Finland has urged U.S. officials not to describe future security pledges to a postwar Ukraine as “Article 5-like,” implying that doing so could undercut the mutual defense clause at the heart of the NATO military alliance, according to a State Department cable obtained by POLITICO. The Jan. 20 cable hints at worries in some corners over the labels used during peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. They show how sensitive some phrases can be in the national security realm, even when officials are merely trying to offer an analogy to various audiences. According to the cable, sent from the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki to Washington, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen discussed the issue on Jan. 19 with U.S. Reps. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) and Sarah Elfreth (D-Md.), both of whom are members of the House Armed Services Committee. Valtonen underscored Finland’s view that Russia is a “long-term strategic threat” and cautioned against a “weak” peace deal for Ukraine that would hinder its ability to defend itself against future Russian aggression, the cable states. But Valtonen cautioned against any suggestions of “Article 5-like” security guarantees in a postwar Ukraine, the cable adds. She warned that it risked conflating NATO’s Article 5 guarantees with whatever bilateral promises are made to Ukraine. It also quotes her as saying there should be a “firewall” between NATO and future security guarantees to Ukraine. Finland’s defense minister made similar points in a later meeting, according to the cable. Article 5 is a critical clause in the NATO pact that means an armed attack on one member of the 32-member alliance will be treated as an attack on all members. NATO has invoked the article only once: after Islamist terrorists attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The documents’ contents offer insight into concerns voiced by other Finnish leaders who have said that, while they want to help Ukraine protect itself, the concept of a security “guarantee” is a more serious matter they’re not ready to agree to just yet. A Finnish official said Valtonen’s office wouldn’t comment on confidential discussions, though underscored Helsinki’s long-standing goal of eventually accepting Ukraine into the NATO alliance. “Finland’s objective is to ensure that Ukraine receives the strongest possible security arrangements and guarantees in support of a sustainable and lasting peace,” the official said, who was granted anonymity to speak about sensitive policy matters. “Finland’s position is that Ukraine’s future lies within NATO.” Former NATO officials and analysts said the cable reflects growing concerns in various capitals about how engaging with a postwar Ukraine could affect individual countries in the long run. One potential problem is that “using the term Article 5 in other contexts implies NATO involvement that is not in fact a part of any of these proposed arrangements,” said Edward Wrong, a former NATO official. “Finland and many other NATO members want to ensure it is understood that Article 5 is unique to NATO.” The State Department declined to comment. Elfreth, one of the U.S. lawmakers Valtonen met with, did not address the session with the Finnish foreign minister directly, but said in a statement: “From our many meetings, it was clear to me that our NATO allies, new and old, are committed to advancing shared goals of defending our partners from Russian and other adversarial influences. Bergman declined to comment. Using Article 5 as a parallel has multiple upsides and downsides, especially given the range of attitudes toward Ukraine in NATO, the former officials and analysts said. That’s further complicated by the likelihood that individual countries, or select groups of countries — but not NATO itself — will offer Ukraine security aid in the near future. One challenge is that by referring to Article 5, even with the “like” attached to it, national leaders could hand political ammunition to opposition groups, said Josh Shifrinson, a scholar with the University of Maryland, College Park, who advocates for a more restrained foreign policy. There’s also the possibility that framing a security pledge to Ukraine as “Article 5-like” will entice Russia to test what that truly means. If Russia stages some sort of an armed attack and the countries backing Ukraine struggle to respond, that could raise questions about the strength of NATO’s Article 5, said Rachel Ellehuus, a former Biden administration Defense Department official assigned to NATO. On top of that, other members of NATO, especially those in Europe, are acutely aware of President Donald Trump’s dim views of the alliance. They are reacting to his demands that they step up defense spending and have taken on the lion’s share of aid to Ukraine. Given economic uncertainties in the years ahead, just how much they can support Ukraine is in question. “I’m guessing the Finns don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver,” Ellehuus said. Spokespeople for NATO declined to comment. Finland is one of NATO’s newest members, having joined after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Finnish foreign minister comes across in the cable as tough on Russia, a country with which Finland shares an 830-mile border. “We should not be naïve in thinking they will change, especially if sanctions get [lifted]” and Russia becomes “empowered politically and economically,” Valtonen is quoted as saying. Although there are ongoing talks among the U.S., Ukraine and Russia in various formats, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has not committed to a substantial cease-fire and has made demands that many Ukrainians consider unacceptable for a peace deal. Victor Jack contributed to this report from Brussels.

