European consumer group Euroconsumers along with Football Supporters Europe have filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing FIFA of abusing its monopoly over World Cup ticket sales to impose excessive prices and unfair conditions on fans. The complaint, obtained by POLITICO, alleges breaches of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which prohibits abuses of a dominant market position. “FIFA has a complete monopoly over World Cup ticket sales,” said Romane Armangau, a spokesperson for Euroconsumers. “They are using that power to charge prices that would not exist in a normal competitive market, while hiding information from buyers and manipulating them into rushed decisions.” The groups point to a range of alleged abusive practices, including limited transparency on ticket categories and seat allocation, a “variable pricing” system that can push prices higher over time, and the actual scarcity of tickets advertised from $60. “When you buy that ticket, you don’t actually know what you’re buying,” Armangau said. “It means attending the 2026 World Cup has become financially out of reach for most ordinary supporters,” she added, pointing to tickets to the final that now start at more than $4,000. Fans can also face additional costs, including resale fees of around 15 percent, according to the complaint. The groups further accuse FIFA of using “dark patterns” — design and marketing tactics that create artificial urgency — to pressure fans into buying tickets. The filing lands as pressure on FIFA is already building in Brussels. In an interview with POLITICO earlier this month, EU Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef warned of the safety risks for fans travelling to the 2026 World Cup, citing concerns linked to the war in Iran. He said FIFA had yet to provide renewed assurances for supporters, stressing that “since one of the hosts of this biggest sporting event in the world is party to a war, it’s only legitimate that assurances are given.” Micallef also criticized FIFA’s partnership with U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” a body widely seen in Europe as an attempt to sidestep the United Nations. The complaint to the EU leans on a December 2023 Super League court ruling, which said FIFA and UEFA can fall under EU competition law when they organize and market competitions as economic activities. The filing argues that reasoning applies here too, because FIFA is the sole seller of World Cup tickets and is allegedly abusing that dominant position. While Brussels has previously scrutinized sports governing bodies, targeting FIFA’s ticketing and pricing practices would open a new front. Euroconsumers and its partners are urging the European Commission to intervene, including by imposing price caps and forcing greater transparency over ticket sales. “We are asking the Commission to act immediately with interim measures,” Armangau said. “Once those matches are played, the harm to fans cannot be undone.”

ROME — Italian right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s crushing defeat in Monday’s referendum on judicial reform has shattered her aura of political invincibility, and her opponents now reckon she can be toppled in a general election expected next year. The failed referendum is the the first major misstep of her premiership, and comes just as she seemed in complete control in Rome and Brussels, leading Italy’s most stable administration in years. Her loss is immediately energizing Italy’s fragmented opposition, making the country’s torpid politics suddenly look competitive again. Meloni’s bid to overhaul the judiciary — which she accused of being politicized and of left-wing bias — was roundly rejected, with 54 percent voting “no” to her reforms. An unexpectedly high turnout of 59 percent is also likely to alarm Meloni, underscoring how the vote snowballed into a broader vote of confidence in her and her government. She lost heavily in Italy’s three biggest cities: In the provinces of Rome, the “no” vote was 57 percent, Milan 54 percent and Naples 71 percent. In Naples, about 50 prosecutors and judges gathered to open champagne and sing Bella Ciao, the World War II anti-fascist partisan anthem. Activists, students and trade unionists spontaneously marched to Rome’s Piazza del Popolo chanting “resign, resign.”  In a video posted on social media, Meloni put a brave face on the result. “The Italians have decided and we will respect that decision,” she said. She admitted feeling some “bitterness for the lost opportunity … but we will go on as we always have with responsibility, determination and respect for Italy and its people.” In truth, however, the referendum will be widely viewed as a sign that she is politically vulnerable, after all. It knocks her off course just as she was setting her sights on major electoral reforms that would further cement her grip on power. One of her main goals has been to shift to a fixed-term prime ministership, which would be elected by direct suffrage rather than being hostage to rotating governments. Those ambitions look far more fragile now. The opposition groups that have struggled to dent Meloni’s dominance immediately scented blood. After months on the defensive, they pointed to Monday’s result as proof that the prime minister can be beaten and that a coordinated campaign can mobilize voters against her. Matteo Renzi, former prime minister and leader of the centrist Italia Viva party, predicted Meloni would now be a “lame duck,” telling reporters that “even her own followers will now start to doubt her.” When he lost a referendum in 2016 he resigned as prime minister. “Let’s see what Meloni will do after this clamorous defeat,” he said.  Elly Schlein, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said: “We will beat [Meloni] in the next general election, I’m sure of that. I think that from today’s vote, from this extraordinary democratic participation, an unexpected participation in some ways, a clear political message is being sent to Meloni and this government, who must now listen to the country and its real priorities.”  Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, leader of the populist 5Star Movement heralded “a new spring and a new political season.” Angelo Bonelli , leader of the Greens and Left Alliance, told reporters the result was “an important signal for us because it shows that there is a majority in the country opposed to the government.” ‘PARALLEL MAFIA’ The referendum itself centered on changes to how judges and prosecutors are governed and disciplined, including separating their career paths and reshaping their oversight bodies. The government framed the reforms as a long-overdue opportunity to fix a system where politicized legal “factions” impede the government’s ability to implement core policies on issues such as migration and security. