Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s plan to sell gifts received while in office fell apart before the first gavel strike, after the chosen auction house was snared in a criminal investigation. Bertolami Fine Art, selected to handle the sale, is under investigation as part of a long-running probe into the alleged illegal trafficking of archaeological artifacts. The company’s founder and owner has been placed under a suspension order, according to Italian media reports, in connection with the case. Prosecutors allege that a network of traffickers stole archaeological objects and funneled them through auction houses, including Bertolami, to launder the items and reintroduce them into the legal art market. Bertolami has denied wrongdoing in the past. Meloni’s office said it was not aware of the investigation at the time of the appointment, noting that the inquiry was subject to judicial confidentiality. Palazzo Chigi said it severed ties with the auction house immediately after details of the case were reported by Il Fatto Quotidiano. Under Italian law, the prime minister cannot personally keep gifts valued at more than €300 received from foreign leaders. As a result, most such items are stored in a secure room at Palazzo Chigi and are not publicly displayed. There is no official inventory. Some gifts received by Meloni have nevertheless drawn public attention, including an action figurine presented by chainsaw-wielding Argentine President Javier Milei and a diamond, gold and citrine quartz necklace given during a state visit to Uzbekistan in January 2023 by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The now-canceled auction was expected to raise around €800,000, with the bulk of the proceeds earmarked for charitable organizations. A smaller portion was intended to cover the auction house’s fees.

Winter vacation can’t start soon enough for Pedro Sánchez. Spain’s governing Socialist Party is being battered by a deluge of sexual harassment scandals that is prompting the resignation or dismissal of mayors, regional leaders and even officials employed in the prime minister’s palace. Within the party, there’s open recognition that its self-proclaimed status as the country’s premier progressive political entity is being severely undermined. The scandals are also provoking major fractures within Sánchez’s coalition government and parliamentary alliance, with even his most reliable collaborators demanding he make major changes — or call snap elections. Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, whose far-left Sumar party is the junior partner in Sánchez’s coalition government, said on Friday that a “profound Cabinet reshuffle” was needed to make a clean break with the rot. Aitor Esteban, president of the Basque Nationalist Party — one of the government’s most reliable parliamentary partners — said if the Socialists fail to halt the “daily hemorrhage of news stories,” snap elections must be held. Spain’s Socialists are no strangers to scandal, having spent the past two years dealing with endless headline-grabbing revelations detailing the alleged embezzlement of public funds by former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and party boss Santos Cerdán — both of whom maintain their innocence. Sánchez has so far weathered the storms by insisting the corruption cases are limited to just a few bad apples, and arguing that only his government can keep the country on a socially liberal track. But the scale of the sexual harassment scandals revealed in recent days — which have coincided with anti-corruption raids in government buildings — represent an unprecedented challenge for the prime minister. There are serious doubts that Sánchez’s “stay-the-course” playbook will suffice to see his government through this latest political earthquake. GROWING SKEPTICISM When Sánchez came to power in 2018 he boasted that he led “the most feminist government in history,” with 11 of the country’s 17 ministries led by women. Over the past seven years his successive administrations have passed legislation to ensure gender balance in key sectors, fight gender-based violence and promote gender equality abroad. But the actions of some of Sa´nchez’s fellow Socialists are fueling growing skepticism about whether the governing party truly respects women. Last summer the prime minister apologized to supporters and expressed his “shame” after the release of wiretaps on which the Spanish police alleged former Transport Minister Ábalos could be heard describing his trysts with female sex workers. Ábalos, for his part, claims the recordings have been manipulated and the voice they capture is not his. Weeks later, sexual harassment complaints against another of the prime minister’s long-time collaborators, Francisco Salazar, forced his resignation on the very day he was meant to assume a new role as one of the party’s top leaders. That scandal resurfaced this month after Spanish media revealed the party had slow-walked its investigation into the alleged abuses committed by Salazar, who maintains his innocence. Last week Sánchez said he took “personal responsibility” for the botched investigation and apologized for not reaching out to Salazar’s victims. He also ordered the dismissal of Antonio Hernández, an official employed in the prime minister’s palace whom Salazar’s victims had singled out as the harasser’s alleged “accomplice.” Hernández denies the accusation. Sánchez’s attempts to contain the situation don’t appear to have quelled indignation over the party’s failure to address Salazar’s alleged abuses, and the frustration has resulted in a version of the #MeToo movement within the Socialists’ ranks. Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, whose far-left Sumar party is the junior partner in Sánchez’s coalition government, said on Friday that a “profound Cabinet reshuffle” was needed to make a clean break with the rot. | Perez Meca/Getty Images Over recent days, the party’s boss in Torremolinos has been suspended from his post after being denounced for sexual harassment by an alderman, who also accused the Socialists of failing to act when she first reported the alleged abuses last summer. Belalcázar’s mayor has also stepped down following the publication of sexually explicit messages to a municipal employee, and the launch of an investigation for alleged harassment has prompted the Socialists’ deputy secretary in the province of Valencia to leave the party. The three officials deny the accusations against them. So, too, does José Tomé, who insists the multiple sexual harassment complaints that resulted in his resignation as president of the Provincial Council of Lugo this week are completely unfounded. The admission of regional leader José Ramón Gómez Besteiro that he had been aware of the allegations against Tomé for months prompted the party’s regional equality czar to step down in disgust, and are generating doubts regarding the Socialists’ political future in the Galicia. TROUBLED TIMES The barrage of sexual harassment complaints are a major problem for Sánchez. Women are a key segment of his party’s voter base: Female voters tend to participate in elections to a greater extent than men, and have historically mobilized in favor of the Socialists. But surveys by the country’s national polling institute reveal that women are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the party. In a poll carried out shortly after the Ábalos recordings were released, support for the Socialists among female voters dropped from 26.2 percent to 19.4 percent. Pilar Bernabé, the party’s equality secretary, admitted on Friday that the wave of harassment complaints marked a “before and after” moment for the Socialists, who now had to prove that they have zero tolerance for abuse. “Sexism is incompatible with Socialism,” she added. The challenges to the party’s bona fides are less than welcome at a moment when it faces multiple corruption investigations. In addition to the ongoing probes into Ábalos and Cerdán — both of whom were ordered jailed without bond last month — this week former Socialist Party member Leire Díez along with Vicente Fernández, the former head of the state-owned agency charged with managing Spain’s business holdings, were arrested for alleged embezzlement and influence peddling. At their respective bail hearings, Díez invoked her right to remain silent, while Fernández denied any wrongdoing. Days later, the elite anti-corruption unit of Spain’s Civil Guard raided several agencies managed by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, as well as the headquarters of the Spanish Postal Service, as part of a related investigation into the alleged rigging of public contracts. CAN SÁNCHEZ CARRY ON? During a campaign event headlined by Sa´nchez on Sunday, party members urged the prime minister to act. “Take a firm hand to the harassers, the womanizers, the chauvinists!” said Irene Pozas, head of the Socialist Youth in the province of Cáceres. “Don’t hold back, Pedro: The women of the Socialist Party must not have any cause for regret!” Pedro Sánchez may be hoping for relief from the scandals during the upcoming holiday break in Spain, but it’s unclear if his party, and the weak coalition government it leads, will be able to recover. | Marcos del Mazo/Getty Images While admitting shortcomings in the party’s internal mechanisms for handling complaints, Sánchez defended the Socialists’ determination to “act decisively and transparently” to tackle sexism and corruption. The prime minister also defiantly asserted his will to carry on, telling supporters that “governing means facing the music and staying strong through thick and thin.” Sánchez may be hoping for relief from the scandals during the upcoming holiday break in Spain, but it’s unclear if his party, and the weak coalition government it leads, will be able to recover. Although the prime minister insists he intends to govern until the current legislative term ends in 2027, his inability to pass a fresh budget and wider difficulties in passing legislation jeopardize that goal. The Socialists’ parliamentary allies are reluctant to see Sánchez fall because they know snap elections will almost certainly produce a right-wing government influenced by the far-right Vox party. But they are also wary of being associated misogyny and fraud — especially if voters may soon be heading to the polls. “Stopping the far right and the extreme right is always a non-negotiable duty, but it is not achieved merely by saying it, but by demonstrating that we are better,” tweeted the president of the Republican Left of Catalonia, Oriol Junqueras. “Those who abuse and become corrupt cannot regenerate democracy.”

