BRUSSELS — European lawmakers from three left-leaning parties said Wednesday the EU should investigate TikTok over allegations of censorship in favor of the right. One of TikTok’s new owners as of late January is a Donald Trump ally, Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Users say that since the change in ownership, the platform has censored hot-button issues in favor of the president and his political camp, according to reports — including limiting posts about the Epstein files and protests against U.S. border agents in Minnesota. TikTok said some users have experienced disruption due to technical issues. On Wednesday the group of 32 lawmakers asked the European Commission, in charge of enforcing the EU’s platform rules on TikTok to open another investigation into the platform to verify if it is “causing a systemic risk” to freedom of expression and civic discourse. “Users have reported issues with uploading videos, reduced reach, and unusually low view counts, for content that mention the words Epstein, ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Minnesota” and some of the signatories “can personally attest that the same episodes — glitches and frozen videos” also happened in Berlin and Brussels, the MEPs said. A TikTok spokesperson said there are no platform rules against “sharing the name ‘Epstein’ in direct messages,” and that an issue experienced by some users was a technical problem “with one of our safety systems incorrectly responding in some instances.” TikTok is already under investigation for breaching its obligations around systemic risks under the Digital Services Act. The 32 signatories are primarily MEPs from the Greens, but also from The Left and the Socialists & Democrats. The platform struck a deal in late January with a group of investors including Oracle and Abu Dhabi’s MGX, ending a yearslong saga over the ownership of its United States operations.

5 TIMES THE WINTER OLYMPICS GOT SUPER POLITICAL Invasions, nuclear crises and Nazi propaganda: The Games have seen it all. By SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC Illustration by Natália Delgado /POLITICO The Winter Olympics return to Europe this week, with Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo set to host the world’s greatest athletes against the snowy backdrop of the Italian Alps. But beyond the ice rinks and ski runs, the Games have long doubled as a stage for global alliances, heated political rivalries and diplomatic crises.  “An event like the Olympics is inherently political because it is effectively a competition between nations,” said Madrid’s IE Assistant Professor Andrew Bertoli, who studies the intersection of sport and politics. “So the Games can effectively become an arena where nations compete for prestige, respect and soft power.” If history is any guide, this time won’t be any different. From invasions to the Nazis to nuclear crises, here are five times politics and the Winter Olympics collided. 1980: AMERICA’S “MIRACLE ON ICE” One of the most iconic moments in Olympic history came about amid a resurgence in Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The USSR had invaded Afghanistan only months earlier, and Washington’s rhetoric toward Moscow had hardened, with Ronald Reagan storming to the presidency a month prior on an aggressive anti-Soviet platform. At the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, that superpower rivalry was on full display on the ice. The U.S. men’s ice hockey team — made up largely of college players and amateurs — faced off against the Soviet squad, a battle-hardened, gold medal-winning machine. The Americans weren’t supposed to stand a chance. Then the impossible happened. In a stunning upset, the U.S. team skated to a 4-3 victory, a win that helped them clinch the gold medal. As the final seconds ticked away, ABC broadcaster Al Michaels famously cried, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” The impact echoed far beyond the rink. For many Americans, the victory was a morale boost in a period marked by geopolitical anxiety and division. Reagan later said it was proof “nice guys in a tough world can finish first.” The miracle’s legacy has endured well into the 21st century, with U.S. President Donald Trump awarding members of the hockey team the Congressional Gold Medal in December last year. 2014: RUSSIA INVADES CRIMEA AFTER SOCHI Four days. That’s how long Moscow waited after hosting the Winter Olympics in the Russian resort city of Sochi before sending troops into Crimea, occupying and annexing the Ukrainian peninsula. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled to Moscow days earlier, ousted by protesters demanding democracy and closer integration with the EU. As demonstrators filled Kyiv’s Independence Square, their clashes with government forces played on television screens around the world alongside highlights from the Games, in which Russia dominated the medal tally. Vladimir Putin poses with Russian athletes while visiting the Coastal Cluster Olympic Village ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images No sooner was the Olympic flame extinguished in Sochi on Feb. 23 than on Feb. 27 trucks and tanks rolled into Crimea. Soldiers in unmarked uniforms set up roadblocks, stormed Crimean government buildings and raised the Russian flag high above them. Later that year, Moscow would face allegations of a state-sponsored doping program and many of its athletes were ultimately stripped of their gold medals. 