BRUSSELS — The EU needs to change its rules to enable a new wave of countries to join, the bloc’s enlargement chief said Tuesday, calling on capitals to present their own plans after they rejected proposals by the Commission to streamline the process. Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said the EU’s executive arm had already presented three options to countries and “without … the decision of the member states, we cannot move on,” speaking at POLITICO’s Competitive Europe Summit. Those three options include maintaining the status quo, changing the current system to ensure candidate countries don’t languish for years, or the reverse enlargement proposal put forward by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her team, where applicants would join before completing key reforms. The accession process has been complicated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s persistent refusal to ensure the unanimous support needed for Ukraine to proceed in its candidacy. Reverse enlargement was envisioned by Brussels as a way for Kyiv and others to begin to get access to the single market and investment schemes before becoming a full EU member. “From the first exchange with the member states [it’s clear] the number three option is not okay … this would be a revolution,” Kos said in an onstage interview, adding that “the number one option, the status quo, is also not an option.” While a redesign of the system is likely, the Slovenian commissioner went on, “now we are debating into [which] direction. How can we make the process faster in the sense of enhanced gradual integration?” At a dinner with ambassadors earlier this month, von der Leyen’s chief of staff Björn Seibert was warned that the reverse enlargement proposal was seen as unworkable by capitals. Envoys cite both arduous legal requirements around how new countries can join and fears that new countries could backslide democratically and end up blocking the EU agenda, as Hungary has done. “We think only one or two countries are supportive of the proposals from the Commission so it’s not a great success,” said one of the diplomats, cautioning that capitals want to ensure enlargement proceeds in a way that fits their own legal requirements. “There is great support for accession of Ukraine to the European Union,” said a second diplomat. “But it is also true that almost no member state supports accession before the negotiations will have been finished in a regular way.” A DIFFERENT WAY Four diplomats, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the sensitive talks, told POLITICO that countries are now in the process of developing their own proposals to share with the Commission. These would set out alternative mechanisms, likely focusing on how candidate countries can feel the benefits of alignment with the EU’s market and access to its investment schemes. “If member states don’t like ‘reverse enlargement,’ that is fine,” said one EU official, “but they can put their proposals on the table too.” In a rare show of unity last month, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić penned an op-ed in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that bemoaned the slow pace of efforts to get the benefits of closer alignment with the bloc. This was the result of “internal reforms, geopolitical tensions, institutional constraints, and legitimate concerns within member states,” they wrote. Instead, they said, their countries want to join the Single Market, as well as the borderless Schengen area, without getting the political rights and veto power of full members. The plan, which would create a two-tier EU of rule makers and rule takers, has been backed by some smaller candidate countries, and met with skepticism from Moldova and Ukraine which aim to be admitted on an equal basis as others have. However, Kos dismissed the call, saying she was unsure if the leaders “know how much you have to deliver if you want to be a part of Schengen or common market,” and that the process of reforms is arduous for economic integration as well as EU membership. No country has become a member since Croatia in 2013. Ukraine’s aspiration to join the bloc by Jan. 1, 2027, she went on, would be “impossible.” Iceland, by contrast, could be a “special case” and “really go quick” if voters decide to reopen negotiations in a referendum to be held this summer amid geopolitical insecurity and tensions with the United States. President Donald Trump repeatedly mistook Iceland for Greenland in a speech in January, as he insisted his country should take control of Arctic territories. “Iceland is so much integrated already through the EEA that the Common Market is there. Schengen is there,” Kos said. “So the most difficult topics, if I speak about the necessary reforms or, being integrated in the EU, they already are [there]. If we speak about the development of democracy, they are very high. European values, they are very high.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union needs to draft in Mario Draghi, the mastermind behind reforms to revive its single market, to ensure that member countries rally behind efforts to boost growth and prosperity, a senior European lawmaker said Tuesday. Member countries should “mandate Draghi” to build political consensus for reform and pierce through national “deep state” resistance to force a radical rethink of the single market project, Pascal Canfin, a French Renew MEP, told POLITICO’s Competitive Europe Summit in Brussels. “We need somebody that could do so at the very top level, with heads of state and government and quite deep state level,” Canfin said, arguing that the bloc has reached a “historical crossroads” where it must choose between deeper integration or economic irrelevance. In 2024, the former Italian Prime Minister and head of the European Central Bank delivered a report on Europe’s competitiveness deficit that one commissioner has referred to as the “bible” for Ursula von der Leyen’s second Commission. EU leaders backed a plan to relaunch the 30-year old single market — with its freedoms in the movement of goods, capital, services and people — at a summit earlier this month. According to Canfin, Draghi’s work is not yet done, and the former Italian leader could build a “coalition of the willing” of member states willing to integrate their economies. Canfin also suggested that the requirement for consensus among all 27 member states has become a challenge.  “It’s not an objective not to do it at 27, but maybe at the end, we will not be able to do it for political reasons,” Canfin said, specifically citing the frequent vetoes and disruptions caused by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.  The move toward a multi-speed Europe is increasingly viewed by proponents of integration as the only way to compete with the massive industrial subsidies and streamlined decision-making of the United States and China. Canfin described a recurring cycle of political failure where national leaders travel to Brussels and make commitments, only to see them disassembled at home. “They go to Brussels … then they go back home, and there are all the people locally, in Paris, in Berlin, in Rome, in Madrid, saying the opposite,” Canfin said. “Including in the deep state, including in some companies that have built the knowledge to manage and navigate complexity.” Canfin identified three obvious candidates for accelerated integration: defense, energy, and finance.  “The political will has always been in the hands of the capitals,” Canfin said. “Technical, yes, but today, would we be politically able?”

