Europe’s populist worries will intensify when right-wing billionaire Andrej Babiš becomes Czech prime minister today. Czech President Petr Pavel is set to appoint Babiš to the position after resolving longstanding conflict-of-interest issues related to the PM-elect’s conglomerate, Agrofert. Babiš and his future government have sparked fears in Brussels, where his opponents worry that alliances he could form at the European level may tilt Central Europe in an anti-establishment direction. Combined with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, Babiš has the potential to jam up the legislative machinery in Brussels as it works on key files. Babiš regularly speaks of reviving the so-called Visegrád Four group, something both Orbán and Fico hope for, after it became largely dormant following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A new Visegrád grouping would likely count three rather than the four members it had after being founded as a cultural and political alliance in the 1990s. Poland’s current center-right prime minister, Donald Tusk, is staunchly pro-Ukraine and is thus unlikely to enter any entente with Orbán. Polish President Karol Nawrocki of the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, though, has been talking up the prospects for Visegrád. Babiš’ government — his Patriots for Europe-aligned ANO party is in a coalition with the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy and right-wing Motorists for Themselves parties — is also likely to fight against EU-level pro-environment initiatives. That could cause issues for climate files like ETS2, the Emissions Trading System for road and buildings, and Brussels’ bid to ban combustion engines. Czech President Petr Pavel is set to appoint Andrej Babiš to the position after resolving longstanding conflict-of-interest issues related to the PM-elect’s conglomerate, Agrofert. | Martin Divisek/EPA Following his decisive victory in the Czech election Oct. 3-4, however, Babiš has toned down his previous remarks about canceling the Czech ammunition initiative in support of Ukraine, raising questions about whether the campaign rhetoric will translate into actual policy reversals. The extent to which Czechia becomes another EU disrupter might become clearer later this week as Babiš travels to Brussels to take part in the European Council — assuming the rest of his cabinet is appointed by then.

Czech right-wing billionaire Andrej Babiš will be the new prime minister in Prague after announcing Thursday evening that he would dispose of a potential conflict of interest. Babiš’ ANO party won the Czech parliamentary election in October and formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy and right-wing Motorists for Themselves parties. But the proposed prime minister and coalition ministers must be green-lit by Czech President Petr Pavel before taking office. Babiš has been entangled in legal woes, both at home and abroad, concerning his agriculture business empire Agrofert, which is a major recipient of EU subsidies. “Of course, I could have left politics after winning the election and had a comfortable life, or ANO could have appointed someone else as prime minister,” Babiš said Thursday night in a video address to voters. “But I am convinced that you would perceive it as a betrayal,” he added. “That is why I have decided to irrevocably give up the Agrofert company, with which I will no longer have anything to do, I will never own it, I will not have any economic relations with it, and I will not be in any contact with it.” Babiš’ ascension to the Czech premiership further tilts Central Europe in an anti-establishment direction, as the populist tycoon joins Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico as potential thorns in Brussels’ side on key EU files. In stepping back from Agrofert, however, Babiš made clear the importance of retaking the prime ministerial role. The holding’s shares will now be managed through a trust structure by an independent administrator. “This step, which goes far beyond the requirements of the law, was not easy for me. I have been building my company for almost half my life and I am very sorry that I will also have to step down as chairman of the Agrofert Foundation,” Babiš said. “My children will only get Agrofert after my death,” he added. In response, Pavel announced that he would appoint Babiš as prime minister on Dec. 9. Andrej Babiš has been entangled in legal woes, both at home and abroad, concerning his agriculture business empire Agrofert, which is a major recipient of EU subsidies. | Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images “I appreciate the clear and understandable manner in which Andrej Babiš has fulfilled our agreement and publicly announced how he will resolve his conflict of interest,” Pavel said. Pavel previously noted that strong pro-NATO and pro-EU stances, along with safeguarding the country’s democratic institutions, will be key factors in his decision-making regarding the proposed Cabinet. Czech conflict of interest law bars officials (or their close relatives) from owning or controlling a business that would create a conflict with their governing function. This doesn’t mean ministers can’t own businesses, just that they must prioritize the public interest over their own. Similar rules exist at the EU level. When he was prime minister the first time round, from 2017 to 2021, Babiš placed Agrofert — which consists of more than 250 companies — in trust funds, but the Czech courts as well as the European Commission in 2021 concluded that he still retained influence over them and was therefore in violation of EU conflict-of-interest rules.