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

FRENCH FAR RIGHT CLAIMS MOMENTUM FOR PRESIDENCY AFTER LOCAL ELECTIONS Marine Le Pen’s National Rally failed to win big target cities such as Marseille, Toulon and Nîmes, but the party still thinks it has the upper hand nationwide. By CLEA CAULCUTT in Paris POLITICO illustration. The far-right National Rally may not have won the string of big target cities it was hoping for in France’s local election on Sunday, but its leaders said they had still built up a grassroots momentum that would propel them to victory in next year’s presidential contest. The 2027 presidential election is seen as a decisive moment for the EU as the Euroskeptic and NATO-skeptic National Rally is the current favorite to win the race for the Elysée. This week’s municipal elections are being closely scrutinized to gauge whether Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party is still France’s predominant political force. All in all, it was a mixed night for the far right. Its biggest victory came on the Riviera, where one of its allies won Nice, France’s fifth-biggest city. The National Rally had also campaigned hard in other significant southern cities such as Marseille, Toulon and Nîmes. It performed well in all of them but was beaten into second place. The races were close in Toulon and Nîmes, and Le Pen’s party won 40 percent of the vote in Marseille — a considerable share in France’s diverse and cosmopolitan second city. Putting a positive spin on the results, the party leaders stressed that they had won numerous smaller and mid-sized cities and towns, particularly in their southern heartlands, such as Carcassonne, Agde and Menton — adding to the first-round victory in Perpignan last week. National Rally President Jordan Bardella told supporters in Paris the far right had achieved the “biggest breakthrough of its history,” and was seizing “a strong momentum” that signaled “the end of an old world running out of steam.” National Rally mayoral candidate Laure Lavalette casts her ballot during the second round of France’s 2026 municipal elections in Toulon on March 22, 2026. | Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images National Rally leader Le Pen meanwhile hailed “dozens” of regional victories and “a strategy of local implantation” that was working. STRONG NATIONWIDE, WEAKER IN BIG CITIES The National Rally’s argument is that traditional parties, particularly on the left, are strong in the big cities but that these do not fully reflect the wider national political currents, which are running toward the right. In Paris, for example, the National Rally candidate and MEP Thierry Mariani scored a dismal 1.6 percent of the vote in the first round on March 15, but nationwide Bardella is still the favorite for next year’s presidential election.   A Harris Interactive poll conducted after Sunday’s municipal elections confirmed Bardella’s position as frontrunner ahead of the 2027 race. Bardella would get 35 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, the survey said, 17 points ahead of the center-right contender, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe. Still, the municipal election results will definitely reignite concerns among National Rally strategists about whether they really can win in a second round next year, given that the tradition of uniting against the far right in runoffs — something that helped crush Le Pen’s presidential bids in 2017 and 2022 — was on full display on Sunday. In the Mediterranean port city of Toulon, Laure Lavalette, a high-profile National Rally politician and close Le Pen ally, had a promising start in the first round of voting, winning 42 percent of the vote, 13 points ahead of the incumbent conservative mayor Josée Massi. But in Sunday’s runoff, Massi pulled ahead, benefitting from the withdrawal of a conservative candidate. The National Rally had hoped that its swell of support could break that second-round Achilles heel in these municipal elections but this perennial electoral vulnerability — that it is the party everyone gangs up against — looks set to persist. NO RESPITE FOR BARDELLA’S RIVALS The National Rally’s rivals are certainly not dismissing the far right because of its losses in the bigger cities on Sunday. Gabriel Attal, presidential hopeful and leader of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, said Sunday’s results showed a rise of the extremes, referring to not just the far-right National Rally but also the far-left France Unbowed, which won in the northeastern city of Roubaix and in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. “It’s a warning signal,” he said. “More and more citizens, who voted for them, want things to change, and to change more quickly.” For the conservative Les Républicains, Sunday’s elections were bittersweet. The right won the mayoral jobs in several mid-sized cities including Limoges, Tulle, Brest and Clermont-Ferrand. In France’s fourth city, Toulouse, a former conservative Jean-Luc Moudenc saw off a far-left challenger from France Unbowed, backed by a left-wing coalition. Les Républicains leader Bruno Retailleau on Sunday claimed the right was “the Number One local political force” in France. Les Républicains candidate Rachida Dati at a campaign rally after the announcement of her defeat in the second round of the 2026 Paris municipal elections on March 22, 2026. | Ian Langsdon/AFP via Getty Images But the right was wiped out in Paris, where former Culture Minister Rachida Dati lost to the Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire. And in France’s second-largest city Lyon, the conservative candidate Jean-Michel Aulas, a former football club owner, lost by a narrow margin to the Green incumbent mayor. Retailleau sought to cast the conservatives as the force that could appeal to voters wanting to shut out the extremes, and slammed the National Rally as “demagogues.” There is “a French way, expressed by millions of fellow citizens who want neither the social chaos of [France Unbowed] or the budgetary disorder that the [National Rally’s] economic manifesto would bring about,” he said.  