2022: RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE … AGAIN There’s a theme here. Russian President Vladimir Putin made an appearance at the opening ceremony of Beijing’s Winter Games in 2022, meeting on the sidelines with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and declaring a “no limits” partnership. Four days after the end of the Games, on Feb. 24, Putin announced a “special military operation,” declaring war on Ukraine. Within minutes, Russian troops flooded into Ukraine, and missiles rained down on Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities across the country. According to U.S. intelligence, The New York Times reported, Chinese officials asked the Kremlin to delay launching its attack until after the Games had wrapped up. Beijing denied it had advance knowledge of the invasion. 2018: KOREAN UNITY ON DISPLAY As South Korea prepared to host the Winter Games in its mountainous Pyeongchang region, just a few hundred kilometers over the border, the North Koreans were conducting nuclear missile tests, sparking global alarm and leading U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten to strike the country. The IOC said it was “closely monitoring” the situation amid concerns about whether the Games could be held safely on the peninsula. South Korean Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-Sung, shakes hands with the head of North Korean delegation Jon Jong-Su after their meeting on January 17, 2018 in Panmunjom, South Korea. | South Korean Unification Ministry via Getty Images But then in his New Year’s address, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signaled openness to participating in the Winter Olympics. In the end, North Korean athletes not only participated in the Games, but at the opening ceremony they marched with their South Korean counterparts under a single flag, that of a unified Korea. Pyongyang and Seoul also joined forces in women’s ice hockey, sending a single team to compete — another rare show of unity that helped restart diplomatic talks between the capitals, though tensions ultimately resumed after the Games and continue to this day. 1936: HITLER INVADES THE RHINELAND Much has been said about the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in which the Nazi regime barred Jewish athletes from participating and used the Games to spread propaganda. But a few months earlier Germany also hosted the Winter Olympics in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, allowing the Nazis to project an image of a peaceful, prosperous Germany and restore its global standing nearly two decades after World War I. A famous photograph from the event even shows Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels signing autographs for the Canadian figure skating team. Weeks after the Games ended, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a major violation of the Treaty of Versailles that was met with little pushback from France and Britain, and which some historians argue emboldened the Nazis to eventually invade Poland, triggering World War II.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Tuesday his government will ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media. “Platforms will be required to implement effective age verification systems — not just check boxes, but real barriers that work,” Sánchez said during an address to the plenary session of the World Government Summit in Dubai. “Today our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone … We will protect [minors] from the digital Wild West.” The proposed ban, which is set to be approved by the country’s Council of Ministers next week, will amend a draft bill currently being debated in the Spanish parliament. Whereas the current version of the legislation seeks to restrict access to social media to users aged 16 and older, the new amendment would expressly prohibit minors from registering on platforms. Spain joins a growing chorus of European countries hardening their approach to restricting kids online. Denmark announced plans for a ban on under-15’s last fall, and the French government is pushing to have a similar ban in place as soon as September. In Portugal, the governing center-right Social Democratic Party on Monday submitted draft legislation that would require under-16’s to obtain parental consent to access social media. Spain’s ban is included in a wider package of measures that Sánchez argued are necessary to “regain control” of the digital space. “Governments must stop turning a blind eye to the toxic content being shared,” he said. That includes a legislative proposal to hold social media executives legally accountable for the illegal content shared on their platforms, with a new tool to track the spread of disinformation, hate speech or child pornography on social networks. It also proposes criminalizing the manipulation of algorithms and amplification of illegal content. “We will investigate platforms whose algorithms amplify disinformation in exchange for profit,” Sánchez said, adding that “spreading hate must come at a cost — a legal cost, as well as an economic and ethical cost — that platforms can no longer afford to ignore.” The EU’s Digital Services Act requires platforms to mitigate risks from online content. The European Commission works “hand in hand” with EU countries on protections for kids online and the enforcement of these measures “towards the very large platforms is the responsibility of the Commission,” Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said Tuesday when asked about Sánchez’s announcement. The EU executive in December imposed a €120 million fine on Elon Musk’s X for failing to comply with transparency obligations, and a probe into the platform’s efforts to counter the spread of illegal content and disinformation is ongoing.

