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.”

LONDON — Keir Starmer’s keeping Britain out of the war in Iran — but he can’t duck the conflict’s grave economic consequences. In a sign of growing fears about the impact of the war on Britain, the prime minister chaired a rare meeting of the government’s emergency COBRA committee Monday night, joined by senior ministers and Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey. Starmer’s top finance minister, Rachel Reeves, will update the House of Commons on the economic picture Tuesday, as an already-unpopular administration worries that chaos in the Middle East is shredding plans to lower the cost of living and get the British economy growing. For Starmer’s government — headed for potentially brutal local elections in May — the crisis in the Gulf risks a nightmare combination of a rise in energy prices, interest rates, inflation and the cost of government borrowing that threatens to undermine everything he’s done since winning office. Economists are now warning that even if Donald Trump’s promise of a “complete and total resolution of hostilities” with Iran were to bear fruit, the effects on the British economy could still last for months. Already there are signs of a split within Starmer’s party over how to respond. Labour MPs want the government to think seriously about action to protect households — but Starmer and Reeves have long talked up the need for fiscal responsibility, and economics are warning that there’s little room for maneuver. Fuel prices displayed at a Shell garage in Southam, Warwickshire on March 23, 2026. | Jacob King/PA Images via Getty Images Jim O’Neill, a former Treasury minister who served as an adviser to Reeves, told POLITICO the government should “not get sucked into reacting to every external shock” and “concentrate on boosting our underlying growth trend.” WHY THE UK IS SO HARD HIT Just before the outbreak of war, there was reason for Starmer and Reeves to feel quietly optimistic about the long-stagnant British economy. The Bank of England had expected inflation to fall back sustainably toward its two percent target for the first time in five years, giving the central bank the space to carry on cutting interest rates.  With the Iran war in full flow, it was forced to rewrite those forecasts at the Monetary Policy Committee’s meeting last week — and now sees inflation at around 3.5 percent by the summer. The U.K. is a big net importer of energy and also needs constant imports of foreign capital to fund its budget and current account deficits. That’s made it one of first targets in the financial markets’ crosshairs. The government’s cost of borrowing has risen by more than half a percentage point over the last month. That threatens both the real economy and Reeves’ painstakingly-negotiated budget arithmetic. Higher inflation means higher interest rates and a higher bill for servicing the government’s debt: fiscal watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates a one-point increase in inflation would add £7.3 billion to debt servicing costs in 2026-2027 alone. The effect on businesses and home owners is also likely to be chilling. Britain’s banks are already repricing their most popular mortgages, which are tied to the two-year gilt rate. Hundreds of mortgage products were pulled in a hurry after the MPC meeting last week, something that will hit the housing market and depress Reeves’ intake from both stamp duty and capital gains. Duncan Weldon, an economist and author, said: “Even if this were to stop tomorrow, the inflation numbers and growth numbers are going to look materially worse throughout 2026. “If this continues for longer… it’s an awful lot more challenging and you end up with a much tougher budget this autumn than the government would have been hoping to unveil.” DECISION TIME The U.K.’s economic plight presents an acute political headache for Starmer, as he faces a mismatch between his own party’s expectations about the government’s ability to help people and his own scarce resources. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has promised to keep looking at different options for some form of assistance to bill-payers hit by an energy price shock. A pain point is looming in July, when a regulated cap on energy costs is due to expire and bills could jump significantly. One left-leaning Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said: “They [ministers] need to be treating this like a financial crisis. They need plans for multiple scenarios with clear triggers for government support.” A second MP from the 2024 intake said “it’s right that a Labour government steps in, particularly to help the most vulnerable.” Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the first cabinet meeting of the new year at No. 10 Downing St. on Jan. 6, 2026 in London, England. | Pool photo by Richard Pohle via Getty Images This demand for action is being felt in the upper echelons of the party too, as Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy recently argued Reeves’ fiscal rules — seen as crucial in the Treasury to reassure the markets — may need to be reconsidered if prices continue to rise and a major support package is needed.  