But the Les Républicains party has several presidential hopefuls and no clear path to decide which one will represent them in the presidential race. On Sunday, conservative heavyweights were already calling for the right to agree on a candidate against Bardella. This race for a single candidate to emerge in the middle ground is also likely to accelerate because former Prime Minister Philippe, buoyed by his victory against a strong Communist challenger in Le Havre in Normandy, will now be looking to promote his candidacy. Bardella, by contrast, simply tried to present the National Rally’s onward progression toward the Élysée as inevitable. Borrowing a phrase from former President François Mitterrand’s campaign in 1981 to end the right’s dominance in France, Bardella said the National Rally was now “a tranquil force.” “Our successes are not an achievement, but a beginning,” he said. Laura Kayali contributed reporting.

PARIS — Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire is on course to become Paris’ next mayor, extending his party’s quarter-century rule of the French capital, according to multiple projections from pollsters. The left-wing candidate is on track to win 53.1  percent of votes in Sunday’s mayoral election runoff, per Ipsos’ initial estimate based on a partial vote count. His conservative adversary Rachida Dati is projected to come in second with 38 percent, while the hard-left candidate Sophia Chikirou is expected to come in third with 8.9 percent.  His supporters in Paris were are celebrating, singing “Emmanuel” and“On a gagné” (we won). After making a speech, he is expected to cycle to Paris city hall. Grégoire finished the first round 12 points clear of Dati, but the runoff was expected to be a tougher challenge after other right-wing candidates coalesced behind Dati’s campaign. Two candidates who qualified for the second round, the center-right former lawmaker Pierre-Yves Bournazel and far-right MEP Sarah Knafo, both left the race to avoid splitting the vote. Grégoire, however, chose not to team up with Chikirou on principle due to her party’s abrasive, confrontational approach to the local election. During the campaign, Grégoire, a protégé-turned-enemy of outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, focused his message on solving the housing shortage and bringing down the cost of living. The 48-year-old had worked in Hidalgo’s administration for a decade in various top roles, including as her main deputy from 2018 until 2024, when he won a seat in the National Assembly. But Grégoire and Hidalgo’s messy falling out forced the candidate to distance himself from his former boss. That meant losing the opportunity to win votes by boasting about the successful Paris Olympics or the transformation of the banks of the Seine into a popular pedestrian area with cafés and restaurants.  The campaign got particularly heated ahead of the runoff, as he and Dati attacked each other with vitriol. Grégoire also accused President Emmanuel Macron of directly interfering to boost Dati, his former culture minister. Macron strongly rejected the assertion. 

The Trump administration is doubling down on its endorsement of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in next month’s Hungarian elections, even as Orbán’s deal-blocking in Brussels has been labeled “unacceptable” by EU peers. U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his “complete and total endorsement” of Orbán in the Hungarian elections. And U.S. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly due to fly to Budapest in April in support of the prime minister. The EU’s longest-serving leader, facing an election in less than a month that he is forecast to lose, has long been a thorn in the side of Brussels. In the latest stand-off against his European counterparts, Orbán held hostage a €90 billion loan to Ukraine this week over an oil dispute. “The prime minister has been a strong leader whose shown the entire world what’s possible when you defend your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty and your values,” Trump said in a video address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) taking place in Hungary on Saturday. Trump praised Hungary’s “strong borders” and said the country will continue to “work very hard on immigration,” and said Europe has to “work very hard” to solve “a lot of problems” around immigration. The American president said that Hungary and the U.S. are “showing the way toward a revitalized West,” and would also work “hard together on energy.” Vance is planning an April trip to Budapest just ahead of the Hungarian elections in a show of support for Orbán, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed in a podcast on Friday. Reuters first reported on Vance’s planned trip to Budapest.