BRUSSELS — Only a few days ago, EU diplomats and officials were whispering furtively about the idea they might one day need to think about how to push back against Donald Trump. They’re not whispering anymore.  Trump’s attempt, as EU leaders saw it, to “blackmail” them with the threat of tariffs into letting him take the sovereign Danish island of Greenland provoked a howl of outrage — and changed the world.  Previous emergency summits in Brussels focused on existential risks to the European Union, like the eurozone crisis, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week, the EU’s 27 leaders cleared their diaries to discuss the assault they faced from America.  There can be little doubt that the transatlantic alliance has now been fundamentally transformed from a solid foundation for international law and order into a far looser arrangement in which neither side can be sure of the other.  “Trust was always the foundation for our relations with the United States,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk as he arrived for the summit in Brussels on Thursday night. “We respected and accepted American leadership. But what we need today in our politics is trust and respect among all partners here, not domination and for sure not coercion. It doesn’t work in our world.”  The catalyst for the rupture in transatlantic relations was the U.S. president’s announcement on Saturday that he would hit eight European countries with tariffs of 10 percent for opposing his demand to annex Greenland.  That was just the start. In an avalanche of pressure, he then canceled his support for the U.K. premier’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to an important air base, to Mauritius; threatened France with tariffs on Champagne after Macron snubbed his Board of Peace initiative; slapped down the Norwegian prime minister over a Nobel Peace Prize; and ultimately dropped his threats both to take Greenland by military force and to hit countries that oppose him with tariffs.  Here was a leader, it seemed to many watching EU officials, so wild and unpredictable that he couldn’t even remain true to his own words.  But what dismayed the professional political class in Brussels and beyond was more mundane: Trump’s decision to leak the private text messages he’d received directly from other world leaders by publishing them to his 11.6 million followers on social media.  Trump’s screenshots of his phone revealed French President Emmanuel Macron offering to host a G7 meeting in Paris, and to invite the Russians in the sidelines. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who once called Trump “daddy,” also found his private text to Trump made public, in which he praised the president’s “incredible” achievements, adding: “Can’t wait to see you.”  Leaking private messages “is not acceptable — you just don’t do it,” said one senior diplomat, like others, on condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive. “It’s so important. After this, no one can trust him. If you were any leader you wouldn’t tell him anything. And this is a crucial means of communication because it is quick and direct. Now everything will go through layers of bureaucracy.”  Mark Carney had been one of the classic Davos set and was a regular attendee: suave, a little smug, and seeming entirely comfortable among snow-covered peaks and even loftier clientele. | Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA The value of direct contact through phone texts is well known to the leaders of Europe, who, as POLITICO revealed, have even set up their own private group chat to discuss how to respond when Trump does something inflammatory. Such messages enable ministers and officials at all levels to coordinate solutions before public statements have to be made, the same senior diplomat said. “If you don’t have trust, you can’t work together anymore.”  NO MORE NATO Diplomats and officials now fear the breakdown in personal trust between European leaders and Trump has potentially grave ramifications.  Take NATO. The military alliance is, at its core, a promise: that member countries will back each other up and rally to their defense if one of them comes under attack. Once that promise looks less than solid, the power of NATO to deter attacks is severely undermined. That’s why Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that if Trump invaded the sovereign Danish territory of Greenland it would be the end of NATO.  The fact he threatened to do so has already put the alliance into intensive care, another diplomat said.  Asked directly if she could still trust the U.S. as she arrived at the Brussels summit, Frederiksen declined to say yes. “We have been working very closely with the United States for many years,” she replied. “But we have to work together respectfully, without threatening each other.”  European leaders now face two tasks: To bring the focus back to the short-term priorities of peace in Ukraine and resolving tensions over Greenland; and then to turn their attention to mapping out a strategy for navigating a very different world. The question of trust, again, underpins both.  When it comes to Ukraine, European leaders like Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and the U.K.’s Keir Starmer have spent endless hours trying to persuade Trump and his team that providing Kyiv with an American military element underpinning security guarantees is the only way to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking again in future.  Given how unreliable Trump has been as an ally to Europe, officials are now privately asking what those guarantees are really worth. Why would Russia take America’s word seriously? Why not, in a year or two, test it to make sure?  THE POST-DAVOS WORLD Then there’s the realignment of the entire international system.  There was something ironic about the setting for Trump’s assaults on the established world order, and about the identities of those who found themselves the harbingers of its end.  Among the snow-covered slopes of the Swiss resort of Davos, the world’s business and political elite gather each year to polish their networks, promote their products, brag about their successes, and party hard. The super rich, and the occasional president, generally arrive by helicopter.  As a central bank governor, Mark Carney had been one of the classic Davos set and was a regular attendee: suave, a little smug, and seeming entirely comfortable among snow-covered peaks and even loftier clientele.  Now prime minister of Canada, this sage of the centrist liberal orthodoxy had a shocking insight to share with his tribe: “Today,” Carney began this week, “I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.”  “The rules-based order is fading,” he intoned, to be replaced by a world of “great power rivalry” in which “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”  “The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”  Carney impressed those European officials watching. He even quoted Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who has enjoyed outsized influence in recent months due to the connections he forged with Trump on the golf course.  NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who once called Donald Trump “daddy,” also found his private text to Donald Trump made public, in which he praised the president’s “incredible” achievements, adding: “Can’t wait to see you.” |  Jim lo Scalzo/EPA Ultimately, Carney had a message for what he termed “middle powers” — countries like Canada. They could, he argued, retreat into isolation, building up their defenses against a hard and lawless world. Or they could build something “better, stronger and more just” by working together, and diversifying their alliances. Canada, another target of Trump’s territorial ambitions, has just signed a major partnership agreement with China. As they prepared for the summit in Brussels, European diplomats and officials contemplated the same questions. One official framed the new reality as the “post-Davos” world. “Now that the trust has gone, it’s not coming back,” another diplomat said. “I feel the world has changed fundamentally.”  A GOOD CRISIS It will be up to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her team to devise ways to push the continent toward greater self-sufficiency, a state that Macron has called “strategic autonomy,” the diplomat said. This should cover energy, where the EU has now become reliant on imports of American gas.  The most urgent task is to reimagine a future for European defense that does not rely on NATO, the diplomat said. Already, there are many ideas in the air. These include a European Security Council, which would have the nuclear-armed non-EU U.K. as a member. Urgent efforts will be needed to create a drone industry and to boost air defenses.  The European Commission has already proposed a 100,000-strong standing EU army, so why not an elite special forces division as well? The Commission’s officials are world experts at designing common standards for manufacturing, which leaves them well suited to the task of integrating the patchwork of weapons systems used by EU countries, the same diplomat said.  Yet there is also a risk. Some officials fear that with Trump’s having backed down and a solution to the Greenland crisis now apparently much closer, EU leaders will lose the focus and clarity about the need for change they gained this past week. In a phrase often attributed to Churchill, the risk is that EU countries will “let a good crisis go to waste.”  Domestic political considerations will inevitably make it harder for national governments to commit funding to shared EU defense projects. As hard-right populism grows in major regional economies, like France, the U.K. and Germany, making the case for “more Europe” is harder than ever for the likes of Macron, Starmer and Merz. Even if NATO is in trouble, selling a European army will be tough.  While these leaders know they can no longer trust Trump’s America with Europe’s security, many of them lack the trust of their own voters to do what might be required instead. 

