LISBON — Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission should continue to enforce its digital rules with an iron fist despite the outcry from U.S. officials and big tech moguls, co-chair of the Greens in the European Parliament Bas Eickhout told POLITICO. As Green politicians from across Europe gather in the Portuguese capital for their annual congress, U.S. top officials are blasting the EU for imposing a penalty on social media platform X for breaching its transparency obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act, the bloc’s content moderation rule book. “They should just implement the law, which means they need to be tougher,” Eickhout told POLITICO on the sidelines of the event. He argued that the fine of €120 million is “nothing” for billionaire Elon Musk and that the EU executive should go further. The Commission needs to “make clear that we should be proud of our policies … we are the only ones fighting American Big Tech,” he said, adding that tech companies are “killing freedom of speech in Europe.” The Greens have in the past denounced Meta and X over their content moderation policies, arguing these platforms amplify “disinformation” and “extremism” and interfere in European electoral processes. Meta and X did not reply to a request for comment by the time of publication. Meta has “introduced changes to our content reporting options, appeals process and data access tools since the DSA came into force and are confident that these solutions match what is required under the law in the EU,” a Meta spokesperson said at the end of October. Tech mogul Musk said his response to the penalty would target the EU officials who imposed it. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the fine is “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” and accused the move of “censorship.” “It’s not good when our former allies in Washington are now working hand in glove with Big Tech,” blasted European Green Party chair Ciarán Cuffe at the opening of the congress in Lisbon. Eickhout, whose party GreenLeft-Labor alliance is in negotiations to enter government in the Netherlands, said “we should pick on this battle and stand strong.” The Commission’s decision to fine X under the EU’s Digital Services Act is over transparency concerns. The Commission said the design of X’s blue checkmark is “deceptive,” after it was changed from user verification into a paid feature. The EU’s executive also said X’s advertising library lacks transparency and that it fails to provide access to public data for researchers as required by the law.  Eickhout lamented that European governments are slow in condemning the U.S. moves against the EU, and argued that with its recent national security strategy, the Americans have made clear their objective is to divide Europe from within by fueling far-right parties. “Some of the leaders like [French President Emmanuel] Macron are still desperately trying to say that that the United States are our ally,” Eickhout said. “I want to see urgency on how Europe is going to take its own path and not rely on the U.S. anymore, because it’s clear we cannot.”