Ukraine’s latest peace plan proposes a demilitarized “free economic zone” in the Donbas region where American business interests could operate — an attempt to bring President Donald Trump on board, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump, who sounded skeptical about the prospects for a breakthrough in Oval Office comments on Wednesday, “is aware of” the latest 20-point plan Ukraine sent to the White House Wednesday, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also spoke to reporters about the proposal Thursday, suggesting that control of the buffer zone in eastern Ukraine still needs to be worked out but that, under the new proposal, troops from both Russia and Ukraine would be barred. That, Zelenskyy said, marked “a compromise” from the original 28-point peace plan authored by the U.S. with Russian input, under which Russian troops would control the region. But, he noted that Ukraine would only withdraw its forces after receiving meaningful security guarantees from allies against future aggression from Moscow. The two people familiar with the proposal, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press, both expressed skepticism that Russia would back the plan, crafted this week with input from European leaders. Trump, they suggested, still views Ukraine as the weaker, more malleable party in the conflict, especially in the wake of a corruption scandal that forced Zelenskyy’s longtime chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, to step down. “The White House is using this latest corruption scandal to pressure Zelenskyy,” one of the people said. While European leaders have asked Trump to go to Berlin next week to continue talks, the person added that was highly unlikely unless there are substantial changes in the joint Ukrainian-European plan. Leavitt did not elaborate on what Trump thinks about the revised proposal, or if he would send aides to take part in additional conversations with European and Ukrainian officials scheduled for this weekend in Paris. “If there is a real chance of signing a peace agreement, if we feel like those meetings are worthy of someone on the United States’ time this weekend, then we will send a representative,” she said. “It’s still up in the air if we believe real peace can be accomplished … [but] he’s sick of meetings for the sake of meetings.” According to officials from two of the countries involved, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff intends to take part in talks with national security officials this weekend. Trump has suggested that the security guarantees Ukraine is seeking, aimed at deterring Russia from attacking Ukraine again, would have to come primarily from Europe. Zelenskyy said Thursday that he and his team had “a constructive and in-depth conversation” about security guarantees with U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with military officials and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. One European defense official, granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said that allies on the continent have been planning to move troops and surveillance equipment to Ukraine. Coalition troops would fly drones inside Ukraine to monitor whatever peace plan is agreed to, and while there will be boots on the ground they “will not serve on the front line.” The official said that the Europeans are stressing to the Americans that they need deeper political coordination with Washington on the talks, reflecting frustration about not having a seat at the table up to this point. During a visit to Washington this week, U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey told reporters that the so-called Coalition of the Willing is “ready to do the heavy lifting in Europe, alongside the contribution to security guarantees that President Trump has talked about from the U.S. But we’re ready to step in, and we will help secure that peace long-term and protect the deal that President Trump is looking to negotiate.” He sketched an outline of some of the work being done, including some 200 military planners from more than 30 nations who have already participated in “reconnaissance visits to Ukraine, and we have the troops ready. “ Over the last several months, Trump has repeatedly ruled out Ukraine’s future membership in NATO, the longstanding transatlantic security alliance that deems an attack on any member nation an attack on all. The revised Ukraine peace plan, however, removed language from an initial version barring Ukraine from ever joining the alliance, according to the two people familiar with the proposal. It also calls for elections in Ukraine, something Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been pushing for, the two people said. But Zelenskyy’s new commitment to hold elections shortly after a peace is secured may not be enough to satisfy Moscow, which has demanded that Russia control all of the contested Donbas region and guarantees that Ukraine will be denied future accession to NATO.