Europe’s competitiveness agenda is in full swing. Cutting red tape for business is now a central mantra of EU policymaking, Brussels is digesting new plans to accelerate Europe’s industrial capacity, and the single market is getting new political momentum as well as a rebrand. But as a new war in the Middle East adds to existing geopolitical turmoil and economic disruption, calls are growing for the EU to become more self-sufficient in areas such as tech, energy and defense. Against this backdrop, how is the EU’s competitiveness push shaping up so far? Is it moving quickly enough? Are the right policy levers being pulled? And how can European policymakers balance the push for growth without compromising priorities such as environmental protection and regulatory certainty? Follow all the discussions and news from our spring edition of POLITICO’s Competitive Europe Summit as we discuss these questions with politicians, policymakers and experts. See the full program here and follow along here from 9 a.m.

LONDON — Downing Street on Thursday brushed off London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s call for Labour to take Britain back into the European Union. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters that the government’s manifesto promises not to unpick Brexit “still stand.” The Labour mayor of London had told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the U.K. should seek to get back into the EU’s customs union and single market “during this parliament” — and then push to rejoin the bloc wholesale. “We should rejoin the customs union this parliament … we should rejoin the single market. We should try and do this during this parliament,” he told the newspaper. “And then we should, as a Labour Party, fight the next general election with a clear manifesto commitment, a vote for Labour means we would rejoin the European Union.” Khan, whose city London voted strongly to remain in the EU in 2016, said the damage Brexit had done had made the U.K. rejoining the bloc “inevitable.” But asked about the mayor’s comments Thursday, the prime minister’s spokesperson told a regular briefing of journalists in Westminster: “The government’s red lines that are set out in the manifesto stand.” The spokesperson added that the manifesto was valid for “the duration of the parliament” and when pushed on future plans said: “We’re not going to write the manifesto for the next election here.” Khan is the most senior Labour figure thus far to broach the topic of the U.K. rejoining the bloc — with the issue still considered a political hot potato in Westminster. It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves Tuesday said the U.K. should align with EU rules in areas where it is in its economic interest to do so. Starmer’s government is already negotiating an agrifood deal, an electricity trading deal, and a youth mobility agreement with the bloc — as well as beefing up cooperation on security and climate action. But Starmer has ruled out rejoining the EU customs union, single market, or reintroducing free movement of people with the bloc. U.K. public opinion has tuned sharply against Brexit in the near decade since the 2016 vote, with the latest survey from YouGov this week showing 54 percent of Brits support rejoining the bloc versus 34 percent who oppose doing so, with 12 percent undecided.

BRUSSELS — An EU summit once billed as a chance to boost the bloc’s economy is now a full-blown stress test. Leaders gathering Thursday face a combustible agenda: Ukraine’s financial survival, Middle East escalation, transatlantic tensions, and deep internal rifts over energy and climate policy. Thursday’s meeting has been dramatically reshaped in recent days by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and a standoff with Hungary over a €90 billion lifeline for Kyiv — turning what had been meant to be a forward-looking discussion into a scramble to manage multiple crises at once. Leaders will still try to push ahead on plans to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness, from deepening the single market to easing the burden on businesses. But those longer-term ambitions risk being overshadowed by more immediate geopolitical fires, alongside intense discussions on continent’s energy, defense and migration policies, according to a draft version of the post-summit joint statement obtained by POLITICO.   Expect a packed — and likely fractious — day in Brussels. Here’s POLITICO’s cheat sheet of the five biggest clashes to look out for at the European Council. THE €90B QUESTION: HUNGARY VS. EVERYONE  A €90 billion lifeline for Ukraine — which will determine Kyiv’s ability to continue defending itself against Russian aggression — hangs on whether Hungary lifts its veto. EU leaders agreed in December to provide the funding. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán later reneged and blocked the deal over a dispute with Ukraine about a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil to Central Europe. Budapest has accused Kyiv of trying to engineer an energy crisis in Hungary by cutting off Russian oil supplies and says it won’t approve the cash disbursement until flows resume. The European Commission said Tuesday it had offered to help repair the pipeline and that Ukraine had accepted, raising hopes of a breakthrough. The move could prompt Hungary to lift its veto, one diplomat familiar with Budapest’s thinking said, speaking on condition of anonymity like others in this article to discuss sensitive negotiations. But Orbán struck a defiant tone in a video posted after the Commission’s announcement, saying: “If there is no oil, there is no money.” That leaves him isolated from almost all other leaders, aside from Slovakia’s Robert Fico. “The behavior from Hungary is a new low,” Sweden’s Europe Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told POLITICO ahead of the meeting. Another diplomat said that “if we fail on the loan, [Ukrainian leader Volodymyr] Zelenskyy will rightly be furious.” The latest draft conclusions still point to disbursement by early April — a timeline leaders will be endeavoring to rescue in their negotiations. HORMUZ DILEMMA: IRAN’S THREATS VS. A RELUCTANT EUROPE Tehran’s attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz — a vital oil transit point — have jacked up the global price of oil and forced Europe to weigh whether to get involved. One idea was to expand the mandate of the EU’s Middle East naval mission, Aspides, to allow European warships to patrol the waterway. That was quickly ruled out by the bloc’s foreign ministers on Monday. “Nobody wants to go actively in this war,” the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said after the foreign envoys met. Instead, leaders will call for the reinforcement of existing naval missions, Aspides and Atalanta, with “more assets” (read: ships) — while stopping short of extending their reach to Hormuz, according to the draft summit conclusions. The text stresses that operations must remain “in line with their respective mandates.” A diplomat from the Gulf region said they were watching closely but did not expect any major shift from EU leaders, such as expanding the Aspides mandate or launching joint operations with third countries. TRANSATLANTIC TREMORS: TRUMP VS. EUROPEAN CAPITALS  Europe’s refusal to step in around the Strait of Hormuz has angered U.S. President Donald Trump, who said it would be “very bad for the future of NATO” if EU countries failed to act. That frustration is only growing. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had spoken to Trump about Europe’s unwillingness to provide assets to keep the strait open and had “never heard him so angry in my life.” The flare-up comes with EU-U.S. ties already under strain. Spain has openly defied Trump over the Iran conflict, refusing to allow the U.S. to use its bases and drawing threats of trade retaliation from Washington. French President Emmanuel Macron has stepped in to back Madrid and signal European solidarity, while other leaders have taken a more cautious or mixed line on how far to push back. Trump may not be on the formal agenda, but his pressure will loom over the summit — and sharpen already fraught debates over defense, trade and Europe’s reliance on the U.S. ETS BRAWL: ITALY, POLAND AND OTHERS VS. THE COMMISSION  A major brawl is brewing over the EU’s Emissions Trading System between a cadre of member countries and the EU’s executive.  Ten EU member countries sent a letter to the Commission ahead of Thursday’s summit asking to speed up a planned review of the ETS, a cornerstone of the bloc’s climate policy that forces big polluters to cough up.  Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Austria and Croatia are urging the EU executive to reexamine the scheme by the end of May at the latest, arguing it harms their industries and is contributing to rising energy prices.  But not everyone agrees, with two EU officials from ETS-supporting countries saying the cap-and-trade system must remain in place. The first official argued it is not contributing to the energy crisis and is actually helping Europe’s economy, with its revenues needed for the green transition.   On the topic of energy, the Commission’s proposed gas price cap is also likely to be raised, though not all countries are likely to get on board with that either, according to a senior German government official. According to the draft conclusions, EU leaders will instruct the Commission to “present without delay a toolbox of targeted temporary measures” to bring down energy prices.  COMPETITIVENESS, ANYONE? EU VS. ITSELF Despite the crises crowding the agenda, leaders will still try to push forward plans to revive Europe’s economy, building on talks at a February summit at Alden Biesen in Belgium. Most of the proposals fall under the “One Europe, One Market” push to deepen the single market — easing the movement of goods, services, capital and people across the bloc. The draft conclusions say leaders will back new corporate rules, dubbed “EU Inc.,” to help startups scale across borders, as well as a “simple, unified and voluntary e-declaration system” to make it easier to work across countries. The aim is to move from talk to delivery, with concrete steps and deadlines, another EU diplomat said. But while there is broad agreement on the need for reform, divisions persist over whether EU energy and climate policies — particularly the Emissions Trading System — are holding back growth. That split, with Central, Eastern and Southern European countries pushing for changes and others, including the Nordics, resisting, will likely be the main battleground on competitiveness. Nick Vinocur contributed reporting.