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio called prosecutors a “parallel mafia,” while his chief of staff compared parts of the judiciary to “an execution squad.”   A voter is given a ballot at a polling station in Rome, Italy, on March 22, 2026. | Riccardo De Luca/Anadolu via Getty Images Meloni’s opponents viewed the defeated reforms differently, casting them as an attempt to weaken a fiercely independent judiciary and concentrate power. That framing helped turn a technical vote into a broader political contest, one that opposition parties were able to rally around. It was a clash with a long and bitter political history. The Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) investigations of the 1990s, which wiped out an entire political class, left a legacy of mistrust between politicians and the judiciary. The right, in particular, accused judges of running a left-wing vendetta against them. Under Meloni’s rule that tension has repeatedly resurfaced, with her government clashing with courts, saying judges are thwarting initiatives to fight migration and criminality. Meloni herself stepped late into the campaign, after initially keeping some distance, betting that her personal involvement could shift the outcome. She called the referendum an “historic opportunity to change Italy.” In combative form this month, she had called on Italians not squander their opportunity to shake up the judges. If they let things continue as they are now, she warned: “We will find ourselves with even more powerful factions, even more negligent judges, even more surreal sentences, immigrants, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers being freed and putting your security at risk.” It was to no avail, and Meloni was hardly helped by the timing of the vote. Her ally U.S. President Donald Trump is highly unpopular in Italy and the war in Iran has triggered intense fears among Italians that they will have to pay more for power and fuel. The main upshot is that Italy’s political clock is ticking again. REGAINING THE INITIATIVE For Meloni, the temptation will be to regain the initiative quickly. That could even mean trying to press for early elections before economic pressures mount and key EU recovery funds wind down later this year. The logic of holding elections before economic conditions deteriorate further would be to prevent a slow bleeding away of support, said Roberto D’Alimonte, professor of political science at the Luiss University in Rome. But Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella has the ultimate say about when to dissolve parliament and parliamentarians, whose pensions depend on the legislature lasting until February, could help him prevent elections by forming alternative majorities. D’Alimonte said Meloni’s “standing is now damaged.” “There is no doubt she comes out of this much weaker. The defeat changes the perception of her. She has lost her clout with voters and to some extent in Europe. Until now she was a winner and now she has shown she can lose,” he added. She must now weigh whether to identify scapegoats who can take the fall — potentially Justice Minister Nordio, a technocrat with no political support base of his own.  Meloni is expected to move quickly to regain control of the agenda. She is due to travel to Algeria on Wednesday to advance energy cooperation, a trip that may also serve to pivot the political conversation back to economic and foreign policy aims. But the immediate impact of the vote is clear: A prime minister who entered the referendum from a position of strength but now faces a more uncertain political landscape, against an opposition newly convinced she can be beaten.

The Trump administration violated the Constitution when it sought to restrict press access to the Pentagon and limit what reporters could cover, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman granted a request from The New York Times to void the Pentagon’s press credential policy on grounds it violated the First and Fifth Amendment, rejecting the government’s argument that the restrictions were needed to prevent the disclosure of classified information. “The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected,” Friedman wrote. “But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing.” The ruling, which comes as journalists around the world seek information about the war in Iran, rolls back a highly aggressive attack on press freedom implemented last year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has had a strained relationship with the media. “Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for The New York Times. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public’s behalf.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the administration would appeal the ruling. Last January, the Defense Department removed Pentagon workspaces for several credentialed outlets, including POLITICO, CNN and the Times and granted access to organizations considered more friendly to the administration. In May, Hegseth announced additional restrictions on areas open to the media within the Pentagon shortly after he inadvertently shared sensitive information about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on a Signal group chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic. The Pentagon’s most prohibitive measure came in September, when the department said it would only credential reporters if they pledged not to publish information that was not approved for public release by the Pentagon. Nearly every major news outlet refused to make that commitment. Friedman said the policy violated the First Amendment because “the undisputed evidence reflects the Policy’s true purpose and practical effect: to weed out disfavored journalists.” An attorney representing the paper hailed the decision as a “powerful rejection” of the Trump administration’s attempt to “impede freedom of the press” by restricting Julian Barnes, a reporter covering the Pentagon for the paper. “The district court’s opinion is not just a win for The Times, Mr. Barnes, and other journalists, but most importantly, for the American people who benefit from their coverage of the Pentagon,” said Theodore Boutrous Jr.