This article is also available in French and German. President Donald Trump denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in an interview with POLITICO, belittling the traditional U.S. allies for failing to control migration and end the Russia-Ukraine war, and signaling that he would endorse European political candidates aligned with his own vision for the continent. The broadside attack against European political leadership represents the president’s most virulent denunciation to date of these Western democracies, threatening a decisive rupture with countries like France and Germany that already have deeply strained relations with the Trump administration. “I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political leaders. “But I also think that they want to be so politically correct.” “I think they don’t know what to do,” he added. “Europe doesn’t know what to do.” Trump matched that blunt, even abrasive, candor on European affairs with a sequence of stark pronouncements on matters closer to home: He said he would make support for immediately slashing interest rates a litmus test in his choice of a new Federal Reserve chair. He said he could extend anti-drug military operations to Mexico and Colombia. And Trump urged conservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both in their 70s, to stay on the bench. Trump’s comments about Europe come at an especially precarious moment in the negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as European leaders express intensifying alarm that Trump may abandon Ukraine and its continental allies to Russian aggression. In the interview, Trump offered no reassurance to Europeans on that score and declared that Russia was obviously in a stronger position than Ukraine. Trump spoke on Monday at the White House with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation. POLITICO on Tuesday named Trump the most influential figure shaping European politics in the year ahead, a recognition previously conferred on leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump’s confident commentary on Europe presented a sharp contrast with some of his remarks on domestic matters in the interview. The president and his party have faced a series of electoral setbacks and spiraling dysfunction in Congress this fall as voters rebel against the high cost of living. Trump has struggled to deliver a message to meet that new reality: In the interview, he graded the economy’s performance as an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” insisted that prices were falling across the board and declined to outline a specific remedy for imminent spikes in health care premiums. Even amid growing turbulence at home, however, Trump remains a singular figure in international politics. In recent days, European capitals have shuddered with dismay at the release of Trump’s new National Security Strategy document, a highly provocative manifesto that cast the Trump administration in opposition to the mainstream European political establishment and vowed to “cultivate resistance” to the European status quo on immigration and other politically volatile issues. In the interview, Trump amplified that worldview, describing cities like London and Paris as creaking under the burden of migration from the Middle East and Africa. Without a change in border policy, Trump said, some European states “will not be viable countries any longer.” Using highly incendiary language, Trump singled out London’s left-wing mayor, Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a “disaster” and blamed his election on immigration: “He gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” The president of the European Council, António Costa, on Monday rebuked the Trump administration for the national security document and urged the White House to respect Europe’s sovereignty and right to self-government. “Allies do not threaten to interfere in the democratic life or the domestic political choices of these allies,” Costa said. “They respect them.” Speaking with POLITICO, Trump flouted those boundaries and said he would continue to back favorite candidates in European elections, even at the risk of offending local sensitivities. “I’d endorse,” Trump said. “I’ve endorsed people, but I’ve endorsed people that a lot of Europeans don’t like. I’ve endorsed Viktor Orbán,” the hard-right Hungarian prime minister Trump said he admired for his border-control policies. It was the Russia-Ukraine war, rather than electoral politics, that Trump appeared most immediately focused on. He claimed on Monday that he had offered a new draft of a peace plan that some Ukrainian officials liked, but that Zelenskyy himself had not reviewed yet. “It would be nice if he would read it,” Trump said. Zelenskyy met with leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Monday and continued to voice opposition to ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of a peace deal. The president said he put little stock in the role of European leaders in seeking to end the war: “They talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.” In a fresh challenge to Zelenskyy, who appears politically weakened in Ukraine due to a corruption scandal, Trump renewed his call for Ukraine to hold new elections. “They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Latin America Even as he said he is pursuing a peace agenda overseas, Trump said he might further broaden the military actions his administration has taken in Latin America against targets it claims are linked to the drug trade. Trump has deployed a massive military force to the Caribbean to strike alleged drug runners and pressure the authoritarian regime in Venezuela. In the interview, Trump repeatedly declined to rule out putting American troops into Venezuela as part of an effort to bring down the strongman ruler Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump blames for exporting drugs and dangerous people to the United States. Some leaders on the American right have warned Trump that a ground invasion of Venezuela would be a red line for conservatives who voted for him in part to end foreign wars. “I don’t want to rule in or out. I don’t talk about it,” Trump said of deploying ground troops, adding: “I don’t want to talk to you about military strategy.” But the president said he would consider using force against targets in other countries where the drug trade is highly active, including Mexico and Colombia. “Sure, I would,” he said. Trump scarcely defended some of his most controversial actions in Latin America, including his recent pardon of the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a decades-long sentence in an American prison after being convicted in a massive drug-trafficking conspiracy. Trump said he knew “very little” about Hernández except that he’d been told by “very good people” that the former Honduran president had been targeted unfairly by political opponents. “They asked me to do it and I said, I’ll do it,” Trump acknowledged, without naming the people who sought the pardon for Hernández. HEALTH CARE AND THE ECONOMY Asked to grade the economy under his watch, Trump rated it an overwhelming success: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” To the extent voters are frustrated about prices, Trump said the Biden administration was at fault: “I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess.” The