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is exploring a ban on artificial intelligence-powered apps that undress people online in the wake of abusive content generated through X’s Grok. European Parliament lawmakers last week launched a call — first reported by POLITICO — to ban apps and tools that allow users to generate fake intimate images of individuals without consent under the bloc’s flagship AI law. The EU’s executive is “looking into the matter,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO. It follows a proliferation of sexualized deepfake images created by the Grok bot and hosted on Elon Musk’s social network X. The site last week announced changes it said would address the problem, but they didn’t apply to users of the built-in Grok assistant. Under the EU’s AI Act, certain uses of artificial intelligence have been banned since February 2025 if they pose a clear threat to people’s safety, fundamental rights or livelihoods. AI nudification apps are not explicitly listed in the law’s current list of banned practices. That should change, Irish liberal lawmaker Michael McNamara told POLITICO in an interview on Friday. McNamara is the joint lead of the European Parliament’s AI group and is responsible for the Parliament’s work on a proposal to amend and simplify the AI Act. “It’s clearly a harm that was envisaged to be banned under the prohibited practices,” he said in reference to the Grok posts. The Grok scandal has raised questions over why AI-generated sexualized deepfakes were not included in the list of banned practices when negotiations on the law wrapped in 2023. “I suppose it wasn’t envisaged or anticipated that this would be done,” McNamara said. Banning deepfakes “would have simply been unthinkable,” Laura Caroli, an AI governance expert, wrote in a blog Friday. Caroli is a former assistant to the Parliament’s other lead on AI, Italian Social Democrat Brando Benifei, and was part of the final negotiations in December 2023 when the list of banned practices was locked in. “Bans were considered almost toxic, especially by the member states,” she wrote in her blog. The only mention of deepfakes in the EU law is an obligation to label them so users can recognize them — a requirement that kicks in from August 2026. The Commission must now determine whether AI sexualized deepfakes fit one of the currently listed bans, such as a ban on AI systems that are “manipulative or deceptive” or that exploit people’s vulnerabilities; or whether a new ban should be added. The EU’s AI law requires the Commission to assess annually whether the list of banned practices should be updated, opening the door to amendments. Caroli warned that amending the list of bans could create new headaches, comparing the scenario to opening Pandora’s box when it comes to how the EU handles AI. “I’m afraid it can go in every possible direction, because some member states were not super happy about certain bans,” she said. “Who tells us it’s going to be a smooth ride?” An alternative route to a ban could be separate provisions governing the most complex and advanced models, known as general-purpose AI models, which include X’s Grok. Under those provisions, companies must address “systemic risks” arising from their models. Those risks were the subject of a hard-fought battle last year, when a group of experts drafted compliance guidelines for the companies. Risks from “non-consensual intimate images” were included as an example of a risk. That could provide a basis for the European Commission’s AI Office to launch a formal discussion with X.