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission wants Google to break itself up. The U.S. search giant says no. Google has delivered its formal response to a landmark ad tech antitrust decision by the Commission, rejecting the watchdog’s prescription of an asset sale to address its competition concerns. The firm submitted a compliance proposal late Wednesday that includes a set of product and technical changes, including some to be rolled out within the year, that aim to open up its ad tech empire to rivals. The move comes on the final day of the deadline imposed by the Commission on Sept. 5, when it fined the Alphabet unit €2.95 billion for its conduct.  In its decision, the Commission concluded that Google’s abuse was a product of the “inherent conflict of interest” it has by owning such vast swaths of the infrastructure that powers online advertising. A spokesperson for the Commission confirmed in a statement that the EU executive had received Google’s proposal, and that it will now analyse the proposed measures. The search giant has proposed a series of immediate product changes, such as giving publishers greater pricing power, as well as longer-term fixes to increase the interoperability of its ad tech tools. “Our proposal fully addresses the EC’s decision without a disruptive break-up that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. News publishers on both sides of the Atlantic have long lamented that they face few options other than Google to administer their ad-powered businesses, ultimately forcing up costs for the already struggling sector.  Those complaints crystallized in the early 2020s, when both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission launched antitrust investigations into Google’s control over the plumbing of online advertising. When the Commission issued its final decision in September, it made the unprecedented move of stipulating that its concerns could only be resolved if Google ceded control of its market-leading ad tech tools. The measures proposed to Brussels by Google fall far short of the envisioned structural sell-off that both the Commission and its American counterpart envisioned as a solution to Google’s distortion of competition in the online advertising sector. They also largely echo the proposals Google submitted to the U.S. federal court overseeing the Trump administration’s ad tech case, where it, too, proposed a mix of behavioural fixes. Closing arguments in the U.S. trial will begin on Monday. In its statement, the Commission said it would analyze Google’s remedies against a yardstick of whether they end and address the conflicts of interest that Google’s ownership of the sellside, buyside and exchange infrastructure upon which digital ads are priced and placed. The Commission has never imposed structural remedies and faces a high legal bar for doing so, legal experts have told POLITICO.

A message from Brussels to Google: Would you break yourself up, please? The search giant faces an early November deadline to say how it intends to comply with a European Commission decision in September, which found that it had illegally maintained its grip on the infrastructure that powers online advertising. With a €2.95 billion fine in the rearview mirror, the Commission and Google find themselves in an unprecedented standoff as Brussels contemplates the once unthinkable: a structural sell-off of part of a U.S. company, preferably voluntary, but potentially forced if necessary. The situation is “very unusual,” said Anne Witt, a professor in competition law at EDHEC Business School in Lille, France. “Structural remedies are almost unprecedented at the EU level,” Witt added. “It’s really the sledgehammer.” In its September decision, the Commission took the “unusual and unprecedented step,” per Witt, to ask Google to design its own remedy — while signaling, if cautiously, that anything short of a sale of parts of its advertising technology business would fall foul of the EU antitrust enforcer. “It appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business,” Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s competition chief, said at the time. As the clock counts down to the deadline for Google to tell the Commission what it intends to do, the possibility of a Brussels-ordered breakup of an American tech champion is unlikely to go unnoticed in Washington, even as the Donald Trump administration pursues its own case against the search giant. (Google accounts for 90 percent of the revenues of Alphabet, the $3.3 trillion technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California.) Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s competition chief. