PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday preparatory work was under way to restart direct discussions between Europe and Russia over the war in Ukraine. “It has to be prepared, so technical discussions are under way to prepare for this,” Macron said, answering a reporter who asked the president about his call in December to restart talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It is important that Europeans restore their own channels of communication, it is being prepared at the technical level,” Macron added, during a visit to farmers in the Haute-Saône department. Macron said talks with Putin should be coordinated with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his “main European colleagues,” insisting on the role of the so-called “coalition of the willing,” which brings together like-minded countries supporting Ukraine. The president was, however, quick to note that, by continuing to bomb Ukraine, Russia was not showing any willingness to negotiate a peace deal. “First and foremost, today, we continue to support Ukraine, which is under bombs, in the cold, with attacks on civilians and on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure by the Russians, which are intolerable and don’t show a real willingness to negotiate for peace.”

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s celebrations over the imminent passage of the 2026 budget will be short-lived. Once it’s approved, he’s going to be a lame duck until the presidential election of spring next year. Current and former ministers, lawmakers and political aides — including three Macron allies — told POLITICO that now that the budget fight is over and the concerns of angry citizens and jittery markets are assuaged, the whole cycle of French politics will shift to campaign mode at the expense of the dirty work of lawmaking.  First will come next month’s municipal elections, where voters in all of France’s 35,000-plus communes will elect mayors and city councils. Then all attention will flip to the race for the all-powerful presidency, Macron cannot run again due to term limits, and polls show he could be replaced by a candidate from the far-right National Rally. “It’s the end of [Macron’s] term,” a former adviser close to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said of the budget’s passage.   Gabriel Attal, Macron’s former prime minister who now leads the French president’s party, confirmed in an interview with French media last month that he told his troops the budget marked “the end” of Macron’s second term.  “I stand by what I said,” Attal told FranceInfo.  As president, Macron continues to exert a strong influence over foreign affairs and defense, two realms that will keep him on the world stage given the geopolitical upheaval brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Domestically, however, he’s been hampered by the snap election in 2024 that delivered a hung parliament.  Lecornu was only able to avoid being toppled over the passage of the budget, as his two immediate predecessors were, thanks to his political savvy, some compromises and a few bold decisions. These included pausing Macron’s flagship pension reform that raised the retirement age and going back on his promise not to use a constitutional backdoor to ram it through without a vote. “Lecornu was smart enough to make the budget phase pass and end on a high note. That’s commendable, given that [former Prime Ministers Michel] Barnier and [François] Bayrou didn’t manage to do so, and he did it with considerable skill,” said a ministerial adviser who, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.  But Lecornu’s decision to prioritize uncontroversial measures in the coming weeks speak to the difficulties that lie ahead.   These priorities include defining the division of power between the central government and local authorities, and streamlining and centralizing welfare payments that are currently doled out in an ad hoc fashion. Lecornu is also planning to get to work early on France’s 2027 fiscal plans to try to prevent the third budget crisis in a row.  French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu leaves the Elysee Palace in Paris after a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 28. His decision to prioritize uncontroversial measures in the coming weeks speak to the difficulties ahead. | Mohammed Badra/EPA “There will be a presidential election in 2027. Before then, we need to agree on a bottom line which allows the country to move forward,” government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said Thursday on Sud Radio.  Lecornu has repeatedly stressed that his government should be disconnected from the race for president, blaming “partisan appetites” for both the budget crisis and the collapse of his 14-hour government, which was eventually replaced with a suite of less ambitious ministers.   But it’s ironic that some French government officials and MPs are now saying the self-described warrior-monk prime minister may have vaulted himself into the realm of presidential contender with his budget win. Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos, said Lecornu had clearly become a more viable presidential candidate but noted that the jump from prime minister to president “is always a hard task.”  One parliamentary leader was much less sanguine. They said the same “partisan appetites” Lecornu has long warned about will likely cost him his job before voters head to the polls to choose Macron’s successor.   “[Lecornu] has few friends … And now that the budget has passed, every political group can have fun throwing him out of office to plant their flag before the next presidential election,” the leader said.  Anthony Lattier, Sarah Paillou and Elisa Bertholomey contributed to this report. 