BRUSSELS — If you ordered Christmas presents from a Chinese web shop, they are likely to be toxic, unsafe or undervalued. Or all of the above. The EU is trying to do something about the flood but is tripping over itself 27 times to get there. “It’s absolutely crazy…” sighs one EU official. The official, granted anonymity to discuss preparations to tackle the problem, said that at some airport freight hubs, an estimated 80 percent of such inbound packages don’t comply with EU safety rules. The numbers are dizzying. In 2024, 4.6 billion small packages with contents worth less than €150 entered the EU. That all-time record was broken in September of this year. Because these individual air-mail packages replace whole containers shipping the same product, the workload for customs officials has increased exponentially over recent years. Non-compliant, cheaply-made products — such as dangerous toys or kitchen items — bring health risks. And a growing pile of garbage. It’s a problem for everyone along the chain. Customs officers can’t keep up; buyers end up with useless products; children are put at risk; and EU makers of similar items are undercut by unfair and untaxed competition. With the situation on the ground becoming unmanageable, the EU agreed this month to charge a €3 fixed fee on all such packages. This will effectively remove a tax-free exemption on packages worth €150 — but only from July of next year. It’s a crude, and temporary, fix because existing customs IT systems can’t yet tax items according to their actual value. ALL I WANT … Which is why all European lawmaker Anna Cavazzini wants for next year’s holiday season is “better rules.” Cavazzini is a key player in a push to harmonize the EU’s 27 national customs regimes. A proposed reform, now being discussed by the EU institutions, would create a central data hub and an EU Customs Agency, or EUCA, with oversight powers. As is so often the case in the EU, though, the customs reform is only progressing slowly. The EUCA will be operational only from late 2026. And the data hub probably won’t be up and running until the next decade. “We need a fundamental discussion on the Europeanization of customs,” Cavazzini told POLITICO. As chair of the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), the lawmaker from the German Greens has been pushing the Council, the EU’s intergovernmental branch, to allow the customs reform to make the bloc’s single market more of a unified reality. European lawmaker Anna Cavazzini. | Martin Bertrand and Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images EU capitals worry — as always — about handing over too much power to the eurocrats in Brussels. But the main outstanding issue where negotiators disagree is more prosaic: it’s about whether the law should include an explicit list of offences, such making false declarations to customs officers. While the last round of negotiations in early December brought some progress on other areas, the unsolved penalties question has kicked the reform into 2026. With the millions of boxes, packages and parcels inbound, regardless, individual countries are also considering handling fees, beside the €3 tax that all have agreed on. France has already proposed a solo fee with revenues flowing into its national budget, and Belgium and the Netherlands will probably follow suit. RACE TO THE BOTTOM Customs reform is what’s needed, not another round of fragmented fees and a race to the bottom, said Dirk Gotink, the European Parliament’s lead negotiator on the customs reform. “Right now, the ideas launched by France and others are not meant to stem the flow of packages. They are just meant to earn money,” the Dutch center-right lawmaker told a recent briefing. To inspect the myriad ways in which they are a risk, Gotink’s team bought a few items from dubious-looking web shops. “With this one, the eyes are coming off right away,” he warned before handing a plush toy to a reporter. The reporter almost succeeded in separating the head from the creature’s body without too much effort. And thin, plastic eyes trailed the toy as it was passed around the room. “On the box it says it’s meant for people over 15 years old…” one reporter commented. But the cute creature is clearly targeted at far younger audiences. Adding to the craze, K-pop stars excitedly unbox new characters in online promotional videos. The troubles aren’t limited to toys. A jar of cosmetics showed by Gotink had inscriptions on its label that didn’t resemble any known alphabet. Individual products aside, the deluge of cheap merchandise also creates unfair competition, said Cavazzini: “A lot of European companies of course also fulfill the environmental obligations and the imports don’t,” she said. “This is also creating a huge unlevel playing field.” After the holidays, Gotink and Cavazzini will pick up negotiations on the customs reform with Cyprus, which from Jan. 1 takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU from Denmark. “This file will be a priority during our presidency,” a Cypriot official told POLITICO, adding that Denmark had completed most of the technical work. “We aim to conclude this important file, hoping to reach a deal with the Parliament during the first months of the Cyprus Presidency.” Despite the delays, an EU diplomat working on customs policy told POLITICO that the current speed of the policy process is unprecedented: “This huge ecommerce pressure has really made all the difference. A year ago, this would have been unimaginable.”

Brussels’ battle over whether plant-based foods can be sold as “veggie burgers” and “vegan sausages” ended the year in stalemate on Wednesday, after talks between EU countries and the European Parliament collapsed without a deal. French centre-right lawmaker Céline Imart, a grain farmer from southern France and the architect of the naming ban, arrived determined to lock in tough restrictions on plant-based labels, according to three people involved. Her proposal, dismissed as “unnecessary” inside her own political family, was tucked inside a largely unrelated reform of the EU’s farm-market rulebook. It slipped through weeks of talks untouched and unmentioned, only reemerging in the final stretch — by which point even Paul McCartney had asked Brussels to let veggie burgers be. The Wednesday meeting quickly veered off course. Officials said Imart moved to reopen elements of the text that negotiators believed had already wrapped up, including sensitive rules for powerful farm cooperatives. She then sketched out several possible fallbacks on dairy contracts — a politically charged issue for many countries — but without settling on a clear line the rest of the Parliament team could rally behind. “And then she introduced new terms out of nowhere,” one Parliament official said, after Imart proposed adding “liver” and “ham” to the list of protected meat names for the first time. “It was very messy,” another Parliament official said. EU countries, led in the talks by Denmark, said they simply had no mandate to move — not on the naming rules and not on dairy contracts. With neither side giving ground, the discussions ground to a halt. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. Imart insisted that the gap could still be bridged. Dairy contracts and meat-related names “still call for further clarification,” she said in a written statement, arguing that “tangible progress” had been made and that “the prospect of an agreement remains close,” with negotiations due to resume under Cyprus in January. “We did not succeed in reaching an agreement,” Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images) Dutch Green lawmaker Anna Strolenberg, who was in the room, said she was relieved: “It’s frustrating that we keep losing time on a veggie burger ban — but at least it wasn’t traded for weaker contracts [for dairy farmers].” For now, that means veggie burgers, vegan nuggets and other alternative-protein products will keep their familiar names — at least until Cyprus picks up the file in the New Year and Brussels’ oddest food fight resumes.