One Labour official said there are clear disagreements with Labour over how to go about drawing up help and warned “the fiscal approach is going to be a massive dividing line at any leadership election.” The same official pointed to recent comments by former Starmer deputy — and likely leadership contender — Angela Rayner about the OBR, with Rayner accusing the watchdog of ignoring the “social benefit” of government spending. Despite the pressure, ministers have so far restricted themselves to criticizing petrol retailers for alleged profiteering, and have been flirting with new powers for markets watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority. The government said Reeves would on Tuesday set out steps to “help protect working people from unfair price rises,” including a new “anti-profiteering framework” to “root out price gouging.” But Starmer signaled strongly in an appearance before a Commons committee Monday evening that he was not about to unveil any wide-ranging bailout package, telling MPs he was “acutely aware” of what it had cost when then-Prime Minister Liz Truss launched her own universal energy price guarantee in 2022.  O’Neill backed this approach, saying: “I don’t think they should do much… They can’t afford it anyhow. The nation can’t keep shielding people from external shocks.” Weldon predicted, however, that as the May elections approach and the energy cap deadline draws nearer, the pressure will prove too much and ministers could be forced to step in. The furlough scheme rolled out during the pandemic to project jobs and Truss’s 2022 intervention helped create “the expectation that the government should be helping households,” he said. “But it’s incredibly difficult. Britain’s growth has been blown off-course an awful lot in the last 15 years by these sorts of shocks.” Geoffrey Smith, Dan Bloom, Andrew McDonald and Sam Francis contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — The United States wants to engage in a meaningful dialogue with Brussels on reducing European tech regulation, its Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder told POLITICO. The U.S. administration and its allies have been vocal critics of the EU’s tech rules, saying they unfairly target American companies and hurt freedom of speech. The European Commission has repeatedly denied such allegations, saying it is merely trying to rein in Big Tech and protect the online space from harmful behavior. In an interview Monday, Puzder said he hoped that this week’s vote in the European Parliament to advance last year’s transatlantic trade deal would set the scene for talks to loosen constraints on business. “I’ve had talks with individuals within the EU about moving this discussion forward. I haven’t, as yet, experienced the concrete steps we need to make that happen,” Puzder said. He was referring to the EU’s tech rulebook — and the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act in particular — that Washington sees as barriers to trade. “Hopefully, we’ll continue to talk. Once this trade agreement is approved, in the spirit of moving forward with these non-tariff trade barriers, we’ll be able to break down some of these walls,” he added.  Discussions are still in their very early stages and “there’s nothing formal,” Puzder clarified. The next steps between Brussels and Washington should be “diplomatic engagement followed by political engagement,” he added.  RECALIBRATION NEGOTIATION The envoy’s comments follow a heated series of exchanges between senior American and European officials over whether the EU’s tech rules should even be part of the transatlantic trade discussion. In November 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tied a potential easing of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs to a “recalibration” by the EU of the bloc’s digital regulations. European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera responded that tying tariff relief to European tech rules amounted to “blackmail.” Ribera, the EU’s top competition official, told POLITICO at the time that the EU would not accept such attempts to strong-arm it on a topic that it considers to be a matter of sovereignty. She is currently visiting the U.S. and is due to meet tech industry bosses in San Francisco this week. Transatlantic ties took another turn for the worse when the Donald Trump administration in December barred former Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton from traveling to the U.S. over his role in creating and implementing the EU’s tech rules.  Puzder explained that Washington doesn’t think “that Europe shouldn’t have regulation,” but that it shouldn’t be “regulating in such an extreme manner that companies feel they can’t innovate — which is why … most of the tech startups in Europe end up moving to Silicon Valley.” European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera attends a press conference in Brussels on Feb. 25, 2026. | Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images Responding, the European Commission stressed there is “continued engagement” between the EU and the U.S.  “Executive Vice President [Henna] Virkkunen has held several meetings with U.S. Representatives, both in Europe and in the U.S. At technical level, our teams also engage on a continuous basis with their American counterparts,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier said in a statement to POLITICO.  Virkunnen’s remit covers technology policy. Before Trump’s return to the White House, the two sides held held a structured dialogue under the auspices of the now-defunct EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.  The occasional forum, launched by former U.S. President Joe Biden, sought to establish a structured dialogue around regulatory cooperation. Yet in the view of observers it under-delivered, failing for instance to resolve a long-running steel dispute. The TTC has not met since Trump returned to the White House in early 2025. 