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Google has said that it will appeal the Commission’s decision, which in its view requires changes that would hurt thousands of European businesses. “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, its vice president and global head of regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post in September. PARALLEL PROBES The proposal for a voluntary break up of Google marks the culmination of a decade of EU antitrust enforcement in digital markets in which “behavioral” fixes achieved little, and a unique alignment in both timing and substance between the U.S. and the EU of their parallel probes into the firm’s ad tech empire. “It would have been unthinkable 10 years ago that there would be a case in the U.S.  and a sister case in Europe that had a breakup as a potential outcome,” said Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Tech Institute, which is advocating for a break-up. The Commission formally launched the investigation into Google’s ad tech stack in 2021, following a drumbeat of complaints from news organizations that had seen Google take control of the high-frequency exchanges where publishers and advertisers agree on the price and placement of online ads.  Google’s control of the exchanges, as well as infrastructure used by both sides of the market, was like allowing Goldman Sachs or Citibank to own the New York Stock Exchange, declared the U.S. Department of Justice in its lawsuit in 2023. It also created a situation in which cash-strapped news organizations on both sides of the Atlantic saw Google eating an increasing share of revenues from online advertising — and ultimately posing a threat to journalism itself. “This is not just any competition law case — this is about the future of journalism,” said Alexandra Geese, a German Green member of the European Parliament. “Publishers don’t have the revenue because they don’t get traffic on their websites, and then Google’s algorithm decides what information we see,” she said. The plight of publishers proved hefty on the other side of the Atlantic too. In April, the federal judge overseeing the U.S. government’s case against Google ruled that the search giant had illegally maintained its monopoly over parts of the ad tech market.   A spokesperson for the company said that the firm disagrees with the Commission’s charges. | Nurphoto via Getty Images The Virginia district court held a two-week trial on remedies in September. The Trump administration has advocated a sale of the exchanges and an unwinding of Google’s 2008 merger with DoubleClick, through which it came to dominate the online ad market. Judge Leonie Brinkema will hear the government’s closing arguments on Nov. 17 and is expected to issue her verdict in the coming months. STARS ALIGN Viewed by Google’s critics, it’s the ideal set of circumstances for the Commission to push for a muscular structural remedy. “If you cannot go for structural remedies now, when the U.S. is on the same page, then you’re unlikely to ever do it,” said Crider. The route to a breakup may, however, be both legally and politically more challenging. Despite the technical alignment, and a disenchantment with the impact that past fines and behavioral remedies have had, the Commission still faces a “big hurdle” when it comes to the legal test, should it not be satisfied with Google’s remedy offer, said Witt. The U.S. legal system is more conducive to ordering breakups, both as a matter of law — judges have a wide scope to remedy a harm to the market — and in tradition, said Witt, noting that the U.S. government’s lawsuits to break up Google and Meta are rooted in precedents that don’t exist in Europe. Caught in the middle is Google, which should file its proposed remedies within 60 days of being served notice of the Commission decision that was announced on Sept. 5. A spokesperson for the company said that the firm disagrees with the Commission’s charges, and therefore with the notion that structural remedies are necessary. The firm is expected to lodge its appeal in the coming days. While Google has floated asset sales to the Commission over the course of the antitrust investigation, only to be rebuffed by Brussels, the firm does not intend to divest the entirety of its ad tech stack, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case. Ultimately, what happens in Brussels may depend on what happens in the U.S. case. While a court-ordered divestiture of a chunk of Google’s ad tech business is conceivable, U.S. judges have shown themselves to be skeptical of structural remedies in recent months, said Lazar Radic, an assistant law professor at IE University in Madrid, who is affiliated with the big tech-friendly International Center for Law and Economics. “Behavioral alternatives are still on the table,” said Radic, of the U.S. case. The Commission will likely want to align itself with the U.S. should the Virginia court side with the Department of Justice, said Damien Geradin, legal counsel to the European Publishers Council — of which POLITICO parent Axel Springer is a member — that brought forward the case. Conversely, if the court opts for a weaker remedy than is being proposed, the Commission will be obliged to go further, he said. “This is the case where some structural remedies will be needed. I don’t think the [European Commission] can settle for less,” said Geradin.