president is facing a forbidding political environment because of voters’ struggles with affordability, with about half of voters overall and nearly 4 in 10 people who voted for Trump in 2024 saying in a recent POLITICO Poll that the cost of living was as bad as it had ever been in their lives. Trump said he could make additional changes to tariff policy to help lower the price of some goods, as he has already done, but he insisted overall that the trend on costs was in the right direction. “Prices are all coming down,” Trump said, adding: “Everything is coming down.” Prices rose 3 percent over the 12 months ending in September, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index. Trump’s political struggles are shadowing his upcoming decision on a nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, a post that will shape the economic environment for the balance of Trump’s term. Asked if he was making support for slashing interest rates a litmus test for his Fed nominee, Trump answered with a quick “yes.” The most immediate threat to the cost of living for many Americans is the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Obamacare exchange plans that were enacted by Democrats under former President Joe Biden and are set to expire at the end of this year. Health insurance premiums are expected to spike in 2026, and medical charities are already experiencing a marked rise in requests for aid even before subsidies expire. Trump has been largely absent from health policy negotiations in Washington, while Democrats and some Republicans supportive of a compromise on subsidies have run into a wall of opposition on the right. Reaching a deal — and marshaling support from enough Republicans to pass it — would likely require direct intervention from the president. Yet asked if he would support a temporary extension of Obamacare subsidies while he works out a large-scale plan with lawmakers, Trump was noncommittal. “I don’t know. I’m gonna have to see,” he said, pivoting to an attack on Democrats for being too generous with insurance companies in the Affordable Care Act. A cloud of uncertainty surrounds the administration’s intentions on health care policy. In late November, the White House planned to unveil a proposal to temporarily extend Obamacare subsidies only to postpone the announcement. Trump has promised on and off for years to unveil a comprehensive plan for replacing Obamacare but has never done so. That did not change in the interview. “I want to give the people better health insurance for less money,” Trump said. “The people will get the money, and they’re going to buy the health insurance that they want.” Reminded that Americans are currently buying holiday gifts and drawing up household budgets for 2026 amid uncertainty around premiums, Trump shot back: “Don’t be dramatic. Don’t be dramatic.” SUPREME COURT Large swaths of Trump’s domestic agenda currently sit before the Supreme Court, with a generally sympathetic 6-3 conservative majority that has nevertheless thrown up some obstacles to the most brazen versions of executive power Trump has attempted to wield. Trump spoke with POLITICO several days after the high court agreed to hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, the automatic conferral of citizenship on people born in the United States. Trump is attempting to roll back that right and said it would be “devastating” if the court blocked him from doing so. If the court rules in his favor, Trump said, he had not yet considered whether he would try to strip citizenship from people who were born as citizens under current law. Trump broke with some members of his party who have been hoping that the court’s two oldest conservatives, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, might consider retiring before the midterm elections so that Trump can nominate another conservative while Republicans are guaranteed to control the Senate. The president said he’d rather Alito, 75, and Thomas, 77, the court’s most reliable conservative jurists, remain in place: “I hope they stay,” he said, “’cause I think they’re fantastic.”

LONDON — A British police force investigating bribery and money laundering will be expanded amid fears corruption is threatening U.K. national security. The U.K. government on Monday pledged £15 million to expand its “Domestic Corruption Unit” — a body which investigates corruption in local authorities and banks. The announcement came as ministers published a new U.K. anti-corruption strategy setting out more than 100 measures to tackle bribery, money laundering and intimidation. “Corruption threatens our national security, undermines legitimate business and steals money from working people’s pockets,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis said in a press statement issued alongside the anti-corruption document. “Our landmark strategy will take on the rogue actors and insiders who often exploit their positions of power and manipulate the public purse for personal gain,” he added.   The U.K. government wants to crackdown on what it calls “professional enablers” of corruption and crime, which it claims are sometimes working for the benefit of hostile states, such as Russia, or criminal gangs overseas. A plan to strengthen sanctions against bad actors in banking, accountancy and the law were also set out Monday. There will also be increased vetting for new police, prison officer and border security recruits, and staff moving between organizations to stop organized crime groups infiltrating Britain’s frontline services. Ministers are also considering payments for whistleblowers. The U.K. government will host an illicit finance summit next year to tackle the flow of dirty money. It will examine tools such cryptocurrency, which are being used by criminals, those evading sanctions and hostile states. Margaret Hodge, the government’s anti-corruption champion, will also lead a review into asset ownership in Britain, which will aim to track the flow of dirty money into the country. Transparency campaigners and MPs have tentatively supported the strategy, but some have warned that there are glaring omissions. Andrew Mitchell, the former Tory minister who chairs the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, said that without “full and proper financial transparency” in Britain’s overseas tax havens, “[the] U.K.’s credibility as a global leader on anti-corruption and economic crime will continue to be undermined.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Brussels was jolted this week by dawn raids and an alleged fraud probe involving current and former senior EU diplomats. Host Sarah Wheaton speaks with Zoya Sheftalovich — a longtime Brussels Playbook editor who has just returned from Australia to begin her new role as POLITICO’s chief EU correspondent — and with Max Griera, our European Parliament reporter, to unpack what we know so far, what’s at stake for Ursula von der Leyen, and where the investigation may head next. Then, with Zoya staying in the studio, we’re joined by Senior Climate Correspondent Karl Mathiesen, Trade and Competition Editor Doug Busvine and Defense Editor Jan Cienski to take stock of the Commission’s first year — marked by this very bumpy week. We look at competitiveness, climate, defense and the fast-shifting global landscape — and our panel delivers its score for von der Leyen’s team.