BERLIN — France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has floated the idea that Canada could one day join the European Union, using the transatlantic ally as a striking example of the bloc’s global appeal. Speaking at the Europe 2026 conference in Berlin alongside his German counterpart Johann Wadephul, Barrot argued that the EU is increasingly attracting partners far beyond its borders as geopolitical tensions soar. “Nine countries are formally candidates to EU accession today. Others might join them,” Barrot said. “Iceland in a few weeks or months. And maybe Canada at some point.” Barrot’s Canada remark was not presented as a concrete policy proposal, but rather as part of a broader argument that the EU is emerging as a “third superpower” capable of balancing the rivalry between the United States and China. Earlier on Tuesday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb suggested to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney while the pair were out running that he should “think about” joining the EU as well. The comments come as European leaders push to strengthen the bloc’s geopolitical role amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and the U.S. war in the Middle East. Barrot framed Europe as uniquely positioned to draw countries closer through its economic weight, democratic model and regulatory power. “Many countries around the world are willing to get closer to our union,” he said. He also pointed to signs of renewed alignment with the United Kingdom, noting debates in London about closer ties to the single market, as well as deepening cooperation with countries like India and Switzerland. Talk of Canada as a potential EU member has grown more common as the country struggles with an increasingly antagonistic relationship with the United States under Donald Trump, who early in his second presidency often talked about turning Canada into a “51st state.” Those comments, too, were initially viewed as frivolous — but the laughter in Ottawa grew steadily more nervous, and has lately ceased altogether. A poll conducted in 2025 showed that 44 percent of Canadians think the country should join the EU. Barrot and Stubb are the most senior politicians to talk up the suggestion, with a spokesperson for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reacting warmly to the poll but ultimately dismissing the idea as a non-starter. Canada has already pushed back on any suggestion of EU membership, with Carney stating there are no plans to join the bloc. “The short answer is no,” the Canadian PM said when asked about the idea at the NATO summit earlier this year. “That’s not the intent. That’s not the pathway we’re on.” Instead, Ottawa has been pursuing closer ties short of membership, including a new strategic defense and security partnership with the EU aimed at deepening cooperation across trade, supply chains and security. While full EU membership for Canada is unlikely in the short term, and no concrete plans to realize it are yet known to be in motion, given the increasing geopolitical turbulence it is not impossible. Hans von der Burchard contributed to this report.

LONDON — Brexit was “a colossal mistake” and the U.K. should rejoin the European Union, Alexander Stubb said Tuesday.   But instead of waiting for that to happen, London and Brussels should work together now to deepen their relationship in key areas such as defense and intelligence sharing, trade and access to the single market, and technology and innovation, the Finnish president said.  Speaking at the Chatham House think tank during a visit to London, he said the chaotic state of the world in which the old, rules-based order no longer holds should prompt a radical rethink of the EU-U.K. relationship.  “I think Brexit was a colossal mistake,” said former London student Stubb, who has a British wife and children with dual nationality. “I am too diplomatic to express exactly what I think about those who promoted Brexit during the campaign, and those who still say that Brexit is a good thing … But I do think it’s not only shooting yourself in the foot, but it’s like amputating your leg without medical reason for doing it.”  Stubb said he recognized that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not aim to rejoin the EU but argued that Brits and Europeans should be “pragmatic” now and show flexibility on both sides.  Negotiations have been ongoing over moves toward deepening the partnership between London and Brussels since Starmer’s Labour won power in 2024, but progress has been held back over disagreements over youth mobility programs, student fees and how much the U.K. should pay to take part in an arms investment package.  “We need a U.K. voice in Europe. We really miss you guys,” Stubb said. “I should probably express my view that it took you seven years to negotiate yourselves out of the EU, it will take you seven years to regret it, and then seven years to come back in. I hope.” Stubb said British membership of the EU’s customs union should be possible, alongside participation in the single market. Red lines during years of Brexit negotiations meant the U.K. left both structures five years ago, under a bare bones deal that Boris Johnson negotiated.  “We need to be super pragmatic,” he said, instead of Europeans thinking they should “continue to punish” the U.K. for leaving the bloc. “Get out of the mindset that the U.K. should not be a part of the customs union, or the U.K. should not be a part of the internal market. Think about a flexible way of dealing with it.” More broadly, Stubb suggested the EU should reform its structures to allow more flexibility in the way member countries work together, and work with states that are not formal members of the EU.  He said Iceland is renewing its interest in becoming a member, he’d like to see Norway join the bloc, and he joked to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada should also take a look at EU membership when the pair went running together on Tuesday morning in London. 

