HOUSTON — The Trump administration reached a nearly $1 billion agreement with French energy giant TotalEnergies on Monday to cancel its offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. The announcement marks the latest blow by the Trump administration against the U.S. offshore wind industry, particularly in the Northeast, after it faced a series of recent legal losses. “The era of taxpayers subsidizing unreliable, unaffordable and unsecured energy is officially over,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. As part of the agreement, the Interior Department would terminate the leases for TotalEnergies’ Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects, worth $928 million, the department said. The lease sales occurred during the Biden administration. TotalEnergies committed to invest the value of those leases into oil and natural gas production in the United States, after which the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar for the amount they paid for the offshore wind leases, the department said. The company is poised to redirect the funds toward the Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas and the development of upstream conventional oil in the Gulf of Mexico and of shale gas production, according to the Interior Department. Burgum and TotalEnergies signed the agreements Monday from the conference. President Donald Trump has often attacked the U.S. offshore wind sector as unreliable and expensive. He’s repeatedly said he plans to have “no windmills built in the United States” under his tenure. Still, the settlement would suggest a new tack by the administration to target the sector. The Trump administration previously issued stop-work orders for offshore wind projects currently under construction on the East Coast, but judges lifted all five orders earlier this year. “Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States, in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees,” TotalEnergies Chair and CEO Patrick Pouyanné said in a statement. Pouyanné previously said the company would halt development of the Attentive Energy project, off the New Jersey and New York coasts, following Trump’s return to the White House. Both the Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects were in the early stages of development. Pouyanné told reporters that the company continues to invest in solar, onshore wind and batteries. The deal is a major blow for New York’s offshore wind targets, although proposed projects in the lease area controlled by TotalEnergies and its partners never secured final contracts with the state. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called the prospect of a deal “not helpful” last week. Attentive Energy dropped out of a bidding process for deals with New York in October 2024, even before Trump’s election. The state concluded that process last month with no awards amid the federal uncertainty and officials have struggled to determine next steps for the industry writ large. Hochul has pivoted to an “all of the above” energy strategy in the face of Trump’s opposition to offshore wind — including nuclear and fossil fuels. Further delays to the development of the technology off New York’s coast will likely further the state’s reliance on repowering fossil fuel plants to serve the New York City region. The deal also leaves New Jersey without any workable offshore wind projects at a time when Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill is already searching for more clean energy to combat a regional power crunch. The project was supposed to provide more than 1,300 megawatts of power. Sherrill’s predecessor, Phil Murphy, had lofty ambitions for the industry that were all for naught. His administration approved a series of offshore wind projects that all ran into financial or permitting challenges. The state approved Attentive Energy’s project in early 2024 as part of an attempted reset of the industry, which was already facing woe. The new affront could also prove problematic to permitting reform discussions on the Hill, as Democratic lawmakers have linked progress on those negotiations to whether or not the administration continues its attacks on renewable energy. ClearView Energy Partners said in a note last week the deal could also “re-raise concerns about the durability of federal approvals and therefore further erode, but not eliminate, the thin opportunity for bipartisan permitting reform on Capitol Hill.” So far, Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is staying the course on permitting talks, despite reports of the settlement agreement last week — a development he derided as “just more selling out the public for the fossil fuel industry.” His office did not immediately provide further comment Monday. Some Moderate New York Republicans last week also criticized the reported settlement. Marie French and Ry Rivard contributed to this report.