PRAGUE — Right-wing populist Andrej Babiš and his ANO movement won the Czech parliamentary elections by a large margin, but his path to the premiership is anything but straightforward. With 99.9 percent of the ballots counted, ANO had a decisive lead with 35 percent, well ahead of Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s center-right governing coalition, Spolu (Together), which had 23 percent. ANO’s tally is the highest percentage ever achieved by a single party in a Czech parliamentary election. POLITICO brings you five key takeaways from the pivotal election. 1. FORMING A GOVERNMENT COULD TAKE MONTHS ANO failed to secure a majority in the 200-seat lower house, which means Babiš will need parliamentary support to form a government. That could be a drawn-out process, as all the mainstream parties have ruled out cooperating with Babiš. “The negotiations won’t be simple at all, and they won’t be quick either. I really think that forming the government could take quite some time. It might drag on for several months,” said Petr Kaniok, political scientist at Masaryk University in Brno. Babiš on Saturday evening said he aims to form a single-party minority government supported by the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and the right-wing populist Motorists for Themselves. “We will lead talks with the SPD and Motorists and strive for a single-party government led by the ANO movement,” he said. 2. IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE Babiš is not Viktor Orbán — as long as he isn’t pressured by extremists, analysts say, which makes their poor results in this election a reason for cautious optimism. The far-left coalition Stačilo! (Enough), which calls for leaving both NATO and the EU and favors closer relations with Russia, did not make it above the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament despite strong polling during the campaign. The eurosceptic SPD got only 8 percent, much less than the predicted 13 percent, reducing its leverage in any potential cooperation with Babiš. “Babiš could form his own government without likely having to make any agreements that would be anti-European,” said political marketing expert Anna Shavit, who used to work on the Babiš campaign. Kaniok at Masaryk University called the results for extremists “good news.” “The most radical groups — namely Stačilo! and SPD — received fewer votes than expected. … From the point of view of the future of Czech foreign policy — and also European policy — it’s clearly good news, because you could say that the ANO movement in some respects was radical in its rhetoric, trying to appeal strongly to their voters,” Kaniok told POLITICO. “I think that by not having to rely on them so much in forming a government, any resulting government might not be as radical in its stance,” he said. 3. WILD CARD UP THE PRESIDENT’S SLEEVE Czech President Petr Pavel, who has discretion over appointing the prime minister, will meet all the parties that entered parliament on Sunday. Traditionally, the president tasks the leader of the winning party to form a government. Once a government with at least a 101-seat majority is established, the president appoints the prime minister and ministers, but the government must still win a vote of confidence. Pavel previously said he wouldn’t appoint ministers who advocate Czechia’s withdrawal from NATO or the EU. He also has said he is consulting lawyers on the question of whether to block Babiš over the conflict of interest posed by his large agriculture empire Agrofert. The first potential situation now appears much less likely, as SPD underperformed, and the far-left Stačilo! fell short of the 5 percent needed to enter parliament. Both parties are anti-NATO and euroskeptic. But the conflict of interest over Agrofert is still on the table. Czech law bars officials from owning or controlling a business that would create a conflict with their governing function. This doesn’t mean that ministers can’t own a business, just that they are mandated to prioritize the public interest over their own interest. Babiš said in a televised debate ahead of the elections that he “would solve the conflict of interest,” but he did not specify how. The possibility is slim, but Pavel still has the constitutional option to decline appointing Babiš as prime minister if he believes the proposed solution is insufficient. 4. SUPPORT TO UKRAINE COULD DECREASE Babiš campaigned on reducing support to Ukraine and prioritizing the Czech Republic. He previously said he doesn’t support Ukraine’s membership in the EU. He famously criticized the Prague-led ammunition initiative — which delivers millions of rounds to Kyiv — and pledged to cancel it, suggesting that NATO should run the scheme instead. The political analyst Kaniok said that ANO is not “openly on Russia’s side … but much more inclined toward Russia, much less toward Ukraine.” European officials have been watching Babiš with concern as they worry he could become another disruptive figure in the EU alongside Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. Babiš denies this. “We are clearly pro-European and pro-NATO, of course,” Babiš said at the press conference on Saturday following the results. “The EU has 27 members. Ukraine is not a member of the EU. We want, obviously, to talk about Europe, about European citizens, about the energy prices, the migration pact,” he added. Babiš, together with Orbán, is a co-founder of the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament. Several Patriots for Europe members, including Orbán and France’s Jordan Bardella, congratulated Babiš on his victory. “Truth has prevailed! Andrej Babiš has won the Czech parliamentary elections with a convincing lead,” Orbán said in a post on X. “A big step for the Czech Republic, good news for Europe. Congratulations, Andrej!” 5. BABIŠ IS STILL CHARGED WITH ALLEGED FRAUD Babiš is currently awaiting a verdict from the Prague District Court over whether he defrauded the EU out of €2 million so that Agrofert could receive subsidies intended for medium-sized businesses. The case hinges on whether the “Stork’s Nest” farm was carved out of Agrofert to make it look like a smaller, independent business. Unless new evidence is found, the court is obliged to take its lead from Prague’s High Court, which in June overturned an earlier ruling that had originally acquitted Babiš of wrongdoing. Chances are that the lower chamber of parliament will have to vote on stripping Babiš of parliamentary immunity.