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos arrives in Brussels on Tuesday with a clear message for EU regulators ahead of a looming review of Europe’s streaming rules: Don’t overcomplicate them. In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, Sarandos said Netflix can live with regulation — but warned the EU not to fracture the single market with a patchwork of national mandates as officials prepare to reopen the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. “It doesn’t make it a very healthy business environment if you don’t know if the rules are going to change midway through production,” Sarandos said. He also warned regulators are underestimating YouTube as a direct competitor for TV viewing, too often treating it like a social media platform with “a bunch of cat videos” than a massive streaming rival. Sarandos’ effort to win over European regulators comes soon after the collapse of Netflix’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — but Sarandos maintained that the political dynamics around the deal only “complicated the narrative, not the actual outcomes.” He added that there was no political interference in the deal, and he shrugged off President Donald Trump’s demand to remove Susan Rice, a former national security adviser under President Barack Obama, from the Netflix board. “It was a social media post,” Sarandos said. “It was not ideal, but he does a lot of things on social media.” This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What’s bringing you back to Brussels now? Well, we have ongoing meetings with regulators around Europe all the time. We have so much business in Europe, obviously, and so this has been on the books for quite a while. Can you give me a little bit of a sense of who you’re meeting with, and what is the focus? I think one of the things to keep in mind is that we’ve become such an important part, I’d think, of the European audiovisual economy. We’ve spent, in the last decade, over $13 billion in creating content in Europe. It makes us one of the leading producers and exporters of European storytelling. First of all, we’ve got a lot of skin in the game in Europe, obviously. We work with over 600 independent European producers. We created about 100,000 cast and crew jobs in Europe from our productions. So we talk to folks who are interested in all the elements of that — how to keep it, how to maintain it, how to grow it and how to protect it. In terms of regulation in the EU, Netflix is governed by a directive here. The commission is looking to reopen that this year. There seems to be a sense here from regulators that the current rules don’t create a level playing field between the broadcasters, the video on demand, the video sharing, and so they may look to put more requirements on that. How steeped in the details are you there? And how would Netflix react to more rules put on Netflix at this moment? Well, first and foremost, we comply with all the rules that apply to us in terms of how we’re regulated today. We have seen by operating around the world that those countries where they lean more into incentives than the strict regulatory scheme, that the incentives pay off. We’ve got multibillion dollar investments in Spain and the UK, where they have really leaned into attracting production through incentives versus regulatory mandates, so we find that that’s a much more productive environment to work in. But the core for me is that obviously they’re going to evolve the regulatory models, but as long as they remain simple, predictable, consistent — the single market, the benefit of the single-market is this — as long as these rules remain simple, predictable and consistent, it’s a good operating model. I think the more that it gets broken up by individual countries and individual mandates, you lose all the benefits of the single market. There’s a lot of talk in Brussels right now about simplification, getting rid of a lot of red tape. Do you think the rules that you’re governed by would benefit from a similar kind of effort to simplify, of pulling back on a lot of these patchwork of rules, even at the EU? Look, I think it doesn’t make it a very healthy business environment if you don’t know if the rules are going to change midway through production, so for me, having some stability is really important, and I understand that we’re in a dynamic market and a dynamic business, and they should reflect the current operating models that we’re in too. We want to work closely with the regulators to make sure that what they’re doing and what we’re doing kind of reflect each other, which is trying to protect the healthy work environment for folks in Europe. When you meet with regulators here, is there a message you’re going to be delivering to them or what do you want them to walk away with in terms of the bottom line for you in terms of your business at this moment in the EU? I think some things are well understood and other things I think are less so. I think our commitment to European production is unique in the world. Both in our original production but also in our investment in second right’s windows that we pre-invest in films that compel production. Tens of millions of dollars’ worth of film production is compelled by our licensing agreements as well beyond our original production. And the fact that we work with local European producers on these projects — I think there’s a misconception that we don’t. And the larger one is the economic impact that that brings to Europe and to the world with our original program strategy that supports so many, not just the productions themselves but even tourism in European countries. Think about President [Emmanuel] Macron pointing out that 38 percent of people who went to France last year cited “Emily in Paris” as one of the top reasons they went. We’ve seen that in other countries. We saw it in Madrid with the “Casa de Papel.” And so it’s one of those things where it really raises all boats across the economies of these countries. Regulators often focus on the competition between streaming services, but as you know very well, younger audiences are spending more time on platforms like YouTube. Do you think policymakers are underestimating that shift? Would you like to see that taken into account more in the regulatory landscape? One of the things that we saw in recent months with the Warner Brothers transaction is a real deep misunderstanding about what YouTube is and isn’t. YouTube is a straightforward direct competitor for television, either a local broadcaster or a streamer like Netflix. The connected television market is a zero-sum screen. So whichever one you choose, that’s what you’re watching tonight. And you monetize through subscription or advertising or both, but at the end of the day, it’s that choosing to engage in how you give them and how, and how that programming is monetized is a very competitive landscape and it includes YouTube. I think what happens is people think of YouTube as a bunch of cat videos and maybe some way to, to promote your stuff by putting it on there for free. But it turns out it is a zero-sum game. You’re going to be choosing at the expense of an RTL or Netflix. I think in this case it’s one of these things where recognizing and understanding that YouTube is in