BRUSSELS — The EU will start using high-resolution satellites and the latest drone technology to crack down on drugs smuggled through its borders, as cocaine and synthetic drugs swarm European capitals and the bloc grapples with growing drug trafficking violence. “When it comes to illegal drugs, Europe is reaching a crisis point,” said European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner on Thursday, while presenting the new EU Drugs Strategy and action plan against drug trafficking. They lay out actions to boost international cooperation, stop the import of illicit drugs, dismantle production sites, curb recruitment of young people to criminal networks and tackle the growing drug-related violence that has taken capitals hostage. As gang networks evolve and drug traffickers constantly find new “loopholes” to bring their drugs into Europe, the EU and countries will work with customs, agencies and the private sector to better monitor and disrupt trafficking routes across land, sea or air. This includes using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to find drugs sent via mail, monitoring aviation and publishing its upcoming EU Ports Strategy for port security. EU border security agency Frontex will get “state of the art resources,” said Brunner, including high-resolution satellites and drones. “Drug traffickers use the latest technologies, which means we need innovation to beat them,” Brunner said. To stay up to date, the European Commission is establishing a Security and Innovation Campus to boost research and test cutting-edge technologies in 2026. “We send the drug lords and their organizations a clear message: Europe is fighting back,” Brunner said. On top of the increased import of illegal drugs, Europe is grappling with the growing in-house production of synthetic drugs, with authorities dismantling up to 500 labs every year. To tackle this, the European Union Drugs Agency will develop a European database on drug production incidents and an EU-wide substance database to help countries identify synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals. The EU is also looking at its existing laws, evaluating the current rules against organized crime and the existing Framework Decision on drug trafficking by 2026. The EUDA’s new European drug alert system, launched a couple of weeks ago, will also help issue alerts on serious drug-related risks, such as highly potent synthetic drugs; while its EU early warning system will help identify new substances and quickly inform the capitals. Europe is grappling with a surge in the availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The quantity of drugs seized in the EU has increased dramatically between 2013 and 2023, the commissioner said, with authorities seizing 419 metric tons of cocaine in 2023 — six times more than the previous decade. But it’s not just the drugs — illicit drug trafficking comes with “bloodshed, violence, corruption, and social harm,” Brunner said. Criminal networks are increasingly recruiting young and vulnerable people, often using social media platforms. To fight this, the EU will launch an EU-wide platform to “stop young people being drawn into drug trafficking,” connecting experts across Europe. “I think that is key — to get engaged with the young people at an early stage, to prevent them getting into the use of drugs,” Brunner said. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. “Already too many have been lost to death, addiction and violence caused by traffickers. Now is the time for us to turn the tides,” he added.

The EU’s former top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, has resigned as rector of the College of Europe. In a statement, Mogherini said: “In line with the utmost rigour and fairness with which I always carried out my duties, today I decided to resign as Rector of the College of Europe and Director of the European Union Diplomatic Academy.” Mogherini and one of the bloc’s most senior diplomats, Stefano Sannino, were taken into custody Tuesday after Belgian police launched raids as part of a fraud probe. Sannino left his role in the Commission on Wednesday. The police searched the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the College of Europe over alleged corruption in the establishment of a training academy for diplomats. Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister, was in charge of the EEAS from 2014 to 2019 and has been at the College of Europe since 2020.