Paul McCartney has joined forces with U.K. MPs who are urging Brussels to scrap any plans to ban the use of meat-related names such as “burger” and “sausage” for plant-based products. The proposed EU ban, if passed into law, would prohibit food producers from using designations such as “veggie burger” or “vegan sausage” for plant-based and lab-grown dishes. “To stipulate that burgers and sausages are ‘plant-based,’ ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating,” the former Beatles star, who became a vegetarian in 1975, told The Times of London. “This also encourages attitudes essential to our health and that of the planet.” The proposed EU ban “could increase confusion” and “undermine economic growth, sustainability goals, and the EU’s own simplification agenda,” eight British MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, wrote in a letter to Brussels. The Times reported the contents of the letter Saturday evening. The missive includes the support of the McCartney family, which owns a business selling vegetarian food and recipes. The looming ban stems from an amendment that French center-right MEP Céline Imart introduced into legislation that aims to reform EU farming rules. These proposed reforms include how farmers sign contracts with buyers alongside other technical provisions. The bill is now subject to legislative negotiations with the Council of the EU, which represents EU governments.  The proposed rules will become law if and when MEPs and the Council agree on a final version of the legislation to become EU law. MPs in the U.K. fear that the ban, if it survives, would also impact British supermarkets, as markets and companies across the continent are so closely intertwined. Imart’s burger-busting tweaks were supposed to be a gesture of respect toward the French farmers that she represents — but they have divided MEPs within her own European People’s Party. “A steak is not just a shape,” Imart told POLITICO in an interview last month. “People have eaten meat since the Neolithic. These names carry heritage. They belong to farmers.” Limiting labels for vegetarian producers will also help shoppers understand the difference between a real burger and a plant-based patty, according to Imart, despite years of EU surveys showing consumers largely understand the difference. U.K. MPs also cite research in their letter, stating that European shoppers “overwhelmingly understand and support current naming conventions” such as “veggie burger.”

The next time your favorite veggie burger quietly rebrands itself as a “plant-based patty,” you now know who to thank: Céline Imart. The grain farmer from southern France, now a first-term lawmaker in the European Parliament, slipped a ban on meaty names for plant-based, fermented and lab-grown foods into an otherwise technical measure. Inside the Parliament, it caused a minor earthquake. Her own group leader, German conservative Manfred Weber, publicly dismissed it as “unnecessary.” The group’s veteran agriculture voice, Herbert Dorfmann, voted against it. Diplomats from several capitals shrugged it off as “silly” or “just stupid.” And yet, as negotiations with EU governments begin, the amendment that everyone assumed would die in the first round is still standing — not because it has a powerful constituency behind it, but because almost no one is expending political capital to bury it. That alone says something about where Europe’s food politics are drifting. A FIGHT ABOUT MORE THAN LABELS Imart insists the amendment isn’t an attack on innovation, but a gesture of respect toward the farmers she represents. “A steak is not just a shape,” she told POLITICO in an interview. “People have eaten meat since the Neolithic. These names carry heritage. They belong to farmers.” She argues some shoppers genuinely confuse plant-based and meat products, despite years of EU surveys showing consumers largely understand what a “veggie burger” is. Her view, she argues, is shaped by what she hears at home. “Maybe some very intelligent people never make mistakes at the supermarket,” she said, referring to Weber and Dorfmann. “But a lot of people in my region do. They don’t always see the difference clearly.” In rural France, where livestock farming remains culturally central, Imart’s argument resonates. Across Europe, similar anxieties simmer. Farmers say they feel squeezed by climate targets, rising costs and what they see as moralizing rhetoric about “healthy and sustainable diets.” The EU once flirted with promoting alternative proteins as part of its Green Deal ambitions. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has spent most of the year soothing farm anger, not pushing dietary change. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Today, that political moment has mostly waned. References to “protein diversification” appear in draft strategies only to be scrubbed from the final text. Public support remains dwarfed by the billions the Common Agricultural Policy funnels to animal farming each year. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has spent most of the year soothing farm anger, not pushing dietary change. This helps explain why an idea dismissed as fringe suddenly doesn’t feel fringe at all. Imart’s amendment taps directly into a broader mood: Defend the farmer first; innovation can wait. BOOM AND BACKLASH The industry caught in the crossfire is no longer niche. Retail sales of meat and dairy alternatives reached an estimated €6-8 billion last year, with Germany alone accounting for nearly €2 billion. Fermentation-based dairy substitutes are attracting investment, and even though cultivated meat isn’t yet authorized in the EU, it has already become a regulatory flash point. But the sector remains tiny beside the continent’s livestock economy, and is increasingly buffeted by political headwinds. After two years of farmer protests and fatigue over climate and environmental reforms, national governments have closed ranks around traditional agriculture. Countries like Austria, Italy and France have warned that novel foods could undermine “primary farm-based production.” Hungary went even further this week, voting to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat altogether. For alternative protein companies, the irony is hard to miss. They see their products as both a business opportunity and part of the solution to the food system’s climate and environmental footprint, most of which comes from animal farming. Yet they say politics are now moving in the opposite direction. “Policymakers are devoting so much attention to unnecessary restrictions that would harm companies seeking to diversify their business,” said Alex Holst of the Good Food Institute Europe, an interest group for plant-based and cultivated alternatives. He argued that familiar terms like “burger” and “sausage” help consumers understand what they’re buying, not mislead them. WHY THE NAMING BAN WON’T DIE The political climate explains why Imart’s idea suddenly resonates. But Brussels lawmaking procedure explains why it might survive. At the negotiating table, national governments are consumed by the Parliament’s more disruptive ideas on market intervention and supply management, changes they fear could distort markets and limit the authorities’ flexibility to act. Compared with those fights, a naming ban barely registers. Especially in an otherwise technical reform of the EU’s Common Market Organisation, a piece of legislation normally reserved for agricultural specialists focused on crisis reserves and market tools. That gives the amendment unusual space. Several diplomats privately complained it sits awkwardly outside the scope of the original European Commission proposal. But not enough to coordinate a pushback. The Commission, meanwhile, has signaled it can “live with” stricter naming rules, having floated narrower limits in its own post-2027 market plan. That removes what might have been the decisive obstacle. Retail sales of meat and dairy alternatives reached an estimated €6-8 billion last year. | Jens Kalaene/Getty Images Even translation quirks, like the fact that “filet,” “filete” and “fillet” can mean different things across languages, haven’t slowed it. Imart shrugged those off: “It’s normal that texts evolve. That’s the point of negotiation.” Whether the naming ban makes it into the final law will depend on the coming weeks. But the fact it is even in contention, after being mocked, dismissed and rejected inside Imart’s own political family, is telling. In today’s Brussels, appeals to heritage and identity land more softly than calls for food system innovation. In that climate, that’s all even a fringe idea needs to survive.