BRUSSELS — Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he’s got “more important things” to do than dabble in local politics after the Socialist Party candidate for Paris mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, accused the French president of making “a pact with the devil” to try to swing the race against him. In an interview Thursday morning, Grégoire accused Macron of personally intervening to convince the far-right candidate Sarah Knafo, who narrowly qualified for the runoff, to leave the race. Knafo’s decision to abandon her campaign narrowed the runoff field down to two candidates on the left and just one on the right: Rachida Dati, Macron’s former culture minister. That dynamic will make the race more competitive despite Grégoire’s strong showing in the first round. “Emmanuel Macron personally intervened … to make sure that the far right withdraws to the profit of his candidate,” Grégoire told France Info, though he did not present any evidence of the allegations. When asked about the remarks ahead of a meeting of EU leaders, Macron said they “make no sense” and “dishonor the person who made them so bluntly. It’s not serious.” PARIS LOCAL ELECTION POLL OF POLLS All 3 Years 2 Years 1 Year 6 Months Smooth Kalman For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls. Macron went on to say the discussions being held in Brussels, where heads of government will try to tackle the fallout from the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine and the EU’s economic agenda, are bigger priorities for him than the campaign to lead the French capital. “The discussion we are having right now shows that I largely have other things to do,” he said. “I don’t know Ms. Knafo personally, and I’m not getting involved in these municipal elections at all,” Macron added. The French leader’s only other public comment this week, criticism of moderate parties who formed alliances with their more radical counterparts, was relayed by the government’s spokesperson. In the run-up to Sunday’s first round of the Paris mayoral election, Macron’s party backed the center-right candidate Pierre-Yves Bournazel. But officials close to Macron suggested that Dati privately had his support After the contest was over, Macron called Dati and the head of Bournazel’s party, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, encouraging them to make an alliance in the wake of the latter’s disappointing fourth-place finish. The duo went on to join forces in a bid to defeat Grégoire in Sunday’s runoff.

The European Commission has threatened to pull funding from the Venice Biennale over the art festival’s decision to allow Russia to participate for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Organizers of the prestigious international exhibition announced earlier this month that Russia would be permitted to take part in the event — held every two years, and taking place from May to November in 2026 — arguing they reject “any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art.” While many countries run national pavilions at the Biennale, Moscow had been effectively blacklisted since 2022. In a joint statement Tuesday, Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen and Culture Commissioner Glenn Micallef said that “Member States, institutions and organisations must act in line with EU sanctions,” adding that the festival’s decision to reinstate the pavilion after its four-year absence was “not compatible with the EU’s collective response to Russia’s brutal aggression.” The commissioners warned that if Russia is allowed to participate, they “will examine further action, including the suspension or termination of an ongoing EU grant to the Biennale Foundation,” which organizes the event. Italy’s Ministry of Culture said it opposed the festival’s decision, which was celebrated by Mikhail Shvydkoy, the Kremlin’s special representative for international cultural cooperation, as “proof that Russian culture is not isolated.” Moscow has sought to use art, culture and sport as soft-power tools to end its diplomatic isolation on the world stage. Ukraine has called on European and other countries to maintain boycotts against Russian cultural figures and institutions. Martina Sapio contributed to this report.

