LONDON — The European Commission is looking into whether former British politician Peter Mandelson broke EU rules over his contact with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Even though the U.K. left the EU six years ago, Mandelson remains bound by obligations that he signed up to during his time as a commissioner, from 2004 to 2008. Newly released files suggest Mandelson in 2010, while he was a senior minister in the U.K. government, may have given Epstein advance notice of a €500 billion bailout to save the euro at the height of the spiraling Greek debt crisis. European finance ministers agreed the deal overnight amid fears that the failing Greek economy could trigger a wider crisis across the eurozone. According to the files released in the U.S., Epstein, who was a financier, sent Mandelson an email the previous night saying: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout , almost complete.” Mandelson replied: “Sd be announced tonight.” The cabinet minister then said he was just leaving 10 Downing Street and “will call.” The British government decided not to take part in the bailout for the euro but was part of the talks that paved the way for the emergency measure, so would have known how events were progressing. On Tuesday, Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the Commission said: “We have rules in place emanating from the treaty and the code of conduct that commissioners, including former commissioners, have to follow.” When there is an indication that the rules may not have been followed, the Commission looks into any potential breaches, he said. “We will be assessing if, in light of these newly available documents, there might be breaches of the respective rules with regard to Peter Mandelson.” Mandelson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has previously said he was wrong to have continued his association with Epstein and apologized “unequivocally” to Epstein’s victims.

BRUSSELS — The EU is relaunching its elite recruitment competition after a seven-year break in an effort to find a new generation of high-level administrators to help manage the world’s second largest economy. The European Commission, which last held the competition in 2019, organizes the assessment to inject new blood into Brussels’ corridors of power. A big wage and job security await those who pass the test. “It’s a contract for life,” said András Baneth, managing partner of EU Training, which prepares applicants for the process, and author of a book on how to pass. “This is a great opportunity for predictable career advancement and, of course, a salary and everything that goes with it.” Successful applicants are eligible for roles at grade “AD-5,” which come with a monthly pay packet of between €5,973 and €6,758, as well as the chance to progress through the bureaucracy and take up influential roles in commissioners’ Cabinets — the elite teams of advisers weighing in on key policy areas. The graduate scheme, aimed at generalists, will open on Thursday, according to the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), and close on March 10. It is the first time since 2019 that the contest has been held. The process includes psychometric testing, an EU knowledge assessment and an essay submission for those who pass the initial stages. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made it a priority to give younger, harder-working staff a chance to climb the ladder in an institution that has historically had a stiff hierarchy, Commission officials said. “It’s very important to bring a younger talent pool with a different way of thinking in,” said a senior official, granted anonymity to speak frankly. “You’ll have a lot of certain levels retiring and you need to make sure the next generation of public servants is coming through. Of course we need people who understand the institution, but we also need people who understand the technologies of the future from a different perspective.” According to a spokesperson for the Commission, the “extended pause” over the past seven years was due to a move to full online testing. The scrapping of an assessment center stage means “the overall duration of the competitions of EPSO has been shortened.” SET FOR LIFE “After entering the workforce four years ago, this is finally my first chance to enter the [EU] institutions, which until now has seemed impossible,” said one prospective applicant, granted anonymity to avoid harming their application. “Everyone knows that once you pass the [competition], and get a job, you’re set for life. Which is why literally all of my friends will take this opportunity.” Many younger staff in the 33,000-strong Commission workforce currently serve in relatively insecure roles on short-term contracts or as agency employees, meaning they have fewer benefits, worse take-home pay and far less certainty over their future. The executive has launched a review of its structure, designed to improve its efficiency and cost-effectiveness, with concerns that those who do not have official status could be negatively affected by a restructure. A second prospective applicant, working in the private sector, hit out at the irregularity of the process. “I really hope it will be different this time to give external people a chance, since at the moment the system favors candidates already working at the institutions,” they said. Baneth, the test expert, said that about 1,200 applicants will be directly offered jobs from an applicant pool that could exceed 50,000. Others will be added to a reserve list from which “only 30 percent will actually be offered a job … this leads to a lot of negative feelings when someone goes through all this and still they cannot be sure they get a job.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zum Amtsantritt reist Lars Klingbeil nach Polen und setzt auf den europäischen Schulterschluss. In Warschau spricht er mit dem polnischen Finanzminister Andrzej Domański über Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Verteidigungs- und Wachstumsfinanzierung, den stärkeren Euro und neue Formate jenseits von Brüssel und Eurogruppe. Doch auch die Innenpolitik reist mit. Klingbeil positioniert sich deutlich gegen den Vorstoß des CDU-Wirtschaftsrats, Zahnarztleistungen aus dem Katalog der gesetzlichen Krankenkassen zu streichen. Die Debatte um GKV-Finanzen, Gerechtigkeit und Reformtempo spitzt sich zu. Simone Borchardt, gesundheitspolitische Sprecherin der Unionsfraktion, erklärt im 200-Sekunden-Interview, warum sie Leistungskürzungen ablehnt und stattdessen auf Effizienz, Steuerung und Digitalisierung setzt. 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