BRUSSELS — The EU is flipping its script on artificial intelligence amid a global race to win cash and influence. The European Commission is on Wednesday expected to postpone the implementation of landmark AI restrictions by at least a year as part of sweeping changes to digital rules aimed at staying competitive with the U.S. and China. For years EU policymakers focused on making regulations to ensure the technology can be trusted. Now, in a year that saw major advances in artificial intelligence and Donald Trump reenter office, the EU is letting go of its dream of being the global leader on regulating AI. The Artificial Intelligence Act, which took years to negotiate, is not even fully in place yet. Throughout 2025 a growing chorus of national governments and executives from tech companies and industry lobby groups have called for a delay of a part of the law, putting the issue at the center of a wider fight in Brussels over how the EU should balance regulation and innovation. Wednesday’s proposal will see industry voices win out, with the announcement made under the same Commission president that heralded the original law as a “historic moment” to make people safer. While the EU executive will present the proposal as a technical adjustment that will ultimately make the EU’s regulation more effective — on the basis that changes will help industry to comply — it follows an intense lobbying effort by the Trump administration in Washington and from corporate lobbies in Brussels against the bloc’s digital rules. “A part of the message that Europe is giving to the rest of the world is that it is open to pressure from tech companies and other nations,” said Natali Helberger, a professor of law and digital technology at the University of Amsterdam. “I would say this harms the credibility.” Under the plans expected Wednesday, a series of AI practices that are classified as high risk — for example using artificial intelligence in recruitment, to assess people’s suitability to get loans or to score exams — won’t face obligations for at least a year longer than planned. A big part of the justification for the decision has been concerns that the regulations will prevent Europe from being competitive at a time when it needs to level up. Tech lobbies have slammed the foreseen timeline as “unworkable.” “If we only could take the foot off the brake and give innovation a bit more chance, I think that’s all we need,” Germany’s Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger said Tuesday when asked about the Commission’s upcoming proposal. The plans are prompting pushback from civil society. “The Commission seems intent on destroying fundamental rights safeguards and setting us up for months, if not years of infighting and legal uncertainty without any tangible gains for EU competitiveness,” said Daniel Leufer, senior policy analyst at AccessNow. Other changes expected Wednesday would exempt more companies from certain rules altogether, and would also give industry a grace period on new rules for watermarking visual content made by AI. TOO AMBITIOUS? The bloc’s AI rulebook was adopted in August 2024 but the rules were always intended to take effect gradually. Some AI practices that carry an “unacceptable risk” such as predictive policing or social scoring have been forbidden since February. The most complex AI models, such as OpenAI’s GPT, have also had to play by a separate set of rules since August. The rules that the EU executive is now pressing pause on — those that pose a risk to people’s health, safety or fundamental rights — were slated to take effect in August next year. Countries and companies argued a delay was necessary due to a delay in the technical standards, designed to help companies comply with the requirements. Standardization bodies missed the deadline to deliver on them twice, and now the standards won’t be ready until 2026. The timeline to come up with standards was a “bit ambitious from the start,” a representative from the standardization bodies told POLITICO in September. By branding it as a technical delay due to the lack of guidance, some in favor of a pause are choosing not to label it as a retreat, but instead to suggest a little more time is needed to get things right. “Many companies would welcome this,” said Wildberger. “But equally important is that we use the time to get certain things right. It’s not just: we postpone it. No, we have some work to do.” Germany and France came out publicly in favor of a one-year pause on Tuesday. Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark all called for a pause or a grace period before. Countries had a stake in delaying the process. “It is also motivated by the fact that so far, a lot of member states haven’t assigned and equipped their national regulatory authorities that must enforce the AI Act,” said Helberger. Hitting pause “will give them more time to get their act together at the national level,” she said. Wednesday’s proposal will need approval from EU countries and by the European Parliament before becoming final. There’s a hard deadline of August 2026 when the rules were set to apply. Within Parliament, even critics of the pause have privately conceded defeat and are now focused on keeping the delay as short as possible and avoiding further pushback. “Unfortunately, a pause now seems inevitable given the delay in developing the standards,” Irish Renew lawmaker Michael McNamara said last week after POLITICO first reported that the rules would be delayed by at least a year. McNamara warned that there should be “no further delays,” because “if there were, it would undermine regulation and rule of law beyond just the AI Act.” Mathieu Pollet contributed to this report.