the same exact game that we are. Do you feel like you’re on different planes though, in the eyes of regulators at this moment? I don’t think that they see them as a direct competitor in that way. I think they think of that as an extension of social media. And the truth is when we talk about them as a competitor, we’re only talking about them on the screen. I’m not talking about their mobile usage or any of that. You know, about 55 percent of all YouTube engagement now is on the television through their app. So to me, that’s the thing to keep an eye on. As you get into this, it’s a pretty straightforward, competitive model and we think probably should have a level playing field relative to everybody else. Who do you view as Netflix’s main competitors today? Look, our competitive space is really the television screen. When people pick up the remote and pick what to watch, everyone is in that mix. We identified YouTube — this isn’t new for us — we identified YouTube as a competitor in the space 10 years ago, even before they moved to the television. And I think, for the most part, TikTok forced their hand to move to the television because they were kind of getting chased off the phone more or less by TikTok. I think that’s the other one that regulators should pay a lot of attention to is what’s happening with the rise of TikTok engagement as well. It’s not directly competitive for us, but it is for attention and time and to your point, maybe the next generation’s consumer behavior. Last question on regulation: With the EU looking at the rules again, there’s a tendency always to look to tinker more and more and do more. Is there a point at what regulation starts affecting your willingness to invest in European production? Well, like I said, those core principles of predictability and simplicity have really got to come into play, because I think what happens is, just like any business, you have to be able to plan. So, if you make a production under one set of regs and release it under another, it’s not a very stable business environment. The topic that dominated a lot of your attention in recent months was obviously the merger talks with Warner Brothers Discovery. I know you’ve said it didn’t work for financial reasons. I want to ask you a little bit about the political dynamics. How much did the political environment, including the Susan Rice incident, how much did that complicate the calculus in your mind? I think it complicated the narrative, not the actual outcomes. I think for us it was always a business transaction, was always a well-regulated process in the U.S. The Department of Justice was handling it, everything was moving through. We were very confident we did not have a regulatory issue. Why would that be? It’s because it was very much a vertical transaction. I can’t name a transaction that was similar to this that has ever been blocked in history. We did not have duplicated assets. We did have a market concentration issue in the marketplace that we operate in. And I think that’s the feedback I was getting back from the DOJ and from regulators in general, which was, they understood that, but I do think that Paramount did a very nice job of creating a very loud narrative of a regulatory challenge that didn’t exist. But looking back to those early days of the merger discussions, did you have an appreciation for what might follow in terms of that complicated narrative? Yeah. Look, I think it opens up the door to have a lot of conversations that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, but that’s okay. A lot great things came out of it, the process itself. I would say in total, we had a price for where we thought this was good for our business. We made our best and final offer back in December and it was our best and final offer. So that’s all. But what came out a bit that’s positive is, we’ve had really healthy conversations with folks who we hardly ever talked to, theater operators, as a good example. I had a great meeting in February with the International Union of Cinemas, and the heads from all the different countries about what challenges they have, how we could be more helpful, or how they could be helpful to us too. I think we’ll come out of this with a much more creative relationship with exhibitions around the world. And by way of example, doing things that we haven’t done before. I don’t recommend testifying before the Senate again, but it was an interesting experience for sure. Probably a good learning experience. Hopefully not in the future for anything that you don’t want to be there for, but yes. Yeah, exactly. We’ve always said from the beginning, the Warner transaction was a nice-to-have at the right price, not a must-have-at-any-price. The business is healthy, growing organically. We’re growing on the path that we laid out several years ago and we didn’t really need this to grow the business. These assets are out there through our growth period and they’re going to be out there and for our next cycle growth as well and we’ve got to compete with that just like we knew we had to at the beginning. This was I think something that would fortify and maybe accelerate some of our existing models, but it doesn’t change our outcome. Are there regrets or things you might have wished you’d done differently? I mean honestly we took a very disciplined approach. I think we intentionally did not get distracted by the narrative noise, because we knew, we recognized what it was right away, which is just narrative noise. This deal was very good for the industry. Very good for both companies, Warner Brothers and Netflix. Our intent was obviously to keep those businesses operating largely as they are now. All the synergies that we had in the deal were mostly technologies and managerial, so we would have kept a big growth engine going in Hollywood and around the world. The alternative, which we’ve always said, is a lot of cutting. I think regulators in Europe and regulators in the U.S. should keep an eye on horizontal mergers. They should keep a close eye on [leveraged buyouts]. They typically are not good for the economy anywhere they happen. What were you preparing for in terms of the EU regulatory scrutiny with Warner Brothers? What was your read on how that might have looked? I think we’re a known entity in Europe. Keep in mind, like in Q4 of last year, we reported $3.5 billion or $3.8 billion in European revenues. So 18 percent year-on-year growth. The EU is now our largest territory. We’re a known entity there. The reason we didn’t take out press releases, we had meetings in Europe as we know everybody. We talked to the regulators, both at the EU and at the country level. And I do think that in many of the countries that we operate in, we’re a net contributor to the local economy, which I think is really important. We’ve got 12 offices across Europe with 2,500 people. So we’re members of the local ecosystem, we’re not outsiders. With President Trump, he demanded that Netflix remove Susan Rice from the board or pay the consequences. Did that cross a line for you in terms of political interference? It was a social media post, and we didn’t, no, it did not. It was not ideal, but he does a lot of things on social media. So you didn’t interpret it as anything bigger than that. I mean, he