BRUSSELS — France is hurtling toward a ban for children younger than 15 to access social media — a move that would see it become only the second country in the world to take that step. The plan comes amid rising concerns about the impacts of apps including Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X on children’s mental health. After Australia in December kicked kids under 16 off a host of platforms, France is leading the charge in Europe with a bill that would prohibit social media for under-15s as soon as this year. Supported by President Emmanuel Macron and his centrist Renaissance party, the proposed law passed the French parliament’s lower chamber in the early hours of Tuesday. Here are 5 things to know. WHEN WILL A BAN KICK IN? While the timing isn’t finalized, the government is targeting September of this year. “As of September 1st, our children and adolescents will finally be protected. I will see to it,” Macron said in an X post. The bill now has to be voted on by the French Senate, and Macron’s governing coalition is aiming for a discussion on Feb. 16. If the Senate votes the bill through, a joint committee with representatives of both upper and lower houses of parliament will be formed to finalize the text. WHICH PLATFORMS WILL BE BANNED? That decision will lie with France’s media authority Arcom, since the legislation itself doesn’t outline which platforms will or won’t be covered. The architect of the bill, Renaissance lawmaker Laure Miller, has said it will be similar to Australia’s and would likely see under-15s banned from using Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X. Australia no longer allows children under 16 to create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. Australia’s list doesn’t include Discord, GitHub, Google Classroom, LEGO Play, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, Steam and Steam Chat, WhatsApp or YouTube Kids. Miller has also described plans to come up with a definition that could see the ban cover individual features on social media platforms. WhatsApp Stories and Channels — a feature of the popular messaging app — could be included, as well as the online chat within the gaming platform Roblox, the French MP said. WHO WILL ENFORCE IT? With France set to be the first country within the European Union to take this step, a major sticking point as the bill moves through parliament has been who will enforce it. Authorities have finally settled on an answer: Brussels. The EU has comprehensive social media rules, the Digital Services Act, which on paper prohibits countries from giving big platforms additional obligations. After some back and forth between France and the European Commission, they have come to an agreement. France can’t give more obligations to platforms but it can set a minimum age on accessing social media. It will then be up to the Commission to ensure national rules are followed. This is similar to how other parts of the DSA work, such as illegal content. Exactly what is illegal content is determined by national law, and the Commission must then make sure that platforms are properly assessing and mitigating the risks of spreading it. How exactly the EU will make sure no children in France are accessing sites is untested. DSA violations can lead to fines of up to 6 percent of platforms’ annual global revenue. WHAT ARE THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGES? Companies within the industry have been at loggerheads over who should implement age gates that would render the social media ban possible. Platform providers including Meta say that operating system services should implement age checks, whereas OS and app store providers such as Apple say the opposite. The Commission has not clearly prescribed responsibility to either side of the industry, but France has interpreted guidance from Brussels as putting the onus on the service providers. France’s bill therefore puts the responsibility on the likes of TikTok and Instagram. Exactly what the technical solution will be to implement a ban is up to the platforms, as long as it meets requirements for accuracy and privacy. Some public entities have developed solutions, like the French postal service’s “Jeprouvemonage,” which the platforms can use. Privately developed tech is also available. “No solution will be imposed on the platforms by the state,” the office of the minister for digital affairs told journalists.  IS THIS HAPPENING IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES? France is not the only European country working on such restrictions. Denmark’s parliament agreed on restrictions for under-15s, although parents can allow them to go on social media if they are older than 13. Denmark hasn’t passed a formal bill. Austria’s digital minister said an Australia-style ban is being developed for under-14s. Bills are going through the Spanish and Italian parliaments, and Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has also voiced support for similar plans. Germany is considering its options. The Dutch government has issued guidance to say kids younger than 15 should not access social media like TikTok. Many of these countries as well as the European Parliament have said they want something done at the EU level. While the Commission has said it will allow EU countries to set their own minimum ages for accessing social media, it is also trying to come up with measures that would apply across the entire bloc. President Ursula von der Leyen has been personally paying attention to this issue and is setting up a panel of experts to figure out if an EU-wide ban is desirable and tenable.

