BERLIN — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorus will spend next week touring the Indo-Pacific with a passel of corporate chiefs in tow to make deals across the region. It’s part of an effort to mark a greater impact in an area where Berlin’s presence has been minor, but whose importance is growing as Germany looks to build up access to natural resources, technology and allies in a fracturing world. “If you look at the Indo-Pacific, Germany is essentially starting from scratch,” said Bastian Ernst, a defense lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats. “We don’t have an established role yet, we’re only just beginning to figure out what that should be.” Pistorius leaves Friday on an eight-day tour to Japan, Singapore and Australia where he’ll be aiming to build relations with other like-minded middle powers — mirroring countries from France to Canada as they scramble to figure out new relationships in a world destabilized by Russia, China and a United States led by Donald Trump. “Germany recognizes this principle of interconnected theaters,” said Elli-Katharina Pohlkamp, visiting fellow of the Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Berlin, she said, “increasingly sees Europe’s focus on Russia and Asia’s focus on China and North Korea as security issues that are linked.” The military and defense emphasis of next week’s trip marks a departure from Berlin’s 2020 Indo-Pacific guidelines, which laid a much heavier focus on trade and diplomacy. Pistorius’ outreach will be especially important as Germany rapidly ramps up military spending at home. Berlin is on track to boost its defense budget to around €150 billion a year by the end of the decade and is preparing tens of billions in new procurement contracts. But not everything Germany needs can be sourced in Europe. Australia is one of the few alternatives to China in critical minerals essential to the defense industry. It’s a leading supplier of lithium and one of the only significant producers of separated rare earth materials outside China. Australia also looms over a key German defense contract. Berlin is considering whether to stick with a naval laser weapon being developed by homegrown firms Rheinmetall and MBDA, or team up with Australia’s EOS instead. That has become a more sensitive political question in Berlin. WELT, owned by POLITICO’s parent company Axel Springer, reported that lawmakers had stopped the planned contract for the German option, reflecting wider concern over whether Berlin should back a domestic system or move faster with a foreign one. That means what Pistorius sees in Australia could end up shaping a decision back in Germany. TALKING TO TOKYO Japan offers something different — not raw materials but military integration, logistics and technology.  Pohlkamp said the military side of the relationship with Japan is now “very much about interoperability and compatibility, built through joint exercises, mutual visits, closer staff work, expanded information exchange and mutual learning.” She described Japan as “a kind of yardstick for Germany,” a country that lives with “an enormous threat perception” not only militarily but also economically, because it is surrounded by pressure from China, North Korea and Russia.  The Japan-Germany Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement took effect in July 2024, giving the two militaries a framework for reciprocal supplies and services and making future port calls for naval vessels, exercises and recurring cooperation easier to sustain.  Pohlkamp said what matters most to Tokyo are not headline-grabbing deployments but “plannable, recurring contributions, which are more valuable than big, one-off shows of force.” But that ambition only goes so far if Germany’s presence remains sporadic. Bundeswehr recruits march on the market square to take their ceremonial oath in Altenburg on March 19, 2026. | Bodo Schackow/picture alliance via Getty Images Berlin has sent military assets to the region for training exercises in recent years — a frigate in 2021, combat aircraft in 2022, army participation in 2023, and a larger naval mission in 2024. But as pressure grows on Germany to beef up its military to hold off Russia, along with its growing presence in Lithuania and its effort to keep supplying Ukraine with weapons, the attention given to Asia is shrinking. The government told parliament last year it sent no frigate in 2025, plans none in 2026 and has not yet decided on 2027. Germany’s current military engagement in the Indo-Pacific consists of a single P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, sent to India in February as part of the Indo-Pacific Deployment 2026 exercises.  Germany, according to Ernst, is still “relatively blank” in the region. What it can contribute militarily remains narrow: “A bit of maritime patrol, a frigate, mine clearance.” Pohlkamp said Germany’s role in Asia is still being built “in small doses” and is largely symbolic. But what matters is whether Berlin can turn occasional visits and deployments into something steadier and more predictable. The defense ministry insists that is the point of Pistorius’s trip. Ministry spokesperson Mitko Müller said Wednesday that Europe and the Indo-Pacific are “inseparably linked,” citing the rules-based order, sea lanes, international law and the role of the two regions in global supply and value chains.  The new P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft stands in front of a technical hangar at Nordholz airbase on Nov. 20, 2025. | Christian Butt/picture alliance via Getty Images The trip is meant to focus on the regional security situation, expanding strategic dialogue, current and possible military cooperation, joint exercises including future Indo-Pacific deployments, and industrial cooperation. That explains why industry is traveling with Pistorius.  Müller said executives from Airbus, TKMS, MBDA, Quantum Systems, Diehl and Rohde & Schwarz are coming along, suggesting Berlin sees the trip as a chance to widen defense ties on the ground. But any larger German role in Asia would have to careful calibrated to avoid angering China — a key trading partner that is very wary of European powers expanding their regional presence. “That leaves Germany trying to do two things at once,” Pohlkamp said. “First, show up often enough to matter, but not so forcefully that it gets dragged into a confrontation it is neither politically nor militarily prepared to sustain.”