PARIS — Former French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein at the convicted sex offender’s house, according to the latest document release by U.S. Department of Justice. Le Maire was purportedly brought to one of Epstein’s homes by former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s aide Olivier Colom, according to an email exchange between Colom and Epstein. The email does not specify at which of Epstein’s houses they met. The email exchanges also do not specify when Le Maire, who spent seven years leading the Economy and Finance Ministry, allegedly met Epstein. The email exchange between Epstein and Colom is dated Nov. 24, 2018 — before Epstein was charged in 2019 but long after the favorable plea deal he cut in 2008 with federal prosecutors in Miami. Epstein died by suicide while in federal custody in 2019. Colom wrote in the series of emails that he regularly meets Le Maire and his then chief of staff, Emmanuel Moulin. Moulin is currently President Emmanuel Macron’s chief of staff. There is no suggestion in the email that Moulin met with Epstein. Le Maire and Moulin did not respond immediately to requests for comment. POLITICO could not immediately find contact information for Colom. Le Maire, a longtime fixture of French conservative politics and a former presidential candidate, now teaches at a university in Lausanne. While he was mulling a bid for the 2027 presidential election, his reputation has suffered significantly as France has struggled to cut trillions in debt since his departure. Le Maire’s appointment as armed forces minister last year was met with such outrage it helped trigger a government collapse after a mere 14 hours. Colom also asked Epstein in a 2013 email for “any ideas” helping to raise money for Le Maire as a “future candidate [sic] to the Presidential election.” Epstein responded: “lets meet and talk about it.” The documents include several exchanges between Colom and Epstein, including one in which Epstein says he is on his island in the Caribbean “with an aquarium full of girls.” Colom responded: “The King of Saudi Arabia has a few white sharks in his [sic] at his Jeddah palace. I totally prefer yours. Sure I would enjoy the view.” Marion Solletty contributed to this report.

Donald Trump’s political war chest grew dramatically in the second half of 2025, according to new campaign finance disclosures submitted late Saturday, giving him an unprecedented amount of money for a term-limited president to influence the midterms and beyond. Trump raised $26 million through his joint fundraising committee in the back half of last year, and another $8 million directly into his leadership PAC. And a super PAC linked to him has more than $300 million in the bank. All together, a web of campaign accounts, some of which he controls directly and others under the care of close allies, within the president’s orbit have $375 million in their coffers. The funds far outstrip those of any other political figure — Republican or Democrat — entering 2026, and have no real historical precedent. And Trump could put them to use this year for the midterms, or to shape future elections, even as he cannot run for president again. Trump continues to outpace any other Republican in raising money, both from large and small-dollar donors. His joint fundraising committee — Trump National Committee, which pools fundraising for a variety of Trump-aligned groups — accounted for 1 in 8 dollars raised on WinRed, the primary Republican online fundraising platform, during the second half of 2025, according to a POLITICO analysis. And no super PAC raised even half as much in 2025 as the $289 million from MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC that both the president and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared at fundraisers for last year. Trump has given few clues as to how he might put the funds to use. Trump National Committee primarily sends funds to the president’s leadership PAC, Never Surrender, with a bit of money also going to the Republican National Committee and Vance’s leadership PAC, Working For Ohio. Candidates cannot use leadership PAC money for their own election efforts. But the accounts — which are common across Washington and have long been derided by anti-money in politics groups as “slush funds” — allow politicians to dole out money to allies or fund political travel. Never Surrender spent $6.7 million from July through December, with more than half of that total going toward advertising, digital consulting and direct mail — expenses typically linked to fundraising. So far, Trump’s groups have held their powder in Republican primaries. While Trump has endorsed against a handful of Republican incumbents now locked in competitive primaries — including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — and threatened others, he hasn’t used money. A super PAC targeting Massie, MAGA KY, is run by Trump allies but has largely been funded by GOP megadonor Paul Singer. MAGA Inc.’s only election-related spending last year was to boost now-Rep. Matt Van Epps in the special election in Tennessee’s 7th District. Trump’s massive war chest makes him a political force, independent of the traditional party infrastructure. The RNC — which derives a significant portion of its fundraising from Trump — had $95 million in the bank at the end of the year, roughly a quarter of what the Trump-linked groups have. And their rivals at the Democratic National Committee are far worse off — at just over $14 million, while owing more than $17 million in debt.