When U.S., Mexican and Canadian soccer officials fanned out across the globe nearly a decade ago to sell the 2026 World Cup, they traveled in threes — one representative from each country — to underscore a simple message: North America’s three largest countries were in lockstep. “It was so embedded into everything we did that this was a united bid. Our success was tied to the joint nature of the bid. That was the anchor regarding the premise of what we were trying to do,” said John Kristick, former executive director of the 2026 United Bid Committee. The pitch worked. In 2018, FIFA members awarded the tournament to North America, marking the first time three countries would co-host a men’s World Cup. Bid strategists were delighted when The Washington Post editorial page approvingly called it ”the NAFTA World Cup.” The North American Free Trade Agreement is no more, a victim of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw during his first term, and the successor U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is now teetering. At almost exactly the midway point of the 39-day tournament, trade ties that link the three countries’ economies will expire. The trilateral relationship is more frayed than it has ever been, tensions reflected in this year’s World Cup itself. Instead of one continental showcase, the 2026 World Cup increasingly resembles three distinct tournaments, with different immigration regimes, security plans and funding models, all a function of different policy choices in each host country. Soccer governing body FIFA “is the only glue that’s holding it together,” said one person intimately involved in the bid who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive political dynamics. The “United” in the United Bid, once the anchor of the entire project, now competes with three national agendas, each running on its own track. POLITICO spoke to eight people involved in developing a World Cup whose path from conception to execution reflects the crooked arc of North American integration. “When these events are awarded, they’re concepts. They’re ideas. They feel good,” said Lee Igel, a professor of global sport at NYU who has advised the U.S. Conference of Mayors on sports policy. “But between the award and the event itself, the world changes. Politics change. Leaders change.” THE TRUMP TOURNAMENT At the start of the extravagant December event that formally set the World Cup schedule, Trump stood next to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to ceremonially draw the first lottery ball. FIFA officials touted the moment at the Kennedy Center as a milestone: the first time the three leaders had appeared together in person, united by soccer. The trio also met for 90 minutes off stage in a meeting — facilitated by FIFA as part of World Cup planning. That novelty was notable. While each national government has named a “sherpa” to serve as its lead, those officials — including Canadian Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden and Mexican coordinator Gabriela Cuevas — have met only a handful of times in formal trilateral settings. At a January security summit in Colorado Springs, White House FIFA Task Force director Andrew Giuliani did not mention Canada or Mexico during his remarks. Only when FIFA security officer GB Jones took the stage was the international nature of the tournament acknowledged. “We have been and continue to work very closely with officials from all three host countries on topics including safety, security, logistics, transportation and other topics related to hosting a successful FIFA World Cup,” a FIFA spokesperson wrote via email. “This is one World Cup presented across all three host countries and 16 host cities, while showcasing the uniqueness of each individual location and culture.” The soccer federations behind the United Bid have been largely sidelined, with FIFA — rather than national governments — serving as the link between them. It has brought personnel of local host-city organizing committees for quarterly workshops and other meetings, and situated nearly 1,000 of its own employees across all three countries, according to a FIFA spokesperson who says they are “working seamlessly in a united effort.” (The number will swell to more than 4,000 when the tournament is underway.) But those FIFA staff are forced to navigate wildly varied fiscal conditions depending on where they land. Mexico, which will have matches in three cities, has imposed a tax exemption to stimulate investment in the World Cup and related tourist infrastructure in its three host cities. The Canadian government has dedicated well over $300 million to tournament costs, with more than two-thirds going directly to host-city governments. “The federal government are contributing significantly to both Vancouver and Toronto in terms of funding,” said Sharon Bollenbach, the executive director of the FIFA World Cup Toronto Secretariat, which unlike American host committees is run directly out of city hall. American cities, however, have been left to secure their own funding, largely through the pursuit of commercial sponsorships and donations to local organizing committees. Congress has allocated $625 million for the federal government to reimburse host cities in security costs via a grant program. But the partial government shutdown and an attendant decision by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to stop approving FEMA grants is exacerbating a logjam for U.S. states and municipalities — including not only those with World Cup matches but hosting team training camps — that rely on federal funds to coordinate counterterrorism and security efforts. That has left American host cities in very different financial situations just months before the tournament starts. Houston and Dallas-area governments can count on receiving a share of state