LONDON — The U.K. government last year awarded contracts worth more than £70,000 to a company headed by the brother of the energy department’s most senior civil servant.  Three contracts were awarded to Amelio Enterprises to install solar panels on schools, according to documents acquired under a Freedom of Information request.  The procurement process was led by the Crown Commercial Services, an agency inside the Cabinet Office. The funding for each school, announced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in September 2025, was provided by the government’s publicly-owned clean energy company Great British Energy (GBE). GBE — which is funded by DESNZ and of which Ed Miliband, in his role as energy secretary, is the sole shareholder — has a budget of £8.3 billion to spend on clean power projects, including nuclear. Amelio Enterprises was bought by the renewables company Good Energy Group — headed by chief executive Nigel Pocklington — in October 2024. At the time the contracts were awarded, his brother, Jeremy Pocklington, was permanent secretary at DESNZ.  Pocklington was the top official at DESNZ between February 2023 and November 2025, when he left the department to become permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence.  He declared his brother’s position at Good Energy on his register of interests. The register stated that he would “recuse himself from any direct engagement with Good Energy” as permanent secretary at DESNZ, with any engagement “delegated to a director general.” DESNZ did not comment on the record about the procurement process. An official from the Department for Education said the contracts, issued under government plans to fund the roll out of solar panels on schools and hospitals, had complied with U.K. procurement rules. A spokesperson for Good Energy said: “We strongly reject any suggestion of a conflict of interest in this contract. The work was awarded following an open, competitive tender process and assessed against the same objective criteria applied to all suppliers.” They added: “Amelio Solar Enterprises had already built a strong track record delivering solar projects for schools and had secured similar work for several years before Good Energy acquired the business.” The contracts awarded to Amelio Solar were part of the latest tranche of GBE funding to install solar panels on schools and hospitals across the U.K., in a bid to bring down energy bills in public buildings. DESNZ argues this will free up cash to be invested back into education and the NHS. Announcing the grants in September, Miliband said the funding would help schools and hospitals “save money on its bills, to be reinvested into the frontline, from textbooks to teachers to medical equipment.” In the case of the contracts with Amelio Solar, a separate company was appointed to manufacture the solar panels used. 

Scattered among the candy shelves and freezer cabinets in Russian supermarkets across Germany are advertisements promoting a business with a service the government has tried to outlaw: a logistics company specialized in moving packages from the heart of Germany to Russia, in defiance of European Union sanctions. Trade restrictions have been in place since 2014 and were tightened just after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Western nations began to impose far-reaching financial and trade sanctions on Russia. But an investigation by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, has identified a clandestine Berlin-based postal system that exploits the special status of postal parcels to transport all kinds of European goods — including banned electronics components — into President Vladimir Putin’s empire. We know every stop and turn in the route because we sent five packages and used digital tracking devices to follow them — through an illicit 1,100-mile journey that undermines the sanctions regime European policymakers consider their strongest tool to generate political pressure on Russian leaders by weakening their country’s economy. LS Logistics said its internal controls make violations of EU sanctions “virtually impossible” but that it was not immune from customers making fraudulent declarations about the goods they ship. “Sanctions enforcement is whack-a-mole,” said David Goldwyn, who worked on sanctions policy as U.S. State Department coordinator for international energy affairs and now chairs the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s energy advisory group. “It’s a hard process, and you have to constantly be adapting to how the evaders are adapting.” THE UZBEK LABEL In late December, we packed five square brown parcels with electronic components specifically banned under EU sanctions and addressed the parcels to locations in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When we brought our parcels to the counters of Russian supermarkets in Berlin, we told salespeople the packages included books, scarves and hats. But they never checked inside the packages, which in fact held banned electronic components we rendered unusable before packing. Salespeople charged us 13 euros per kilogram, about $7 per pound, refusing to provide receipts. What makes these cardboard packages even more special is their disguise: The employee does not affix Russian postal stickers to the boxes, but rather those of UzPost, the national postal service of Uzbekistan. The former Soviet republic is not subject to EU sanctions. UzPost maintains close ties to the Russian postal service, according to a person familiar with the entities’ history of cooperation granted anonymity to discuss confidential business practices. Tatyana Kim, the CEO of Russian ecommerce marketplace Wildberries and reputedly her country’s richest woman, recently acquired a large stake in UzPost, according to media reports. “We work with partners, including private postal service providers,” the Uzbek postal service stated in response to our inquiry. “They can use our solutions for deliveries.” In Germany, registered logistics companies are permitted to provide postal services — including pick-up, sorting and delivery — for international postal operators. However, the Federal Network Agency, which is responsible for postal oversight, says the Uzbek postal service is not authorized to perform any of these functions in Germany. (The Federal Network Agency said in a response to our inquiry that it is “currently reviewing” the case and that it would pursue penalties for LS if it is found to be using Uzbek documents without authorization.) After our packages spent one to two days at the supermarkets, we saw them begin to move. Inside each package we had placed a small black GPS device, naming them “Alpha,” “Beta,” “Gamma,” “Delta” and “Epsi.” We could track their movements in real time in an app, watching them closely as they wound through Berlin’s roads to Schönefeld, site of the capital’s international airport. There they stopped, unloaded into a modern warehouse that has been repurposed into a Russian shadow postal service. COLOGNE, TECHNICALLY In 2014, a retired professional gymnast was tasked with launching a subsidiary of Russia’s national postal service, the RusPost GmbH, which would operate with official authorization to collect, process and deliver postal items in Germany, according to a former employee granted anonymity to speak openly about the business. For 18 years, the St. Petersburg-raised Alexey Grigoryev had competed and coached at Germany’s highest levels, winning three national championship titles with the KTV Straubenhardt team and working with an Olympic gold medalist on the high bar. But he had no evident experience in the postal business. RusPost’s German business model collapsed upon the imposition of an expanded sanctions package in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Much like American sanctions on Russia, the European Union blocks sensitive technical materials that could boost the Russian defense sector, while allowing the export of personal effects and quotidian consumer items. “The sanctions are accompanied by far-reaching export bans, particularly on goods relevant to the war, in order to put pressure on the Russian war economy,” according to a statement the Federal Ministry of Economics provided us. In March 2022, while conducting random checks of postal traffic to Moscow, customs officials discovered sanctioned goods (including cash, jewelry and electrical appliances) in numerous RusPost packages. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation of the company, concluding that a former RusPost managing director had deliberately failed to set up effective control mechanisms, in breach of his duties. He was charged with 62 counts of attempting to violate the Foreign Trade and Payments Act over an eight-month period; criminal proceedings are ongoing. The Russian postal network did not quite disappear, however. A new company called LS Logistics Solution GmbH was formed in December 2022, according to corporate filings. LS filled its top jobs, including customs manager and head of customer service, with former RusPost employees, according to their LinkedIn profiles. The new company listed as its business address an inconspicuous semi-detached house in a residential area of Cologne, across from a church. When we visited, we found an old white mailbox whose plated sign lists LS Logistics alongside dozens of other companies supposed to be housed there. But none of them seemed to be active. The building was empty during business hours, its mailbox overflowing with discolored brochures and old newspapers. The operational heart of LS is the warehouse complex in Berlin-Schönefeld, just a few minutes from the capital’s airport. The building itself is functional and anonymous: a long, gray industrial structure with several metal rolling doors, some fitted with narrow window slits. Through them, towering stacks of parcels are visible, packed tightly, sorted roughly, stretching deep into the hall. Trucks arrive and depart regularly, from loading bays lit by harsh white floodlights that cut through the otherwise quiet industrial area. Behind the warehouse lies a wide concrete parking lot where a black BMW SUV with a license plate bearing the initials AG is often parked. We saw a man resembling Grigoryev enter the car. The former head of RusPost officially withdrew from the postal business after authorities froze the company’s operations. Unofficially, however, the 50-year-old’s continued presence in Schönefeld suggests otherwise. According to one former RusPost employee, the warehouse near the airport serves as a collection point for parcels from all over Europe. Other logistics companies with Russian management have listed the warehouse as their business address, some of their logos decorating the façade. LS Logistics Solution GmbH has the largest sign of them all. THE A2 GETAWAY According to tracking devices, our packages spent several days in the warehouse before being loaded onto 40-ton trucks covered with grey tarps, among several that leave every day loaded with mail. They were then driven toward the Polish border, through the German city of Frankfurt (Oder). Without any long stops, the 40-ton trucks traversed Poland on the A2 motorway, past Warsaw. Two days after leaving Berlin, they were approaching the eastern edge of the European Union. They arrived at a border checkpoint in Brest, the Belarusian city where more than a hundred years ago Russia signed a peace pact with Germany to withdraw from World War I. Now it marked the last place for European officials to identify contraband leaving for countries they consider adversaries. In 2022, the European Union applied a separate set of sanctions on Belarus because its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, has supported Russia’s presence in Ukraine. Yet despite provisions that should have stopped our packages from leaving Poland, they moved onward into Belarus, their tracking devices apparently undetected. What makes this possible is the special legal status that accompanies international mail. While a formal export declaration is required for the export of regular goods, such as those moving via container ship or rail freight, simplified paperwork helps speed up the departure process for postal items. At Europe’s borders, this distinction becomes crucial, as postal packages are examined largely on risk-based checks rather than comprehensive inspections. “International postal items are subject to the regular provisions of customs supervision both on import and on export and transit and are checked on a risk-oriented basis in accordance with applicable EU and national legislation, including with regard to compliance with sanctions regulations,” the German General Customs Directorate stated in response to our inquiry. Two of our tracking devices briefly lost their signal in Belarus — likely part of a widespread pattern of satellite navigation systems being disrupted across Eastern Europe — but after a journey of around 1,100 miles, they all showed the same destination. Our packages had reached Russia’s largest cities. Ukrainian authorities told us they were not surprised by our investigation. The country’s presidential envoy for sanctions policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, said at the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin that his government regularly collects intelligence on such schemes and shares it with international partners. “Nobody is doing enough, if you look at the number of cases,” Vlasiuk said. ONE STEP BEHIND After the arrival of the packages, we confronted all parties involved, including LS Logistics Solution GmbH, the mysterious shipper that helped transport the goods from Europe to Russia. We called Grigoryev several times, but he never answered; efforts to reach him through the company failed as well. An LS executive would not answer our questions about his role. “Our internal control mechanisms are designed in such a way that violations of EU sanctions are virtually impossible,” LS managing director Anjelika Crone wrote to us. “Shipments that do not meet the legal requirements are not processed further. We are not immune to fraudulent misdeclarations, such as those that obviously underlie the ‘test shipments’ you refer to.” Crone said she could not answer further questions due to data protection and contractual confidentiality concerns. This month, Germany took steps to strengthen enforcement of its sanctions regime, expanding the range of violations subject to criminal penalties. The law, passed by the Bundestag in January, amends the country’s Foreign Trade and Payments Act to integrate a European Union directive harmonizing criminal sanctions law across its 27 member states and ensure efficient, uniform enforcement. Germany was one of the 18 countries put on notice by EU officials last May for having failed to follow the 2024 directive. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, which is responsible for implementing the new policy, argued in a statement to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network that the very ingenuity of the logistics network we unmasked operating within Germany was a testament to the strength of the country’s sanctions regime. “The state-organized Russian procurement systems operate at enormous financial expense to create ever new and more complex diversion routes,” said ministry spokesperson Tim-Niklas Wentzel. “This confirms that the considerable compliance efforts of many companies and the work of the sanctions enforcement authorities in combating circumvention are also having a practical effect. Procurement is becoming increasingly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for Russia.” According to those who have tried to administer sanctions laws, that argument rings true — but only partly. “It’s probably more fair to say that sanctions had a material impact and increased the cost of bad actors to achieve their goals. But to say that they’re working well is probably overstating the truth of the matter,” said Max Meizlish, formerly an official with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “When there’s evasion, it requires enforcement,” Meizlish went on. “And when you need more enforcement I think it’s hard to make a compelling case that the tool is working as intended.” The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands—including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet— on major stories for an international audience. Their ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV, and audio. Together, these outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