LONDON — Trade Secretary Peter Kyle is expected to announce the U.K.’s steel strategy at Tata Steel UK’s mill in Port Talbot on Thursday. The strategy will set out new protections for Britain’s steel sector, slashing quotas on imports of many products from overseas while raising duties outside those caps to 50 percent, two people familiar with the announcement told POLITICO. “The tariff will be doubled to 50 percent in line with what the Europeans have done, the Canadians have done, the Americans have done,” a senior business representative familiar with the plans said. There will “be some exemptions” for products British steelmakers don’t make, they added. British officials have told both U.K. steel producers and downstream importers, who use steel in everything from construction to automotive manufacturing, to expect a 50 percent duty outside of new quotas in a move “likely to be similar to the EU,” said a second industry figure. Both industry figures were granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Last October, the EU announced plans to reduce its quotas on foreign steel imports by almost half and levy a 50 percent tariff on goods exceeding the cap. The move is part of an overhaul of so-called safeguard protections that expire in both the EU and U.K., under World Trade Organization rules, at the end of June. The U.K.’s strategy setting out the future of the sector has been repeatedly delayed. On Thursday, Kyle will set out a new scheme of trade protections to replace the so-called steel safeguards scheme. A Tata Steel UK executive told lawmakers in early February that the government “had eight weeks to save the British steel industry” by shielding it with new protectionist measures from a glut of cheap imports from countries like China. Steel importers, however, are unlikely to get the full gamut of exemptions under the scheme they had hoped for, said the second industry figure, noting they’re “prepared for the worst.” The government will “jeopardize downstream manufacturers if they make the import restrictions too prohibitive,” they said. “There will be some exemptions, but not as many as they hoped for,” said the senior business representative. “This government has been crystal clear in committing to a bright and sustainable future for steelmaking and steel jobs in the U.K., and we will publish a steel strategy shortly setting out how we can achieve a sustainable future for the sector,” said a government spokesperson.

Andrej Babiš built his fortune making fertilizer. But another, lesser-known arm of his business empire has helped bring more than 170,000 children into the world across Europe. The Czech prime minister’s name is rarely attached to FutureLife, one of Europe’s largest IVF clinic networks, spanning 60 clinics in 16 countries from Prague to Madrid to Dublin. But is just one part of a commercial empire that spans nitrogen-based fertilizers and industrial farms, assisted reproduction, online lingerie stores and more. And the Czech leader holds this portfolio while sitting at the table negotiating EU budgets, health rules and industrial policy. Yet in Brussels, nobody can answer a deceptively simple question: Which of the companies associated with Babiš receives EU money — and how much? “We might be giving him money and we don’t even know,” said Daniel Freund, a German Green lawmaker who led the European Parliament’s inquiries into Babiš during his first term as Czechia’s prime minister from 2017 to 2021. In 2021, the Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a resolution condemning Babiš over conflicts of interest involving EU subsidies and companies he founded. Under EU rules, member countries are responsible for checking conflicts of interest and reporting on who ultimately benefits from EU funds. But there is no single EU-wide register linking ultimate beneficial owners to all EU payments — making cross-border oversight difficult. The issue has resurfaced as Babiš returns to power and once again takes a seat among other EU heads of state and government in the European Council. In that exclusive body, he helps negotiate the bloc’s long-term budget, agricultural subsidies and other funding frameworks that shape the sectors in which his companies might operate. For years, debates over Babiš’s conflicts of interest have revolved around a single name — Agrofert, the agro-industrial empire that EU and Czech auditors found had improperly received over €200 million in EU and national agricultural subsidies. The payment suspensions and repayment demands continue: This week, Czech authorities halted some agricultural subsidies to Agrofert pending a fresh legal review of the company’s compliance with conflict-of-interest rules. Babiš has consistently rejected accusations of wrongdoing. His office said he “follows all binding rules” and that “there is no conflict of interests at the moment,” adding that Agrofert shares are managed by independent experts and that he “is not and will never be the owner of Agrofert shares.” In a parliamentary debate earlier this month, he dismissed the controversy as politically motivated, accusing opponents of having “invented” the conflict-of-interest issue because they were unable to defeat him at the ballot box. But critics argue that the renewed focus on Agrofert obscures a far broader commercial footprint. “Agrofert is only half of the problem,” said Petr Bartoň, chief economist at Natland, a private investment group based in Prague. “The law does not say ‘thou shalt not benefit from companies called Agrofert.’ It says you must not benefit from any companies subsidized by or receiving public money.” The concern, critics argue, arises from the sheer number of companies and sectors with which Babiš remains associated. THE INVISIBLE PILLAR Separate from Agrofert sits Hartenberg Holding, a private-equity vehicle Babiš co-founded with financier Jozef Janov in 2013. He holds a majority stake in the fund through SynBiol, a company he fully owns and which, unlike Agrofert, has not been transferred into any trust arrangement. With assets worth around €600 million, Hartenberg invests in health care, retail, aviation and real estate. Yet it has attracted only a fraction of the scrutiny directed at the agricultural holding, according to Lenka Stryalová of the Czech public-spending watchdog Hlídač státu. “Alongside Agrofert, there is a second, less visible pillar of Babiš’s business activities that is not currently intended to be placed into blind trusts,” she said. That pillar includes FutureLife, whose 2,100 specialists help individuals and couples conceive across Czechia, Slovakia, the U.K., Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Estonia. The clinics operate in a policy-sensitive space shaped primarily by national health reimbursement systems and insurance rules, rather than decisions taken directly in Brussels. Those systems, however, function within a broader EU regulatory framework governing cross-border care and state aid. Hartenberg owns 50.1 percent of FutureLife. The company said in a statement that Babiš has no operational role, no board seat and no decision-making authority. It added that FutureLife clinics operate like other health care providers and, where applicable, are reimbursed by national public health insurance systems under the same rules as other providers. Like thousands of other companies, some FutureLife entities received pandemic-era wage support under Czechia’s Covid relief programs. There is no evidence of any irregularity in those payments.  But health care is only one corner of the portfolio. Through Hartenberg, Babiš-linked capital also flows into everyday retail life. Astratex, a Czech-founded online lingerie retailer that began as a catalogue business before moving fully online in 2005, now operates localized e-shops across roughly 10 European markets and generates tens of millions of euros in annual revenue. Hartenberg acquired a controlling stake in 2018, marking one of the fund’s early expansions into cross-border digital retail. In Czechia, shoppers may also encounter Flamengo florist stands, a network of around 200 outlets selling bouquets, potted plants and funeral flower arrangements inside supermarkets and shopping malls. Hartenberg acquired a majority stake in the chain in 2019, backing its expansion and push into online delivery. Other online businesses linked to Babiš include sports equipment, and wool and textile retailers. Through Hartenberg, Babiš has also invested in urban development and real estate. Hartenberg was an early majority investor in the project company behind Prague’s Císařská vinice, a premium hillside development of villas and apartments near Ladronka park, partnering with developer JRD to finance construction. JRD Development Group said the project company is now 100 percent owned by JRD and that neither Babiš nor companies linked to him hold any direct or indirect ownership interest. The firm added that the development has not received EU funds or other public financial support. None of the Hartenberg businesses have ever been accused of misusing EU subsidies. But the long-running “Stork’s Nest” case, first investigated more than a decade ago and still unresolved, shows how difficult it can be to follow Babiš’s business web. The alleged fraud involved a €2 million EU subsidy provided in 2008 to the 31-room Čapí Hnízdo (Stork’s Nest) recreational and conference center in central Czechia, then part of Babiš’s Agrofert conglomerate. Prosecutors have accused Babiš and his associates of manipulating the center’s ownership and concealing his control of the business in order to obtain the subsidy. Babiš has always denied wrongdoing, telling POLITICO in 2019 that the case was politically motivated. He was acquitted in 2023, but an appeals court later overturned that verdict and ordered a retrial, which remains pending. Today, the resort itself is no longer part of Agrofert. It is owned by Imoba, a company fully controlled by Babiš’s SynBiol, the same holding that controls Hartenberg. Hartenberg itself holds no stake in Stork’s Nest. Taken together, Babis’ non-Agrofert portfolio spans health care reimbursement systems, online retail regulation, aviation safety oversight, real estate and city-planning decisions across multiple EU jurisdictions. In theory, a Czech consumer could encounter Babiš-linked companies at nearly every stage of life: the fertilizer on the fields that grow the wheat, the bread on the supermarket shelf, the bouquet for the wedding, the apartment in Prague and even the clinic that helps bring the next generation into the world. And at the end, perhaps, the flowers once more. WHY BRUSSELS CAN’T KEEP TRACK During Babiš’s previous term, the European Commission concluded that trust arrangements he put in place did not eliminate his effective control over Agrofert. A leaked legal document reported by POLITICO this month has since renewed accusations that his latest trust setup does not fully address those concerns either. Babiš rejects that interpretation, saying the arrangement complies with Czech and EU law and insisting he has done “much more than the law required” to distance himself from the company. The Commission said it does not maintain a consolidated list of