Labour’s tax increases are pushing workers and investors abroad.
The Editorial Board
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PARIS—French authorities said they’ve detained four more people in connection to the Louvre heist, including a man suspected of being the only thief to remain at large after purloining the nation’s crown jewels.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said two men, ages 38 and 39, and two women, 31 and 40, have been taken into custody for questioning. Beccuau said all four detainees came from the Paris region, without disclosing further details.
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Noemie Bisserbe
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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday, a sign that talks to end the war in Ukraine have hit a new phase involving direct negotiations with the Russians.
Driscoll, fresh off peace talks in Kyiv and Geneva with Ukrainian officials, landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday to meet with the Russians, according to U.S. officials. After holding initial meetings, he planned to conduct more substantive engagements with the delegation on Tuesday, the officials said.
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Lara Seligman
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The German economy may be showing signs of a life after more than half a decade of stagnation.
Europe’s largest economy has suffered a series of recent blows, including a surge in energy costs after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, higher tariffs on its exports to the U.S and fierce competition from China in key sectors such as automobiles.
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Don Nico Forbes
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President Trump criticized Ukrainian and European officials on Sunday, as they launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at reshaping a 28-point peace plan that has been criticized as too favorable to Russia.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the war a “loser” for everyone and said Ukrainian leaders had expressed “zero” gratitude for U.S. efforts. He said Europeans continue to buy oil from Russia.
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Matthew Luxmoore
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The U.K. government’s borrowing continued to run ahead of projections in October, a deterioration in its finances that it will aim to correct with tax rises and some spending cuts in its annual budget statement next week.
The Office for National Statistics on Friday said the government borrowed 17.4 billion pounds ($22.75 billion) in October, bringing the total for the first seven months of the fiscal year to 116.8 billion pounds, 9.9 billion pounds above the amount projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility in its March forecasts.
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Paul Hannon
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BERLIN—Europe is moving to relax some of the world’s tightest digital regulations in a bid to boost growth and reduce its reliance on U.S. tech.
Germany and France on Tuesday backed an effort by the European Union, long seen as a global rulesetter for technology, artificial intelligence and digital services, to loosen regulatory strictures on the fast-growing, U.S.-dominated sectors.
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Bertrand Benoit
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The Dutch government handed back control of semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia to its Chinese owner, moving toward resolving a spat that had blocked vital chip supply to the auto industry.
Dutch economic-affairs minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday that the decision had been made in consultation with the Netherlands’ European and international partners and followed recent meetings with Chinese authorities.
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Adrià Calatayud
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LONDON—The U.K. government on Monday announced an overhaul of its immigration policy to deter asylum seekers from arriving on British shores, the latest European nation to tighten rules in response to growing dissatisfaction from voters at levels of illegal immigration.
The Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a suite of policies including changing laws to make it easier to expel migrants, quadrupling the length of time they have to wait to become permanent residents to 20 years and regularly reviewing whether their home countries have become safer and can take them back.
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Max Colchester
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France denounced the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats as a violation of international law. Canada and the Netherlands have stressed they aren’t involved. Colombia has vowed to cut off intelligence cooperation with Washington. Mexico summoned the U.S. ambassador to complain.
Two months into the Trump administration’s military campaign against low-level smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the coalition of partners that has long underpinned U.S. antidrug operations in the region is fraying.
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Vera Bergengruen
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BRUSSELS—The European Union is racing against the clock to overcome Belgium’s objections to a plan to fund Ukraine’s defense using Russian money.
Ukraine is on course to run out of cash in the spring, EU officials say, and they see their loan proposal as the best option for allowing Kyiv to continue buying weapons. The plan would lend as much as 183 billion euros (about $213 billion) to Ukraine, backed by Russian financial assets that are immobilized in Belgium.
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[ad_2] Laurence NormanBritain’s stock and bond markets flopped Friday morning on new evidence that the country’s Labour Party leadership doesn’t have a clue what to do about the economy or budget. Add this to the list of welfare-state cautionary tales out of Europe.
At one point Friday morning, the yield on the benchmark 10-year government bond, or gilt, had risen 11 basis points to 4.55%. The main London stock index dipped nearly 2%, and the pound fell. This was in response to a Financial Times report Thursday night that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is abandoning plans to increase income-tax rates in her budget plan this month.
This sounds like good news. but investors interpreted it as a sign that Ms. Reeves and her boss, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have run out of politically viable ways to balance the government budget—which is true. Estimates of the budget “black hole” Ms. Reeves needs to fill range up to £30 billion per year—the gap between likely spending and revenue if current policies stay the same.
An attempt over the summer to cut some particularly generous welfare benefits collapsed amid a rebellion from Labour backbenchers in Parliament, putting welfare reform off the table. Mr. Starmer is rightly under pressure to increase defense spending. Labour’s promises of economic growth via public “investment” translate mainly to pay increases for government workers.
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The Editorial Board
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BERLIN—Germany will build a database of young people detailing their fitness, aptitude and outlook to help it pick whom to draft should the country be attacked.
The proposed move, a step toward reintroducing military conscription, comes as countries across Europe grapple with how to repopulate their armed forces under pressure from Washington and an expansionist Russia that European capitals accuse of waging a hybrid war on the continent.
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Bertrand Benoit
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GDP rose 0.1% in the third quarter, compared with 0.3% in the second, amid uncertainty about the government’s budget and the impact of a cyberattack on a major carmaker.
Don Nico Forbes
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LONDON—The U.K. has long been torn between two mutually exclusive desires: Voters want European levels of welfare with American levels of taxation.
By accident or design, that debate is slowly being resolved in the direction of higher taxes, as Britain’s Labour government prepares its second major tax increase in as many years.
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David Luhnow
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