President Donald Trump publicly vented at Attorney General Pam Bondi on Saturday, saying the lack of criminal charges against top adversaries was “killing our reputation and credibility.” “We can’t delay any longer,” Trump posted on Truth Social in a message directed to “Pam.” “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” He specifically lamented the lack of criminal charges against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, three of his most prominent political antagonists. Trump spent much of the post venting about Erik Siebert, the former U.S. attorney from the Eastern District of Virginia, who he forced out Friday amid reports that Siebert did not believe there was enough evidence to charge James with mortgage fraud. Trump appeared to confirm those reports, accusing Siebert of saying “that we had no case.” “There is a GREAT CASE,” Trump said. Trump also appeared to float his onetime personal attorney Lindsey Halligan — now a White House aide who has been reviewing materials in the Smithsonian museums to ensure they align with Trump’s agenda — to take on a role in the probes of his adversaries. “Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot,” Trump wrote. He later posted that he intended to nominate Halligan to the post, though it’s still unclear if he wants Bondi to immediately install her in the job on an interim basis. It was a remarkable public message to the nation’s top law enforcement officer, linking his personal grievances over his own criminal prosecutions and congressional impeachments to a potential decision by federal prosecutors to level criminal charges against his adversaries. Trump’s frustration stemmed in part, he said, from “30 statements and posts” from allies that complained “nothing is being done” to punish his longtime rivals. Trump amplified his post in a brief gaggle with reporters on Saturday night, saying the post was not meant as a criticism of Bondi but that “we have to act fast.” “One way or the other. They’re guilty, they’re not guilty. We have to act fast,” Trump said. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be judged, they should be judged. And we have to do it now.” Trump has long accused Comey, Schiff and James, without evidence, of criminal conduct. Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017 amid frustrations over the investigation of his campaign’s contacts with Russia. Schiff led Trump’s first impeachment trial over his decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine over a demand that the Ukrainian government investigate his political rivals. And Trump has railed against James for her sprawling lawsuit against his business empire that led to a massive civil judgment against him. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The message came after POLITICO reported that Bondi had elevated little-known prosecutor Mary “Maggie” Cleary to succeed Siebert, taking on the job as acting U.S. attorney amid questions about the investigation into James. Trump capped his message to Bondi by accusing Democrats of impeaching him twice and indicting him five times “over nothing.” In 2023, Trump was charged in criminal cases that accused him of seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election, corrupt Georgia’s election process, hoard classified information at Mar-a-Lago after his first term and cover up a hush money payment scheme. Only the hush money case, brought by Manhattan prosecutors, reached a jury, which found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts. Two of the cases, brought by special counsel Jack Smith, were dropped after Trump won the 2024 election. And the Georgia case remains mired in pretrial dysfunction, with lead prosecutor Fani Willis recently disqualified over a conflict of interest.

PARIS — After interviewing top politicians four nights a week on primetime TV, Léa Salamé will go home to one — in a major test case of France’s tolerance for relationships between journalists and the politicians they cover. From Monday, 45-year-old Salamé will host one of France’s most prestigious news shows, grilling the country’s leaders in the 8 p.m. slot on the public broadcaster. This new role has brought renewed scrutiny of her relationship with Socialist and Democrat MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, a likely presidential candidate in 2027. The two have been together for a decade. In June, Salamé was tapped to replace Anne-Sophie Lapix to turn around the fortunes of 20 Heures, which regularly trails its main competitor, private broadcaster TF1’s newscast at the same time. With the couple at the peak of their respective careers, their partnership will be squarely in the public eye over any potential conflicts of interest. Plenty of French politicians have married members of the media, but a French president and a star anchor living under the roof of the Elysée Palace would be a first. “Running a news program means offering an interpretation of events and society with a hierarchy of information and political interviews. I wonder how this mix will work in the interest of public service,” Aymeric Caron, a former Salamé colleague-turned-politician, said in an interview with the gossip magazine Gala. A PLAN … FOR NOW Before her appointment, Salamé and Glucksmann had built a seemingly stable firewall between their personal and professional lives. He led the center-left Socialist Party’s list in the past two European elections while she co-hosted public radio France Inter’s morning news show, which under her stewardship gained more than a million new listeners despite an overall drop in radio audiences. When it came time for Glucksmann to campaign, Salamé recused herself from coverage of the contest. She has said she would do the same if Glucksmann ran for president, and her new boss, France Télévisions chief executive Delphine Ernotte, has publicly backed that