companies ultimately owned or controlled by Babiš across member countries. Nor does it hold a comprehensive accounting of EU funds received by companies linked to him beyond Agrofert. Instead, responsibility for collecting beneficial ownership data lies primarily with national authorities implementing EU funds. The Commission can audit how member countries manage conflicts of interest and take measures to protect the EU budget if needed, but it does not itself aggregate that information across borders. The Commission confirmed to POLITICO that it has asked Czech authorities to explain how conflicts of interest are being prevented in relation to companies under Babiš’s control beyond Agrofert. Czech Regional Development Minister Zuzana Mrázová on Thursday acknowledged receiving the Commission’s letter earlier this month, saying it will be answered in line with applicable legislation and adding that, in her view, the prime minister has done everything necessary to comply with Czech and EU law. “From my perspective, there is no conflict of interest,” she said. Freund argues that the corporate complexity has become a problem in its own right. “The tracking of beneficial owners or beneficial recipients of EU funds is at the moment very difficult or sometimes even impossible,” said the EU lawmaker. Part of the difficulty lies in Europe’s fragmented ownership registers, which exist on paper across the EU but don’t speak the same language or even list the same owners. Freund described them as “inconsistent,” with some national databases listing Babiš in connection with certain companies while others do not. Babiš’s defenders argue that his steps regarding Agrofert go beyond what Czech law strictly requires. Critics counter that the law was never written with billionaires running multi-sector empires in mind and that resolving the conflict of interest identified by auditors in relation to Agrofert does not settle the wider concerns raised by the scale of his business interests. “For some reason, the perception has been created that once Agrofert is resolved, that resolves the conflict of interest,” Bartoň said. “As if the president were the arbiter of what needs and needs not be dealt with.” In reality, many companies owned through Hartenberg and Synbiol structures continue to operate in areas shaped by public spending, regulation and political decisions without being part of any divestment or trust arrangement. Those assets “still not only [pose] conflict of interest,” said Bartoň, but they are “not even in the process of being dealt with.” From fertilizer to fertility to funeral flowers, the structure is easy enough to trace in everyday life. It is far harder to trace on paper. Ketrin Jochecová contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump on Monday continued to rail against the Supreme Court’s recent decision to block his sweeping tariffs. In a post to Truth Social, Trump claimed the court “accidentally and unwittingly” gave him “far more powers and strength” than before the “internationally divisive” ruling — even as he signaled he expects another legal defeat after the court hears arguments on his executive order ending birthright citizenship. Trump has posted at least six messages denouncing the high court on Truth Social since the Friday decision. “I can use Licenses to do absolutely ‘terrible’ things to foreign countries, especially those countries that have been RIPPING US OFF for many decades, but incomprehensibly, according to the ruling, can’t charge them a License fee — BUT ALL LICENSES CHARGE FEES, why can’t the United States do so?” Trump said in his post. The court’s 6-3 decision on Friday dealt a major blow to Trump’s economic and trade agenda. After the ruling, the president announced first a 10 percent and, later, 15 percent global tariff. The rare rejection of the president’s priorities by the conservative-leaning court quickly drew Trump’s anger, and he lambasted the majority justices as “unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” In a separate post on Monday, Trump appeared to warn other countries he is still willing to impose tariffs on them. “Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to,” he said. “BUYER BEWARE!!!” The president also said that the other tariffs the court has upheld since he took office “can all be used in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty.” As he continued to rail against the court, Trump also suggested the justices will rule against him once more in the upcoming case regarding his January 2025 order eliminating birthright citizenship for children of immigrants. “The next thing you know they will rule in favor of China and others, who are making an absolute fortune on Birthright Citizenship, by saying the 14th Amendment was NOT written to take care of the ‘babies of slaves,’ which it was as proven by the EXACT TIMING of its construction, filing, and ratification, which perfectly coincided with the END OF THE CIVIL WAR,” Trump said. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in April after multiple appellate courts found Trump’s order unconstitutional and in violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of the parents’ citizenship. The amendment was originally ratified following the Civil War to clarify the citizenship of freed enslaved Americans and their children. Trump on Monday argued the court will “come to the wrong conclusion, one that again will make China, and various other Nations, happy and rich.” “Let our supreme court keep making decisions that are so bad and deleterious to the future of our Nation — I have a job to do,” he concluded.