revenue from Texas’ Major Events Reimbursement Program. The small Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts, however, is refusing to approve an entertainment license for matches at Gillette Stadium because of an unresolved $7.8 million security bill. Because of the budget squeeze, American cities have cut back on “fan festival” gatherings that will run extend during the tournament’s full length in Canadian and Mexican cities. Jersey City has canceled the fan fest planned at Liberty State Park in favor of smaller community events, and Seattle’s fan fest will be scaled down into a “distributed model” spread cross four locations. The tournament has become tightly intertwined with Trump, as FIFA places an outsized emphasis on courting the man who loves to be seen as the consummate host. Public messaging from the White House has focused almost exclusively on the United States’ role, and Trump rarely mentions Canada or Mexico from the Oval Office or on Truth Social. Since returning to office, Trump has had eight in-person meetings with FIFA President Gianni Infantino — besides the lottery draw at the Kennedy Center — whereas Sheinbaum and Carney have only had one each. While taking questions from the media during a November session with Infantino in the Oval office, Trump did not rule out the use of U.S. military force, including potential land actions, within Mexico to combat drug cartels. Guadalajara, which is set to host four World Cup matches, this weekend erupted in violence after Mexican security forces killed the head of a cartel that Trump last year labeled a “foreign terrorist organization.” A White House spokesperson wrote in a social-media post that the United States provided “intelligence support” to the mission. It is part of a more significant set of conflicts than Trump had with the United States’ neighbors during his first term. In January, Trump claimed that Sheinbaum is “not running Mexico,” while Carney rose to office promising Canadians he would “stand up to President Trump.” Since then, Trump has regularly proposed annexing Canada as the 51st state, as his government offers support to an Alberta separatist movement that could split the country through an independence vote on the province’s October ballot. The July 1 renewal deadline for the five-year-old USMCA has injected urgency into relations among the three leaders. Without an extension, the largely tariff-free trade that underpins North America’s economy would come into question, and governments and businesses would begin planning for a rupture. Trump, who recently called the pact “irrelevant,” has signaled he would be content to let it lapse. Suspense around the free trade zone’s future will engulf preparations for the World Cup, potentially granting Trump related in unrelated negotiations. “In the lead-up to mega-events, geopolitical tensions tend to hover in the background,” Igel said. “Once the matches begin, the show can overwhelm everything else, unless something dramatic like a boycott intervenes. But in the months before? That’s when you see the friction.” THE ORIGINS OF THE UNITED BID It was not supposed to be this way. When North American soccer officials first decided, in 2016, to fuse three national campaigns to host the World Cup into one, they saw unity as the strategic advantage that would distinguish their bid from any competitors. Each country had considered pursuing the World Cup on its own. Canada, looking to build on its success as host of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, wanted to host the larger men’s competition. Mexico, the first country to host it twice, wanted another shot. The United States dusted off an earlier bid for the 2022 tournament, which was awarded to Qatar. Sunil Gulati, a Columbia University economist serving as the U.S. Soccer Federation’s president, envisioned an unprecedented compromise: Instead of competing with one another they would work together — with the United States using its economic primacy and geographical centrality to ensure it remained the tournament’s focal point. The three countries’ economies had been deeply intertwined for nearly a quarter-century. Their leaders signed NAFTA in 1992, lowering trade barriers and snaking supply chains across borders that had previous isolated economic activity. But the trade pact triggered a broad backlash in the United States that allied labor unions on the left and isolationists on the right. That political disquiet exploded with the candidacy of Donald Trump, who called NAFTA “the worst trade deal” and immediately moved to renegotiate it upon taking office. Gulati, meanwhile, was pitching Emilio Azcárraga Jean, CEO and chair of Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa, and Canada Soccer President Victor Montagliani, on his own plan for regional integration. They agreed to sketch out a tournament that would have 75 percent of the games held in the U.S. with the remainder split between Canada and Mexico. “I’d rather have a 90 percent chance of winning 75 percent of the World Cup than a 75 percent chance of, you know, winning all of it,” Gulati told the U.S. Soccer board, according to two people who heard him say it. Montagliani and Mexico Football Federation President Decio de María joined Gulati to formally announce the so-called United Bid in New York in April 2017. The three federation presidents knew that the thrust of their pitch had to be more emotional and inclusive than “we are big, rich and have tons of ready-built stadiums,” as one of the bid organizers put it. Kristick laced a theme of “community” through the 1,500-page prospectus known to insiders as a bid book. “In 2026, we can create a bold new legacy for players, for fans and for football by hosting a FIFA World Cup that is more inclusive, more universal than ever,” declared a campaign video that the United Bid