Tech mogul Elon Musk poured $10 million into two major Republican super PACs at the end of last year, according to campaign finance disclosures submitted Saturday, as he once again takes a more active role in GOP politics. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who had a public falling out with President Donald Trump last spring and said he was giving up on political spending, gave $5 million in December to each of the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund, two groups that aim to help the GOP keep control of Congress this year. It was Musk’s second round of donations to both groups this cycle, having previously given in June, amid his feud with Trump. Those contributions came shortly before Musk floated starting his own political party, an initiative that never seemed to gain much headway. But Musk and Trump have patched up their differences more recently, with the tech CEO joining Trump for dinner at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. Musk has also been back to advocating for Republican politics on X, which he owns, pushing for senators to pass a plussed up version of the SAVE Act, a bill that would require states to collect proof of citizenship from people registering to vote. Musk has thrown his support behind a version called the SAVE Act Plus, calling for ID requirements and a ban of mail voting for most Americans along with other changes to election administration. Musk was the biggest individual donor to political committees during the 2024 election cycle, spending roughly $290 million, mostly through his own super PAC, America PAC, in support of Trump. In the first few months of the Trump administration, he played an active role with the Department of Government Efficiency, but began fighting with Trump and Republicans around the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Musk also threw himself into a Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April where his preferred candidate lost by 10 points. Musk’s funds accounted for just a fraction of total fundraising for both SLF and CLF. SLF raised nearly $77 million in the final six months of 2025 and had $100 million cash on hand, while CLF raised over $38 million over that period and had more than $54 million cash on hand.

BEIJING — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has hailed “really good progress” on Chinese whisky tariffs and visa-free travel after a lengthy meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Starmer dubbed the one hour and 20 minute sit-down with Xi as “a very good productive session with real, concrete outcomes, [which was] a real strengthening of the relationship.” Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said: “We made some really good progress on tariffs for whisky, on visa free travel to China and on information exchange.” The news will be welcomed by Scotch whisky exporters, who have been squeezed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariffs on imported U.K. goods.  Currently, Scotch whisky exports face 10 percent duties in China, after the country doubled its import tariffs on brandy and whisky in February 2025, removing its provisional 5 percent rate. Exports to China fell by 31 percent last year, sliding from China’s fifth-largest export market to its tenth.  “We’ve agreed that on tariffs for whisky, we’re looking at how they’re to be reduced, what the timeframe is,” said Starmer. The two sides also made progress on visa-free travel to China for short stays — which would allow British citizens to visit for tourism, business conferences, family visits, and short exchange activities without requiring a visa. Britain is currently not among the European countries granted visa-free access to China, a list that includes France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. Starmer said the two sides are now looking at “how far, how much, and when that can start.” China issued its own readout via state news agency Xinhua, where it discussed expanded cooperation in “education, healthcare, finance, and services, and conduct joint research and industrial transformation in fields such as artificial intelligence, bioscience, new energy, and low-carbon technologies to achieve common development and prosperity.” The Chinese statement said both sides should “strengthen people-to-people exchanges and further facilitate personnel exchanges,” adding that China “is willing to actively consider implementing unilateral visa-free entry for the U.K.” Starmer and Chinese Premier Li Qiang are due to sign memorandums of understanding covering cooperation in a number of areas at a signing ceremony on Thursday morning U.K. time. Starmer and Li will also sign a border security pact to enlist Beijing’s help in choking off the supply of small boat engines and equipment used by criminal gangs to facilitate Channel crossings POLITICO first reported earlier this month that the U.K. was pushing to secure visa-free travel and lower whisky tariffs. This developing story is being updated.