ROME — Giorgia Meloni is running Italy’s most stable government in years, but her political future now appears closely tied to a major referendum on Sunday and Monday. The plebiscite will address the bitter and complex question of judicial reform — something right-wingers such as Meloni have pursued for decades, accusing judges of political interference and left-wing bias. The changes sought by the referendum are highly technical, but the vote will be viewed as a wider test of confidence in the prime minister and her government. If Meloni wins, the victory will cement her power before a general election expected next year. But if she loses, the opposition will smell blood. Voters will be asked to support the reforms by voting “yes,” or reject them by crossing “no” on their ballots. Here’s everything you need to know about the referendum, and what happens next. THE LOGISTICS Booths will be open on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Monday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., while expats should have mailed their ballots by March 19. Exit polls will be published at 3 p.m. on Monday and official results will be confirmed later in the day. The constitutional referendum is binding No matter what the turnout WHAT POLLS SAY Italian law prevents the media from polling citizens within two weeks of the vote, but the latest numbers published March 7 identified a “growing trend” toward the “no” campaign. Still, the race looks finely balanced, with much depending on turnout. Turnout data — released throughout the day Sunday and at close of polls on Monday — could give an early indication of the results: A lower turnout is expected to favor the opposition, while higher figures should help Meloni. A man works next to a giant poster reading “Vote No to the law of the strongest”, ahead of the upcoming referendum on Justice reform, on March 20, 2026. | Stefano Rellandini / AFP via Getty Images The Iran war poses a risk to Meloni that may have ramped up since the last polls. Italian voters greatly dislike her ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, and are worried about rises in their already high energy bills thanks to the Middle East conflict. WHAT REFORMS ARE BEING PROPOSED? The government says it wants to break the judiciary into different career tracks to prevent groupthink and to stop cases being sewn up between judges and prosecutors from the same background. The reform suggests separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors — who currently share the same entrance exams and training programs — and adding a second prosecutors’ governing body to the existing one for personnel matters as well as a higher court in charge of discipline. Most members of the three courts will be selected by a lottery system rather than elected. HOW DID WE GET HERE? The Italian justice system has often been the center of political debates. Meloni’s government argues the reform is needed to fix an overly politicized and unaccountable judiciary, but the “no” campaign — led by the opposition — sees it as an authoritarian move to muzzle judges and reduce their independence.  In the 1990s, following the Mani Pulite (“Clean Hands”)corruption scandal that broke the Christian Democrats’ decades-long hold on power, politicians were discredited, while prosecutors were hailed as heroes and gained moral authority. This triggered lasting grievances on the right and a conviction that the judiciary has become a political force.  Things have not always been so binary. The idea of separating the career paths of judges and prosecutors was also previously supported by the left: Massimo D’Alema, who was secretary of the left-wing Partito Democratico di Sinistra and would soon become prime minister, proposed the reform as chair of a bipartisan parliamentary commission in 1997. But everything changed when Silvio Berlusconi came to power. The late prime minister took a more antagonistic stance toward the judiciary, alleging he was being prosecuted because of political interests. He nicknamed judges toghe rosse (“red robes”), accusing them of being Communist sympathizers and indulging a personal vendetta against him. He repeatedly attempted to rein in prosecutorial power, including curbing the use of wiretaps, instituting parliamentary immunity and shortening the statute of limitations.  In 2002 Berlusconi proposed a similar constitutional amendment to Meloni’s, but was forced to retreat after a fierce backlash. Since then most governments, like Mario Draghi’s in 2021, have focused on passing more targeted laws to improve efficiency. THE AYES HAVE IT: WHAT’S NEXT? If she wins, Meloni will take her victory lap, celebrating the reform and adding an arrow to her political quiver ahead of next year’s general election. She could attempt to ride the momentum and force an early vote before economic headwinds pick up, fueled by the energy crisis and the end of Italy’s EU-funded Covid recovery assistance. But she has said publicly that she wants to serve out her full term. THE NAYS HAVE IT: WHAT’S NEXT? Meloni has tried her best to avoid former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s referendum mistake: making it personal. When Renzi lost the vote on his constitutional reform in 2016 he was forced to step down, after running a campaign that tied his name and fate to the outcome. The current Italian leader has insisted she won’t resign if her proposals fail.  But she won’t come out of it unscathed, either. Meloni has presented herself as a strong and stable leader, untouched by scandals and internal party squabbles, something unseen in Italy’s modern history. Losing the referendum would amount to the first real dent in her political armor and would hand a significant win to the opposition, putting her on a bumpy track before next year’s general election.