LONDON — Keir Starmer has been throwing a little shade at fellow world leaders. The British prime minister ditched his buttoned-up public persona on Monday evening to poke fun at France’s Emmanuel Macron during a live recording of comedian Matt Forde’s podcast. Handed a pair of aviator sunglasses, similar to those worn by the French president during the World Economic Forum in Davos last week due to an eye health issue, Starmer put them on and jibed to audience laughter: “Bonjour.” The clip was posted on the PM’s TikTok feed with a message to Macron saying: “Talk to me, Goose” — a reference to the 1986 Tom Cruise film “Top Gun.” > @keirstarmer @Emmanuel Macron ♬ original sound – Keir Starmer Starmer told Forde that while he will consider wearing the specs to international summits, he will need his normal glasses back to be able to see in parliament. It’s not the first time Macron’s shades have raised eyebrows. “I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Donald Trump remarked during a speech at Davos. Starmer also disclosed that Trump regularly rings him on his mobile phone, rather than using official government communications. “Once I was in the flat with the kids cleaning pasta off the table after their dinner, and the phone goes and it’s Donald on the phone,” Starmer said. “Another time, I’d say most inconvenient, we’re halfway through the Arsenal-PSG game,” he added, referencing his love of the top-flight soccer team. In a more serious moment, Starmer defended his decision to travel to China this week, in the first trip to the country by a British prime minister since 2018. “If you’re a leader on the international stage, you are dealing with whoever is the leader in another country. I mean, it’s that simple,” he said.  

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

BERLIN — As Europe’s traditional Franco-German engine splutters, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is increasingly looking to team up with hard-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as his co-pilot in steering the EU. The two are set to meet at a summit in the opulent Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome on Friday to double down on their budding alliance. They are both right-wing Atlanticists who want to cool tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump. And they both have their frustrations with French President Emmanuel Macron. In years past, Germany would traditionally have turned to France at decisive moments to map out blueprints for the EU, so it’s significant that Merz is now aligning with Meloni in his attempt to drive forward core European priorities on trade and industry. In part, Merz’s gravitation toward Meloni is driven by annoyance with France. Berlin is irritated that Paris sought to undermine the landmark Mercosur trade deal with South America, which the Germans have long wanted in order to promote industrial exports. Germany is also considering pulling out of a €100 billion joint fighter-jet program over disputes with the French. Against that backdrop, the alignment with Rome has a compelling logic. During Friday’s meeting, Merz and Meloni are expected to sign up to cooperation on defense, according to diplomats involved in the preparations. It’s not clear what that involves, but Germany’s Rheinmetall and Italy’s Leonardo already have a joint venture to build tanks and other military vehicles. Perhaps most ambitiously, Italy and Germany are also teaming up to draft a new game plan to revive EU industry and expand exports in a joint position paper for the Feb. 12 European Council summit. Berlin and Rome style themselves as the “two main industrial European nations” and have condemned delays to the Mercosur agreement. That language will grate in Paris. IN FOR THE LONG HAUL For Giangiacomo Calovini, a lawmaker from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, who heads the parliament’s Italian-German friendship group, the Merz-Meloni alliance makes sense given Macron’s impending departure from the European stage after next year’s French election. “[Our] two countries have stable governments, especially if compared with France’s,” he said. “It is clear that Meloni and Merz still probably have a long path ahead of them, during which they can work together.” Safeguarding the relationship with Trump is crucial to both leaders, and both Merz and Meloni have sought to avoid transatlantic blow-ups. They have been supported in their firefighting by their foreign ministers, Johann Wadephul and Antonio