The European Central Bank has taken a big step toward integrating blockchain-style finance into the eurozone’s financial system, announcing that assets issued using distributed ledger technology (DLT) will be accepted as collateral in Eurosystem credit operations. Under the decision, marketable assets issued in central securities depositories (CSDs) that use DLT-based services will become eligible collateral from 30 March 2026, provided they meet existing rules. These include compliance with the CSD Regulation and availability for settlement through the ECB’s TARGET2-Securities (T2S) settlement system. The Bank said it will continue to align its collateral framework and collateral management practices to keep pace with technological change, while preserving the core principles of safety, efficiency and equal treatment across markets. It is therefore exploring “if, how and under what criteria” assets issued using DLT and not represented in eligible securities settlement systems could become eligible and be mobilized as Eurosystem collateral in the future. A staggered approach is planned, allowing subsets of DLT-based assets to be gradually admitted as market conditions and the legal and regulatory framework evolve. The review will consider developments in EU financial law, including the CSD Regulation, the DLT Pilot Regime, Market in Crypto Assets Regulation and national securities laws, the ECB said. “These decisions reflect the Eurosystem’s continued commitment to encouraging innovation and technological progress, thus enhancing market efficiency, and contributing to the integration of European capital markets,” the statement said.

LONDON — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney left Beijing and promptly declared the U.S.-led “world order” broken. Don’t expect his British counterpart to do the same. Keir Starmer will land in the Chinese capital Wednesday for the first visit by a U.K. prime minister since 2018. By meeting President Xi Jinping, he will end what he has called an “ice age” under the previous Conservative administration, and try to win deals that he can sell to voters as a boost to Britain’s sputtering economy. Starmer is one of a queue of leaders flocking to the world’s second-largest economy, including France’s Emmanuel Macron in December and Germany’s Friedrich Merz next month. Like Carney did in Davos last week, the British PM has warned the world is the most unstable it has been for a generation. Yet unlike Carney, Starmer is desperate not to paint this as a rupture from the U.S. — and to avoid the criticism Trump unleashed on Carney in recent days over his dealings with China. The U.K. PM is trying to ride three horses at once, staying friendly — or at least engaging — with Washington D.C., Brussels and Beijing.  It is his “three-body problem,” joked a senior Westminster figure who has long worked on British-China relations. POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former officials, MPs, diplomats, industry figures and China experts, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. They painted a picture of a leader walking the same tightrope he always has surrounded by grim choices — from tricky post-Brexit negotiations with the EU, to Donald Trump taking potshots at British policies and freezing talks on a U.K.-U.S. tech deal. Starmer wants his (long-planned) visit to China to secure growth, but be cautious enough not to compromise national security or enrage Trump. He appears neither to have ramped up engagement with Beijing in response to Trump, nor reduced it amid criticism of China’s espionage and human rights record. In short, he doesn’t want any drama. “Starmer is more managerial. He wants to keep the U.K.’s relationships with big powers steady,” said one person familiar with planning for the trip. “You can’t really imagine him doing a Carney or a Macron and using the trip to set out a big geopolitical vision.” An official in 10 Downing Street added: “He’s clear that it is in the U.K.’s interests to have a relationship with the world’s second biggest economy. While the U.S. is our closest ally, he rejects the suggestion that means you can’t have pragmatic dealings with China.” He will be hoping Trump — whose own China visit is planned for April — sees it that way too. BRING OUT THE CAVALRY Starmer has one word in his mind for this trip — growth, which was just 0.1 percent in the three months to September. The prime minister will be flanked by executives from City giants HSBC, Standard Chartered, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange Group; pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca; car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover; energy provider Octopus; and Brompton, the folding bicycle manufacturer. The priority in Downing Street will be bringing back “a sellable headline,” said the person familiar with trip planning quoted above. The economy is the overwhelming focus. While officials discussed trying to secure a political win, such as China lifting sanctions it imposed on British parliamentarians in 2021, one U.K. official said they now believe this to be unlikely. Between them, five people familiar with the trip’s planning predicted a large number of deals, dialogues and memorandums of understanding — but largely in areas with the fewest national security concerns. These are likely to include joint work on medical, health and life sciences, cooperation on climate science, and work to highlight Mandarin language schemes, the people said.  