showed to the organization’s voting members. “Not because of who we are as nations, but because of what we believe in as neighbors. To bid together, countries come together.” It was a sentiment increasingly out of sync with the times. The same month that Gulati had stood with his counterparts in New York announcing the joint bid, Trump was busy demanding that Congress include funding for a wall along the border with Mexico. He told then-Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto and then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that he wanted to renegotiate NAFTA, using aluminum and steel tariffs as a cudgel. Carlos Cordeiro, who displaced Gulati as U.S. Soccer president during the bid process in 2018, became the driving force of the lobbying effort to sell the idea to 211 national federations that would vote on it. In Cordeiro’s view, according to two Americans intimately involved in the bid at the time, the bid’s biggest challenge was assuring voters that the tournament would be more than a U.S. event dressed up with the flags of its neighbors. Teams fanned out across each of soccer’s six regional confederations to make their pitch, each presentation designed to paint a picture of tri-national cooperation, and returned to a temporary base in London to debrief. “It was very pragmatic. It was like Carlos, or another U.S. representative, would say this and talk about this. The Canada representative will then talk about this. The Mexico representative will talk about this. And it was very much trying to be even across the three in terms of who was speaking,” one person on the traveling team said. When the United Bid finally prevailed in June 2018, defeating a rival bid from Morocco, Trump celebrated it as an equal triumph for the three countries. “The U.S., together with Mexico and Canada, just got the World Cup,” he wrote on Twitter, now known as X. “Congratulations — a great deal of hard work!” THREE DIFFERENT TOURNAMENTS What began with a united bid is turning into parallel tournaments: with different fan bases, security procedures and off-field programs, all a function of different policy choices in each host country. Fans from Iran and Haiti are barred from entering the United States under travel restrictions imposed by Trump, while other World Cup countries are subject to elevated scrutiny that could block travel plans. (Official team delegations are exempt.) Canada and Mexico do not impose the same restrictions, creating uneven access across the tournament: fans traveling from Ivory Coast will likely find it much easier to reach Toronto for a June 20 match against Germany than one in Philadelphia five days later against Curaçao. “FIFA recognizes that immigration policy falls within the jurisdiction of sovereign governments,” read a statement provided by the FIFA spokesperson. “Engagement therefore focuses on dialogue and cooperation with host authorities to support inclusive tournament delivery, while respecting national law.” A fan who does cross borders will encounte a patchwork of security régimes depending on which government is in charge. Mexican authorities draw from deep experience policing soccer matches, with a mix of traditional crowd-control tactics and advanced technology like four-legged robots. The United States is emphasizing novel drone defenses and asked other countries for lists of its most problematic fans. Ongoing immigration enforcement actions in the U.S. have also prompted concern among the international soccer community and calls for a boycott of the tournament. The White House this month issued clarifying talking points to host cities to buttress the “shared commitment to safety, hospitality, and a successful tournament experience for all.” The document confirms that U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement “may have a presence” at the tournament to assist with non-immigration-related functions like aviation security and anti-human trafficking efforts. No where is the fragmentation more glaring among countries than on human rights. After previous World Cups were accused of “sportswashing” autocratic regimes in Qatar and Russia, the United Bid made “human rights and labor standards” a centerpiece of its proposal to FIFA. The bid stipulated that each host city by August 2025 must submit concrete plans for how the city would protect individual rights, including respect for “indigenous peoples, migrant workers and their families, national, ethnic and religious minorities, people with disabilities, women, race, LGBTQI+, journalists, and human rights defenders.” “Human rights were embedded in the bid from the beginning,” said Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden, who worked closely with Mary Harvey, a former U.S. goalkeeper and soccer executive who now leads the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, on the language. Harvey consulted with 70 civil-society groups across the three countries while developing the strategy. That deadline passed without a single U.S. city submitting their plan on time. Now just months before the kickoff, host cities have finally started to release their reports, creating a patchwork of approaches. While Vancouver’s report makes multiple references to respecting LGBTQ+ populations, Houston’s has no mention of sexual orientation and identity at all. The FIFA spokesperson says the organization has embedded inclusion and human rights commitments directly into agreements signed by host countries, cities and stadium operators, and that dedicated FIFA Human Rights, Safeguarding and Anti-Discrimination teams will monitor implementation and hold local organizers to account for violations. “All of these standards were supposed to be uniform across these three countries,” said Worden. “It wasn’t supposed to be the lowest common denominator with the U.S. being really low.”