KYIV — Ukrainian officials are in talks with rich Gulf countries, peddling their country’s hard-won anti-drone expertise against Iranian attacks in exchange for crucial cash for Kyiv’s defense industry. Polite American officials are also talking to Ukrainians on sharing their drone tech — something that may at least temporarily boost Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leverage with the White House. Both negotiations could offer Ukraine desperately needed help: money at a time when the EU’s promised €90 billion loan has stalled thanks to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s veto, and American interceptors for Ukraine’s Patriot air defense systems to knock down Russian ballistic missiles. Both tracks of discussions were confirmed to POLITICO by two senior Ukrainian officials familiar with the matter, however no agreement has been finalized yet. “We do see strong interest in Ukrainian counterattacking drones from a very wide range of countries, including the United States. That is understandable: Ukraine has built unique, battle-proven solutions on how to detect, track and counter this type of threat at scale, in real conditions,” a Ukrainian defense industry representative told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. They added that any export decision requires “government-to-government coordination and must be aligned with security considerations, export controls, and broader strategic priorities.” Zelenskyy posted on X on Thursday: “We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against ‘shaheds’ in the Middle East region. I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security. Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people. Glory to Ukraine!” Ukraine has become a world leader in drone warfare over the last four years since Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. From the start of Russia’s attack, Iran has supplied Moscow with many thousands of its Shahed drones, which are packed with explosives and crash into Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. Russia now produces its own Shaheds and has dramatically upgraded their capabilities as part of the tech arms race with Ukraine. Now Iranian Shaheds are pummelling American bases and Gulf cities, airport and oil and gas facilities. In the first days of the Iran war, America and its Gulf allies have reportedly been using air defense missiles — which can cost several million dollars each — to shoot down Tehran’s drones that can be made for only a few tens of thousands of dollars. Facing the same threat and limited help from its allies, Ukraine developed expertise in shooting down drones with anti-aircraft guns, truck-mounted machine guns, cheap missiles as well as “interceptor” drones — fast-flying craft that can catch and destroy Shaheds.  “Ukraine did not have that many missiles since the start of the war,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. | Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images However, Ukraine still relies on its allies, and especially the U.S., for systems like Patriots to protect against ballistic missiles. Kyiv has complained that shortages of interceptor missiles left Ukrainian cities vulnerable during this year’s freezing winter. The U.S. and Gulf countries have been burning through the PAC-2 and advanced PAC-3 missiles used by Patriots in such massive quantities that it’s leaving Kyiv dumbfounded. “Ukraine did not have that many missiles since the start of the war,” the Ukrainian president said at a press briefing on Thursday. European officials warned this week that the biggest risk of the Iran war for Ukraine will be a shortage of PAC-3 missiles. But by offering his drone expertise against the Iran threat, Zelenskyy may now be able to persuade the White House to sell more of these weapons to Ukraine. A person close to Trump’s national security team acknowledged that Zelenskyy has “marginal short-term leverage” with the U.S. requesting its help on drone defense, and that it’s a “smart play” for a leader whom Trump and his administration feel lacked much leverage in the ongoing U.S.-led negotiations about ending the Russia-Ukraine war.  But the person said Zelenskyy will need to keep his requests manageable. “He wants more rockets for Patriot systems, so maybe he can get [the U.S.] to expedite some requests,” the person added. Trump himself told POLITICO this week that Zelenskyy still had no “cards” to play. But in a separate interview with Reuters he suggested he would accept “any assistance from any country.”  Ukraine’s defense industry is wildly overproductive, but needs to be because of the war with Russia. The industry grew from annual capacity of $1 billion to $50 billion, and is able to make much more than the cash-strapped government is able to buy. That opens the door to foreign arms sales — something Kyiv has been reluctant to permit during a full-blown war. That’s why an initiative was established urging Ukraine’s partners to pay for weapons produced in Ukraine, and Gulf countries may now be ready to join this program.  

WARSAW — The EU’s €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons program was supposed to boost Poland’s rearmament, but instead it’s fueling a political war between the president and the prime minister. While the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants a €44 billion SAFE loan, aiming to continue the country’s rapid military buildup in a way that doesn’t worsen already strained public finances, nationalist President Karol Nawrocki is hunting for an alternative that involves financing armaments expenditures through the National Bank of Poland (NBP). The two men are sparring ahead of a crucial parliamentary election next year, where the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party aligned with Nawrocki hopes to unseat Tusk’s liberal coalition. The president and prime minster are battling over everything from ambassadorial nominations to undoing PiS’s judicial reforms, economic policy, foreign affairs, Ukraine, the EU and how to approach Nawrocki’s ally Donald Trump. Now the Polish president is turning on SAFE. Nawrocki this week met with central bank chief Adam Glapiński — who is sympathetic to PiS — to put forward a “concrete Polish alternative that will not involve interest payments or loans lasting until 2070,” to create a program worth around 185 billion złoty — equivalent to the SAFE cash the government is aiming for. Nawrocki faces a political decision over the next two weeks on whether to sign off on government legislation laying out rules for spending the Security Action For Europe money or to veto it. The spat in Poland is dismaying the European Commission, which wants member countries to rapidly boost defense spending to fend off the threat from Russia and to continue supporting Ukraine. “Who will lose if Poland doesn’t approve SAFE? Saying no to SAFE is saying no to jobs for Polish people,” Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said in Warsaw on Friday. “If Poland decided to use taxpayers’ money to buy weapons from somewhere else, that will mean Polish taxpayers money will create jobs elsewhere.” Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt, create an exchange rate risk and could see Brussels imposing political conditions on the money’s availability. They also warn that contracts funded by SAFE could benefit Western European defense firms — especially those from Germany — rather than domestic producers, despite the government insisting 80 percent of the cash will stay in Poland. Embracing SAFE could also anger the U.S., Poland’s main ally and arms supplier, which has expressed displeasure at the program’s provisions limiting participation of non-EU countries. Nawrocki is allied with Donald Trump while Tusk has voiced doubts over Washington’s reliability and predictability. “Part of it is about signaling to the U.S. that they still have allies in Poland, part about stirring tensions with Germany, and part about creating difficulties for Donald Tusk ahead of the election,” said Ben Stanley, a political scientist at the SWPS University in Warsaw. PiS has been trending lower in POLITICO’s poll of polls since September, not long after Nawrocki won the presidential election, which was supposed to give the party a new powerful momentum. Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt. | Jakub Porzycki/Anadolu via Getty Images Trailing by 9 percentage points to Tusk’s Civic Coalition, PiS also has to fight challenges from the far-right Confederation and the even more extreme antisemitic Confederation of the Polish Crown. However, polls do show that Tusk’s party and the other members of his coalition currently would fall short of winning another term in power. “My suspicion is that President Nawrocki will eventually sign, but not before making a great deal of noise and trying to frame the government as having blocked a more pro-Polish solution,” Stanley said. However, Nawrocki could also go for broke and try to block the SAFE loan by pushing his domestic alternative, wrote political scientist Marek Migalski. “The president’s initiative on ‘Polish SAFE’ is politically astute. It justifies the veto and gives his supporters an argument against the government, which not only wants to burden us with debt, but also wants to do so through the evil and deceitful EU,” he wrote on social media. Glapiński said Thursday he intends to propose “measures” that would not cut the country’s foreign currency reserves while securing “tens of billions of złoty” each year for the state-run Armed Forces Support Fund, a vehicle to finance military modernization. Glapiński is hemmed in by legal restrictions limiting the central bank’s ability to finance the budget, but his messaging suggests the NBP is readying a large-scale gold selloff. With 550 tons of gold stored in domestic and foreign vaults, the NBP is one of Europe’s top gold hoarders. “[The NBP] signals a sell–buyback operation involving the central bank’s gold reserves. Although it would formally comply with central bank accounting rules, it could in practice be viewed as risky from the perspective of Poland’s credibility in financial markets,” ING Bank wrote in an analysis of the proposal. “There’s nothing else [the NBP] can do,” a high-ranking government official told POLITICO, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked if the plan involves selling gold.  Tusk on Thursday called on Nawrocki to sign the SAFE law without delay. “Poland, Polish companies, the employees of those companies and Poland’s security are waiting for money from the SAFE program … There is no room for any political games,” the PM said in a video on X.

BRUSSELS — In the corridors of Brussels, policymakers endlessly debate the intricacies of the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the urgency of the European Child Guarantee and the future of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yet the place where these high-level strategies actually collide, and succeed or fail, is likely the noisiest room in any building: the school canteen. This week, as we mark International School Meals Day, we need to stop treating school food as a mere logistical cost or a side dish to education. Instead, we must recognize it for what it is: the single most powerful but under-utilized lever for systemic change. Beyond the plate: a systemic warning The statistics are sobering. Today, one in four European adolescents is overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization. This is not merely a matter of individual choice or poverty. This trend is driven by a food landscape where ultra-processed, low-nutrient options have become the most accessible and affordable default for almost every family, regardless of socio-economic background. For many children, school meals are the only reliable window of high-quality nutrition in a day otherwise dominated by a broken food system. On the production side, our farmers are protesting for fair incomes, while the climate crisis demands a shift to sustainable food systems. It sounds like an impossible knot to untie. But for the past three years, a growing revolution has been taking place in close to 4,000 schools across 22 European countries, reaching over one million children. > For many children, school meals are the only reliable window of high-quality > nutrition in a day otherwise dominated by a broken food system. Through the EU-funded initiative SchoolFood4Change (SF4C), cities and schools have gone far beyond updating their menus; they have dismantled the old model entirely. While thousands have begun transforming how food is sourced, prepared and valued, more than 850 schools have taken the leap even further by fully implementing the Whole School Food Approach (WSFA). The results, published by Rikolto in a new report this week, offer a blueprint for an EU-wide roll-out of the model. “Evidence proves the framework works, yet we are currently hitting a bureaucratic ceiling,” explains Amalia Ochoa, head of sustainable food systems at ICLEI Europe and coordinator of SF4C. “Healthy school meals combined with food education represent the most accessible pathway to food system transformation, directly benefiting the 93 million children and young people across Europe. By aligning existing initiatives under a coherent framework, the EU can deliver on its promises to public health and both economic and environmental sustainability in one integrated approach.” Breaking the silos The WSFA works because it shifts the focus from the individual plate to the entire ecosystem. It recognizes that school meals are not an isolated education cost, but a powerful crossroads where public health, regional economics and environmental policy meet. Credit: LAYLA AERTS The approach integrates four pillars: meaningful policy leadership; sustainable procurement (favoring local and organic); hands-on education (gardening and cooking); and community partnership. When procurement is aligned with regional sustainability goals, magic happens. Children understand the value of food, waste less and local farmers gain a stable, predictable market, shielding them from global market volatility, while simultaneously lowering the long-term healthcare costs associated with diet-related diseases. The missing ingredient: it’s not just the food, it’s the people However, the report reveals a critical bottleneck. The biggest barrier to scaling this success isn’t necessarily the cost of the ingredients; it is the lack of dedicated coordination. > School meals are not an isolated education cost, but a powerful crossroads > where public health, regional economics and environmental policy meet. Transformation requires human power. It needs local coordinators who can navigate the labyrinth between a city’s health department, the procurement office and the school board. Too often, we fund the infrastructure but forget the implementation. For the WSFA to become an EU-wide standard, national and regional authorities need to move beyond project-based thinking. It’s not just another subsidy; it’s a strategic investment in Europe’s social and ecological resilience. As Thibault Geerardyn, director at Rikolto Europe, notes in the report:“The true obstacle to scaling up is institutional, not ideological. Changes in policy must be embedded in the current system, not merely added to it as a ‘nice to have’ project.” The mandate for change: a strategic imperative As the EU begins implementing its new mandate, school food offers a rare ‘triple dividend’ that hits every major political target on the Brussels agenda. It serves as a public health shield, a guaranteed market for local farmers and a tangible safety net for the European Child Guarantee. > Systemic change cannot be led by temporary staff or volunteers. The EU can > make the difference. However, this potential remains locked as long as school food is treated as a secondary concern. Systemic change cannot be led by temporary staff or volunteers. The EU can make the difference. We call on the European Parliament and Commission to: 1. Standardize quality: establish an EU-wide minimum standard of healthy school food and education to drive quality upwards across all member states. 