The United States is paying attention to the fraud scandal that has rocked the EU this week. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau used social media to take aim at Federica Mogherini, the former EU top diplomat who is at the center of the corruption scandal. Retweeting a France 24 story about Mogherini, Landau wrote: “This is the same person, incidentally, who characterized Communist Cuba as a ‘one-party democracy’ and fostered European investment, tourism, and trade that propped up the island’s repressive and stridently anti-American regime.” The European External Action Service’s 2016 Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World described Cuba’s political system as “a one-party democracy.” Mogherini was head of the EEAS at the time. Belgian authorities conducted dawn raids on Tuesday and detained Mogherini and ex-EEAS Secretary-General Stefano Sannino as part of an investigation into a tendering process to set up a diplomatic academy attached to the College of Europe, where Mogherini is now rector. Landau has had Europe in his sights this week. On Wednesday, he slammed European NATO allies for prioritizing their own defense industry over American arms suppliers. Landau told NATO foreign ministers not to “bully” his country’s defense firms out of participating in Europe’s rearmament.

BRUSSELS — Last year’s gathering of Europe’s far right in Brussels took place behind metal shutters after protesters, police and city politicians tried to stop it from going ahead. This year, the doors are wide open — albeit flanked by security guards — and it’s the EU’s mainstream leadership that is under siege. Just a day after the EU was rocked by the arrest of two senior figures in a corruption probe, many at the Battle for the Soul of Europe conference — hosted by MCC Brussels, a think tank with close links to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and bringing together top officials from Budapest with right-wing politicians, activists and commentators from across the continent — said the time was right to channel public anger at the establishment. The latest corruption scandal is “another sign of double standards,” Balázs Orbán, political director to the Hungarian prime minister and the keynote speaker at the conference, said in an interview with POLITICO. “A corruption-based technocratic elite is mismanaging procedures. This element is very strong and it’s quite visible for the European voters but if you talk to Americans … this is what they see from Europe.” Prime Minister Orbán has repeatedly blasted the “EU elites” as out of touch and has sought to blame them for freezing funding for his own country over backsliding on democracy and the rule of law. There was a bullish mood at the event, held a stone’s throw from the EU Quarter of Brussels. Polish politician Ryszard Legutko, co-chairman of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, took aim at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Polish politician Ryszard Legutko, co-chairman of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, took aim at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. “The fish stinks from its head,” he blasted. John O’Brien, one of the organizers of the two-day conference, which kicked off on Wednesday, said “a couple of years ago people were scared to say some of these things about immigration, to raise concerns about environmental extremism, to talk about the mismanagement of economies … now, people are really finding their voices.” “It’s been demonstrated the last few years, time and time again, that Europe is dirty and needs to be cleaned up,” said O’Brien, as waiters in bowties served coffee to attendees. The latest embarrassment for the EU — the detention on Tuesday of former Commission Vice President Federica Mogherini and ex-top diplomatic official Stefano Sannino as part of a fraud probe — has given the right plenty of ammunition. At a panel on Thursday, French National Rally MEP Thierry Mariani and British political commentator Matthew Goodwin are set to take aim at the “deep-state web of civil service, NGOs and captured institutions.” Alice Cordier, a French activist and president of the Nemesis Collective, a self-described feminist campaign group that has been branded a far-right Islamophobic outfit by critics, said “corruption is a big issue.” The scandals, she said, compound public anger that has so far been focused largely on the consequences of migration. Balasz Orbán, however, was skeptical that the scandal would be a game-changer for national elections, including his own boss’s tough re-election fight next year. “Honestly,” he said, the internal corruption allegation is “not a big surprise for me, so it doesn’t add too much.” But according to Daniel Freund, an MEP from the German Greens, the far right is not “in any position” to credibly champion the anti-corruption cause. “They are the problem, not the solution,” Freund said, adding that the far-right Patriots group [in the European Parliament, to which Orbán’s Fidesz party belongs] has voted against “almost every measure that would strengthen the fight against corruption.” For now, the EU’s political leadership has been muted on the fraud investigation and is firmly on the defensive, its hands tied by ongoing legal proceedings. That has some worried: “The credibility of our institutions is at stake,” said Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament. Others from von der Leyen’s own governing coalition want to see her take an unequivocally tough stance before her opponents capitalize on the idea that the Brussels bureaucracy is awash with the abuse of public money. “It needs to be dealt with at a European level,” said Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, a Dutch MEP from the centrist Renew faction. “Whether it is … Qatargate, or these new fraud suspicions. Zero tolerance and more tools to tackle this.” Max Griera and Dionisios Sturis contributed reporting.