The Cyprus presidency will postpone or move to virtual format all EU meetings scheduled to take place on the island in March due to the ongoing Middle East crisis, two Cypriot officials told POLITICO. All the European Union meetings scheduled to take place at the ministerial level will be rescheduled to a later date, while conferences and meetings at the level of technocrats will be conducted via teleconference, according to the officials. “Due to developments in the region there were difficulties or cancellations with the flights not only to Cyprus, but also to other countries in the region, so we had to be flexible,” one of the Cypriot officials said. The third-smallest country in the EU assumed the presidency of the Council of the EU in January. It is the second time Cyprus has held the presidency since joining the bloc in 2004. The unfolding crisis has already forced the island nation to postpone the European affairs ministers meeting on March 2-3 and the culture ministers meeting on March 5-6. Among other meetings included on the calendar for March are a defense ministers gathering on March 11-12, a telecommunications meeting on March 23-24, the Ecofin on March 27-28, and a Research and Competitiveness Council on March 30-31. An informal European Council meetings with all EU leaders is scheduled to be held in Cyprus on April 23-24 and so far has not been postponed. The Cypriot presidency was aspiring to invite leaders from the countries in the broader region for discussions on the Middle East. So far, Greece, France and Spain have sent warships and fighter jets to Cyprus after Iranian drones targeted British bases on the island earlier this week.

Moscow is set to regain an official national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, the prestigious international contemporary art exhibition held every two years in Italy — marking Russia’s return following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Biennale Foundation onWednesday confirmed the participation of the Russian Federation in its 61st International Art Exhibition. “In response to the communications and requests for participation from Countries, La Biennale di Venezia rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art,” it said. “La Biennale, like the city of Venice, continues to be a place of dialogue, openness, and artistic freedom, encouraging connections between peoples and cultures, with enduring hope for the cessation of conflicts and suffering.” Italy’s Ministry of Culture said the foundation “decided entirely independently on the Russian Federation’s participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition in Venice, despite the Italian government’s opposition.” Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco defended the decision, telling Italian media that the exhibition is “a space of truce” where art prevails over geopolitics. He confirmed that Russia, Iran, Israel, Ukraine and Belarus will all be present. Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for international cultural cooperation, told media that Russia’s participation was “further proof that Russian culture is not isolated, and that attempts to ‘cancel’ it — undertaken for the past four years by Western political elites — have not succeeded.” Ksenia Malykh, co-curator of the Ukrainian pavilion at the Biennale, told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne that Russia’s return to major international art events did not come as a surprise to Ukraine’s cultural community. “Everyone who has been involved in international cultural projects over the past four years is not very surprised, unfortunately, because Russia has been finding ways to get into important venues in one form or another all this time,” she said. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys wrote on X that “there can be no return to business as usual with a murderer and a terrorist. Russia continues its large-scale war against Ukraine … The decision to roll out the red carpet to Russia’s dark cultural diplomacy is abhorrent.” The development comes as international sporting bodies also begin reopening doors to Russia, with athletes competing under the Russian flag at the Winter Paralympics in Italy this month.