French authorities searched Elon Musk’s social media platform X’s French offices on Tuesday as part of a criminal investigation into its Grok AI chatbot, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a post on X. France opened an investigation last month following the proliferation of sexually explicit deepfakes generated by Grok on X, following up on a previous probe into the chatbot’s antisemitic outbursts over the summer. Owner Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned for “voluntary interviews” on Apr. 20, the prosecutor’s office said in a press release. “At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory,” it said. A recent study estimated that Grok could have produced up to three million sexualized images in 11 days in January, including 23,000 of children. The European Commission has also opened a new probe under the EU’s online platforms rulebook, and has said it is exploring a ban on apps under the AI law. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday’s search was conducted by its cybercrime unit, together with the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol. The investigations range from sexually explicit deepfakes, aiding the distribution of child sexual abuse material to the dissemination of Holocaust-denial content, the office said. X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Millions of people are forming emotional bonds with artificial intelligence chatbots — a problem that politicians need to take seriously, according to top scientists. The warning of a rise in AI bots designed to develop a relationship with users comes in an assessment released Tuesday on the progress and risks of artificial intelligence. “AI companions have grown rapidly in popularity, with some applications reaching tens of millions of users,” according to the assessment from dozens of experts, mostly academics — completed for the second time under a global effort launched by world leaders in 2023. Specialized companion services such as Replika and Character.ai have user numbers in the tens of millions — with users citing a variety of reasons including fun and curiosity, as well as to alleviate loneliness, the report says. But people can also seek companionship from general-purpose tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. “Even the ordinary chatbots can become companions,” said Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal and lead author of the International AI Safety report. Bengio is considered one of the world’s leading voices on AI. “In the right context and with enough interactions between the user and the AI, a relationship can develop,” he said. While the assessment acknowledges that evidence regarding the psychological effects of companions is mixed, “some studies report patterns such as increased loneliness and reduced social interaction among frequent users,” the report says. The warning lands two weeks after dozens of European Parliament lawmakers pressed the European Commission to look into the possibility of restricting companion services under the EU’s AI law amid concerns over their impact on mental health. “I can see in political circles that the effect of these AI companions on children, especially adolescents, is something that is raising a lot of eyebrows and attention,” said Bengio. The worries are fueled by the sycophantic nature of chatbots, which aim to be helpful for their users and please them as much as possible. “The AI is trying to make us, in the immediate moment, feel good, but that isn’t always in our interest,” Bengio said. In that sense, the technology has similar pitfalls to social media platforms, he argued. Bengio said to expect that new regulations will be introduced to address the phenomenon. He pushed back, however, against the idea of introducing specific rules for AI companions and argued that the risk should be addressed through horizontal legislation which addresses several risks simultaneously. The International AI Safety report lands ahead of a global summit starting Feb. 16, an annual gathering for countries to discuss governance of the technology that this year is held in India. Tuesday’s report lists the full series of risks that policymakers will have to address, including AI-fueled cyberattacks, AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes and AI systems that provide information on how to design bioweapons. Bengio urged governments and the European Commission to enhance their internal AI expertise to address the long list of potential risks. World leaders first gave a mandate for the annual assessment at the 2023 AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom. Some of the advisers are well-known figures in the Brussels tech policy world, including former European Parliament lawmaker Marietje Schaake.

BRUSSELS ― European governments and corporations are racing to reduce their exposure to U.S. technology, military hardware and energy resources as transatlantic relations sour.  For decades, the EU relied on NATO guarantees to ensure security in the bloc, and on American technology to power its business. Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, and aggressive comments about Europe by members of his administration, have given fresh impetus to European leaders’ call for “independence.” “If we want to be taken seriously again, we will have to learn the language of power politics,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last week. From orders banning civil servants from using U.S.