2. Fund the coordinators: move away from short-term grants toward long-term strategic investment in the permanent operational implementation and coordination needed to guide schools through this transition. You cannot build a resilient system on temporary project cycles. 3. Connect the dots: create an interdepartmental taskforce. School food is currently a political orphan, sitting awkwardly between agricultural, health, youth and social policies. It needs a permanent home in the EU institutions and a unified strategy. The revolution is on the menu. We have the recipe. We have the evidence from more than 850 schools. Now, what’s needed is the political courage to serve it. Read the full evidence-based report here: “From Pilots to Policy: Evidence from Three Years of Implementing the Whole School Food Approach in Europe.” This article has been published with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 101036763. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Rikolto België vzw * The ultimate controlling entity is Rikolto België vzw * The political advertisement is linked to encouraging change to European policy on food systems with calls to action for EU Institutions. Reference to the Green Deal, the European Child Guarantee, and agricultural reform. More information here.

WARSAW — Polish President Karol Nawrocki proposed Wednesday that the country’s military build-up be financed with the help of the National Bank of Poland instead of tapping the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe loans-for-weapons program. The move comes amid a standoff with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government over nearly €44 billion in SAFE loans earmarked for modernizing Poland’s armed forces, repayable by 2070.  “We have a concrete, Polish, safe and sovereign alternative to the SAFE program that will not involve any financial interest,” Nawrocki said, speaking alongside NBP President Adam Glapiński. The idea would be to work with the central bank to secure 185 billion złoty — equivalent to the amount Poland plans to borrow under SAFE. The president, and the opposition nationalist Law and Justice party which backs him, have both criticized SAFE, arguing it saddles Poland with decades of debt, creates an exchange rate risk because the loan is denominated in euros and not Polish złoty, and could see Brussels imposing political conditions. They also warn that contracts funded by SAFE could disproportionately benefit Western European defense firms rather than domestic producers — something the government rejects, insisting 80 percent of the cash will stay in Poland. There is also concern over angering the United States, Poland’s main ally and arms supplier, which has expressed displeasure at SAFE’s provisions limiting participation of non-EU countries. “The war in Iran and recent U.S. operations also show … above all, the effectiveness of American equipment,” Nawrocki said. Nawrocki’s announcement follows parliamentary approval of a law detailing how SAFE funds would be spent. If president vetoes the legislation, Tusk’s coalition doesn’t have enough votes in parliament to override him. However, the government insists that even with a Nawrocki veto, it would still be able to access the EU cash. But Nawrocki stressed that the SAFE money comes with strings attached. His idea, he says would mean “a concrete and secure alternative for SAFE that will not involve any interest … without credit, without changing Poland’s situation in the EU, and with the flexibility our armed forces need in selecting equipment.” Glapiński hinted that the central bank would step in with its annual profit for the purpose. Any central bank profits are channeled to state coffers, although that hasn’t happened in recent years. The NBP has also amassed 550 tons of gold, with plans to boost that to 700 tons. However, Polish law limits the ability of the central bank to finance budget expenditures. Adam Glapiński hinted that the central bank would step in with its annual profit for the purpose. | Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images “We cannot use any part of the reserves in the sense that a portion would be transferred, because that would be against the law,” Glapiński said. Nawrocki said he would present further details, which would include new legislation for the parliament to work on, to Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz as soon as Wednesday. Kosiniak-Kamysz pushed back, saying on X: “The SAFE program provides the fastest and most concrete funding for modernizing the Polish army, which is why the military, the defense industry, and all those committed to strengthening our armed forces are calling for the president to sign the [SAFE] law.” “If additional financing instruments for the army appear, the Polish Armed Forces will only benefit — not as an alternative to SAFE, but as extra resources enhancing security,” Kosiniak-Kamysz added.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission will adopt the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) on Wednesday, finally backing the landmark measure that would define a European preference in green public procurement after several delays. Haggling over the planned regulation went right down to the wire, with a meeting of cabinet chiefs that began on Monday spilling into Tuesday, the day before Ursula von der Leyen’s College of Commissioners will now sign off on an agreed text. According to one Commission official, another 44 changes were made to the draft at the meeting that ran into overtime. Paula Pinho, the Commission’s chief spokesperson, confirmed at Tuesday’s regular midday briefing that “commissioners are expected to adopt a proposal for an Industrial Accelerator Act.” The landmark measure would define a “Made in EU” preference in green public procurement — while pushing back a decision for six months on whether friendly third countries can be included in its scope. This means that, even after Wednesday’s announcement, countries like the U.K. or Switzerland will still need to lobby to get inside the tent. The IAA would also set restrictions on inward investment for dominant players in strategic green industries. These would mainly have China in mind, and cover batteries and energy storage, electric vehicles and components, solar photovoltaic, and the extraction, processing and recycling of critical raw materials, according to a draft obtained by POLITICO last week. An earlier version of the proposal, which is being overseen by Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, was panned last month by as many as nine departments of the EU executive. By the end of last week that was down to three, including the Commission’s powerful trade department, according to one person familiar with the discussion. They were granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks. Germany also led a rearguard action by 10 EU countries — which styled themselves as the Friends of Industry — who support less industry regulation and more open trade, with Economy Minister Katherina Reiche saying it would create “a regulatory wasteland that nobody can understand anymore.” With so many changes being made at the last minute, including dropping entire industries like tech from the purview of the legislation, critics say the bill is nowhere near ready for prime time and is at risk of being heavily revised when it goes for review by the Council of the EU, which represents the bloc’s 27 member countries, and European lawmakers. Additional reporting by Gerardo Fortuna.