When German historian Rainer Zitelmann reposted a photo of Adolf Hitler to warn against appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, he didn’t expect it to trigger a police probe. According to police, the problem was the image itself: Hitler was shown wearing a swastika armband — a banned symbol under Germany’s criminal code, which prohibits the public display of Nazi and other extremist insignia. Zitelmann was informed in February that authorities were examining the case. Zitelmann’s is just one of several recent investigations into online speech, which have raised questions about how far German authorities are going in enforcing strict speech laws — and whether efforts to curb extremism are colliding with satire and political criticism. Zitelmann said he posted the image as a warning, not an endorsement. Like Hitler, Putin cannot be trusted when he says he has no further territorial ambitions. “I’m usually against Hitler analogies,” he said. “They’re often inaccurate and used to discredit political opponents.”  But, he added, ”the parallels practically impose themselves.” A week earlier, a journalist found himself in a similar situation for mocking the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.  In a podcast, Jan Fleischhauer suggested the party’s youth wing, known as “Generation Germany,” might be better named “Generation Germany awake” — a reference to a banned Nazi slogan. Fleischhauer’s case comes after police had searched conservative commentator Norbert Bolz’s home in October for using the same slogan to mock a left-wing newspaper that had called for the AfD to be banned. “A good translation for ‘woke’: Germany awake!” Bolz had written. Fleischhauer reacted to his investigation with humor. “Maybe [the complaint was filed] … by an AfD supporter who was annoyed that I made fun of the AfD youth wing,” he said.  But, he warned, such cases risk chilling free speech. Jan Fleischhauer at the 69th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt am Main in October 2017. | Frank May/picture alliance via Getty Images “I come from the 1968 generation,” Fleischhauer said. “I thought the path of free speech had been cleared once and for all by the ’68 movement. But as we can see, all of that can be rolled back.” TRADEOFF The cases highlight a tension at the heart of Germany’s postwar legal order: how to guard against extremism without restricting free expression. After World War II, lawmakers — encouraged by the occupying Allied powers — moved swiftly to ban symbols of the country’s Nazi past, seeking to prevent fascism from reasserting itself. Critics now argue authorities are going too far. Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, wants the law scrapped or narrowed. “If one wants to keep it, it would have to be limited strictly to explicit endorsement of National Socialist ideology,” he said. “At the moment, it has become vague and ill-defined. The legislature urgently needs to change that.” But others warn that loosening the rules could embolden extremists.  Lena Gumnior speaks to MPs in the plenary chamber of the German Bundestag on May 16, 2025. | Katharina Kausche/picture alliance via Getty Images “The point is not to allow governments to suppress political expression, but rather to protect the principles of our liberal constitution,” said Lena Gumnior, a Green lawmaker. “It is about strictly prohibiting the use of unconstitutional symbols, particularly those associated with National Socialism, in order to protect our democracy.” A separate provision of Germany’s criminal code — which designates it an offense to insult or belittle a politician — also sparked controversy recently. In January, a retiree came under investigation after posting a Facebook comment about Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to his town: “Pinocchio is coming,” he wrote, adding a long-nose “lying” emoji.  That case drew the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, prompting a a post by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, who has taken a strong stance against European laws that regulate online speech. “Most Germans I’ve talked to don’t want their laws applied this way,” she wrote. “When you’re regulating speech at scale, on platforms based in America (whose American users, especially, deserve First Amendment protection), this creates problems worth solving.” German authorities have dropped the probes into Fleischhauer and the Pinocchio emoji. The investigation into Zitelmann was still open as of Friday. For Matthias Cornils, a law professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, the outcome matters more than the investigations themselves. “Courts often reject criminal liability, even in quite harsh cases,” he said. “The strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression, developed over decades, remains intact.”

When Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attended her first European leaders’ summit in Brussels in December 2022, few would have expected her to become one of the most effective politicians sitting around the table four years later.   In fact, few would have expected that she’d still be there at all, as Italian leaders are famously short-lived. Remarkably, her right-wing Brothers of Italy party looks as rock solid in polls as it did four years ago, and she now has her eye on the record longest term for an Italian premier — a feat she is due to accomplish in September. A loss in what is set to be a nail-biting referendum on the bitter and complex issue of judicial reform on March 22 and 23 would be her first major set back — and would puncture the air of political invincibility that she exudes not only in Rome but also in Brussels. Meloni has thrived on the European stage, and has become adept at using the EU machinery to her advantage. Only in recent months, she has made decisive interventions on the EU’s biggest dossiers, such as Russian assets, the Mercosur trade deal and carbon markets, leveraging Italy’s heavyweight status to win concessions in areas like farm subsidies. Profiting from France’s weakness, Meloni is also establishing a strong partnership with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — a double act between the EU’s No. 1 and No. 3 economies — to mold the bloc’s policies to favor manufacturing and free trade. CRASHING DOWN TO EARTH For a few more days, at least, Meloni looks like a uniquely stable and influential Italian leader. Nicola Procaccini, a Brothers of Italy MEP very close to Meloni and co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, called the government’s longevity a “real novelty” in the European political landscape. “Until recently, Italy couldn’t insert itself into the dynamics of those that shape the European Union — essentially the Franco-German axis — because it lacked governments capable of lasting even a year,” said the MEP. “Giorgia Meloni is not just a leader who endures; she is a leader who shapes decisions and influences the direction to be taken.” But critics of the prime minister said a failure in the referendum would mark a critical turning point. Her rivals would finally detect a chink in her armor and move to attack her record, particularly on economic weaknesses at home. The unexpected, new message to other EU leaders would be clear: She won’t be here for ever. Brando Benifei, an MEP in Italy’s center-left opposition Democratic Party, conceded that other EU leaders saw her as the leader of a “ultra-stable government.” But, if she were to lose the referendum, he argued “she would inevitably lose that aura.” “Everyone remembers how it ended for Renzi’s coalition after he lost his referendum,” Benifei added, in reference to former Democratic Party Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who resigned after his own failed referendum in 2016. MACHIAVELLIAN MELONI Meloni owes much of her success on the EU stage to canny opportunism. At the beginning of the year, she slyly spotted an opportunity — suddenly wavering on the Mercosur trade deal, which Rome has long supported — to win extra cash for farmers that would please her powerful farm unions at home. She held off from actually killing the agreement, something that would have lost her friends among other capitals. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a signing ceremony during an Italy-Germany Intergovernmental Summit in Rome on Jan. 23, 2026. | Pool photo by Michael Kappeler/AFP via Getty Images The Italian leader “knows how to read the room very well,” said one European diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss European Council dynamics.   Teresa Coratella, deputy head of the Rome office at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, said Meloni had  “a political cunning” that allowed her to build “variable geometries,” allying with different European leaders by turn based on the subject under discussion. One of her first victories came on migration in 2023. She was able to elevate the issue to the top level of the European Council, and even managed to secure a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Tunisia, eventually resulting in the signing of a pact on the issue. Others wins followed.  Last December, with impeccable timing, Meloni unexpectedly threw her lot in with Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever at the last minute, scuppering a plan to fund Ukraine’s defenses with Russian frozen assets, instead pushing for more EU joint debt. Italian diplomats said that Meloni is a careful student, showing up to summits always having read the relevant documents, and having asking the apposite questions. That wasn’t always the case with former Italian prime ministers.  They said her choice of functionaries — rewarding competence over and above political affiliation — also helps. These include her chief diplomatic consigliere Fabrizio Saggio and Vincenzo Celeste, ambassador to the EU. Neither is considered close politically to Meloni.   Her biggest coup, though, has been shunting aside France as Germany’s main European partner on key files, with her partnership with Merz even being dubbed “Merzoni.” ROLLING THE DICE Meloni’s strength partly explains why she dared call the referendum. Italy’s right has for decades complained that the judiciary is biased to the left. It’s a feud that goes back to the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption drive in the 1990s that pulverized the political elite of that time, and the constant court cases against playboy premier and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, father of the modern center-right. The proposal in the plebiscite is to restructure the judiciary. But it’s a high-stakes gamble, and why she called it seems something of a puzzle. The reforms themselves are highly technical — and by the government’s own admission won’t actually speed up Italy’s notoriously long court cases.    Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni attends the European Council meeting on June 26, 2025 in Brussels. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images Instead, the vote has turned into a more general vote of confidence in Meloni and her government. The timing is tough as Italians widely dislike her ally U.S. President Donald Trump and fear the war in Iran will drive up their already high power prices. Still, she is determined not to suffer Renzi’s fate and insists she will not step down even if she loses the referendum.  Asked at a conference on Thursday whether a loss would make Rome appear less stable in its dealings with other European capitals, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was adamant that the referendum has “absolutely nothing to do with the stability of the government.” “This government will last until the day of the next national elections,” he added. A victory on Monday will put the wind in her sails before the next general elections, which have to be held by the end of 2027. It would also set the stage for other reforms that Meloni wants to enact: a move to a more presidential system, with a direct election of the prime minister, making the role more like the French presidency.  But a loss would galvanize the opposition — split between the populist 5Star Movement, and the traditional center-left Democratic Party. The danger is her rivals would round on her particularly over the economy. Even counting for the fact Italy has benefitted from the largest tranche of the Covid-era recovery package — growth has been sluggish, consistently below 1 percent, falling to 0.5 percent in 2025.  “We have a situation in which the country is increasingly heading toward stagnation and we have to ask ourselves what would have happened if we had not had the boost of the Recovery Fund,” said Enrico Borghi, a senator from Italia Viva, Renzi’s party. Procaccini, however, defended her, both on employment and growth. “It could be better,” he conceded. “But we are still talking about growth, unlike countries that in this historical phase are recording a decline, as in the case of Germany.”

