispatched humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Pashinyan’s wife visited Kyiv to show her support, while hosting U.S. troops for exercises.

    Moscow, which has a close economic and political relationship with Azerbaijan, reacted furiously, summoning the Armenian ambassador.

    In a message posted on Telegram on Tuesday, Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia and secretary of its security council, said Pashinyan “decided to blame Russia for his botched defeat. He gave up part of his country’s territory. He decided to flirt with NATO, and his wife took biscuits to our enemies. Guess what fate awaits him…”

    Who supports whom?

    The South Caucasus is a tangled web of shifting alliances.

    Russia aside, Armenia has built close relations with neighboring Iran, which has vowed to protect it, as well as India and France. French President Emmanuel Macron has previously joined negotiations in support of Pashinyan and the country is home to a large and historic Armenian diaspora.

    Azerbaijan, meanwhile, operates on a “one nation, two states” basis with Turkey, with which it has deep cultural, linguistic and historical ties. It also receives large shipments of weaponry and military hardware from Israel, while providing the Middle Eastern nation with gas.

    The EU has turned to Azerbaijan to help replace Russia as a provider of energy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made an official visit to the capital, Baku, last summer in a bid to secure increased exports of natural gas, describing the country as a “reliable, trustworthy partner.”

    Gabriel Gavin

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  • At global pariah summit, Putin and Kim Jong Un talk weapons and satellite tech

    At global pariah summit, Putin and Kim Jong Un talk weapons and satellite tech

    On the lunch menu Wednesday at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east: Crab dumplings, entrecôte of marbled beef … with a side of deadly weapons.

    At the closely watched summit of global outcasts, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday pledged cooperation with North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un.

    While Russia was widely believed to be seeking an arms deal with North Korea, the meeting ended without major announcements on weapons, although Putin acknowledged that the issue was on the agenda.

    The meeting took place against the backdrop of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, which has isolated the Kremlin and left it hunting allies — and military equipment — in other ostracized capitals like Pyongyang and Tehran.

    “Our friendship has deep roots, and now our country’s first priority is relations with the Russian Federation,” Kim told reporters, after he arrived following a lengthy journey on his armored train for his first trip to Russia since 2019, according to Russian state-owned newswire Ria Novosti.

    “Russia has now risen to defend its state sovereignty and defend its security to counter the hegemonic forces that oppose Russia,” the North Korean ruler added, echoing the Kremlin’s propaganda used to justify its aggression in Ukraine. 

    Kim’s visit came as Russia is seeking to buy artillery ammunition from North Korea for its invasion of Ukraine, where Moscow is estimated to have used between 10 and 11 million rounds over the past 18 months in its grinding full-scale invasion, a Western official told Reuters last week.

    Military analysts say a potential arms deal between Moscow and Pyongyang could help Russia replenish its depleted stocks, but is unlikely to change the tide of the war.

    Asked whether military cooperation was on the agenda, Putin said: “We’ll talk about all the issues slowly. There is time.”

    The Russian president, who was accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for the negotiations, added that Russia would help North Korea build space satellites.

    “That’s why we came here. The leader of [North Korea] shows great interest in rocket technology, they are trying to develop space,” Putin said.

    Kim has made the development of spy satellites — an important military asset — a priority for his highly militarized country. So far, it has made two attempts to launch a satellite, both of which failed.

    The cosmodrome summit lasted over five hours in total and included a dinner consisting of a duck salad, crab dumplings, fish soup, then a choice of sturgeon with mushrooms and potatoes or an entrecôte of marbled beef with grilled vegetables, before ending on a dessert with berries. There was also a selection of Russian wines. 

    It ended with Kim toasting Putin’s “good health” and to “the continuous development of Russian-Korean friendship.”

    Nicolas Camut

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  • Boris Johnson warns Donald Trump not to drop US support for Ukraine

    Boris Johnson warns Donald Trump not to drop US support for Ukraine

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    LONDON — Boris Johnson issued a direct plea to Donald Trump not to ditch U.S. support for Ukraine if he becomes president in 2024.

    Writing for the Spectator after a trip to Ukraine, the former British prime minister — who has lobbied hard for wavering Republicans to keep the faith in the war-torn country — warned Russian triumph could boomerang on any Trump administration.

    “A Putin victory would be a catastrophe for the West and for American leadership, and I don’t believe it is an outcome that could easily be endured by a U.S. president, let alone one who wanted to Make America Great Again,” Johnson wrote in the Spectator.

    Johnson said that should Ukraine succeed in repelling Russia, “then the reverse is true.”