HOUSTON — Oil companies and the world’s largest energy consumers face a significant challenge to rebuild global petroleum supply chains and inventories once the critical Strait of Hormuz bottleneck opens, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday. “We’ve got a lot of oil and gas now that is not flowing into the market,” Wirth said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. “Physical supply chains don’t respond immediately, so even if the strait opens at some point, it will take time to rebuild inventories of the right grades of crude and the right types of fuel.” Wirth cautioned that Iran’s attacks on oil tankers and the broader damage of the Middle East war did greater damage to oil and gas markets than the Russia-Ukraine war. Asian nations are running low on diesel and jet fuel. The war has held up deliveries of LNG, fertilizer and other products. Part of the challenge, Wirth said, will be taking a read of the damage. It’s unclear how much production has been shut in, Wirth said, and how badly some facilities were damaged. At the same event, Energy Secretary Chris Wright reiterated to oil executives that he anticipated the global disruption to oil and gas flows would be “short-term,” but he encouraged companies to ramp up production. “Markets do what markets do,” Wright said. “Prices went up to send signals to everyone that can produce more: ‘Please, produce more.’”

U.S. regulators this week proposed easing capital rules on big U.S. banks in a package of proposals that departs from globally agreed-upon standards. Now, it’s sparking calls from European trade groups to loosen the EU’s own version of the rules. On Thursday, U.S. bank regulators released a number of potential rule changes intended to align U.S. policy with a 2017 global agreement known as Basel III. Its provisions imply a 2.4 percent decrease in capital held by the largest U.S. banks and bigger cuts for smaller banks. European regulators, anticipating the U.S. move, had already been discussing loosening their own requirements, which currently call for raising the capital that banks must have on hand by around 8 percent by 2033. But the breadth of the U.S. proposal has prompted trade groups in Europe to push officials to move faster. Taken together, the moves could weaken the global regulatory framework instituted on both sides of the Atlantic after the 2008 financial crisis. “The U.S. proposal appears to mark a clear shift toward easing capital constraints to support lending and growth, while Europe seems to continue moving in a different direction,” said Sébastien de Brouwer, deputy CEO of the European Banking Federation, a trade group. The United States’ pullback is “making it more urgent than ever to review the EU framework to preserve competitiveness and financing capacity of European banks,” he said. Over the past few months, European regulators had started to reevaluate the competitiveness of the bloc’s banking sector, especially as major European economies have struggled to keep pace with U.S. growth. EU heads of government called Thursday night, in a statement agreed upon before the release of the U.S. proposal, for the European Commission “to propose targeted amendments to the prudential framework in order to enhance the capacity of the banking sector to finance the European economy.” The Commission is also authoring a report on the competitiveness of its banking sector, due after the summer, which will pave the way for legislative proposals. This is set to be a wide-ranging report that could relate to bank capital requirements or other policies. The European Central Bank has already made recommendations for simplifying the bloc’s banking rules ahead of the report, including calling for lighter Basel rules for small banks and for capital buffers to be merged. None of its recommendations were as sweeping as what the U.S. has proposed, however. The U.S. proposal departs from the intent of the original Basel accords, a long process in which global regulators worked to address the root causes of the global financial crisis, critics say. Regulators in 2017 reached an agreement around the framework for jurisdictions to mitigate risks. “This definitely goes against not just the ethos but the intent, spirit and goal of Basel III,” said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, an advocacy group that supports stronger financial regulation. “This proposal when finalized will inevitably ignite another global race to the regulatory bottom” One of the biggest departures relates to the unwinding of the “output floor,” which sets a minimum capital threshold for banks’ trading activities. The new proposal uses a new risk-weighting approach that would do away with the threshold. “This will encourage other jurisdictions to do the same, undermining a key reform and cornerstone of the Basel III