Europe’s ambition to become climate neutral by 2050 cannot succeed in healthcare unless we fix a basic problem: we do not measure sustainability in the same way across the single market. Currently, measuring Product Carbon Footprints (PCF) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) throughout the European Union consists of a patchwork of national methodologies and/or competing frameworks. This fragmentation is not just a technical inconvenience, it actively undermines fair procurement, increases costs, and risks unequal patient access across Europe.[1] Without a single, harmonized methodology or framework, this EU sustainability and competitiveness goal will remain challenging to achieve. Though the lack of harmonizsation may seem technical, its consequences are tangible. PCF and LCA outputs can differ widely depending on the standards and methodologies defined and endorsed by policymakers, the way they are applied by industry, or how existing international standards are interpreted and implemented across member states.[2] The result is that national authorities are effectively speaking different languages. A treatment considered more environmentally responsible in one country may be evaluated entirely differently just across the border. And without harmonized sustainability assessments for medicines, there is a risk that sustainability is given disproportionate weight compared with safety and quality, undermining high-quality medicine development. In short, fragmentation slows progress, weakens trust and, importantly, – prevents comparability. [1]  > In short, fragmentation slows progress, weakens trust and, importantly, – > prevents comparability. In practice, the absence of a harmonized standard allows 27 different interpretations of ‘sustainability’ to coexist, which is incompatible with a functioning single market. Fortunately, PAS 2090:2025 offers what the EU has been missing: a single, science-based methodology that allows regulators, procurers, and industry to finally speak the same language. Developed with stakeholders across the healthcare and life sciences sector, PAS 2090:2025 specifies the appropriate methodology for medicines under ISO standards, aligning the playing field for everyone involved. Published by the British Standards Institution in November 2025, it reflects broad technical consensus and strong credibility. PAS 2090:2025 provides the first practical methodology for measuring the environmental performance of pharmaceuticals, establishing a common framework to support comparable environmental reporting, reduce regulatory duplication and provide policymakers with a credible basis to demonstrate progress toward climate neutrality. It also gives industry the predictability needed to invest in sustainable innovation, while ensuring that patients receive consistent assessments of a treatment’s environmental profile, regardless of where it is evaluated. Importantly, this approach reflects principles already embedded in EU policymaking. The European Health Data Space, for example, demonstrates how interoperability and standardized frameworks are essential in making cross-border data meaningful and actionable.[3] Meanwhile, the European Commission has been equally clear: harmonized technical standards and coherent sustainability rules are critical to the effective functioning of the Single Market and ensuring the free movement of goods.[4] This is a shared concern across stakeholder groups. Both the Federation of European Academies of Medicine and European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, representing Europe’s leading academies of medicine and science, have similarly highlighted the fact that common standards are essential for transparent procurement and fair competition across therapeutic categories.[5]And the innovative pharmaceutical industry, via the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, has outlined both the challenges caused by the absence of harmonized standards and called for policymakers, regulators and healthcare stakeholders to endorse PAS 2090:2025 as the one, internationally accepted standard for measuring PCA and LCA in the pharmaceutical industry.[6]Europe’s leading academies of medicine and science, the European Commission, and the innovative pharmaceutical sector all point to the same conclusion: without harmonized standards, sustainability policy cannot work. > At Chiesi, we support PAS 2090:2025 not because it is convenient, but because > it makes our environmental performance directly comparable and therefore > accountable.[2]  That is why our teams have laid out ambitious, yet reachable, targets regarding the reduction of Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. We also know that in order to reach these targets, we need to measure our actions and emissions. Measuring what matters is the foundation to making a meaningful difference.[3]  > Measuring what matters is the foundation to making a meaningful > difference.[3]  Our support for PAS 2090:2025 reflects a commitment to transparency, science-based decision-making and long-term sustainability; we use it ourselves because we believe it is the way forward — making it simple to compare products fairly, design transparent tenders, and procure with clarity. Further, industry members will be able to innovate with confidence, knowing that the life-changing efforts will be assessed with science and clear understandings. That said, no single actor can deliver alignment alone. Real progress depends on collaboration between regulators, policymakers, scientific bodies, and industry around a shared approach to measuring and comparing environmental impact. Chiesi stands ready to work with policymakers and partners across the healthcare ecosystem in favor of the adoption of PAS 2090:2025, understanding that achieving true regulatory harmonization is essential for ensuring patient access, maintaining high safety and quality standards, and fostering a globally competitive pharmaceutical industry in Europe. At the end of the day, the EU does not need another pilot program, framework, or national workaround. It needs a decision. It needs action. Europe must agree on how sustainability in healthcare is measured consistently and credibly across the single market. Measuring what matters, in the same way across Europe, is the only path to a climate-neutral, competitive, and fair European health system. Endorsing PAS 2090:2025 as the reference methodology would turn that principle into practice. Andrea Bonetti Andrea Bonetti is head of the EU office at Chiesi Farmaceutici, where he oversees the company’s public affairs strategy at European level across healthcare, sustainability and planetary health. Since opening Chiesi’s Brussels office in 2020, he has strengthened the company’s engagement with EU institutions, contributed to key policy discussions and supported initiatives to advance awareness on climate and environmental priorities in line with Chiesi’s values. He collaborates closely with cross-functional teams on the development and implementation of Chiesi’s sustainability strategy and represents the company within European and international trade associations. With more than 15 years of experience in health and environmental policy, he supports Chiesi’s external positioning and contributes to sector-wide work on environmental and sustainability frameworks. Disclaimer: POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Chiesi Farmaceutici * The political advertisement is linked to advocacy on EU sustainability and Single Market policy. More information here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] European Commission. (2023). Annual Single Market Report 2023. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-01/ASMR%202023.pdf   [2] Healthcare Without Harm. (2022). Report: Procuring for greener pharma. https://europe.noharm.org/media/4639/download?inline=1   [3] European Union. (2025). Regulation (EU) 2025/327 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2025 on the European Health Data Space and amending Directive 2011/24/EU and Regulation (EU) 2024/2847. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/327 [4] European Commission. (2026). Public procurement. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/single-market/public-procurement_en [5] European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) & Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM). (2021). Decarbonisation of the health sector: A commentary by EASAC and FEAM. https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Health_Decarb/EASAC_Decarbonisation_of_Health_Sector_Web_9_July_2021.pdf.pdf [6]European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). (2025). Advancing environmental sustainability assessment of pharmaceuticals through standardisation and harmonisation of product carbon footprint assessment. https://www.efpia.eu/news-events/the-efpia-view/efpia-news/advancing-environmental-sustainability-assessment-of-pharmaceuticals-through-standardisation-and-harmonisation-of-product-carbon-footprint-assessment/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

Pentagon officials and Hill lawmakers are increasingly warning that prolonged Iran strikes could stress U.S. military stockpiles to the brink and make the country more vulnerable. Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, has raised concerns about the military’s shortage of air defense interceptors since January, according to a person familiar with the conversations. But the fears have magnified in recent weeks as the Pentagon amassed the largest military buildup in the Middle East since the Iraq War. They follow a huge expansion of the nation’s military operations. U.S. President Donald Trump has often relied on the Pentagon to pursue his foreign policy goals — from capturing Venezuela’s leader to killing alleged drug traffickers, bombing Yemen’s Houthi group and striking Iran last year to decimate its nuclear program. Many of these operations burned through significant numbers of Standard Missile-3s, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and Patriot missiles. The defense industry has struggled for years to produce critical air defense interceptors that protect against incoming missiles, partly because of the complexity and speed of production. Interviews with six current and former U.S. officials and members of Congress underscored widespread worries that sustained Iranian responses could deplete those waning U.S. air defenses and leave tens of thousands of American troops in the region unprotected against Tehran’s missile salvos. “Do we have enough interceptors to sustain a retaliation?” said the person familiar with the talks. “We don’t have a discretely focused objective. Is it regime change or is it [just] ballistic missiles?” American allies have already felt the shortage of U.S. air defense interceptors and batteries, including NATO nations trying to purchase more Patriot missile systems to send to Ukraine in its war against Russia. “That has been a central, continuous concern,” said a defense official, who like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “It would also give fodder to those in the building that say we need to be more constrained with what we give Ukraine.” The Joint Staff did not respond to a request for comment. But the Pentagon dismissed concerns about weapons stockpiles. “The Department of War has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline,” said spokesperson Sean Parnell, using the administration’s preferred title for the Pentagon. Some lawmakers warn that a strike, especially one that spurs a prolonged conflict, could take away from other critical needs. “There have been urgent calls for reforms in procurement, but the net result is that we are seemingly unable to meet all of the needs for defense production — for Ukraine, for our partners in the Middle East,” said Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who argued the defense industry is not producing Lockheed Martin-built Patriot interceptors or RTX’s Tomahawk long-range missiles quickly enough. Blumenthal and a group of other lawmakers, who have pressed to shift interceptor missiles from the Middle East to Ukraine to protect against Russian attacks, now see that as more difficult. “It may be problematic to think about moving Patriot missile interceptor systems from the Middle East because now we’re going to have to protect our embassies, not to mention our bases,” he said, adding that U.S. defense contractors already are telling European allies they don’t have the capacity to produce more weapons to aid Ukraine. The Defense Department doesn’t detail its weapons supplies for national security reasons, but analysts warn U.S. stockpiles already are dissipating. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, estimated the U.S. fired up to 20 percent of the Standard Missile-3 interceptors it was expected to have on hand in 2025, and between 20 to 50 percent of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles. Experts believe the state of Iran’s air and ballistic missile arsenal and any further American strikes could also factor into how much U.S. air defenses are stretched. “How much of a concern it is depends upon how degraded the Iranians are, or still are after the last go round, and how coordinated and capable we’re going to be in terms of getting things before they take off,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the think tank. The U.S. military, beyond air defense munitions, also risks overusing Tomahawk land attack missiles and other precision strike weapons, Karako said, which are likely to figure into any future fight with Beijing. “It’s a tragedy to expend a Tomahawk when a gravity bomb will do,” he said, referring to an aircraft-dropped explosive. “It’s the strike munitions that we also need to steward and husband for deterring or prosecuting a war with China.” Not everyone involved in Washington’s drive to ramp up munitions production sees the situation as dire. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the House’s lead lawmaker for defense spending, downplayed the risk even while acknowledging munitions are scarce. Congress, Calvert said, recently authorized the Pentagon to enter multiyear contracts for munitions intended to boost production and bring down costs. Assembly lines for air defenses such as Patriot interceptors and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems “are set up, and they just have to maximize, with double or triple shifts,” he said. Calvert noted the scarcity was “not a secret,” but insisted the military had plenty of munitions in the short term. “I don’t want our adversaries to think for a second that we don’t have enough resources,” he said. “We do.”