Tajani. “Giorgia Meloni and Friedrich Merz have represented the European wing most open to dialogue with President Trump,” said Pietro Benassi, former Italian ambassador to Berlin and the EU. “The somewhat surreal acceleration [of events] driven by the American president is confirming a convergence in the positions of Italy and Germany, rather than between Italy and France, or France and Germany.” In contrast to the softly-softly approach in Rome and Berlin, Calovini accused Macron of unhelpfully “contradictory” behavior toward Trump. “He acts as the one who wants to challenge the United States of America but then sends texts — that Trump has inelegantly published — in which he begs Trump to have dinner,” he complained. GOOD CHEMISTRY Officials in Berlin now privately gush over the growing cooperation with Meloni, describing the relationship with Rome as dependable. “Italy is reliable,” said one senior German government official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. It’s not an adjective authorities in Berlin have often used to describe their French counterparts of late. “France is more verbal, but Italy is much more pragmatic,” said Axel Schäfer, a senior lawmaker in Germany’s Social Democratic Party long focused on German-Italian relations. An Italian official also praised the “good chemistry” between Merz and Meloni personally. That forms a marked contrast with the notoriously strained relations between Meloni and Macron, who have frequently clashed. In their effort to draw closer, Merz and Meloni have at times resorted to hyperbole. During his inaugural visit to Rome as chancellor last year, Merz said there was “practically complete agreement between our two countries on all European policy issues.” Meloni returned the sentiment. “It is simply impossible to cast doubt on the relations between Italy and Germany,” she said at the time. MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE That is overegging it. The two leaders, in fact, have considerable differences. Meloni refused to support an ultimately doomed plan, pushed by Merz, to use frozen Russian assets to finance military aid for Ukraine. Meloni also briefly withheld support for the Mercosur trade deal in order to win concessions for Italian farmers before ultimately backing it. Critically, Rome and Berlin are likely to prove very awkward allies when it comes to public finances. Italy has long pushed for looser European fiscal policy — and been a natural ally of France on this point — while Germany has served as the continent’s iron disciplinarian on spending. But even here there has been some convergence, with Meloni cutting Italy’s spending and Merz presiding over a historic expansion in debt-fueled outlays on infrastructure and defense. Fundamentally, much of the growing alliance between Merz and Meloni is a product of shifts undertaken for their own domestic political survival. Meloni has dragged her nationalist Brothers of Italy party to the center, particularly on foreign policy matters. At the same time, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany has forced Merz to shift his conservative party sharply to the right on migration.     This ideological merging has allowed for a warming of relations. As Merz has sought partners on the European level to drastically reduce the inflow of asylum seekers coming to Europe, to reduce regulation and to push for more trade — and provide a counterbalance to Macron — Meloni has become an increasingly important figure for the chancellor. Still, Stefano Stefanini, a former senior Italian diplomat and NATO representative, said there would always be limits to the relationship. “It’s very tactical,” he said. “There’s no coordinated strategy. There are a number of issues on which Meloni and Merz find themselves on the same side.” Stefanini also noted that spending commitments — particularly on military projects — would be an area where Rome would once again find itself in a more natural alliance with France. “On defense spending Italy and France are closer, because Germany has the fiscal capacity to spend by itself, while Italy and France need to get as much financial support as they can from the EU,” he said. Despite such differences, Meloni has seized her opening to get closer to Merz. “Meloni has understood that, as there is some tension in the France-Germany relationship, she could infiltrate and get closer to Germany,” said Marc Lazar, an expert on Franco-Italian relations who teaches at the Luiss University in Rome and at Sciences Po in Paris.