agreement,” Federal Reserve board member Michael Barr said Thursday. In the 2017 international talks, the U.S. had argued in favor of a restrictive output floor. Major European banks argued that would hike their capital requirements above and beyond those of the U.S., given the makeup of European banks’ trading books, stymieing lending to the real economy. The threshold was ultimately set at a lower rate than what American negotiators wanted. European regulators had recently moved to delay implementation of the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book, the portion of Basel focused specifically on so-called market risk, or rules governing how to capitalize banks’ trading activities. “Removing the output floor for market risk is a divergence from international standards, and we will carefully assess the impact on internationally active banks, in particular, with respect to the ongoing discussions on EU FRTB implementation and banking competitiveness in Europe,” said Caroline Liesegang, head of prudential regulation and research at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, which represents large banks. In the past, U.S. regulators had tended to “gold plate” the country’s rules for big banks, meaning they put in provisions above and beyond what Basel requires in order to acknowledge the United State’s central role in the global financial system and push for stricter global standards. In 2023, U.S. regulators failed to pass a capital proposal that would have raised aggregate capital by 16 percent and would have adhered more strictly to the international framework. On Thursday, U.S. regulators said the international standards should not be an unnecessary barrier to the needs of the U.S. financial system. “We should not seek to punish U.S. consumers and businesses by imposing higher costs of credit, or forcing credit availability outside of the banking system, particularly if this is done only to show greater alignment with Basel or any other international standard,” said Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, who led the U.S. central bank’s crafting of the proposal. The dilution of the agreement and its pullback on capital “will make it more challenging for the U.S. to use Basel, as it so often has, to further its own agenda,” said Kathryn Judge, professor at Columbia Law School. In the U.K., which has since left the bloc, the capital rules are expected to have less of an impact on banks than EU peers. A spokesperson for the Prudential Regulation Authority, the U.K.’s main banking regulator, said that the thinking remains the same as in its final rules, which will see the market risk rules apply from 2028. The European Commission declined to comment. The Basel Committee said it doesn’t comment on individual jurisdictions. The Federal Reserve declined to comment. Bjarke Smith-Meyer and Elliot Gulliver-Needham contributed to this report.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Nach 35 Jahren verliert die SPD ihre Bastion Rheinland-Pfalz. Gordon Schnieder führt die CDU zum Sieg, während Alexander Schweitzer trotz persönlicher Beliebtheit dem massiven Bundestrend unterliegt. Gemeinsam mit Rasmus Buchsteiner analysiert Gordon Repinski die Schockwellen für Berlin und die Bundespolitik. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht der schleswig-holsteinische Ministerpräsident Daniel Günther (CDU) über den „Auftrag zur Beherztheit“. Günther ordnet ein, warum der Wahlsieg in Mainz kein Grund zum Ausruhen ist, sondern die Koalition in Berlin nun zwingt, die großen Sozial- und Rentenreformen durchzuziehen. Donald Trump verliert die Geduld: Angesichts der immer weiter steigenden Energiepreise in den USA hat der Präsident ein 48-Stunden-Ultimatum gestellt. Entweder das Regime gibt die Straße von Hormus frei, oder die USA bombardieren iranische Kraftwerke. Jonathan Martin berichtet aus Washington über die Frustration im Weißen Haus und warum dieses „Roulette“ für Trump zur Schicksalsfrage für die Midterm-Elections im November wird. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna **(Anzeige) Eine Nachricht der PKV: Hätten Sie’s gedacht? Vom jährlichen 15,5-Milliarden-Euro-Mehrumsatz der Privatversicherten profitiert das gesamte Gesundheitswesen. Denn neben den Haus- und Fachärzten kommen die höheren Honorare auch den zahnärztlichen Praxen zugute, dem Arzneimittelbereich oder Therapeutinnen. So stützt die PKV die medizinische Versorgung in Deutschland zugunsten aller – auch der gesetzlich Versicherten. Mehr auf pkv.de**