LONDON — Reform UK would scrap Britain’s planned carbon border tax if it wins power, the party’s business and trade chief Richard Tice has said.  Speaking to POLITICO on Tuesday, Tice vowed to ditch the U.K.’s new carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) as part of a broader rollback of climate levies.  Reform would look “to promote oil and gas, but also scrap all these levies and green taxes, CBAM, the whole lot of it all goes,” he said.  Britain is currently drawing up its own carbon tax regime — which would charge importers of carbon-intensive goods a fee based on their carbon emissions. Ministers plan to link the regime to the EU’s equivalent scheme as part of their wider effort to reset post-Brexit trade ties — in a move designed to shield British exporters from being hit by Brussels’ carbon border tax. Business groups warn that scrapping the system could backfire.  “It is an illusion that cutting CBAM or cutting carbon prices would have a long-term benefit for U.K. competitiveness,” said Adam Berman, director of policy and advocacy at Energy UK.  The short-term consequence of scrapping the policy, he argued, would be to leave British exporters facing “a substantial new tax at the border on their exports with Europe.” In the longer term, Britain would be increasingly locked out of key markets, not just Europe, Berman said.  “Major trading blocs around the world are doing the same thing,” said Berman. “In that context, we are going to see a proliferation of CBAMs around the world. China doesn’t have one today, but you can be certain they will implement one at some point in the future.  “India doesn’t have one today, but we can be absolutely certain that it will come as soon as they have a robust domestic carbon price. They will want to protect their industrial base from unfair competition.”  TICE WARNS EU ‘CHANGE IS COMING’ Tice made clear the carbon border tax would not be the only casualty.  Reform UK has already pledged to shred Keir Starmer’s EU reset if they get into power. | Pool photo by Andy Rain via EPA “There are going to be aspects that this government is negotiating with the EU that we will unwind immediately,” he said. “There will be some significant renegotiations in a number of different areas.” Reform has already pledged to shred Keir Starmer’s EU reset if they get into power — with the EU reportedly weighing a “Farage-clause” to protect the deal from regressing.  Other than CBAM, Tice pointed to several aspects of the reset, including the agri-food deal, Erasmus participation, and the SAFE loan program for defense procurement.  “They need to understand that change is coming,” he warned. “We shouldn’t be paying vast amounts of money for SAFE, we shouldn’t be rejoining Erasmus at vast cost for no benefit to ourselves whatsoever,” he added. “We shouldn’t be dynamically aligning with any of their rules. Remember, this is an EU where, even though we’re flatlining, actually, Germany and France’s economies are in even worse shape than our own. Why would you handcuff yourself to a failing economic model?” ‘PRO-BRITISH’ PROCUREMENT PUSH Alongside the rollback of green levies, Tice signaled a more interventionist industrial strategy at home.  More details on a pro-British procurement strategy will be unveiled next week, he said, centered on a “strong presumption in favor of buying steel manufactured in the U.K.”  The proposed steel mandate would apply to infrastructure including rail, defense, housing construction and public buildings. Tice also said the new mega Chinese embassy should be built using British steel. Tice acknowledged there are limits to how far such a policy could go.  A blanket mandate to use British steel risks breaching World Trade Organization non-discrimination rules — a legal constraint that would need to be navigated.

PARIS — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu this weekend announced his working plan for the rest of his mandate and made clear once again that he is not planning to run in next year’s presidential election. “2026 will be a productive year for the French. We will focus on the essentials,” Lecornu wrote in a social media post on Sunday. “On these issues, we cannot wait until the presidential election,” he added. After finally passing the 2026 budget last week, Lecornu now wants to deal with pressing files that remained on hold because of prolonged budget debates. In an interview with several French local newspapers published on Saturday, Lecornu announced that in the coming days his government will finally present the long-overdue energy programming law, a text that outlines France’s energy strategy until 2035 and which is coming more than two years late. Lecornu said that the text would be adopted as a government decree by the end of the week. It will confirm the construction of six new nuclear reactors, with the option of building eight more, and set the goal of having 60 percent of energy consumption coming from electricity by 2030. The prime minister also announced an update to the country’s multi-annual military programming law to reflect a €6.5 billion increase in defense spending in 2026. Lecornu’s priorities include a reform to redefine the division of power between the central government, measures to fight the shortage of doctors and housing. The government on Sunday adopted new measures to fight fraud in the the existing health-care assistance mechanism for irregular foreigners — which the far-right National Rally wants to abolish. As the race for succeeding to French President Emmanuel Macron in 2027 heats up, Lecornu repeated that he was not planning to run. He also confirmed that he will conduct a government reshuffle before the end of the so-called reserve period ahead of France’s municipal election, which means by Feb. 22. Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who is running for mayor of Paris, is expected to quit the government together with other ministers.