Officials are also working on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and visa-free travel for short stays, while firms have been pushing for more expansive banking and insurance licences for British companies operating in China. The U.K. is meanwhile likely to try to persuade Beijing to lower import tariffs on Scotch whisky, which doubled in February 2025. A former U.K. official who was involved in Britain’s last prime ministerial visit to China, by Theresa May in 2018, predicted all deals will already be “either 100 or 99 percent agreed, in the system, and No. 10 will already have a firm number in its head that it can announce.” THREADING THE NEEDLE Yet all five people agreed there is unlikely to be a deal on heavy energy infrastructure, including wind turbine technology, that could leave Britain vulnerable to China. The U.K. has still not decided whether to let Ming Yang, a Chinese firm, invest £1.5 billion in a wind farm off the coast of Scotland. And while Carney agreed to ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), three of the five people familiar with the trip’s planning said that any deep co-operation on EV technology is likely to be off the table. One of them predicted: “This won’t be another Canada moment. I don’t see us opening the floodgates on EVs.” Britain is trying to stick to “amber and green areas” for any deals, said the first person familiar with the planning. The second of the five people said: “I think they‘re going for the soft, slightly lovey stuff.” Britain has good reason to be reluctant, as Chinese-affiliated groups have long been accused of hacking and espionage, including against MPs and Britain’s Electoral Commission. Westminster was gripped by headlines in December about a collapsed case against two men who had been accused of spying for China. Chinese firm Huawei was banned from helping build the U.K.’s 5G phone network in 2020 after pressure from Trump. Even now, Britain’s security agencies are working on mitigations to telecommunications cables near the Tower of London. They pass close to the boundary of China’s proposed embassy, which won planning approval last week. Andrew Small, director of the Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank working on foreign and security policy, said: “The current debate about how to ‘safely’ increase China’s role in U.K. green energy supplies — especially through wind power — has serious echoes of 5G all over again, and is a bigger concern on the U.S. side than the embassy decision.”  Starmer and his team also “don’t want to antagonize the Americans” ahead of Trump’s own visit in April, said the third of the five people familiar with trip planning. “They’re on eggshells … if they announce a new dialogue on United Nations policy or whatever bullshit they can come up with, any of those could be interpreted as a broadside to the Trump administration.” All these factors mean Starmer’s path to a “win” is narrow. Tahlia Peterson, a fellow working on China at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, said: “Starmer isn’t going to ‘reset’ the relationship in one visit or unlock large-scale Chinese investment into Britain’s core infrastructure.” Small said foreign firms are being squeezed out of the Chinese market and Xi is “weaponizing” the dependency on Chinese supply chains. He added: “Beijing will likely offer extremely minor concessions in areas such as financial services, [amounting to] no more than a rounding error in economic scale.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves knows the pain of this. Britain’s top finance minister was mocked when she returned with just £600 million of agreements from her visit to China a year ago. One former Tory minister said the figure was a “deliberate insult” by China. Even once the big win is in the bag, there is the danger of it falling apart on arrival. Carney announced Canada and China would expand visa-free travel, only for Beijing’s ambassador to Ottawa to say that the move was not yet official. Despite this, businesses have been keen on Starmer’s re-engagement.  Rain Newton-Smith, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said firms are concerned about the dependence on Chinese rare earths but added: “If you map supply chains from anywhere, the idea that you can decouple from China is impossible. It’s about how that trade can be facilitated in the best way.” EMBASSY ROW Even if Starmer gets his wins, this visit will bring controversies that (critics say) show the asymmetry in Britain’s relationship with China. A tale of two embassies serves as a good metaphor.  