European countries are being advised to lower gas storage filling targets and to start refilling gas stores early, as the conflict in Middle East drives up global energy prices. European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen urged in a letter to national energy ministers, seen by POLITICO, that countries should be flexible in how they refill gas stores, to “help reduce the gas demand at times where the supply is tense and ease the pressure on gas prices in Europe.” Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Tehran in late February, the ensuing conflict has caused global energy prices to spike, driven in part by Israeli strikes on Iran’s vast offshore gas field and Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passage that facilitates a significant share of the world’s oil and natural gas trade. In the letter, Jørgensen asked EU countries to lower their gas storage refilling targets to 80 percent, 10 percentage points below normal targets. He also suggested that countries could start storage injections early to avoid an “end-of-summer rush to refill storages,” which would put upward pressure on prices. He also suggested that governments extend the deadline to meet filling targets to as late as December, two months later than usual. He said countries can take these measures under the EU Gas Storage Regulation, which provides for flexibility in difficult market conditions. The EU requires member countries to maintain gas reserves at 90 percent of capacity by the winter — a measure brought in after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But this year’s colder-than-average winter depleted those reserves to an average of under 30 percent as of March, the lowest since 2022. Anxiety has been growing in Brussels over whether the conflict in Iran, coupled with already low gas reserves, could spark a fight among countries over dwindling global energy supplies. Jørgensen said that the EU’s gas supplies remain “relatively protected” since the bloc only has “limited reliance” on gas imports from the region. But as a “net importer” of gas globally, “high and volatile global prices may also impact the EU gas storage injections,” he said. As developments in Iran and the wider region are “are significantly impacting global oil and gas markets,” there are indications that it could take longer for Qatari gas production to return to pre-crisis levels, Jørgensen said. The commissioner said he would support countries to make use of the allowed flexibilities, which should be discussed with the European Commission and other member states before being implemented. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that the letter was sent to energy ministers.

U.S. sanctions on some Iranian oil will be temporarily lifted to allow the sale of shipments already in transit, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Friday. The partial pause on sanctions is intended to help ease what the Trump administration sees as a short-term shock to the global market as a result of the attack on Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel three weeks ago. Bessent said in a social media post that the U.S. is granting a short-term authorization to allow the sale of about 140 million barrels of Iranian oil in transit. “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against Tehran to keep the price down as we continue Operation Epic Fury,” he said. Oil prices have spiked to more than $100 per barrel since the U.S. launched airstrikes on Iran last month, triggering a rise in gas prices. Israeli strikes on Iran’s vast offshore gas field and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical trade passage that facilitates a significant share of the world’s oil and natural gas trade, have helped drive the increases. The sales have been authorized for 30 days, according to a copy of the general license issued by the Treasury Department on Friday. The announcement marks a partial reversal of the longstanding aggressive economic pressure campaign by the U.S. intended to weaken Iran’s economy, though Bessent said the country would have “difficulty accessing any revenue generated” from the sales. “The United States will continue to maintain maximum pressure on Iran and its ability to access the international financial system,” he added. Trump appeared to acknowledge he was aware that entering a war with Iran could cause oil prices to spike, even as he touted the success of the U.S. military operation and the strength of the economy. “I expected it worse actually,” he told reporters at the White House on Friday. “I thought that oil prices would go much higher.” Bessent said he’s confident the suspension of sanctions on Iran will benefit the U.S. economy in the long run. “Any short-term disruption now will ultimately translate into longer-term economic gains for Americans — because there is no prosperity without security,” he said. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in response that the easing of sanctions gives the Iranian government “a financial lifeline” as Americans “continue to feel the impact” of the war. “To say the president has no plan is an understatement,” Shaheen said.