Across Europe, governments are moving quickly to harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI). National strategies are being announced, innovation hubs funded and pilot programs launched. From healthcare to taxation, I have seen how AI is emerging as a powerful lever to enhance public services and safeguard digital resilience. Europe’s population is aging and economic pressure is being felt across the continent. At the same time, citizens expect faster, simpler services. In this context, departments are looking for targeted AI uses that reduce manual workload and improve service quality without adding risk or cost. > In order for AI to add value to an organization, it needs up‑to‑date data, > clear ownership and simple routes to information sharing across teams. However, progress is uneven. Many organizations are still at the trial stage. Capgemini research shows that nearly 90 percent plan to explore, pilot or implement agentic AI within the next two to three years, while EU institutions and member states are committing billions to digital transformation centered around AI. Only 21 percent of public sector organizations have advanced beyond experimentation to pilots or actual deployment of generative AI. The practical blocker is not enthusiasm: it is whether data is accurate, shared when needed and safe to use. A reality check for AI maturity In order for AI to add value to an organization, it needs up‑to‑date data, clear ownership and simple routes to information sharing across teams. Less than one in four organizations globally report high maturity in these fields. For civil servants, this often translates into small teams juggling operational delivery with transformation agendas, learning new tools on the job and managing risk without clear playbooks. > More than half of public sector organizations are concerned about AI > sovereignty, which is becoming central to safeguarding digital resilience. This gap matters. AI initiatives built on fragile data foundations may face risks such as inefficiency, bias and security vulnerabilities, which can erode trust in automated decisions, both internally and with citizens. Strengthening public sector data is therefore not only key to enabling AI, but also essential for improving the accuracy, efficiency and reliability of government decision-making. Getting the basics right also helps deliver ‘once‑only’ service patterns so citizens no longer need to repeatedly provide the same information to different authorities. By creating greater interoperability and portability, governments can reduce lock-in and strengthen long-term resilience. The readiness gap Europe is not lacking in ambition. Progress is underway, but common challenges remain; data silos between agencies, varying quality standards, unclear governance for data sharing and legacy systems that limit interoperability. Cultural hesitancy toward data-driven decision-making adds complexity, but it is not insurmountable. The good news is that these issues can be addressed with a strategic focus on data foundations and practical steps that reflect how government works: small, safe changes; clear owners; and visible benefits to users and staff. When data is accessible, trusted, and well managed, civil servants can share information confidently, driving innovation while maintaining compliance and security. > Setting clear targets, aligning strategy with operational reality, and > encouraging collaboration and shared behaviors across teams helps embed data > use into everyday work rather than treating it as an added burden. Through engagement with industry and public-sector stakeholders, I see growing momentum around these priorities and an opportunity for Europe to lead the way in scaling AI responsibly to deliver smarter, more efficient public services for citizens. Building the foundations of public sector AI Governments cannot buy their way into AI readiness, but can work to build it through sustained investment in four interconnected pillars. First, data sharing. Solving complex public sector challenges with AI depends on information flowing safely across organizational boundaries. In practice, this means making it easier for departments and agencies to reuse data that already exists. While most public sector organizations have initiatives underway, only 35 percent have rolled out or fully deployed data-sharing methods. Second, data control and sovereignty. Concerns about compliance and control are a daily reality for public sector leaders, and they are slowing AI adoption. More than half of public sector organizations are concerned about AI sovereignty, which is becoming central to safeguarding digital resilience. Compliance with data-localization laws and control over sensitive information become more complex when AI services are hosted in foreign jurisdictions. A 2024 European Commission report found that 80 percent of Europe’s digital technologies and infrastructure are imported. Third, a data-driven culture. This is a critical pillar of AI readiness. Setting clear targets, aligning strategy with operational reality, and encouraging collaboration and shared behaviors across teams helps embed data use into everyday work rather than treating it as an added burden. Fourth, data infrastructure. Robust, cloud-based data infrastructure is essential for storing, processing and analyzing data at scale, while respecting sovereignty requirements. Today, the lack of such infrastructure is the primary obstacle to effective data use. Only 41 percent of public sector executives say they can access data at the speed required for decision-making. Budget constraints are a real barrier, but they need not be paralyzing. By focusing on gradual, outcome-driven improvements rather than costly overhauls, organizations can demonstrate value and realize business outcomes. Public sector organizations such as the City of Tampere illustrate this four-pillar approach. By building data foundations gradually and strategically, while addressing data sharing, sovereignty, culture and infrastructure together, Tampere has shown how thoughtful investment can deliver tangible results without losing sight of long-term ambition. Achieving digital maturity AI can transform the public sector, but only if data readiness becomes the true measure of digital maturity. With sustained focus on governance, interoperability, culture, and infrastructure, governments can start to turn ambition into impact and deliver smarter, more trusted public services for every citizen.