does that one day, he could obviously weigh in on content the next day. How does somebody like you manage situations like that? I think it’s really important to be able to separate noise from signal, and I think a lot of what happens in a world where we have a lot of noise. There was so much attention to you going to the White House that day. And we didn’t learn until several days later that you didn’t actually have the meetings that were predicted. Before you arrived in Washington that day, had you already made the decision not to proceed? Not before arriving in Washington, but we knew the framework for if this, then that. So, yeah, I would say that it was interesting, but again, we don’t make a big parade about our meetings with government and with the regulators. I had a meeting on the books with the DOJ scheduled several weeks before, meeting with Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, scheduled several months before, unrelated to the Warner Brothers deal. And that was just the calendar that lined up that way. We didn’t know when Warner Brothers would make the statement about the deal. It’s all very dramatic, like it belongs on Netflix as a movie. There was paparazzi outside of the White House waiting for me when I came out. I’ve never experienced that before. Yeah, it’s a remarkable story. I would tell you, and I’m being honest with you, there was no political interference in this deal. The president is interested in entertainment and interested in deals, so he was curious about the mechanics of things and how things were going to go or whatever, but he made it very clear that this was under the DOJ. So it’s just like we all spun it up from the media? How do you explain it all? First of all, Netflix is clickbait. So people write about Netflix and it gets read. And that’s a pretty juicy story. And [Trump] said, and by the way, like I said, he makes statements sometimes that lead to the beliefs of things that do and sometimes that don’t materialize at all. But I found my conversations with him were 100 percent about the industry, protecting the industry. And I think it’s very healthy that the president of the United States speaks to business leaders about industries that are important to the economy. To what degree did the narrative or the fact that David Ellison had a relationship or seemed to have a relationship with people in Washington who were in power, that that might have swayed or changed the dynamic at the end with where Warner Brothers went though? I can’t speak to what their thinking is on it. I feel like for me, it’s very important to know the folks in charge, but I wouldn’t count on it if you’re doing something that is not in the best interest of the country or the economy. You talked with Trump in the past about entertainment jobs. Were there specific policies you’ve advocated to him or anything that he brought up on that point? He has brought up tariffs for the movie and television industry many times. And I’ve hopefully talked to him the way out of them. I just said basically the same thing I said earlier. I think that incentive works much better. We’re seeing it in the U.S. things like the states compete with each other for production incentives and those states with good, healthy incentive programs attract a lot of production, and you’ve seen a lot of them move from California to Georgia to New Jersey, kind of looking for that what’s the best place to operate in, where you could put more on the screen. And I do think that having the incentives versus tariffs is much better. Netflix is now buying Ben Affleck’s AI company. What areas do you see AI having the most potential to change Netflix’s workflow? My focus is that AI should be a creator tool. But with the same way production tools have evolved over time, AI is just a rapid, important evolution of these tools. It is one of those. And the idea that the creators could use it to do things that they could never do before to do it. Potentially, they could do faster and cheaper. But the most impact will be if they can make it better. I don’t think faster and cheaper matters if it’s not better. This is the most competitive time in the history of media. So you’ve gotta be better every time out of the gate. And faster and cheaper consumers are not looking for faster and cheaper, they’re looking for better. I do think that AI, particularly InterPositive, the company we bought from Ben, will help creators make things better. Using their own dailies, using their own production materials to make the film that they’re making better. Still requires writers and actors and lighting techs and all the things that you’d use to make a movie, but be able to make the movie more effective, more efficient. Being able to do pick up shots and things like this that you couldn’t do before. It’s really remarkable. It’s a really remarkable company. As AI improves, do you see the role of human voice actors shrinking at Netflix? What’s interesting about that is if you look at the evolution of tools for dubbing and subtitling, the one for dubbing, we do a lot of A-B tests that people, if you watch something and you don’t like it, you just turn it off. The one thing that we find to be the most important part of dubbing is the performance. So good voice actors really matter. Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper to use AI, but without the performance, which is very human, it actually runs down the quality of the production. Will it evolve over time? Possibly, but it won’t evolve without the cooperation and the training of the actual voice actors themselves too. I think what will happen is you’ll be able to do things like pick up lines that you do months and months after the production. You’ll be able to recreate some of those lines in the film without having to call everybody back and redo everything which will help make a better film. You’re in the sort of early stages of a push into video podcast. What have you learned so far about what works and what doesn’t? It’s really early. The main thing is we’ve got a broad cross-section of podcasts. It’s nowhere near as complete as other podcast outlets yet. But the things that we leaned into are the things that are working. We kind of figured they would. You’ve got true crime, sports, comedy, all those things that we do well in the doc space already. And I really am excited about things where people can develop and deepen the relationship with the show itself or the [intellectual property] itself. Our Bridgerton podcast is really popular, and people really want to go deeper and we want to be able to provide that for them. I think a video podcast is just the evolution of talk shows. We have tried to and failed at many talk shows over the years, and for the most part it’s because the old days of TV, when 40 million people used to tune in to the Tonight Show every night, [are over]. What’s happened now is that it’s much smaller audiences that tune into multiple shows in the form of a podcast every day. And then they come up to be way bigger than the 40 million that Johnny Carson used to get. They’re all individual, and it’s a deeper relationship than it is a broad one. So instead of trying to make one show for the world, you might have to make hundreds or thousands of shows for the whole world.