EU efforts to ban Huawei from 5G networks won the backing of a top court advisor Thursday, in a legal opinion that is likely to galvanize security hawks seeking to restrict Chinese tech in Europe. A lawyer for the EU’s top court in Luxembourg said rules blocking telecom operators from using risky suppliers can be set by the EU, not just national governments. They also said telecom operators don’t need to be compensated for the cost of replacing Huawei equipment. It’s a blow for Europe’s telecom giants, which have pushed back against banning China’s Huawei from 5G procurement and have told EU officials that large-scale bans are an “act of self-harm” that could even bring down networks. It is a win for China hawks, who have fought to impose tougher measures against Huawei — with strong backing from Washington. The EU has spent years trying to persuade national governments to voluntarily kick out Huawei and ZTE over concerns that their presence in European telecom networks could enable large-scale spying and surveillance by the Chinese government. It is now working on broader rules that seek to reduce the bloc’s reliance on foreign “high-risk” suppliers and limit foreign government control over its digital networks. The case was brought by Estonian telecom operator Elisa, which is seeking compensation for the costs of removing Huawei and is challenging whether the EU has the competence to ask for restrictions on Chinese vendors. Thursday’s opinion said national security authorities can follow EU guidance when imposing bans on Huawei. The Court of Justice is expected to issue its final ruling on the case later this year, and may take the opinion from Advocate General Tamara Ćapet into account. Laszlo Toth, head of Europe at global telecom lobby association GSMA, said in reaction that “blanket rip-and-replace mandates are an unreasonable approach to what is a highly nuanced situation.” The industry considers national security measures should remain the responsibility of national governments, he said. Huawei said the opinion “recognizes that all restrictive measures with regards to telecom equipment must be subject to judicial review, under a strict standard of proportionality” and that “decisions cannot rest on general suspicion … but must be based on a specific assessment.” “We expect EU or national restrictions to be scrutinized under this principle,” Huawei said. BOON FOR BRUSSELS Progress towards an EU-wide ban has been sluggish, with many national governments dragging their feet, in part due to fears of Chinese trade retaliation. European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO in January that she is “not satisfied” with voluntary efforts by EU capitals to kick out Huawei. The EU executive now wants binding rules, laid out in a proposal in January. Large telecom players in Europe have pushed back hard against restrictions on Huawei, arguing that blocking risky vendors is a national security measure — an area handled exclusively by national governments. Efforts to clamp down on risky vendors should respect “the competence of member states for national security matters,” industry group Connect Europe said in January. Thursday’s opinion suggests operators will have a harder time fighting the bans.  It also bodes badly for operators hoping to get compensated for ripping out Huawei equipment. Many have sought financial support and compensation for the measures, which they say add massive unexpected costs to network rollouts. The EU executive previously estimated that phasing out “specific high-risk equipment” would cost between €3.4 billion and €4.3 billion per year for three years. Only if the burden for replacing Huawei is “disproportionately heavy,” could telcos seek compensation, according to the opinion. Elisa said it welcomed the legal recommendation that all decisions made on the grounds of national security should still be subject to judicial review. It said the restrictions in Estonia “amounted to a deprivation of its ownership rights … as the impacted equipment has become unusable” and that Elisa “already swapped the majority of its network equipment to Nokia.” Chinese vendor ZTE, the smaller rival of Huawei, did not respond to a request for comment. Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS ― For much of the past decade, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has succeeded in bending the EU’s agenda to his will by forcing leaders to overcome his vetoes in one high-level gathering after another. On Thursday he’s ready to do it again — possibly for the last time as he faces a tough battle for reelection against rival Péter Magyar next month. By threatening to block, at a gathering of EU leaders in Brussels, a €90 billion loan for Ukraine that he’d approved in December, Orbán has crossed a red line when it comes to opposing Brussels. In doing so he is setting himself up for a reckoning with the bloc that could come soon after the Hungarian election, five EU diplomats and one national European government cabinet minister said. While the bloc has so far shied away from a major confrontation with Hungary — it hasn’t stripped Budapest’s voting rights, for example — this cautious calculus may well change after the election. At that point, fears of feeding into Orbán’s campaign narrative will be displaced by the need to dissuade other leaders from copying the Hungarian strongman, said the same diplomats and officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive summit preparations. A reckoning was in the cards regardless of the outcome of Hungary’s April 12 election, the officials said, but would arrive much faster if Orbán is re-elected. He is currently nine percentage points behind Magyar, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. “The behavior from Hungary is a new low,” Sweden’s Europe Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told POLITICO ahead of Thursday’s European Council. Asked if Stockholm would consider using legal tools against Hungary, including deploying Article 7 of the EU’s Treaty to take Budapest’s voting rights away, she said: “Absolutely, we are open.” Swedish EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz speaks to the media in the Europa building in Brussels on March 17, 2026. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images If Orbán is reelected, “there will be a serious conversation among a group of countries about how to handle this going into the future,” one of the diplomats said. That conversation would likely play out differently if Magyar prevails, as he “indicates that he wants to play a more constructive game,” while EU leaders would likely play a “waiting game” to see how the new government behaves. What exactly the EU would do to rein in a reelected Orbán remains an open question. So far it has proven impossible to obtain the backing of 26 out of 27 EU countries for an Article 7 proceeding against Budapest. But other legal options, such as tying EU funds to even more stringent rule-of-law conditions, are already on the table, the diplomats said, as is dragging Orbán to court over his obstruction on the loan. During a closed-door meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels earlier this week, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul showed just how little patience the EU still has for Hungary, warning that Budapest’s obstructionism could no longer be tolerated, according to three diplomats who were briefed on Foreign Affairs Council talks. The diplomats disputed an account of the exchange by the Hungarian PM’s political adviser — who wrote in a post on X that Wadephul had threatened Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó with “very serious consequences.” The diplomats described the German minister’s remarks as “very direct,” “very clear” and “leaving no doubt that this can no longer be tolerated.” Other unnamed foreign ministers had been even more direct with Szijjártó, leaving him “taken aback,” according to one of the diplomats. “Prime Minister Orbán should understand that he is all the time testing the limits of what other member states are willing to put up with,” said a second senior EU diplomat from a mid-sized country. “This cannot continue.” A third diplomat said: “This will definitely have consequences after the elections. We are just waiting for that to happen.” Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjártó speaks to the media in Brussels on March 16, 2026. | Thierry Monasse/Getty images ROCK AND HARD PLACE What’s especially galling about Orbán’s latest standoff to many of his critics is how well he laid his trap — and how easily EU leaders walked into it. Merely blocking the EU’s 20th Russian sanctions package wasn’t a big enough spectacle for the Hungarian PM. But the Druzhba oil pipeline, which Kyiv said had been damaged in a Russian attack in January, fit the bill perfectly. Orbán seized on the halt in Russian oil deliveries to block the €90 billion loan, reneging on his own word to other EU leaders and devising an ideal Brussels-Budapest-Kyiv standoff for his campaign. And the Hungarian, who is now the longest-serving leader around the EU Council table, made the most of it by detaining an armored convoy carrying Ukrainian gold and officials, and then posting a video of himself alleging that Ukraine had threatened his family. It didn’t help that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also escalated the situation by refusing to allow EU inspectors to examine the pipeline for weeks and then saying he had no interest in repairing Druzhba. “This was building for weeks, literally. And now here we are [in] the Council, and it’s his [Orbán’s] show again,” the third EU diplomat said. European Council President António Costa, the main EU official in charge of dealing with Orbán ahead of leaders’ summits, hinted at taking a harder stance against the Hungarian prime minister in a letter he sent Orbán on Feb. 23. The letter that warned that by reneging on his support for the loan, Orbán had broken the EU’s principle of sincere cooperation, thereby exposing himself to legal consequences. But Costa didn’t follow up on the threat, with a European Council official telling POLITICO that the idea of suing Budapest over the obstruction had been dropped because the Court of Justice would “take too much time” to act. The EU needs a short-term solution for the Ukraine loan, the official said. European Council President António Costa speaks to the media in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels on March 18, 2026. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images “This is hard to understand,” the third diplomat said. “They should have played hardball, at least tried it out, in the meantime put some temporary measures on him. It would have been at least something than this wobbling. But nothing came.” Now leaders face a dilemma as Orbán once again threatens to steal the show at the European Council meeting: Call his bluff by taking the loan off the table, and risk infuriating Zelenskyy, who has been invited to the the meeting — or embrace a confrontation with Orbán that will inevitably seem like the EU is giving in to blackmail. “There is clear reluctance to give Orbán the spotlight,” the same diplomat said. “We won’t give him that space at the EUCO. But if we fail on the loan, Zelenskyy will rightly be furious.” 