PARIS — Jack Lang, a former French culture and education minister, tendered his resignation from his position as the president of the Paris-based Arab World Institute after the latest revelations about his and his family’s financial ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot “took note of his resignation” and launched the procedure to replace him, according to a statement dated Saturday. Lang, who first acknowledged financial ties to Epstein in a 2020 interview with POLITICO, was under mounting pressure after the prosecutor’s office for financial crimes opened a preliminary investigation for suspected “laundering of tax fraud proceeds” after French investigative outlet Mediapart reported the existence of an offshore fund based in the Virgin Islands and jointly held by Epstein and Lang’s daughter, Caroline Lang. Caroline Lang was also to inherit $5 million in Epstein’s will, according to Mediapart. Caroline Lang told the outlet that the fund was to support emerging artists and that she knew nothing of the will. “The accusations against me are inaccurate, and I will prove it, beyond the noise and fury of the media and digital courts,” Lang said in his resignation letter sent to Barrot. Contacted by POLITICO, Lang shared the resignation letter. In the latest wave of Epstein correspondence released by the U.S. Justice Department, Lang appeared in a picture with Epstein outside of the Louvre, and shared by Epstein with Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for U.S. President Donald Trump.  “Now at the pyramid,” Epstein wrote in March 2019. “With the entire govt.” Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and the Lang family maintained a close relationship over the years, Jack Lang and his daughter admitted last week. Jack Lang told POLITICO last week that he “never knew of Epstein’s crimes.” Jack Lang, 86, is a well known name in French politics and history after having served as culture minister under former President François Mitterrand in the 1980s and early 1990s, during which he initiated the renovation of the Louvre and the construction of the pyramid. He also launched the Fête de la musique, a fixture of France’s festive calendar celebrated on June 21.

HOW ITALY’S MOST POLARIZING POLITICIAN HITCHED HIS COMEBACK TO THE WINTER OLYMPICS Matteo Salvini is betting on the infrastructure boost the Games will provide to reassert himself on the national stage, but it may not be that simple. By HANNAH ROBERTS Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO For Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are not about sport. They are about survival. It has been a bruising stretch for Italy’s most polarizing politician. Once the dominant force on the right, the far-right leader is now a junior partner in a government led by right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. And a public split within his League party this week, with deputy Roberto Vannacci leaving to form a rival party, has underlined Salvini’s waning authority in domestic politics.  As he struggles to reassert himself on the national stage, the Games offer something more tangible than political slogans. Sprawling across northern Italy — the League’s traditional stronghold — and fueled by billions in public money, the Games have become a chance for Salvini to demonstrate concrete delivery of new funds, infrastructure and jobs to his voter base at a moment when his leadership is in crisis. In other words, a global sporting event repurposed as a regional infrastructure push. On a recent visit to an Olympic-linked construction site in Lombardy, Salvini, wearing a blue Armani Italian team ski jacket, framed the Winter Olympics not as a sporting spectacle, but as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build infrastructure that would outlast the event itself. “I confess,” he said in an ironic response to criticism, “we are exploiting the Olympics to build things for Lombardy that will remain for the next 50 years.”  However, it’s a plan with a number of risks and detractors, both outside and within Salvini’s party. KING OF THE NORTH? For critics, Salvini’s Olympic strategy is less about legacy building and more about damage control. Gaetano Amato, an MP for the opposition 5Star Movement, said Salvini has been trying to repair discontent among the League’s northern base, which is angered by the party’s shift from its secessionist roots toward nationalist populism, the elevation of hard-line figures such as Vannacci, and Salvini’s push for the stalled Messina Bridge project.  