BRUSSELS — The EU’s six largest economies have thrown their weight behind plans to centralize oversight of some of Europe’s biggest financial companies under a single supervisor, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. The finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain — the so-called “E6” group — backed the idea in a six-page letter addressed to the European Commission, the Eurogroup and the Council of the European Union. The letter outlined multiple initiatives and deadlines that Brussels should pursue this year. The goal is to create a deeper financial market to “strengthen Europe’s growth potential, enhance its economic sovereignty and provide a stronger foundation for financing common priorities,” the letter said. Among the most contentious initiatives is introducing EU supervision of “the most systemic, relevant, cross-border financial market infrastructures” amid firm resistance from a group of small countries, led by Ireland and Luxembourg, which rely on their outsized finance sectors and are reluctant to cede control to the EU level. EU leaders are set to discuss how best to speed up Brussels’ decade-long plans to create a U.S-style financial market next week after years of lackluster results amid vying national interests. Ireland has already sounded the alarm of the E6 group, as smaller countries fret that their views will be sidelined if countries club together to integrate their financial markets. In the letter, the E6 ministers said creating a “savings and investments union … has become an urgent strategic necessity” and that they commit to “taking action at European as well as at national level.” Other targets in the letter include reviving the bloc’s market for resold debt, or securitization, minting virtual euro banknotes, and introducing an EU-wide one-stop shop for founding companies, dubbed the 28th regime. There are also calls for greater transparency in stock markets and a push for a legislative package this year to streamline the EU’s financial rules. SEEKING A MAJORITY The idea of a single market watchdog, which would play a role similar to the European Central Bank’s supervisory arm for banking, has long been blocked at EU level due to the opposition of small countries and the lack of Germany’s backing. The support of the major economies is a breakthrough in the likelihood of agreeing to the plan, which the European Commission officially proposed in December but has been informally discussed since the financial crisis. The E6 countries wouldn’t be able to do it alone. They would first have to seek a “qualified majority” across the bloc to pass the proposal. That threshold requires the support of 15 countries that represent at least 65 percent of the EU. Should that fail, nine countries can pursue “enhanced cooperation” together to achieve their aims. The supervision plan would centralize oversight of large, cross-border financial plumbing firms, such as stock exchanges and clearinghouses, under the Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority. The six countries stop short of fully endorsing the Commission’s December proposal, instead saying it “provides a solid basis for further discussion and allows us to work out the best possible solutions in the coming weeks.” The ministers call for EU countries to reach a political deal on the Commission’s plan by this summer.

“Veggie burgers” and “vegan sausages” can remain on European supermarket shelves, EU negotiators agreed Thursday. However, only products made of animal flesh can use terms like “steak” or “bacon.” Unless that flesh was grown in a lab, in which case, those terms are also off-limits. Those are the broad contours of the compromise reached by EU institutions after an MEP’s sleeper initiative to block vegetarian alternatives from using terms associated with meat — the so-called veggie burger ban — fueled political tensions over an otherwise technical farm file. After months of debate, institutional negotiators agreed on new rules that would ban vegetarian products from using dozens of terms that are typically associated with meat, including “chicken,” “ribs,” “bacon,” “tenderloin,” “liver” and “steak.” The deal still needs to be formally signed off by the Parliament and EU member capitals. The fight exposed a deeper divide in Brussels food politics. Consumer groups attacked the lengthy list of banned words as doing little to help people trying to make choices at the store. “Consumers want to eat healthier and need convenient and affordable options,” said BEUC chief Agustín Reyna. Meat-related names “make it easy for those who want to integrate these options in their diets, and the new rules will increase confusion and are simply not necessary.” For pro-farmer lawmakers on the center-right and right, protecting meaty terminology became a symbolic show of support for livestock producers reeling from sinking profits and regulatory fatigue. They cast themselves as bulwarks against a cosmopolitan push toward alternative proteins. Greens and liberals, meanwhile, dismissed the debate as political theater aimed at farm constituencies, arguing it distracts from structural challenges in the food chain and clashes with Brussels’ competitiveness rhetoric. Negotiators ultimately agreed that veggie sausages and burgers can continue to be sold. The French MEP behind the terminology ban, Céline Imart, hailed the outcome as an “indisputable victory for our farmers.” The agreement, she added, “recognizes the value of farmers’ work and protects their products, which are the result of unique expertise, against a form of unfair competition.” Imart, a grain farmer, also pushed for protections to extend to “cell-cultured products” — i.e. meat grown in labs — which she has previously described as a threat to traditional agriculture. For frustrated lawmakers, the move takes Europe in the wrong direction, essentially knee-capping a nascent sector. “It is absurd that we are attempting to regulate the naming of products that aren’t even on the European market yet,” the Greens Parliamentary negotiator on the file, Anna Strolenberg, told POLITICO ahead of Thursday’s talks on cellular meat. “Our signal to biotech pioneers is: ‘Don’t build it in Europe, move abroad.’” The compromise comes after months of negotiations between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission over targeted changes to the bloc’s Common Market Organisation law. The original intent was to update detailed laws on contracts, in the hopes of improving the position of farmers in the agri-food chain, following waves of protests. However, when the proposal reached the Parliament, Imart, the European People’s Party MEP leading negotiations on the file, pushed for the inclusion of a list of meaty terms that would be off-limits to veggie copycats. That quickly became the most hotly debated element, as capitals scrambled to agree on common red lines. In the end, a similar list proposed by the Commission for a future change to the CMO from 2028 onward was used as the basis of negotiations. The terms on this list were more narrow references to cuts and types of meat rather than catch-all terms like burger and sausage.