Britain finally approved plans last week for China’s new outpost in London, despite a long row over national security. China held off formally confirming Starmer’s visit until the London embassy decision was finalized, the first person familiar with planning for the trip said. (Others point out Starmer would not want to go until the issue was resolved.) The result was a scramble in which executives were only formally invited a week before take-off. And Britain has not yet received approval to renovate its own embassy in Beijing. Officials privately refer to the building as “falling down,” while one person who has visited said construction materials were piled up against walls. It is “crumbling,” added another U.K. official: “The walls have got cracks on them, the wallpaper’s peeling off, it’s got damp patches.” British officials refused to give any impression of a “quid pro quo” for the two projects under the U.K.’s semi-judicial planning system. But that means much of Whitehall still does not know if Britain’s embassy revamp in Beijing will be approved, or held back until China’s project in London undergoes a further review in the courts. U.K. officials are privately pressing their Chinese counterparts to give the green light. One of the people keenest on a breakthrough will be Britain’s new ambassador to Beijing Peter Wilson, a career diplomat described by people who have met him as “outstanding,” “super smart” and “very friendly.”  For Wilson, hosting Starmer will be one of his trickiest jobs yet. The everyday precautions when doing business in China have made preparations for this trip more intense. Government officials and corporate executives are bringing secure devices and will have been briefed on the risk of eavesdropping and honeytraps. One member of Theresa May’s 2018 delegation to China recalled opening the door of what they thought was their vehicle, only to see several people with headsets on, listening carefully and typing. They compared it to a scene in a spy film. Activists and MPs will put Starmer under pressure to raise human rights issues — including what campaigners say is a genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province — on a trip governed by strict protocol where one stray word can derail a deal.  Pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, who has British nationality, is facing sentencing in Hong Kong imminently for national security offenses. During the PM’s last meeting with Xi in 2024, Chinese officials bundled British journalists out of the room when he raised the case. Campaigners had thought Lai’s sentencing could take place this week. All these factors mean tension in the British state — which has faced a tussle between “securocrats” and departments pushing for growth — has been high ahead of the trip. Government comments on China are workshopped carefully before publication. Earlier this month, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told POLITICO her work on Beijing involves looking at “transnational repression” and “espionage threats.” But when Chancellor Rachel Reeves met China’s Finance Minister He Lifeng in Davos last week to tee up Starmer’s visit, the U.K. Treasury did not publicize the meeting — beyond a little-noticed photo on its Flickr account. SLOW BOAT TO CHINA Whatever the controversies, Labour’s China stance has been steadily taking shape since before Starmer took office in 2024. Labour drew inspiration from its sister party in Australia and the U.S. Democrats, both of which had regular meetings with Beijing. Party aides argued that after a brief “golden era” under Conservative PM David Cameron, Britain engaged less with China than with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The result of Labour’s thinking was the policy of “three Cs” — “challenge, compete, and cooperate.” A procession of visits to Beijing followed, most notably Reeves last year, culminating in Starmer’s trip. His National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell was involved in planning across much of 2025, even travelling to meet China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in November. Starmer teed up this week’s visit with a December speech arguing the “binary” view of China had persisted for too long. He promised to engage with Beijing carefully while taking a “more transactional approach to pretty well everything.”  The result was that this visit has long been locked in; just as Labour aides argue the London embassy decision was set in train in 2018, when the Tory government gave diplomatic consent for the site. Labour ministers “just want to normalize” the fact of dealing with China, said the senior Westminster figure quoted above. Newton-Smith added: “I think the view is that the government’s engagement with eyes wide open is the right strategy. And under the previous government, we did lose out.” But for each person who praises the re-engagement, there are others who say it has left Britain vulnerable while begging for scraps at China’s table. Hawks argue the hard details behind the “three Cs” were long nebulous, while Labour’s long-awaited “audit” of U.K.