The Olympics offer a way to rebalance that equation, Amato said. Salvini, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is seeking to rebuild support in the north through the flow of funds, jobs and contracts tied to the Games. The party can now point to new roads, rail links and construction jobs, and argue that it succeeded in forcing the central government to bankroll public works in its strongholds.  For critics, Matteo Salvini’s Olympic strategy is less about legacy building than damage control. | Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images The League is “dividing the spoils between the northern regions, and Salvini hopes to win back votes in the north by giving out money and contracts,” Amato said. For scholars of Italy’s populist right, the appeal is straightforward. Daniele Albertazzi, a professor of politics at the University of Surrey, said the Games neatly reinforce Salvini’s narrative of himself as a man of action, versus his opponents, whom he portrays as obstructionist.  “It’s kind of perfect for him,” Albertazzi said. With problems mounting, Salvini risked “gliding towards a future leading a party that doesn’t have a reason to exist any more.” His influence over strategic decisions has already narrowed, with his priorities on issues such as pension reform and support for Ukraine being repeatedly diluted or sidelined by Meloni. But the risk is high: By tying his relevance so closely to execution of Games-related infrastructure, Salvini also risks absorbing the political fallout if costs spiral, contracts are mishandled or the promised legacy fails to materialize, Albertazzi said.  IN-HOUSE CRITICS The League has been able to exert unusually tight control over the Olympics. It oversees the key ministries of infrastructure and finance, governs the two principal host regions, and holds sway over both the public company delivering the projects and the extraordinary commissioner appointed to fast-track them, according to Duccio Facchini, author of “Oro Colato” (Pure Gold), who has tracked the financing of the 2026 Olympics since they were assigned in 2019.  That concentration of authority, Facchini said, has allowed the party to unlock funding for long-delayed infrastructure in the north, reviving projects not just related to the Games, but conceived decades ago and repeatedly shelved in favor of other priorities, such a bypass in Belluno. But the strategy has its pitfalls: Prominent projects carry geological risks, or environmental costs, including a cable car built on an area at risk of landslide and a bobsled run that necessitated the felling of 850 trees on a sensitive mountain landscape (the League says it will plant 10,000 trees in compensation). Costs have ballooned while public services remain underfunded, and opposition has flared in parts of the north, including host area Valtellina, where some infrastructure is unfinished and major disruption to transport is feared.  Those tensions have spilled into the League itself, where Salvini’s effort to turn Milan Cortina into a personal political showcase has met resistance. By tying his relevance so closely to execution of Games-related infrastructure, Salvini risks absorbing the political fallout if costs spiral. | Julian Finney/Getty Images Former Veneto President and League member Luca Zaia pushed back against attempts to frame the project as “Salvini’s Olympics,” insisting that the bid and much of the delivery rested with the Lombardy and Veneto regions, not with Rome. “The Games in Veneto were my invention,” he told POLITICO. “If they fail, I am responsible. Now that they are a great success, there will be many people who will claim to be the father.” The Games, Zaia said, were neither a favor to the north nor a national political trophy, but infrastructure Italy should have built regardless. He pointed to the new rail link to Venice airport, Italy’s third busiest, as a national gateway, calling it “a business card for Italy,” and dismissed criticism by noting that Rome regularly receives major infrastructure upgrades around Vatican Jubilee years without comparable controversy. Amato, the 5Star MP, questioned the durability of Salvini’s strategy. The deputy PM’s two flagship infrastructure bets, he argued, were the Messina Bridge and the Olympics. “The bridge is not happening,” Amato said, adding that the Games risk becoming “a disaster,” citing environmental damage, unfinished works and the prospect of white elephants and abandoned sports infrastructure — as was the case with the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. If that happens, Salvini may find himself without another project to fall back on, he warned.