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 ― EU leaders reckon Donald Trump’s about-turn on Greenland happened because they stuck together. And while they’re not claiming victory just yet, they believe there are clear lessons to be learned after several years where splits and rivalry have dominated the bloc. “When Europe is not divided, when we stand together and when we are clear and strong, also in our willingness to stand up for ourselves, then the results will show,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters as she arrived for Thursday’s summit in Brussels. “We have learned something during the last couple of days and weeks.” Brussels exhaled on Wednesday after Trump announced he was backing away from threats of imposing tariffs on countries that sent troops to Greenland, touting a “framework” agreement struck with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte for resolving the crisis. While the fine print of that deal — including whether it respects Denmark’s demand to retain full sovereignty of the island — isn’t yet clear, the situation showed the EU can be effective when it advances in lockstep, shows its ability to strike back and is willing to take clear steps like sending troops to reinforce Arctic security in the Danish-held territory, according to two EU diplomats and two senior EU officials. They spoke to POLITICO having been granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions. “The fact that after those threats were made the EU coordinated very quickly, and reacted very quickly, reacted in a firm and calm way, with principled positions that were clear — this is certainly something that must be taken into account in terms of the reaction that followed,” said a senior EU official. “”We have learned something during the last couple of days and weeks,” said Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images The EU is drawing on months of experience of dealing with the Trump administration, most notably last summer when it came to deciding whether to sign a U.S.-EU trade deal, a senior diplomat said. Before the signing, EU leaders publicly diverged for weeks over how they should respond to Trump’s threat of sky-high tariffs. While the leaders weren’t completely in agreement over Trump’s Greenland threats, the fact that France and Germany quickly agreed on preparing the use of the so-called Anti-Coercion Instrument against the U.S., a powerful trade retaliation tool, showed the bloc was now more decisive in its response. “The debate we had in June-July helped us prepare. There is now a maturity in how the EU prepares and executes,” said the senior diplomat. The decision by eight European countries to send troops to Greenland, on a NATO-led “scoping mission” to bolster Arctic security, also helped to solidify the EU’s position, said former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. “My understanding is that when we speak the language of strength, we manage to push back against certain ambitions,” Attal told France Info radio on Thursday. “This only validates the idea that in a world that is all about power, we need to show that we can bite.” THE NEW PLAYBOOK In the hours after Trump’s huddle with Rutte in Davos, European diplomats were eager to underscore that a confluence of factors likely influenced Trump to take the military option for Greenland off the table, and that it remained to be seen what exactly motivated his thinking Even European diplomats acknowledge it wasn’t all the EU’s doing. Nor do they claim to know Trump’s thinking. They pointed to U.S. public opinion being skeptical about a Greenland takeover, pressure from U.S. lawmakers unwilling to approve such a move and volatility in markets as all possible factors.  But they underscored that, from the European side, there is now a clearer process for protecting EU interests. A key element is reaching out to U.S. lawmakers and business executives to convince that a transatlantic blow-up — or even, as Frederiksen suggested, the death of NATO — would not be in their interest. “Europe has every reason to act with confidence,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said during his way into Thursday’s summit. Another factor is the EU’s willingness to signal the readiness to retaliate. Diplomats pointed to European Parliament leaders pushing to delay approval of the EU-U.S. trade deal as evidence of institutions that are working together more quickly. Rhetoric counts too, they said, pointing to French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for the Anti-Coercion Instrument and a speech from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowing an “unflinching” response. “The conclusion we can draw is that when Europe responds in a united way, using the tools at its disposal … it can command respect,” Macron said on his way into the summit. “And that is a good thing.”