-China relations was delayed before being folded briefly into a wider security document. “Every single bad decision now can be traced back to the first six months,” argued the third person familiar with planning quoted above. “They were absolutely ill-prepared and made a series of decisions that have boxed them into a corner.” They added: “The government lacks the killer instinct to deal with China. It’s not in their DNA.” Luke de Pulford, a human rights campaigner and director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, argued the Tories had engaged with China — Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited in 2023 — and Labour was simply going much further. “China is pursuing an enterprise to reshape the global order in its own image, and to that end, to change our institutions and way of life to the extent that they’re an obstacle to it,” he said. “That’s what they’re up to — and we keep falling for it.” END OF THE OLD ORDER? His language may be less dramatic, but Starmer’s visit to China does have some parallels with Canada. Carney’s trip was the first by a Canadian PM since 2017, and he and Xi agreed a “new strategic partnership.” Later at Davos, the Canadian PM talked of “the end of a pleasant fiction” and warned multilateral institutions such as the United Nations are under threat. One British industry figure who attended Davos said of Carney’s speech: “It was great. Everyone was talking about it. Someone said to me that was the best and most poignant speech they’d ever seen at the World Economic Forum. That may be a little overblown, but I guess most of the speeches at the WEF are quite dull.” The language used by Starmer, a former human rights lawyer devoted to multilateralism, has not been totally dissimilar. Britain could no longer “look only to international institutions to uphold our values and interests,” he said in December. “We must do it ourselves through deals and alliances.” But while some in the U.K. government privately agree with Carney’s point, the real difference is the two men’s approach to Trump. Starmer will temper his messaging carefully to avoid upsetting either his Chinese hosts or the U.S., even as Trump throws semi-regular rocks at Britain. To Peterson, this is unavoidable. “China, the U.S. and the EU are likely to continue to dominate global economic growth for the foreseeable future,” she said. “Starmer’s choice is not whether to engage, but how.” Esther Webber contributed reporting.

LONDON — Keir Starmer’s government has a crunch decision to make: Whether to keep heating much of the British state via a firm linked to Russian fossil fuels. Under an existing public sector deal, TotalEnergies Gas & Power — a U.K. subsidiary of French energy giant TotalEnergies — supplies the gas used to heat No. 10 Downing Street, the Treasury, and other parts of Whitehall.  That agreement, worth up to £8 billion, expires early next year. Officials are preparing a public tendering process for its replacement, which will be awarded later this year and will run from 2027 to 2030.  But TotalEnergies retains ties to fossil fuel trade with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Now, pro-Ukrainian campaigners and parliamentarians — including the Labour chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Ukraine — want ministers to rule out its subsidiary from winning the new contract.  In a letter to Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who oversees government procurement body the Crown Commercial Service, they warn that “continuing a contract with companies involved with Russia’s energy sector is inconsistent” with the U.K.’s repeatedly-touted goal of undermining Russia’s fossil fuel revenues, which are used to finance its war on Ukraine.    “In view of escalating Russian hybrid attacks against the U.K., and ongoing brutal attacks across Ukraine, public sector procurement must align not only with sanctions but also with government foreign policy, including efforts to deter and disrupt Russian aggression,” they write.  The letter — co-ordinated by campaign groups Razom We Stand and B4 Ukraine —  is co-signed by Labour MP Alex Sobel, who chairs the Ukraine APPG, as well as Green MPs Carla Denyer and Siân Berry, both former party co-leaders. Sobel, who has visited Ukraine seven times since the full-scale invasion, last month called for “maximum pressure on Russia.” OUT IN THE COLD Svitlana Romanko, executive director of Razom We Stand, said that “brutal Russian attacks on our energy systems” had knocked out “energy and heating systems across Ukraine in -20C weather.”  “We implore the U.K. government to end their contract with TotalEnergies,” she said.  Under the existing gas deal, public buildings in Whitehall, and other public sector buildings around the U.K. including NHS hospitals, are supplied with gas for heating and cooking by TotalEnergies Gas & Power.   While the contract itself complies with the U.K.’s ban on Russian gas imports, it has been condemned by Ukrainian campaign groups and Labour MPs because of TotalEnergies’ continued ties to Russian fossil fuels.    The firm holds a 20 percent stake in the Yamal liquefied natural gas facility in Siberia, from where it continues to import Russian gas to Europe under long-term contracts which it says it cannot break.  A TotalEnergies spokesperson said the firm “condemned Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.” The firm “operates legally within the framework of the energy policy and sanctions policy defined by the authorities of the European Union and its member states,” they added.  TotalEnergies has been the gas supplier of choice for the U.K. public sector since 2019, under the two successive CCS procurement contracts.   The new contract — known as Supply of Energy 3 — is now being prepared. A tender notice is expected to be published in June and a contract awarded in December.  A Cabinet Office spokesperson declined to comment on a live procurement process.