    “Exactly the opposite message will be sent around the world: that we do care about democracy, that we are willing to back our principles, and that the West still has the guts to stick at something until we succeed,” he added.

    Johnson’s comments come amid Ukrainian jitters about what a Trump presidency would mean for Western support.

    Since being forced from office last year, the ex-British leader has energetically lobbied for continued support for Ukraine. In May he attended a private lunch in Dallas, Texas, as part of efforts to shore up support for the Ukrainian war effort with skeptical Republicans. And he dined with Trump on the same trip, with a Johnson spokesperson saying he stressed “the vital importance of Ukrainian victory.”

    Andrew McDonald

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  • G20 statement backs Ukraine but omits Russia blame for war

    G20 statement backs Ukraine but omits Russia blame for war

    NEW DELHI — The G20 endorsed language in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but the group of the world’s biggest economies weakened a previous stance that directly blamed Russia for the war in Ukraine.

    The joint communiqué for the G20 summit in India stated that all countries should “refrain from action against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state.” That language was unchanged from a draft first reported by POLITICO on Saturday.

    The wording, which Western countries wanted in order to signal a continued anger at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, could also appease Moscow’s complaints that attacks inside Russia have escalated since Kyiv launched its counteroffensive. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was deeply involved in the weeks of negotiations leading to the final version.

    But the joint statement didn’t include a direct condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which a G20 statement in Bali last November did. Some officials contend that a shift was the only way to get buy-in from some of the group’s more Moscow-friendly members — let alone the fact that Russia is also in the bloc.

    Critics argued that U.S. President Joe Biden could have gotten more. Svitlana Romanko, founder and director of the pro-Ukraine group Razom We Stand, called the communiqué “weak” and “cowardly by not even mentioning Russia or its ongoing war crimes.”

    But some G20 members say it reflected a fair compromise. “It is a fact that this is today a very polarizing issue and there are multiple views on this,” Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Saturday, referring to Ukraine. “Bali was a year ago, the situation was different. Many things have happened since then.”

    There’s further language in the declaration that Western officials could herald as victories. It references adherence to the United Nations charter, which stipulates that no country can threaten another’s territory and sovereignty by force — a key demand of the U.S. and the EU in the run-up to the G20 summit. And it also calls for the “full, timely and effective implementation” of the Black Sea Grain Initiative which has stalled after Russia pulled out during the summer.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has already touted the document as a “good and strong outcome.”

    “What you’ll see in the communique is strong language, highlighting the impact of the war on food prices and food security, calling on Russia to re-enter the Black Sea grain initiative to allow exports to leave that part of the world and help feed millions of the most vulnerable people as well as the communique recognizing the principles of the U.N. charter respecting territorial integrity,” he said.

    Eleni Courea contributed to this report.

    Suzanne Lynch and Alexander Ward

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  • Inside the G20’s scramble to get consensus on the war in Ukraine

    Inside the G20’s scramble to get consensus on the war in Ukraine

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    NEW DELHI — A last-minute agreement on the Ukraine portion of the G20’s summit statement kept the entire document from the trash heap — but it took dropping a reference to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to do it.

    All the members of the group of top world economies spent weeks in fierce negotiations over every element of the 35-page communiqué. The greatest sticking point was what to say about the war raging in Eastern Europe, not least because Russia, a member of the bloc, would oppose condemnations of Moscow and shows of support for Kyiv.

    What ultimately led to an agreement in the dark, early hours of Saturday morning was new language drafted by officials from India, the host nation, and delegates from Brazil and South Africa. 

    Russia, which spent weeks offering alternatives that wouldn’t leave it isolated in the G20 club, relented after key developing countries presented the formulation: All countries should “refrain from action against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state.” That phrasing was not included in the G20’s Bali declaration nearly a year ago.

    But the final text was also acceptable to the Kremlin because it didn’t “deplore” or condemn “the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine” as the Bali statement did. Language about there being a “war in Ukraine,” without specifically blaming Moscow for the conflict, is in both the Bali and the New Delhi declarations. “There were different views and assessments of the situation,” the new communiqué reads.

    In effect, the G20 dropped its accusations against Russia in order to maintain unity on broader concepts of war and peace —concepts that were not so explicitly endorsed last November in Bali. 

    “The fact that we have consensus around the document was far from clear until the very last moment,” explained a senior EU official who, like four others from the Biden administration and European governments, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic dealings.

    The G20, as a grouping, is geared toward issues of global economics and finance, not international conflict. But Western leaders, and U.S. President Joe Biden in particular, have leveraged multilateral gatherings since Russia invaded Ukraine 18 months ago to show they stand united with Kyiv. 