plan. “When he was campaigning for the European elections, she took a back seat. The great Léa Salamé cannot be summed up solely by her partner,” Ernotte told the popular TV program “Quotidien.” Glucksmann’s presidential ambitions are an open secret. The Europhile leader — generally perceived as one of the most centrist figures on the French left — has repeatedly refused in interviews to rule out a 2027 run. Polling shows Glucksmann is a long-shot — while Salamé is already established at the top in her field — but the contest is still more than a year away. With President Emmanuel Macron constitutionally barred from running and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen facing legal troubles that could prevent her from mounting a fourth bid for the presidency, the field is open. French journalists and TV hosts Lea Salame (L) and Gilles Bouleau pose prior to moderating a live televised debate on April 20, 2022 ahead of the second round of France’s presidential election. | POOL photo by Ludovic Marin/EPA At a press conference in June, Glucksmann brushed off accusations that Salamé faced a conflict of interest in her new post and leaned into his partner’s work as an active supporter of female empowerment. “We’re in 2025 — I wouldn’t have imagined telling her she should give up something that is important to her career. Things are transparent, very clear,” he said. “If there’s a candidacy in a national election, the question will be raised and dealt with transparently to avoid any conflict of interest.” Salamé struck a similar tone in an interview with La Tribune du Dimanche that same month. “My relationship is no secret, but we keep our activities very separate. From Emmanuel Macron to Marine Le Pen, Bruno Retailleau, Édouard Philippe and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, I never felt in their eyes that they saw me as ‘the wife,'” she said. The French political class has largely stayed silent when it comes to the pair. This is, after all, a country where adultery scandals rarely cause lasting political damage. A journalist–politician partnership can seem tame by comparison. It’s also far from the first case of its kind. Salamé’s former cohost Thomas Sotto temporarily stepped away from reporting on politics during the 2022 presidential campaign following reports he was in a relationship with Mayada Boulos, the communications chief for the prime minister at the time, Jean Castex. In the 1990s, former Prime Minister Alain Juppé and former Economy Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn were both married to journalists. Isabelle Juppé had covered her husband’s own political party for La Croix but left journalism during her husband’s premiership. Strauss-Kahn’s wife, the prominent journalist Anne Sinclair, paused her television show on TF1 while retaining a leadership role with the channel. She then returned to reporting but avoided French political coverage until after her separation from Strauss-Kahn. More recently, Le Monde’s Ivanne Trippenbach changed her beat from politics when her partner Rayan Nezzar became an adviser to then-Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. Such a move by Salamé does not appear imminent. By not formally declaring his intention to run for president, Glucksmann has effectively allowed the couple to present any conflict of interest as hypothetical, at least for now. That, of course, is only part of the story. He will be an active force in center-left politics, whatever happens in the presidential contest. When French lawmakers return to work next month to debate Prime Minister François Bayrou’s austere budget and prepare for key municipal elections next year, Glucksmann will be working to raise the impact of his his center-left Place Publique party, just as Salamé presents the biggest stories of the day.

Andi Hoxhaj is a lecturer in law and the director of the European Law LLM pathway program at King’s College London. He is the author of “EU Anti-Corruption Report: A Reflexive Governance Approach.” In 2023, the EU proposed an anti-corruption directive in response to multiple scandals, including Qatargate, Huawei and the Uber Files. The proposal also attempted to address recent backsliding on rule of law, as well as the fact that several EU members have dropped in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index rankings. Highlighting how corruption continues to plague the EU, the directive’s goal is to standardize the definition of corruption offenses and establish common penalties across the bloc. And to date, in accordance with EU procedure, the proposed bill was presented by European Commission in 2023, and the EU Parliament and Council of the EU amended and agreed on most of its content. But as of late June, negotiations have been at a deadlock due to three proposals in the directive’s text, which have been the subject of disagreement between members countries. The main sticking point is over the offense of “abuse of office” by public officials, with opponents demanding its reclassification from a criminal to an administrative offense. Simply put, the anti-corruption directive is at a critical juncture. Questions is, will the bloc finally step up, or will it be business as usual? Italy and Germany are currently leading the dissent, with support from Hungary, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Their argument is that the provision is vague, overly broad and open to misuse, as it could be used to target and charge public officials in order to create a public show of fighting corruption. They also argue it may discourage officials from working for public administration or approving publicly funded projects for fear of facing criminal prosecution. Italy itself abolished the offense of abuse of office in 2024, after it had been part of its criminal law for almost a century. So, the provision’s inclusion in