TOULOUSE, France — The prospect of the hard-left France Unbowed party taking control of Toulouse, France’s fourth-largest city and home to Europe’s best-known airplane maker, is putting industry on edge. It’s not just that a win in the second round of local elections Sunday could give the party’s anticapitalist leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a major boost ahead of next year’s presidential election. That’s a concern for later. The immediate fear is that if France Unbowed makes history here — the party has never come close to controlling such a big metropolis — it will heap taxes on local icons like Airbus to pay for a generous manifesto that includes water subsidies, free public transport for residents under 26 years old, and free school meals and educational supplies. “I’m concerned it will jeopardize plans for new firms and factories to open in Toulouse, including the future prospects of Airbus,” said Pierre-Olivier Nau, the president of the employers’ lobby MEDEF in the Haute-Garonne department, which includes Toulouse. Nau also worries that the hard left’s opposition to adding a high-speed rail connection between Bordeaux and Toulouse, due to cost at least €14 billion, will harm businesses that have been expecting it a long time. France Unbowed’s mayoral hopeful argues the project will damage the environment and push up rents in Toulouse by attracting commuters or remote workers from other cities with higher salaries. A TIGHT RACE MEDEF and other business lobbies are now scrambling to react, given France Unbowed was never expected to get this close to power in Toulouse. Its candidate, lawmaker François Piquemal, was polling behind his Socialist Party rival François Briançon in the run-up to the first round of the vote last Sunday. The Socialist leadership had vowed not to work with the hard left after the torrent of criticism unleashed against Mélenchon following accusations of antisemitic behavior and his unapologetic reaction to the death of a far-right activist. So Piquemal’s second-place finish and his quickly formed alliance with Briançon to topple the longtime center-right mayor, Jean-Luc Moudenc, came as a surprise. The runoff is expected to be close. A poll released Thursday showed Moudenc winning by just two points in the second round, within the margin of error. Two local employers’ lobbies recently slammed the hard left’s plans for Toulouse, and a group of 350 local celebrities, including rugby luminaries and business owners, signed an open letter calling on citizens to vote against France Unbowed. “A lot of business projects have been put on hold,” said Nau. Piquemal says this is scaremongering. The 41-year-old former teacher denied he will raise taxes and downplayed talk among business leaders that Airbus, the region’s dominant employer responsible for more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs, would reduce investments or shift facilities if he were elected. Airbus declined a request for comment. A general view shows an entrance of the Airbus Defence and Space campus in Toulouse on October 16, 2024. | Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images “Moudenc’s policies, but also [President Emmanuel] Macron’s policies, have worsened living conditions in Toulouse,” Piquemal told reporters in Toulouse on Thursday. “We are the ones who support jobs, we support companies,” he added. “We are the ones defending small shop owners against big corporations.” A soft-spoken man with a light beard and warm manner, Piquemal is characteristic of the new generation of radical left activists in France. He’s just as comfortable discussing toxic masculinity and making videos on TikTok as he is campaigning for rent controls or against Israel’s war in Gaza. He was aboard the so-called Freedom Flotilla with Greta Thunberg and MEP Rima Hassan, carrying aid to Gaza before they were all arrested by Israeli forces. Piquemal, however, is much more understated than his party’s flamethrowing leader. But he’s benefiting from the success of Mélenchon’s adversarial approach to politics. France Unbowed is trying to establish itself as the ultimate anti-establishment party ahead of what is expected to be a showdown with the far right in next year’s presidential election. Most polls show Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party, the National Rally, is currently the favorite in the race for the Elysée. “France Unbowed is the most solid, the best-placed to build a barrage against the far right,” said Ismael Youssouf-Huard, a France Unbowed activist and candidate for the Toulouse city council. “Mélenchon is the sensible choice against the National Rally,” he said. Results in the first round of voting have gone some way toward validating Mélenchon’s provocative approach. France Unbowed won the poor, diverse city of Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs outright in the first round and is on track to score the mayor’s job in the industrial northeastern city of Roubaix. Hard-left candidate François Piquemal talking to voters in the impoverished Reynerie neighbourhood in Toulouse. | Clea Caulcutt/POLITICO The election in Toulouse is seen as a major test case for Mélenchon ahead of the 2027 presidential election. Can he and his party confirm its leadership role on the left ahead of the presidential election or will more moderate voters, turned off by the hard left’s radicalism, flock toward the opposition? ‘ARE YOU READY FOR SUNDAY?’ At a market squashed between a burnt-out drug dealers’ den and a tower block in the Reynerie neighborhood, Piquemal is trying to get people to vote. “Are you ready for Sunday?” he asked, as he handed out leaflets. “You need to go and vote.” In the Reynerie market, shoppers are pleased to see him. “I’m so happy he did well in the first round,” said Claude Compas, a retired special education teacher. Thibaut Cazal, a leftwing candidate for the city council, hopes to beat abstention in the poorer neighbourhoods of Toulouse. | Clea Caulcutt/POLITICO But some voters are worried about the prospect of the far left running the city. “They say they’ll give free public transport to the youth, but nothing’s free,” said retiree Abdallah Taberkokt. “Who’s going to pay? We are.” Piquemal was generally warmly received — little surprise considering Reynerie swung heavily for him in the first round of the vote. Still, Piquemal thought there was more excitement than usual in his core constituencies. He said he was harnessing “greater momentum” than during the last local election six years ago, when Moudenc narrowly defeated a more moderate candidate backed by a united left. Piquemal’s supporters believe their champion will pave the way for a unified left, despite the fact that the first round of voting exposed deep divisions nationally over local alliances with Mélenchon and the hard left. “These local elections are going to make history,” said Thibaut Cazal, a candidate for councilor alongside Piquemal. “It’ll show that left-wing families can be reconciled.” France Unbowed may still fall short in Toulouse. But even if it does, the party will have proved that it cannot be ignored ahead of the big presidential showdown in 2027.

BRUSSELS — EU leaders were supposed to spend Thursday mapping out how to boost Europe’s economy. Instead, they were left scrambling to deal with two wars, a deepening transatlantic rift and a standoff over Ukraine. Twelve hours of talks, a few showdowns and many, many coffees later, here’s POLITICO’s rapid round-up of what we learned at the European Council. 1) Viktor Orbán’s not a man for moving … The most pressing question ahead of this summit was whether Hungary’s prime minister could be convinced to drop his veto to the EU’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine. He wasn’t. The European Commission had attempted to appease Orbán in the days running up to the summit by sending a mission of experts to Ukraine to inspect the damaged Druzhba pipeline, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Orbán has argued that Ukraine is deliberately not addressing the issue, and tied that to his blocking of the cash. Asked whether he saw any chance for progress on the loan going into the summit, Orbán’s response was simple: “No.” Twelve hours later, that answer was much the same. 2) … But he does like to stretch his legs. In one of the most striking images to have come out of Thursday’s summit, the Hungarian prime minister stands on the sidelines of the outer circle of the room while the rest of the leaders are in their usual spots listening to a virtual address from Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) speaks to EU leaders via video at the European Council summit in Brussels, March 19, 2026. | Pool photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert/OL / AFP via Getty Images The relationship between the two has descended into outright acrimony after the Hungarian leader refused to back the EU loan and the Ukrainian leader made veiled threats — which even drew the (rare) rebuke of the Commission. Faced with Zelenskyy’s address, the Hungarian decided to vote with his feet. 3) The new kid on the block is happy to be a part of this European family, dysfunctional as it may be. This was the first leaders’ summit for Rob Jetten, the Netherland’s newly-installed prime minister. Ahead of the meeting, he said he was “very much looking forward to being part of this family.” His verdict after the talks? That leaders differ greatly in their speaking style, with some quite efficient while others take longer to get to the point — but he welcomed the jokes of Belgian’s Bart De Wever, “especially when the meeting has been going on for hours.” 5) Though not everyone was so charitable. Broadly speaking, Orbán digging in his heels did not go down well. Sweden’s prime minister told reporters after the summit that leaders’ criticism of the Hungarian in the room was “very, very harsh,” and like nothing he’d ever heard at an EU summit. Jetten said the vibe in the room with EU leaders was “icy” at points, with “awkward silences.”  