DAVOS, Switzerland — In fashion, accessories make the dress. In politics, they make the moment. French President Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses and his Top Gun look at the World Economic Forum were the talk of the Swiss town this week and beyond, so much so that it seemed to make people forget the geopolitical hits he took from the likes of Donald Trump as Paris tried to push back against the U.S. president’s now-withdrawn tariff threats against those opposing his designs on Greenland. Even Trump complimented the French leader’s pair of blue aviator sunglasses. “Beautiful. But what the hell happened?” he said during his keynote speech on Wednesday. What happened was Macron appeared to have burst a blood vessel in his eye. The French president first appeared in public with a bloodshot eye on Jan. 15 for a speech to the French military, which he began by apologizing for its “unsightly appearance” but also noting it was “completely harmless.” The next day he showed up at a meeting at the Elysée sporting the now-famous shades, widely reported to be from the French brand Henry Jullien (€650 a pair), which he again apologized for and said he was required to wear for several days. The glasses were ridiculed in some corners. The running joke in Davos was that he and Brigitte got into another scrape. But resorting to an eyepatch, like Olaf Scholz did while running in 2023, wasn’t an option, not least because of the pirate-themed ridicule the then-German chancellor suffered. That accessory in France has long been associated with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founding father of the French far right. Resorting to an eyepatch, like Olaf Scholz did while running in 2023, wasn’t an option, not least because of the pirate-themed ridicule the then-German chancellor suffered. That accessory in France has long been associated with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founding father of the French far right/AFP via Getty Images Fortunately for Macron, when the internet noticed, the verdict was largely favorable. The shades were a sensation. Online memes portrayed a cool Macron as a Godfather-like figure, a heavyweight wrestler or a fighter pilot. > The young padawans of the french psyops division are learning quite quickly > how to meme > > It deserves to be encouraged > > Nice start#macron #meme pic.twitter.com/yKHRZuc6u6 > > — Marouene Chaibi (@Marouenechaibi) January 21, 2026 And like many things that spread like wildfire on social media, the memes are both petty and deeply meaningful. Europeans have forever been on the back foot when it comes to dealing with Trump, projecting indecisiveness, weakness and division. With European momentum growing in favor of confronting Trump, are Macron and his blue-tinted shades the symbol of European coolness and sophistication they need to combat the brash MAGA world? The French president himself has enthusiastically leaned into the underdog motif. Speaking to a gathering of French CEOs on Tuesday evening, he echoed a refrain from his speech to the French military, to channel their inner “Eye of the Tiger” mojo. “That’s why I’m wearing these glasses,” he said. “Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up” in the face of uncertainties and challenges, he hammered. “We’re going back to bootcamp. It’s Rocky III,” he said. The CEOs cheered. Standing up to superpowers is a quintessentially French role, reaching back to Charles de Gaulle and beyond. France is a country where school children are brought up reading about Asterix and Obelix, the story of embattled Gauls fighting against the Roman Empire. Macron and his country this week embraced that role by calling on the European Union to use the Anti-Coercion Instrument against the U.S. in response to Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland; then declining an invitation to join Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace, citing concerns over its extensive powers, to which Trump responded by threatening 200 percent tariffs on French wine and Champagne; and finally, hours before Trump touched down in Switzerland, calling for NATO to organize a military drill in Greenland. On stage in Davos Tuesday, Macron wasn’t afraid to poke at Trump, telling the audience that he preferred “respect to bullies.” There’s something slightly reckless in Macron’s recent moves. But he is a man with little to lose. A tired lame-duck centrist, he faces the possibility of a painfully slow end to his reign before the next presidential election in 2027. Macron can, at least for now, project power in memes. But turning that into political muscle is a whole different dogfight. Kathryn Carlson contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — The European factions who hold different views on dealing with Donald Trump each have a figurehead. Let’s meet them. Their roles are crucial as EU leaders meet in Brussels Thursday evening, hours after the U.S. president said he had formed “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland with NATO chief Mark Rutte. The announcement throws the emergency European Council into uncertainty and will see those around the table trying to get a handle on what has actually been agreed, and how they respond to it. Trump’s declaration that tariffs won’t be imposed on EU countries as part of the spat means it’s unlikely leaders will sign off on a range of planned retaliatory trade measures that had been on the table. However, three officials and diplomats — granted anonymity to speak freely — told POLITICO that the working dinner remains vital for discussing a range of issues affecting relations with the U.S., including Washington’s new push for talks between Russia and Ukraine, as well as its creation of a Gaza Peace Board. European Council President António Costa, who is chairing the meeting, will have to contend with different camps when it comes to how to deal with Trump. Here’s who to watch at the summit (and you can keep up with all the news and analysis on our live blog). THE FIREBRAND: FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON Macron has emerged at the helm of a small but growing band of countries that want to take Trump on. In Davos on Tuesday, the French centrist branded the Greenland push as “imperialism or new colonialism” and bemoaned Trump’s “useless aggressivity.” France has consistently pushed for Europe to be less dependent on the U.S., and its arms industry stands to benefit from its call on allies to buy more weaponry made on the continent. Behind the scenes, French diplomats were pushing for the deployment of the ACI, making it clear in no uncertain terms that the bloc will stand up to economic blackmail. But texts published by Trump show that Macron — who once had a warmer relationship with the American president — has tried to continue his charm offensive out of view of the cameras. Macron is backed up by leaders such as Belgium’s Bart De Wever, who has said publicly that “there’s no point in being soft anymore” and he would be prepared for a “trade war” if needed. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, one of the few socialist leaders in the Council, has also been vocal in his condemnation of Trump. That group will be emboldened by the fact that the White House seemingly backed down in the face of diplomatic and economic pressure over Greenland. The fact European leaders are taking this so seriously and holding emergency talks “was clearly part of changing [Trump’s] mind,” said a senior European diplomat about Thursday’s meeting. THE RELUCTANT SUPPORTER: GERMAN CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ Despite Berlin’s fragile governing coalition initially sending mixed messages about its intentions, Merz appears to be coming around to Macron’s strategy. With his focus firmly on economics, Merz effectively speaks for the countries that would rather not be dragged into fresh rows with Trump but are starting to feel there may be no other option. He has publicly said “we want to avoid any escalation in this dispute, if at all possible,” but vowed “we will of course protect our European interests, as well as our German national interests.” Like many others, Merz has tried charm — sitting awkwardly through an Oval Office meeting with Trump last year as the president brought up Germany’s Nazi past. Now, the chancellor seems resigned to the prospect that more will need to be done. In private, German diplomats have joined forces with their French counterparts in a rare show of unity to signal they would be ready to support beginning the ACI process. “There is indeed a convergence in the positions between France and Germany, which was previously unthinkable,” said the EU diplomat. THE LITMUS TEST: ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER GIORGIA MELONI All eyes are on Meloni, who has simultaneously carved out a special relationship with Trump while also playing a key role in the development of the EU’s foreign affairs policy as part of an elite group of big economies. When she joins forces with those who want to be more assertive, it’s a significant sign that Trump has probably gone too far. Meloni spoke to the president over the weekend by telephone. “Our goal is not to fight with the Americans,” her foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, told POLITICO after the call, arguing a “win-win” solution could be found. While Meloni is often reluctant to sacrifice her communications channel with the White House, there’s an expectation she will ultimately side with her fellow Europeans. “Meloni understands. She is serious,” a second senior diplomat said, arguing that if her line to Trump fails to produce results, there’s little point continuing to protect it. Another notably cautious figure around the Council table will be Dick Schoof, the prime minister of the Netherlands, who has been reluctant to openly criticize Trump despite his country being one of the targets of the new tariff threats. The Dutch government has emphasized the need to try to work through the Greenland issue without escalation. THE UNDECIDED: POLISH PRIME MINISTER DONALD TUSK A long-standing pro-EU politician, Tusk nevertheless faces a tough moment — navigating public opinion and a Trump-friendly president in Warsaw. Along with the Baltic nations, Poland borders Russia and is dependent on Washington to continue its military role in the region. Three diplomats told POLITICO that this group of countries, while supportive of standing up for European sovereignty, is more hesitant to do anything they think could be seen as an escalation. They will be breathing a sigh of relief that they don’t have to make any major decisions — yet. THE SYMPATHIZER: CZECH PRIME MINISTER ANDREJ BABIŠ The summit is the second Brussels sit-down for billionaire businessman Babiš since he returned to office. He could be key to demonstrating unity. So far, he has joked that he has bought a globe “to see where Greenland is,” and said Trump’s fears about Russia and China are legitimate, but called for a peaceful agreement to preserve NATO. Another leader to keep an eye on is Slovakia’s Robert Fico. He has frequently criticized the EU and dug in his heels over efforts to diversify away from Russia, but ultimately tends to fall in line on major decisions. He met Trump in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and agreed on joint nuclear power projects, saying he had a special relationship with the president because he is “not a Brussels parrot.” One politician whom those in the room can depend on to oppose almost anything the others might agree on is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — a longtime fan of Trump. Diplomats say Budapest is worried by an increasingly unpredictable Washington but, according to one envoy, Orbán “doesn’t want to rock the boat” given he has a critical election test of his own in April. Victor Jack contributed to this report.