-based videoconferencing tools to trade deals with countries like India to a push to diversify Europe’s energy suppliers, efforts to minimize European dependence on the U.S. are gathering pace. EU leaders warn that transatlantic relations are unlikely to return to the pre-Trump status quo. EU officials stress that such measures amount to “de-risking” Europe’s relationship with the U.S., rather than “decoupling” — a term that implies a clean break in economic and strategic ties. Until recently, both expressions were mainly applied to European efforts to reduce dependence on China. Now, they are coming up in relation to the U.S., Europe’s main trade partner and security benefactor. The decoupling drive is in its infancy. The U.S. remains by far the largest trading partner for Europe, and it will take years for the bloc to wean itself off American tech and military support, according to Jean-Luc Demarty, who was in charge of the European Commission’s trade department under the body’s former president, Jean-Claude Juncker. Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, and aggressive comments about Europe by members of his administration, have given fresh impetus to European leaders’ call for “independence.” | Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto via Getty Images “In terms of trade, they [the U.S.] represent a significant share of our exports,” said Demarty. “So it’s a lot, but it’s not a matter of life and death.” The push to diversify away from the U.S. has seen Brussels strike trade deals with the Mercosur bloc of Latin American countries, India and Indonesia in recent months. The Commission also revamped its deal with Mexico, and revived stalled negotiations with Australia. DEFENDING EUROPE: FROM NATO TO THE EU Since the continent emerged from the ashes of World War II, Europe has relied for its security on NATO — which the U.S. contributes the bulk of funding to. At a weekend retreat in Zagreb, Croatia, conservative European leaders including Merz said it was time for the bloc to beef up its homegrown mutual-defense clause, which binds EU countries to an agreement to defend any EU country that comes under attack. While it has existed since 2009, the EU’s Article 42.7 mutual defense clause was rarely seen as necessary because NATO’s Article 5 served a similar purpose. But Europe’s governments have started to doubt whether the U.S. really would come to Europe’s rescue. In Zagreb, the leaders embraced the EU’s new role as a security actor, tasking two leaders, as yet unnamed, with rapidly cooking up plans to turn the EU clause from words to an ironclad security guarantee. “For decades, some countries said ‘We have NATO, why should we have parallel structures?’” said a senior EU diplomat who was granted anonymity to talk about confidential summit preparations. After Trump’s Greenland saber-rattling, “we are faced with the necessity, we have to set up military command structures within the EU.” At a weekend retreat in Zagreb, Croatia, conservative European leaders including Merz said it was time for the bloc to beef up its homegrown mutual-defense clause, which binds EU countries to an agreement to defend any EU country that comes under attack. | Marko Perkov/AFP via Getty Images In comments to EU lawmakers last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that anyone who believes Europe can defend itself without the U.S. should “keep on dreaming.” Europe remains heavily reliant on U.S. military capabilities, most notably in its support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. But some Europeans are now openly talking about the price of reducing exposure to the U.S. — and saying it’s manageable. TECHNOLOGY: TEAMS OUT, VISIO IN The mood shift is clearest when it comes to technology, where European reliance on platforms such as X, Meta and Google has long troubled EU voters, as evidenced by broad support for the bloc’s tech legislation. French President Emmanuel Macron’s government is planning to ban officials from using U.S.-based videoconferencing tools. Other countries like Germany are contemplating similar moves. “It’s very clear that Europe is having our independence moment,” EU tech czar Henna Virkkunen told a POLITICO conference last week. “During the last year, everybody has really realized how important it is that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical technologies.” France is moving to ban public officials from using American platforms including Google Meet, Zoom and Teams, a government spokesperson told POLITICO. Officials will soon make the switch to Visio, a videoconferencing tool that runs on infrastructure provided by French firm Outscale. In the European Parliament, lawmakers are urging its president, Roberta Metsola, to ditch U.S. software and hardware, as well as a U.S.-based travel booking tool. In Germany, politicians want a potential German or European substitute for software made by U.S. data analysis firm Palantir. “Such dependencies on key technologies are naturally a major problem,” Sebastian Fiedler, an SPD lawmaker and expert on policing, told POLITICO. Even in the Netherlands, among Europe’s more pro-American countries, there are growing calls from lawmakers and voters to ring-fence sensitive technologies from U.S. influence. Dutch lawmakers are reviewing a petition signed by 140,000 people calling on the state to block the acquisition of a state identity verification tool by a U.S. company. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, German entrepreneur Anna Zeiter announced the launch of a Europe-based social media platform called W that could rival Elon Musk’s X, which has faced fines for breaching the EU’s content moderation rules. W plans to host its data on “European servers owned by European companies” and limits its investors to Europeans, Zeiter told Euronews. So far, Brussels has yet to codify any such moves into law. But upcoming legislation on cloud and AI services are expected to send signals about the need to Europeanize the bloc’s tech offerings. ENERGY: TIME TO DIVERSIFY On energy, the same trend is apparent. The United States provides more than a quarter of the EU’s gas, a share set to rise further as a full ban on Russian imports takes effect. But EU officials warn about the risk of increasing Europe’s dependency on the U.S. in yet another area. Trump’s claims on Greenland were a “clear wake-up call” for the EU, showing that energy can no longer be seen in isolation from geopolitical trends, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said last Wednesday. The Greenland crisis reinforced concerns that the bloc risks “replacing one dependency with another,” said Jørgensen, adding that as a result, Brussels is stepping up efforts to diversify, deepening talks with alternative suppliers including Canada, Qatar and North African countries such as Algeria. FINANCE: MOVING TO EUROPEAN PAYMENTS Payment systems are also drawing scrutiny, with lawmakers warning about over-reliance on U.S. payment systems such as Mastercard and Visa. The digital euro, a digital version of cash that the European Central Bank is preparing to issue in 2029, aims to cut these dependencies and provide a pan-European sovereign means of payment. “With the digital euro, Europeans would remain in control of their money, their choices and their future,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said last year. In Germany, some politicians are sounding the alarm about 1,236 tons of gold reserves that Germany keeps in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “In a time of growing global uncertainty and under President Trump’s unpredictable U.S. policy, it’s no longer acceptable” to have that much in gold reserves in the U.S., Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the German politician from the liberal Free Democratic Party, who chairs the Parliament’s defense committee, told Der Spiegel. Several European countries are pushing the EU to privilege European manufacturers when it comes to spending EU public money via “Buy European” clauses. Until a few years ago, countries like Poland, the Netherlands or the Baltic states would never have agreed on such “Buy European” clauses. But even those countries are now backing calls to prioritize purchases from EU-based companies. MILITARY INVESTMENT: BOOSTING OWN CAPACITY A €150 billion EU program to help countries boost their defense investments, finalized in May of last year, states that no more than 35 percent of the components in a given purchase, by cost, should originate from outside the EU and partner states like Norway and Ukraine. The U.S. is not considered a partner country under the scheme. For now, European countries rely heavily on the U.S. for military enablers including surveillance and reconnaissance, intelligence, strategic lift, missile defense and space-based assets. But the powerful conservative umbrella group, the European People Party, says these are precisely the areas where Europe needs to ramp up its own capacities. When EU leaders from the EPP agreed on their 2026 roadmap in Zagreb, they stated that the “Buy European” principle should apply to an upcoming Commission proposal on joint procurement. The title of the EPP’s 2026 roadmap? “Time for independence.” Camille Gijs, Jacopo Barigazzi, Mathieu Pollet, Giovanna Faggionato, Eliza Gkritsi, Elena Giordano, Ben Munster and Sam Clark contributed reporting from Brussels. James Angelos contributed reporting from Berlin.

A group of researchers is suing Elon Musk’s X to gain access to data on Hungary’s upcoming elections to assess the risk of interference, they told POLITICO. Hungary is set to hold a highly contentious election in April as populist nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán faces the toughest challenge yet to his 16-year grip on power. The lawsuit by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) comes after the civil society group, in November, applied for access to X data to study risks to the Hungarian election, including from disinformation. After X rejected their request, the researchers took the case to the Berlin Regional Court, which said it is not competent to rule on the case. DRI — with the support of the Society for Civil Rights and law firm Hausfeld — is now appealing to a higher Berlin court, which has set a hearing date of Feb. 17. Sites including X are obliged to grant researchers access to data under the European Union’s regulatory framework for social media platforms, the Digital Services Act, to allow external scrutiny of how platforms handle major online risks, including election interference. The European Commission fined X €40 million for failing to provide data access in December, as part of a €120 million levy for non-compliance with transparency obligations. The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to X after the researchers went down a similar path last year to demand access to data related to the German elections in February 2025. A three-month legal drama, which saw a judge on the case dismissed after X successfully claimed they had a conflict of interest, ended with the court throwing out the case. The platform said that was a “comprehensive victory” because “X’s unwavering commitment to protecting user data and defending its fundamental right to due process has prevailed.” The researchers also claimed a win: The court threw the case out on the basis of a lack of urgency, as the elections were well in the past, said DRI. The groups say the ruling sets a legal precedent for civil society groups to take platforms to court where the researchers are located, rather than in the platforms’ legal jurisdictions (which, in X’s case, would be Ireland). X did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on Monday.

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.