    Text on monetary policy was finalized well before presidents, princes and prime ministers descended on the Indian capital for this weekend’s summit. But the Ukraine section was being worked on well into Saturday morning, mere hours before official proceedings began.

    Russia, represented in New Delhi by its foreign minister, not President Vladimir Putin, repeatedly demurred when iteration after iteration of the text sided more firmly with Ukraine. Moscow proposed competing language, the senior EU official said, including an entire section railing against Western-imposed sanctions that have complicated the Kremlin’s procurement of military materials.

    India, as the host, shuttled Russian objections to officials from other G20 members, and sent their responses back to Moscow’s delegation. 

    In the end, so-called “sherpas” from the BRICS consortium’s three democratic countries settled on an idea: The communiqué should borrow language and principles from the United Nations Charter, which states that no country can seize territory from another using force. Russia, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, should have no objection to it, they reasoned.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly called the final language on Ukraine a “good and strong outcome” | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images 

    Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister who was deeply involved in the final negotiations, said the Kremlin could live with that language. Western nations were satisfied because the language genuinely reflected the overwhelming sentiment within the G20. 

    A senior U.S. official insisted that the New Delhi version is far superior to the Bali statement because of that reflection, noting that Russia would never sign anything that directly accused it of illegally capturing land. 

    Jon Finer, Biden’s deputy national security adviser, noted that the G20 leaders endorsed the Bali language last year and have supported U.N. resolutions.

    “The joint statement issued yesterday builds on that to send an unprecedented and unified statement,” Finer told reporters. Biden is working to rally nations around the world against Russian aggression, he said. “This statement is a major step forward in this effort.”

    U.K. officials, meanwhile, argued that in referring to the U.N.’s resolution against the invasion of Ukraine, the Bali communiqué didn’t directly condemn Russia’s aggression but instead indirectly referenced the fact that some countries had “deplored” it. “By achieving consensus in New Delhi, the G20 has forced Putin to commit to cessation of attacks on infrastructure, to withdrawal of troops, and to the return of territory,” a U.K. official said. 

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly called the final language on Ukraine a “good and strong outcome.” 

    But others expressed their reservations. “Of course, if it was a document written by the EU alone, then this would probably look different, but then this would not be a consensus document,” the senior EU official said. 

    Kyiv had a much harsher reaction. “​​Ukraine is grateful to its partners who tried to include strong wording in the text,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko wrote on social media. “At the same time, the G20 has nothing to be proud of in the part about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.” 

    Officials from the G20, from India to Western nations, professed satisfaction with the joint declaration. They insisted that they achieved what they could in New Delhi in terms of being more pointed in their view of the war, even if the document had to drop the “aggression” reference about Russia. 

    According to a second U.S. official: “The focus was different for this one.”

    Alexander Ward, Eleni Courea and Suzanne Lynch

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  • Zelenskyy sends strong signals with choice for Ukraine’s new defense chief

    Zelenskyy sends strong signals with choice for Ukraine’s new defense chief

    KYIV ­— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s choice for the country’s new defense minister sends two clear signals to Ukraine’s allies and adversaries: Kyiv is serious about cleaning up corruption, and steadfast about regaining Crimea from Russian control.

    Rustem Umerov, whom Zelenskyy has put forward to replace Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, is a Crimean Tatar with deep business and political experience, including chairing Ukraine’s commission monitoring international financial and military aid to the country’s war effort. As head of the State Property Fund since last year, he has revitalized the country’s privatization efforts.

    The defense ministry “needs new approaches,” Zelenskyy said in dismissing Reznikov, whose ministry has been plagued by corruption allegations. Reznikov himself hasn’t been implicated, but the controversy has tainted the ministry.

    Umerov, 41, will become the first Muslim and Crimean Tatar to gain such a high post in the Ukrainian government. In addition to his financial acumen, Umerov’s appointment will mean a deeper integration of the Crimean Tatar community into decision-making in Kyiv. It also clearly indicates Ukraine’s adamant determination to take Crimea back.

    The planned change is the highest-level shake-up in Zelenskyy’s administration since Russia launched its all-out invasion in February 2022. Zelenskyy called on the Ukrainian legislature to approve the decision as soon as possible.

    “The ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large,” Zelenskyy said late Sunday. “Autumn is a time for strengthening,” he added.

    Umerov, founder of investment company ASTEM and a Ukrainian MP, has been one of the most prominent advocates of Ukraine’s re-occupation of Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. In addition to working as a head of the State Property Fund since 2022, he has been actively taking part in international negotiations, including with Russia.