A major five-year effort to build a technology base for Europe free of U.S. influence foundered amid conflicting national strategies and powerful corporate lobbying. As Europe’s leaders once again discuss tackling American tech dependence, those involved in the project to build a European cloud warn against repeating past mistakes. The Gaia-X initiative was “a crushing failure, a colossal waste of time, and just as many years gained for the hyperscalers — in other words, an industrial disaster,” said Yann Lechelle, a former CEO of French cloud champion Scaleway and one of the founding members of the initiative who quit in frustration in 2021, describing it as the “best decision ever.” The industry-led project was born in 2019 from a Franco-German drive to forge a “European industrial policy fit for the 21st Century” — a rallying cry that brought German and French companies together with top political backing to create a data infrastructure. The endgame goal of Gaia-X, named after the Greek goddess of Earth, was to “establish data sovereignty in Europe” and “counteract monopolistic tendencies.” As political momentum once again swings behind digital sovereignty, leaders will gather in Berlin on Tuesday to talk about how to become less dependent on foreign-owned technology. POLITICO spoke to both current and former Gaia-X officials, both on and off the record, about the lessons they learned that could prove valuable. Those conversations illuminated an initiative that failed to help Europe’s own digital ecosystem take root because it was weighed down by politics, bureaucracy and the interference of precisely the American and Chinese tech titans it was meant to challenge. Despite a fast-growing market for cloud computing services that underpin the internet, the global share of European cloud providers has continued to fall, dwarfed by the dominance of Amazon, Microsoft and Google. One of Gaia-X’s initial success stories, called Agdatahub, which was touted as a triumph for farming data, went bankrupt last year. “I joined Gaia-X because I believed in the original mission. I left Gaia-X because I didn’t believe it was going in the original direction,” said its former CEO, Francesco Bonfiglio. FRANCO-GERMAN DIVIDES Misalignment among the founding companies on the mission of Gaia-X became apparent early on, consistent with the traditional divergence in Paris and Berlin over tech sovereignty. In Paris, sovereignty was about backing local champions and breaking reliance on the U.S., while Berlin focused on protecting Europe without severing important trade ties. “The influence of political happenings inside the association was evident. Sometimes they were clashing,” said Bonfiglio, describing how it pitted a “historically more protectionist” France against a “fluctuating” Germany. American cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google, as well as Chinese tech giants Huawei and Alibaba, are all members of Gaia-X. | Jonas Roosens/Getty Images Everybody “interpreted” Gaia-X as they wanted to, he said. The former CEO described how this divergence in expectations and a lack of a “clear or common” definition of sovereignty — let alone a shared understanding of what it would take to get there — made his task extremely difficult. “France turned it into a very political issue, whereas the Germans treated it more as a technical matter,” said another founding member of Gaia-X, who is still part of the initiative and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The interests were at odds from day one, founding member Lechelle recalled, which was part of the reason the initiative would never deliver “the fantasy of a European cloud Airbus.” The Germans came on board with the idea to create data sovereignty, by shielding the data of their citizens and industries from foreign snooping and legal control, he said, adding: “Atlanticist as they may be, they were totally fine with the idea of depending on Microsoft.” Meanwhile, the French pushed a more self-serving vision, hoping to see Europe become self-reliant, from infrastructure all the way to software. That’s how the mission to create a “federated cloud infrastructure” came to life. But that “staggering complexity” would soon turn into an “unmanageable mess,” said Lechelle. Current CEO Ulrich Ahle, who joined in 2023, pushed back — saying Gaia-X is far from a “failure.” It has united the industry — both large and small players — around tangible deliverables, such as federated data spaces and compliance labels, he said. “At the beginning, some people thought that Gaia-X would be the European hyperscaler as the competition to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and so on,” he said, but in fact, “it is more about creating a way to handle data in a European way.” “The results we’re providing and the real business benefits these interoperable data spaces are creating are more and more visible,” he said, highlighting the example of a data space based on Gaia-X standards that French energy company EDF will use to securely coordinate the construction of new nuclear sites. BACK-DOOR LOBBYING As Gaia-X grew and set out to define Europe’s blueprint for secure data sharing, it opened its doors to industry participants from beyond Europe in a bid to push new standards on the global stage. While board seats remained reserved for EU companies and industry groups, alarm bells grew louder that the project was being hijacked by the very players it was meant to take on. Those firms “steered the entire roadmap,” Lechelle said, throwing money and people at it. “The committees were drowning. They [global players] had the capacity, the bandwidth, but we were already underwater … Americans have full-time lobbyists and massive budgets. Their job is basically to derail any initiative they don’t like.” American cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google, as well as Chinese tech giants Huawei and Alibaba, are all members of Gaia-X. In 2021, the annual summit in Milan was sponsored by Huawei and Alibaba, prompting backlash. Some interviewees expressed criticism that the European industry associations and companies on the board were representing the interests of business partners abroad. “I was struggling against many, many forces that were trying to dilute the rules of verification, dilute the efforts,” said Bonfiglio, stressing he was “the CEO of a consensus-based organization where consensus couldn’t be achieved most of the time.” Bonfiglio said he didn’t regret opening up the initiative to foreign players. “The problem is not America vs. Europe,” he said, but “trust” or lack thereof. Letting non-EU providers in was supposed to force them to become more transparent, he argued. “You think you’re good, show us what you have,” was his mantra at the time, he said. He now acknowledges the unavoidable influence of corporate giants in the cloud space. “You don’t need Microsoft, Amazon