BUDAPEST — If Brussels claws back €10 billion of EU funds controversially disbursed to Hungary, it will also have to recover as much as €137 billion from Poland too, Budapest’s EU affairs minister told POLITICO. The European Commission made a highly contentious decision in December 2023 to free up €10 billion of EU funds to Hungary that had been frozen because of weaknesses on rule of law deficiencies and backsliding on judicial independence. Members of the European Parliament condemned what looked like a political decision, offering a sweetener to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just before a key summit where the EU needed his support for Ukraine aid. On Feb. 12, Court of Justice of the European Union Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recommended annulling the decision, meaning Hungary may have to return the funds if the court follows in its final ruling in the coming months. Orbán has slammed the idea of a repayment as “absurd.” János Bóka, Hungary’s EU affairs minister, told POLITICO that clawing back the €10 billion from the euroskeptic government in Budapest would mean that Brussels should also be recovering cash from Poland, led by pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “We believe that the Commission’s decision was lawful … the opinion, I think, it’s legally excessive,” Bóka said. He warned that “if the Advocate General’s opinion is followed then the Commission would be legally required to freeze all the EU money going to Poland as well, which I think in any case the Commission is not willing to do.” The legal opinion on Hungary states the the Commission was wrong in unfreezing the funds “before the required legislative reforms had entered into force or were being applied,” Ćapeta said in February. Bóka said that would seem to describe the situation in Poland too. In February 2024, the EU executive released €137 billion in frozen funds to Tusk’s government in exchange for promised judicial reforms. But these have since been blocked by President Karol Nawrocki as tensions between the two worsen — spelling trouble for Poland’s continued access to EU cash. “It’s very easy to get the EU funds if they want to give it to you, as we could see in the case of Poland, where they could get the funds with a page-and-a-half action plan, which is still not implemented because of legislative difficulty,” Bóka said. Fundamentally, that is why Bóka said he believed “the court will not issue any judgment that would put Poland in a difficult position.” Bóka risks leaving office with Orbán after the April 12 election, with opposition leader Péter Magyar leading in the polls on a platform of unlocking EU funds, tackling corruption, and improving healthcare and education. The Commission is, separately, withholding another €18 billion of Hungarian funds — €7.6 billion in cohesion funds and €10.4 billion from the coronavirus recovery package. “I think Péter Magyar is right when he says that the Commission wants to give this money to them … in exchange, like they did in the case of Poland, they want alignment in key policy areas,” he said, “like support for Ukraine, green-lighting progress in Ukraine’s accession process, decoupling from Russian oil and gas, and implementing the Migration Pact.” “Just like in the case of Poland, they might allow rhetorical deviation from the line, but in key areas, they want alignment and compliance.” Poland’s Tusk has been vocal against EU laws, such as the migration pact and carbon emission reduction laws. Bóka also accused the Commission of deciding “not to engage in meaningful discussions [on EU funds] as the elections drew closer.” He added that if Orbán’s Fidesz were to win the election, “neither us nor the Commission will have any other choice than to sit down and discuss how we can make progress in this process.” Legal experts are cautious about assessing the potential impact of such a ruling, noting that the funds for Poland and Hungary were frozen under different legal frameworks. However, there is broad agreement that the case is likely to set some form of precedent over how the Commission handles disbursements of EU funds to its members. If the legal opinion is followed, “there could be a strong case against disbursing funds against Poland,” said Jacob Öberg, EU law professor at University of Southern Denmark. He said, however, that it is not certain the court will follow Ćapeta’s opinion because the cases assess different national contexts. Paul Dermine, EU law professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles agreed the court ruling could “at least in theory, have repercussions on what happened in the Polish case,” but said that he thought judges would follow the legal opinion “as the wrongdoings of the Commission in the Hungarian case are quite blatant.”

LONDON — Ex-Conservative MP Crispin Blunt was charged Wednesday with four drug offenses. Blunt, who served as MP for Reigate in Surrey between 1997 and 2024, faces one count of possessing a Class A drug — methylamphetamine — and three counts of possessing a Class B drug — GBL, cannabis and amphetamine. Malcolm McHaffie, who leads the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) Special Crime Division, said in a statement: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.” He said the CPS had worked closely with Surrey Police and “remind all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.” The charges followed police attendance at Blunt’s home in the Surrey town of Horley in October 2023, “which was in relation to a separate matter,” the CPS said. Blunt lost the Tory whip that month after being arrested on suspicion of rape and served the remainder of his term in parliament as an independent. That investigation was dropped in May 2025 after Surrey Police said there was “insufficient evidence to proceed” and “no further action would be taken.” At the time, the force confirmed Blunt would remain under investigation “on suspicion of possession of controlled substances.” Blunt served as a justice minister between 2010 and 2012 and chaired the Commons’ influential Foreign Affairs Committee from 2015 to 2017. He — who did not immediately respond to a request for comment — will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on March 25.