    “He is a strong manager with a strategic vision, who has well-established international connections in the U.S., the European Union, the Arab world, Turkey, and the countries of Central Asia,” said Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis, the political representative body of the Crimean Tatars in exile.

    “Such a high appointment is a good signal for Crimean Tatars’ integration into Ukrainian government structures, and also a great responsibility for the native community,” Chubarov told POLITICO.

    Umerov’s prospective appointment was praised by anti-corruption advocates, who have been critical of Reznikov for a string of army procurement corruption scandals at the defense ministry.

    “I was pleasantly surprised by Rustem’s role in non-public advocacy of weapons for Ukraine. He often very quietly did the things that had failed in the Defense Ministry during the last year and a half,” Daria Kaleniuk, acting director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based watchdog, said in a statement.

    Kaleniuk also praised Umerov’s performance as the head of the State Property Fund. Kyiv raised record proceeds from selling small state assets in the first quarter of 2023 despite Moscow’s invasion, Umerov said in May. So far this year, “more than 2,000 entrepreneurs got the opportunity for business development,” Umerov said in a report in late August.

    “We saw only positive results in one of the country’s once most corrupt sewers,” Kaleniuk added.

    Veronika Melkozerova

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  • No cease-fire while Ukraine is on the offensive, Putin says

    No cease-fire while Ukraine is on the offensive, Putin says

    Vladimir Putin said he does not reject the idea of peace talks over Ukraine, but the Russian president added that there could be no cease-fire while Ukrainian forces are “on the offensive.”

    Speaking after meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg, Putin told a press conference that African and Chinese peace initiatives could serve as a basis for ending the war in Ukraine, but are “impossible to implement” at the moment.

    “The Ukrainian army is on the offensive, they are attacking, they are implementing a large-scale strategic offensive operation,” Putin said, according to media reports. “We cannot cease fire when we are under attack,” he said.

    “We did not reject them,” Putin said, referring to the peace initiatives. “In order for this process to begin, there needs to be agreement on both sides,” the Russian leader said of the possibility of peace talks.

    African leaders meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg last week issued a direct appeal for Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022.

    “This war must end. And it can only end on the basis of justice and reason,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, foreign minister of Chad and current African Union Commission chairman, told Putin at the Russia-Africa summit.

    Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso said an African peace plan “deserves the closest attention.”

    “It mustn’t be underestimated,” Nguesso said. “We once again urgently call for the restoration of peace in Europe.”

    Senegal’s President Macky Sall also called for “a de-escalation to help create calm,” while South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he hoped that “constructive engagement and negotiation” could end the conflict.

    Varg Folkman

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  • Feijóo’s numbers don’t add up

    Feijóo’s numbers don’t add up

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    MADRID — Alberto Núñez Feijóo may not want to admit it but his hope of being Spain’s next prime minister may have to be lowered.

    On Monday night, the leader of the center-right Popular Party, which won the most votes in last Sunday’s national election in Spain but fell short of securing a governing majority, was left without options to form a government after two key regional parties rejected his overtures.

    To become Spain’s prime minister, a candidate whose party has not secured a governing majority needs to either get the backing of 176 of the total 350 MPs in an initial vote in parliament or wait for a second round of voting to secure a simple majority. MPs can also abstain, which means it can be difficult to determine the exact number of seats needed for a successful bid to form a government.

    In a speech after a meeting of the Popular Party’s executive committee, Feijóo reaffirmed his determination to gather the support needed to advance with his candidacy, adding that as the leader of the party that garnered the most votes, it was his “duty.”

    But his numbers don’t add up. His Popular Party controls 136 seats in parliament — all of its scenarios for victory require the support of the far-right Vox party’s 33 MPs. But because the combined right-wing forces only account for 169 seats, the conservative leader would also need the support of some regional parties.

    While the conservative leader quickly secured the backing of the Navarrese People’s Union — a virtual offshoot of the Popular Party — the rest of his attempts to woo potential allies have gone nowhere, fast.

    Vox Secretary-General Ignacio Garriga on Monday stated his party, with whom the Popular Party aspired to form a government, is not interested in supporting a prime minister that is also backed by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), one of the groups whose votes Feijóo would need to become prime minster.

    “You can’t have a patriotic vote alongside that of a separatist party,” said Garriga, referring to the PNV. “It’s impossible.”

    Feijóo was similarly rebuffed by the PNV’s Andoni Ortuzar, to whom he sent a chummy text message proposing they sit down to talk.