and Google on the board, because they would be represented by people sitting on the board from European companies. It’s an indirect lobby,” he said. The current member of the association interviewed for this story said the bylaws of Gaia-X should be changed to kick out industry associations from the board, as they play into the hands of tech giants. In response, Gaia-X’s Ahle said that “the strategic directions are given and the strategic decisions are taken in the board of directors.” He touted the initiative’s top-tier certification label — which excludes non-EU companies — as proof that it took decisions that went against U.S. interests. This was something “members like Amazon, Google and Microsoft didn’t like at all,” yet it happened. WHERE NOW As leaders prepare to meet at the high-profile summit in Berlin to debate how far to go in pivoting away from Big Tech, several of the people interviewed for this piece cautioned against repeating past mistakes. While European countries have not yet aligned on a common definition of digital sovereignty — something many see as crucial for real progress — there are signs that Paris and Germany are closer on positioning than they were five years ago. “I admit, I struggled with the term [digital sovereignty] before. I didn’t think it was necessary, but the global situation has changed so dramatically that we Europeans now have to become more sovereign,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday. At the summit, Merz said, “We’ll explore all the possibilities, together with industry representatives, of what we can do not only to become more independent from China, but also, for example, less dependent on the U.S., less dependent on the Big Tech companies. We want to catch up, we want to improve.” Friedrich Merz said, “We’ll explore all the possibilities, together with industry representatives, of what we can do not only to become more independent from China, but also, for example, less dependent on the U.S.” | Harald Tittel/Getty Images And yet — with Germany this month celebrating Google’s decision to invest more than €5 billion in building data centers in the country, a move that Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil described as “exactly what we need right now” — the reality of corporate interests may be hard to address. For Bonfiglio, the lesson from Gaia-X is that ”it is obvious that everybody sitting in the boardroom of an association with such a big and impactful objective tries to protect the interests of their own company.” While Gaia-X may have missed its shot at delivering on its big, original ambitions, Lechelle insists the upcoming Franco-German summit is “a chance to put a finger on the sore spots.” In the meantime, “those who wanted to maintain the status quo have won.”

The Netherlands should veto fewer decisions in Brussels and boost European Union integration, Dutch prime minister hopeful Rob Jetten said. “We want to stop saying ‘no’ by default, and start saying ‘yes’ to doing more together,” he told POLITICO in an interview via messaging app after the final electoral debate Tuesday night. “I cannot stress enough how dire Europe’s situation will be if we do not integrate further,” he continued. “The Netherlands is one of the founding countries of the European Union,” Jetten pointed out ahead of election day, Wednesday. “We are proud of that history, and now we want to be a leading voice in shaping its future.” Jetten’s Democrats 66 has seen a doubling in popularity, from 11 seats projected at the end of September to reaching the same level as giants far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) and GreenLeft-Labor this past Tuesday night, at 23 seats each — and ahead of the Christian Democrats, who are trailing at 19 seats. The Netherlands has traditionally maintained a conservative stance on treaty reform and has opposed dropping unanimity among countries as a requirement for some key decisions, such as letting new members into the bloc. The Dutch, who are known to punch above their weight in shaping debates, have also been traditionally frugal, and generally oppose joint EU borrowing. Especially in the last year, when its government included a tinge of the Euroskeptic far right, the Netherlands has kept Brussels at arm’s length, including by asking for an opt-out on the bloc’s migration policy — though it has remained in sync on other topics, such as sanctions for Israel and military support to Ukraine. “I want a return of the Netherlands to the role of kingmaker in Europe,” Jetten said. “We used to play that role. And when we did, it was for the better,” he added. Europe must transform itself into a serious “democratic global power,” Jetten continued. “That means giving the EU the power and the resources to do what citizens all across Europe are asking it to do: defend our territory against Putin’s aggression, grow the economy, protect the climate.” LAST GOVERNMENT’S ANTITHESIS Observers credit Jetten’s optimism in an otherwise gloomy campaign, focused on quarrels between the left and right, as key to his last-minute success. His participation in the popular Dutch TV contest “The Smartest Person,” where he managed to end up third, also helped make Jetten a more visible personality. If he succeeds, Jetten would be the Netherlands’ youngest and first openly gay prime minister — standing in stark contrast to Dick Schoof, the 68-year-old ex-civil servant appointed by Wilders to lead the previous (right-wing) government. But Jetten dismisses any focus on identity politics. “I’m not the gay candidate, nor the young candidate,” he said. “Much more relevant is that voters are rejecting a failed experiment with the far right. We lost time, our public finances worsened and nothing gets done.” “My party wants to infuse a renewed optimism into Dutch politics,” he confirmed.   The Netherlands was long dominated by Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) — the fiscally conservative force now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz. But if projections hold, D66 and Rob Jetten could overtake the VVD, claiming the mantle of the country’s leading liberal party.  Asked about the possibility of becoming prime minister, Jetten responded: “I stand ready to lead if I’m given the chance. It would be a privilege to have the support and cooperation of other parties. It is our political tradition.” When it comes to potential coalition partners, Jetten brushed off traditional political labels. “The whole left-right discussion is outdated,” he said. He would seek to form a pro-European government that invests in education, builds homes for everyone and ramps up climate action. “We are ready to work with all those democratic forces who want to make that happen.”  Despite his party’s positive trajectory, Dutch polls are known to be unpredictable, with many voters not deciding until the last minute. Gerardo Fortuna contributed reporting.