The three parties that have formed the new Dutch minority government have pitched raising the European minimum age for social media to 15, according to coalition plans unveiled on Friday. With the move, the Netherlands is the latest country to push for a de facto social media ban at 15, following France’s example. The three Dutch parties — the centrist D66, the Christian Democrat CDA and the liberal VVD — will still need to seek support for their proposals, as they hold only 66 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. The parties want an “enforceable European minimum age of 15 for social media, with privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media are not sufficiently safe,” they write in the plans. The current EU minimum age stands at 13. The coalition program also envisions a crackdown on screen time through prevention and health guidance, and stricter smartphone rules in schools, which will require devices to remain at home or in a locker. In June of last year, the previous Dutch government issued guidance to parents to wait until age 15 before allowing their children to use social media. Earlier this week, a bill to ban social media for users under 15 passed the French parliament’s lower chamber and could take effect in September. Australia paved the way by banning children from a range of platforms in December. The new Dutch government also is launching a push to become more digitally sovereign and to reduce “strategic dependencies” in areas such as cloud services and data. Eliza Gkritsi contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — An identity tool that underpins the digital lives of Dutch people and has partly fallen into American hands is prompting the country to reconsider its reliance on U.S. technology. In the Netherlands, almost every citizen regularly uses the online identification tool DigiD to book a doctor’s appointment, buy a house or access online public services. With a Dutch supplier of the tool in the process of being acquired by a U.S. technology company, that’s prompting concerns that the Netherlands is giving away critical technology at a moment of heightened sensitivity around the country’s wholesale use of American services. As Dutch lawmakers in the parliament’s digital affairs committee met Tuesday to debate the issue, they received a petition signed by 140,000 people calling on the government to block the acquisition. “If the Dutch government does something that [U.S. President Donald] Trump doesn’t like, he can shut down our government with one push of a button,” the petition reads. “That’s a big danger.”  The debate over DigiD has put the spotlight on a topic that has been simmering for a while.  With the Netherlands a long-time proponent of the transatlantic relationship, Dutch society is built on U.S. technology and IT services — as is the country’s government. That’s now seen as a glaring security issue as Trump fires off threats toward Europe.  Two-thirds of the domain names of Dutch governments, schools and other critical companies rely on at least one U.S. cloud provider, research by the Dutch public broadcaster showed Sunday, with Microsoft the frontrunner.  “We are the most Microsoft-loving country of the whole world,” said Bert Hubert, a Dutch cybersecurity expert and former intelligence watchdog. “The Dutch government uses more Microsoft than the U.S. government.” OMNIPRESENT Questions over DigiD’s relationship with U.S. technology started in early November.  U.S. cloud provider Kyndryl, a recent spin-off of the well-known U.S. tech company IBM, announced at the time that it would acquire Dutch cloud provider Solvinity. That company doesn’t own the online identification tool DigiD but provides the platform on which it runs.  To Dutch people, DigiD is ubiquitous in their lives. “Every time you want to rent a house in the Netherlands, make an appointment with the doctor or do something in the hospital, you have to go through DigiD,” Hubert said.  Potential U.S. control over such an omnipresent tool triggered fierce pushback.  Last year the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, ditched Microsoft as a service provider amid concerns about U.S. sanctions targeting the court. | Erik S. Lesser/EPA Putting vital digital infrastructure in American hands “raises Dutch vulnerability for outages, manipulation or even blackmail,” a group of experts, among them Hubert, said in a letter their lawyers sent mid-January to the ministry service in charge of scrutinising acquisitions.   The acquisition could also endanger the security of Dutch people’s sensitive personal data, lawmakers and experts argue. “The risk is that it falls under the U.S. Cloud Act, which says that it doesn’t matter if data is hosted on EU soil, but if the service is done by a U.S. company, then the [U.S.] government can ask for that data,” said Barbara Kathmann, lawmaker of the GreenLeft-Labour party and expert in digital affairs.  The Dutch Economy Ministry is now looking into the deal and whether it raises national security concerns, a ministry representative said in the Dutch parliament last week. Kyndryl said in a statement that it “always lived up to relevant Dutch and European requirements for the security of customers’ data and will continue to comply with existing obligations of Solvinity to its customers.” CAUTIONARY TALE The Solvinity acquisition has put the spotlight on a topic that has been simmering for a while.  Last year the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, ditched Microsoft as a service provider amid concerns about U.S. sanctions targeting the court.  The ICC case and the Solvinity acquisition should serve as a cautionary tale for Europe to start mapping its reliance on the U.S. and nurturing European alternatives, said Sarah El Boujdaini, a lawmaker for the centrist D66 — the party of the incoming prime minister Rob Jetten. “We need to have a wider look at where our most vulnerable dependencies are, where we need to take back control, and where we need to procure more from European companies,” said El Boujdaini.  That should include a particular focus on government services and services that people access continually, several interviewees said. “Traditional government services should not be outsourced to other countries, especially not countries that are willing and have shown to be capable of weaponizing those dependencies,” said Dutch liberal European Parliament lawmaker Bart Groothuis.  “Of course [the government] should make use of the services of ICT providers,” said Hubert, “but what you should not do is give a part of your society that you depend on 24 hours a day to a company that can be acquired.”