the EU directive would require its reinstatement in their state law. Moreover, the reasoning behind Italy’s decriminalization was that the law hindered decision-making at the local and central levels of government, with officials afraid of being charged for allocating public resources. It had also become a politically driven instrument of prosecutorial harassment, with recent figures showing just nine in 5,000 criminal cases resulted in convictions. Some other EU members support this perspective, but the truth is, changing the law to an administrative offense would make it easier for public officials to engage in clientelism, nepotism and outright corruption, potentially opening the door to more white-collar crime and muddying the waters on possible conflicts of interest. Right now, the Parliament considers the decriminalization of abuse of office to be a redline, crucial to the bloc’s efforts to consistently combat corruption. This is a major issue in the EU, and until now, it has repeatedly failed to introduce robust legislation to target the problem, let alone effectively enforce it. That’s why on June 2, 57 civil society organizations published an open letter urging EU leaders to demonstrate genuine political will, setting a higher standard for integrity and accountability across the bloc. They are correct: The EU could make real progress against corruption with this legislation. Whereas a watered-down directive would send the wrong message both to its citizens and the world — particularly to candidate countries, where the EU has made fighting corruption a key precondition for membership. Or is it one law for the EU, another for EU hopefuls? The bloc last assessed the impact of corruption in 2014, estimating it costs more than €120 billion a year, with some studies estimating it might be up to €179 billion. And yet, most nongovernmental anti-corruption organizations and indicators suggest corruption is still on the rise in the EU. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly all (25 out of 27) EU members “saw an increase in tenders with only one bidder — a crucial sign that the tender may have been rigged in favor of the bidding companies.” By contrast, Albania’s Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) has charged nearly all its public officials — including former presidents, prime ministers, ministers and mayors — with abuse of office. And it did so under a criminal provision modeled after the former Italian criminal law on abuse of power, as advocated by the EU. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s suspension of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and dissolution of its kleptocracy units — a major retreat in the county’s global efforts to address corruption — only makes the need for the EU to recognize its role on the world stage more urgent. EU members must demonstrate true leadership, and challenge the message they’re currently sending: that the EU isn’t serious about fighting corruption within its own walls, while it’s happy to take the moral high ground elsewhere, whether that be in accession talks with Ukraine or considering Albania’s and Montenegro’s EU membership. EU members must rise to the occasion, adopting a robust anti-corruption directive that will impact the bloc and beyond without further delay.

BRUSSELS ― The European Parliament is to take steps to shield lawmakers from being named by Belgian police publicly during criminal investigations following criticism their reputations are being dragged through the mud for no reason. After several high-profile probes that MEPs say have damaged the standing of the bloc’s institutions, Parliament President Roberta Metsola has sparked a revamp of the rules so that Belgium and other national authorities must pass a higher bar when requesting immunity waivers. They will have to provide more information ― notably the allegations they are facing ― before the Parliament can take up an immunity-waiver request for consideration.   “We will act where there is conjecture,” Metsola told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. “We will stand up for MEPs and the dignity of the institution. I will not accept the targeting and tarnishing of MEPs without a solid basis.” One of the most egregious recent examples saw MEP Giusi Princi named in Parliament because Belgian authorities wanted immunity to be lifted so that she could be investigated over allegations of corruption connected to Chinese tech firm Huawei. The request was withdrawn shortly afterwards. “The Parliament, at several levels, is keen to convey the message to Belgian authorities that they need to act up and be more professional,” said a high-ranking Parliament official, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive matters. “Their mistakes and carelessness can extremely damage the reputation of members and EU institutions.” Under the plans, which Metsola conveyed to political group leaders, she could ask the requesting authorities to provide a minimum of information before a public announcement is made on the immunity-waiver requests received. Currently, any request must be announced in the full plenary session of Parliament no matter its content. Lawmakers in the Parliament also point to Belgium’s inability to convict anyone connected to the Qatargate cash-for-influence scandal which broke out in 2022.  The judge leading the case, Michel Claise, resigned in June 2023 over accusations of conflict of interest, and the defendants have challenged the legality of the proceedings, which the courts are currently examining, according to a spokesperson for the Belgian prosecutor.  “If proceedings begin soon and convictions follow, then the process has worked,” said Green MEP Daniel Freund. “But if no one is convicted, if key evidence is ruled inadmissible, or if procedural errors derail the case, then we do have a serious problem.”