    Ortuzar ignored Feijóo’s message for most of the day and only responded in the evening, when he called Feijóo to tell him his group was not interested in even meeting to discuss the possibility of a Popular Party-led government, the PNV posted on social media.

    Meanwhile, Fernando Clavijo, secretary-general of the insular Canarian Coalition, told the Spanish media that his party’s sole MP would not back any government that included Vox.

    Feijóo does “not have any possibility to become prime minister,” the group’s outgoing MP, Ana Oramas, said.

    A summer of magical thinking

    The combined rejections from Vox and the regional groups leave Feijóo without realistic options.

    At this point, the only way his bid could succeed is if Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s 122 Socialist MPs agree to not vote against his hypothetical candidacy — a fantasy scenario that has no chance of happening after a campaign in which the Popular Party’s primary message was that it was time to “repeal Sanchismo.”

    Pedro Sánchez — officially in caretaker mode since Sunday’s election — is laying low these days | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images

    Feijóo seemed determined to not let reality get in his way on Tuesday, insisting the Socialists needed to deal with him instead of negotiating with the left-wing parties and Basque and Catalan separatists, whose votes could allow Sánchez to remain prime minister.

    “Spain holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, we’re negotiating finance rules in Brussels … We need stability, pro-European sentiment and centralism,” he said in Santiago de Compostela.

    “It would be a huge mistake for separatists to govern Spain,” he added. “It’s the traditional parties that have won the greatest amount of votes.”

    While Popular Party spokesperson Borja Sémper rejected the possibility of a grand coalition with the Socialists, in an interview with Spain’s public radio he floated the idea of a minority government led by Feijóo that could forge some sort of pact with the center left to address some of the nation’s “challenges.”

    Deputy Prime Minister María Jesús Montero on Tuesday also rejected any possibility of a deal between the Socialists and the Popular Party, and instead underlined Sánchez’s determination to form a coalition with the left-wing Sumar coalition and secure the support of a hodgepodge of Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalist groups.

    The hope is to secure 172 yeas for Sánchez’s candidacy — slightly more than the 170 nays that will come from the right — and convince Catalan separatist group Junts, which has said it will not back the Socialists, to abstain.

    “A progressive majority has backed the continuance of the Sánchez government’s progressive policies and rejected the Popular Party and Vox’s Trumpian politics,” Montero told Cadena Ser.

    The expat factor

    Although Spain’s election was held last Sunday, the definitive results won’t be known until this Saturday, when the votes of Spaniards living abroad are added to the total. Spanish consular offices around the world have registered over 2 million citizens, but the turnout among them is not yet known.

    While the foreign vote has never dramatically shifted the outcome of a Spanish election, it can alter the results of one or two seats — and that could make a difference in this particular parliament.

    Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University, said that while changes could further complicate Sánchez’s plan to remain prime minister, they would almost certainly not improve Feijóo’s chances of taking power.

    The nightmare scenario, of course, would be if enough seats changed hands that the left and right-wing blocs were left controlling the exact same numbers. Simón said that while such a “catastrophic blockage” was highly unlikely, lack of information about participation rates or political leanings of expat voters made it difficult to guess what could happen.

    Discretion is everything

    Sánchez — officially in caretaker mode since Sunday’s election — is laying low these days. It’s a canny strategy that is focusing the public’s attention on Feijóo’s inability to gather support for his candidacy.

    SPAIN NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    On Tuesday, Sánchez’s spokesperson announced that the traditional summer meeting between the Spanish PM and King Felipe VI in the Marivent Palace in Mallorca had been canceled; the two will meet in Madrid after the holidays. Pundits speculate Sánchez did not want to appear to be getting any special access to the monarch, who will decide who gets to try form Spain’s next government.

    Meanwhile, Deputy PM Montero confirmed that behind-the-scenes talks between the Socialists and the groups whose support Sánchez needs were underway. “A successful negotiation depends on discretion,” Montero said.

    The left-wing Sumar party, Sánchez’s projected coalition partners, has been entrusted with the delicate task of making contact with the Catalan separatist Junts party, whose abstention in a parliamentary vote on Feijóo’s candidacy will be key to the prime minister’s gamble.

    Montero said Sánchez is keen to negotiate with them but no blanket amnesties will be granted — including to its founder Carles Puidgemont, who is sought by Spanish authorities for his role in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. Likewise, holding an official independence referendum in Catalonia is also off the table.

    “The Socialist Party is a constitutionalist party, so everything we do has to be contemplated within the framework of the constitution,” she said.

    Aitor Hernández-Morales

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