6) The EU’s not giving up on the loan. Despite murmurs ahead of the talks of a plan B in the works, multiple EU leaders as well as Costa and Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen were adamant that the loan was the only way to go — and that it will happen, eventually. “We will deliver one way or the other … Today, we have strengthened our resolve,” von der Leyen. Costa added: “Nobody can blackmail the European Council, no one can blackmail the European Union.” Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas arrives at the European Council summit on March 19, 2026. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images 7) Kaja Kallas wants to avoid a messy entanglement. In her address to the bloc’s leaders, Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, stressed the importance of not getting caught up in the conflict in the Middle East. “Starting war is like a love affair — it’s easy to get in and difficult to get out,” she said, according to two diplomats briefed by leaders on the closed-door talks. At the same time, Kallas reiterated the importance of the EU’s defending its interests in the region but said there was little appetite for expanding the remit of its Aspides naval mission, currently operating in the Red Sea. 8) But it was all roses with the U.N. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres joined the Council for lunch, thanking them for their “strong support for multilateralism and international law.” In an an exclusive interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the summit, Guterres applauded the restraint shown by the Europeans, despite Donald Trump’s anger at their refusal to actively support the war or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime artery that Iran has largely sealed off, driving up global energy prices. 9) Kinda. One senior EU official told POLITICO that the lunch meeting was “unnecessary.” “With all appreciation for multilateralism and its importance … considering the role the U.N. is not playing in international crises right now, it is unnecessary,” said the official, granted anonymity to speak freely. 10) Celery is a very versatile vegetable. Also on the table while they picked over the future of the multilateral world order was a pâté en croûte with spring vegetables and fillet of veal with celery three ways. Three ways! And for dessert? A mandarin tartlet with cinnamon. 11) Cyprus and Greece want the EU to get serious about mutual defense. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis asked the EU to think about a roadmap for acting on the bloc’s mutual defense clause, according to two EU diplomats and one senior European government official. The clause, Article 42.7, is the EU’s equivalent of NATO’s Article 5. Its existence and potential use has recently come into focus since British bases in Cyprus were attacked by drones. 12) And the Commission hopes it’s already got serious enough about migration. Von der Leyen said that while the EU has not yet experienced an increase in migrants as a result of the conflict in Iran, the bloc should be prepared. “There is absolutely no appetite … to repeat the situation of 2015 in the event of large migration flows resulting from the conflict in the Middle East,” said one national official. The Commission chief emphasized that the mistakes of the 2015 refugee crisis won’t happen again. 13) Von der Leyen likes to cross her Ts.   Speaking of emphasis — “temporary, tailored and targeted” was how von der Leyen described the EU’s short-term actions to minimize the impact on Europe of the recent energy price spikes after the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. The moves will impact four components that affect energy prices: energy costs, grid charges, taxes and levies and carbon pricing, she said. 14) The ETS is here to stay — with some modifications. While EU leaders agreed to make some adjustments to the Emissions Trading System — the bloc’s carbon market — most forcefully backed the continuation of the system itself. “This ETS is a great success. It has been in place for 20 years and is a market-based and technology-neutral system. So we are not calling the ETS into question,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters after the talks had concluded. While the Commission will propose some adjustments to the ETS by July, these are merely adjustments, not fundamental changes, the German leader said. In the run-up to the summit, some EU countries, including Italy, floated the idea of weakening the ETS to help weather soaring energy prices. 15) No matter what, EU leaders want to get home — ASAP. While Costa has so far ensured every European Council under his watch lasts only one day instead of the once-customary two, this time around, that goal was looking optimistic. However, at the end of the day, leaders’ dogged determination to get out of there prevailed (even if that meant kicking a discussion on the long-term budget to April). À bientôt!