ATHENS — Greece’s parliament is expected to pass double-edged legislation on Wednesday that will help recruit tens of thousands more South Asian workers, while simultaneously penalizing migrants that the government says have entered the country illegally. Greece’s right-wing administration seeks to style itself as tough on migration but needs to pass Wednesday’s bill thanks to a crippling labor shortfall in vital sectors such as tourism, construction and agriculture. The central idea of the new legislation is to simplify bringing in workers through recruitment schemes agreed with countries such as India, Bangladesh and Egypt. There will be a special “fast track” for big public-works projects. The New Democracy government knows, however, that these measures to recruit more foreign workers will play badly with some core supporters. For that reason the bill includes strong measures against immigrants who have already entered Greece illegally, and also pledges to clamp down on the non-government organizations helping migrants. “We need workers, but we are tough on illegal immigration,” Greece’s Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told ERT television. The migration tensions in Greece reflect the extent to which it remains a hot button issue across Europe, even though numbers have dropped significantly since the massive flows of 2015, when the Greek Aegean islands were one of the main points of arrival. More than 80,000 positions for immigrants have been approved by the Greek state annually over the past two years. There are no official figures on labor shortages, but studies from industry associations indicate the country’s needs are more than double the state-approved number of spots, and that only half of those positions are filled. The migration bill is expected to pass because the government holds a majority in parliament. Opposition parties have condemned it, saying it ignores the need to integrate the migrants already in Greece and adopts the rhetoric of the far right. Under the new legislation, migrants who entered the country illegally will have no opportunity to acquire legal status. The bill also abolishes a provision granting residence permits to unaccompanied minors once they turn 18, provided they attend school in Greece. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal, and when they are located they will be arrested, imprisoned for two to five years and repatriated,” Plevris told lawmakers. Human-rights groups also oppose the legislation, which they say criminalizes humanitarian NGOs by explicitly linking their migration-related activities to serious crimes.  The bill envisages severe penalties such as mandatory prison terms of at least 10 years and heavy fines for assisting irregular entry, providing transport for illegal migration, or helping those migrants stay. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal,” Thanos Plevris told lawmakers. | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA Wednesday’s legislation also grants the migration minister broad powers to deregister NGOs based solely on criminal charges against one member, and will allow residence permits to be revoked on the basis of suspicion alone — undermining the presumption of innocence. Greece’s national ombudsman has expressed serious concerns about the bill, arguing that punishing people for entering the country illegally contravenes international conventions on the treatment of refugees. Lefteris Papagiannakis, director of the Greek Council for Refugees, was equally damning. “This binary political approach follows the global hostile and racist policy around migration,” he said.

French energy giant TotalEnergies announced Thursday that it is restarting its natural gas project in Mozambique, after a massacre at the site led to the company being accused of complicity in war crimes in November. “I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project … The force majeure is over,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said at a relaunch ceremony attended by Mozambican President Daniel Chapo. The project, billed as Africa’s largest liquefied natural gas development, was suspended in 2021 in the wake of a deadly insurgent attack. A 2024 POLITICO investigation revealed that Mozambican soldiers based inside TotalEnergies’ concession just south of the Tanzanian border, subsequently brutalized, starved, suffocated, executed or disappeared around 200 men in its gatehouse from June to September 2021. In December 2025, the British and Dutch governments withdrew some $2.2 billion in support for the project, with the Dutch releasing a report that corroborated many elements of the POLITICO investigation.  TotalEnergies has denied the allegations, saying its own “extensive research” into the allegations has “not identified any information nor evidence that would corroborate the allegations of severe abuses and torture.” The Mozambican government has also rejected claims that its forces committed war crimes. The revelations nonetheless prompted scrutiny from French lawmakers and criticism of TotalEnergies’ security arrangements in conflict zones. The Mozambique site has been plagued by an Islamist insurgency. “Companies and their executives are not neutral actors when they operate in conflict zones,” said Clara Gonzales of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. “If they enable or fuel crimes, they might be complicit and should be held accountable.” Speaking Thursday in Mozambique, Pouyanné said activity would now accelerate. “You will see a massive ramp-up in activity in coming months … a first offshore vessel has already been mobilized,” he said. According to a statement by the company, construction has resumed both onshore and offshore at the site, with around 4,000 workers currently mobilized. The project is roughly 40 percent complete, with the first LNG production expected in 2029. TotalEnergies holds a 26.5 percent stake in the Mozambique LNG consortium. A relaunch clears the way for billions of dollars in gas exports.