Steven Everts is the director of the EU Institute for Security Studies The intense diplomatic maneuvering to shape an endgame to the war in Ukraine has revealed a troubling reality: Even when it comes to its own security, the EU struggles to be a central player. The ongoing negotiations over Ukraine’s future — a conflict European leaders routinely describe as “existential” — are proceeding with minimal input from the bloc. And while others set the tone and direction, Europe remains reactive: managing the fallout, limiting the damage and hoping to recuperate its influence. This marginalization isn’t the result of a single decision or down to one person — no matter how consequential U.S. President Donald Trump may be. Rather, it reflects a deeper vulnerability and an unsettling pattern. Anyone looking at Europe’s choices in recent months can see a psychology of weakness. It paints the picture of a continent lacking courage, unable to take decisive action even when it comes to its core interests and when policy alternatives are within reach. Europe is losing confidence, sinking into fatalism and justifying its passivity with the soothing thought that it has no real choice, as its cards are weak. Besides, in the long run, things will work out. Just wait for the U.S. midterms. But will they? And can Europe afford to wait? Ukraine certainly cannot. Simply commenting on others’ peace plan drafts in some form of “track-changes diplomacy” isn’t enough. Decisions are needed, and they’re needed now. Europe is a continent of rich countries with ample capabilities. But while its leaders insist Ukraine’s security and success are essential to Europe’s own security and survival, its actual military assistance to Kyiv has declined in recent months. On the financial end, Europe is flunking the test it set for itself. Ukraine requires approximately €70 billion annually — and yes, this is a large sum, but it amounts to only 0.35 percent of the EU’s GDP. This is within Europe’s collective capacity. Yet for months now, member countries have been unable to agree on the mechanisms for using frozen Russian assets or suitable alternatives that could keep Ukraine afloat. Instead, we’ve seen dithering and the triumph of small thinking. It’s also rather telling that the U.S. attempt to simply impose how these assets are to be used, with 50 percent of the profits going to Washington instead of Kyiv, is finally jolting Europe into action. Regrettably, Europe’s psychology of weakness is equally visible in the economic domain, as the EU-U.S. trade agreement struck this July was a classic case of how frailty can masquerade as “pragmatism.” Brussels had the tools to respond to Washington’s tariffs and coercive measures, including counter-tariffs and its anti-coercion instrument. But under pressure from member countries fearful of broader U.S. disengagement from European security and Ukraine, it chose not to use them. The result was a one-sided “deal” with a 15 percent unilateral tariff, which breaks the World Trade Organization’s rules and obliges Europe to make energy purchases and investments in the U.S. worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even worse, the deal didn’t produce the stability advertised as its main benefit. Washington has since designated Europe’s energy transition measures and tech regulations as “trade barriers” and “taxes on U.S. companies,” signaling that further retaliatory steps may follow. Just last week, the U.S. upped the pressure once more, when its trade representatives met EU ministers and openly challenged existing EU rules on tech. Regrettably, Europe’s psychology of weakness is equally visible in the economic domain, as the EU-U.S. trade agreement struck this July was a classic case of how frailty can masquerade as “pragmatism.”. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images More than on defense, the EU is meant to be an economic and regulatory superpower. But despite decades of leveraging its economic weight for political purposes, the EU is now adrift, faced with a widening transatlantic power play over trade and technology. Similar patterns of retreat mark the EU’s actions in other areas as well. As Russia escalates its hybrid warfare operations against the bloc’s critical infrastructure, Europe’s response remains hesitant. As China dramatically weaponizes its export controls on critical mineral exports, Europe continues to respond late and without clear coordination. And in the Middle East, despite being one of the leading donors to Gaza, Europe is peripheral in shaping any ceasefire and reconstruction plans. In crisis after crisis, Europe’s role is not only small but shrinking still. The question is, when will Europeans decide they’ve had enough of this weakness and irrelevance? This is, above all, a matter of psychology, of believing in one’s capabilities, including the capacity to say “no.” But this is only possible if Europe invests in its ability to take major decisions together — through joint political authority and financial resources. There is no way out of this without investing in a stronger EU. This basic argument has been made a hundred times before. But while insisting on “more political will” among member countries is, indeed, right, it’s also too simplistic. We have to acknowledge that building a stronger EU also means having to give somethings up. But in return we will gain something essential: The ability to stand firm in a world of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This is both necessary and priceless.

BRUSSELS — Global finance regulators’ failure to impose sufficient rules on cryptocurrency could threaten the world’s financial stability, global risk body the Financial Stability Board has warned. Reviewing the rollout of a global framework for crypto rules, the FSB said there are “significant gaps and inconsistencies” in implementing the rules, which could “pose risks to financial stability and to the development of a resilient digital asset ecosystem.” On the regulation of stablecoins, which are virtual currencies pegged to real-world assets, the FSB said regulation is “lagging.” Because of the international, decentralized nature of financial technologies like crypto, having gaps in global rules is an issue as providers can go wherever the rules are the most lax, which “complicates oversight,” the review said. It added that global cooperation on regulating the currencies is “fragmented, inconsistent, and insufficient” to address their global nature. The FSB also flagged gaps in oversight of crypto service providers, saying supervision of “potentially higher risk activities, such as borrowing, lending, and margin trading, is often lacking” and enforcement can “lag behind regulatory development.” The review recommended that governments implement the global crypto framework fully. It also said they should “conduct an assessment of the scale and nature of cross-border crypto-asset activities into and out of their jurisdictions” at the “appropriate time.” Earlier this week, FSB chair Andrew Bailey warned G20 finance ministers and central bank governors that stablecoins are a potential area of vulnerability for the financial system.

A corporate lawyer who has worked for Big Tech played a key role in picking a former lobbyist for Facebook and WhatsApp as one of Europe’s most powerful privacy regulators. Niamh Sweeney will take up her role as one of three chief regulators at Ireland’s powerful Data Protection Commission (DPC) next week. Her previous experience as a lobbyist for Facebook and WhatsApp has reignited concerns that Ireland’s top data regulator is too close to Big Tech. Now, new details about her appointment process seen by POLITICO show that a lawyer representing tech giants at a prominent law firm in Ireland was a member of a small panel that picked Sweeney. The inclusion of that lawyer on the panel triggered a conflict of interest complaint by a candidate that competed with her for the job earlier this year. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner enforces Europe’s mighty General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on many of the world’s largest technology companies, including Meta, X, Google, TikTok and others that have their European headquarters in Ireland. For years, the Irish authority has faced criticism for being too soft on tech giants, with critics pointing to Ireland’s heavy reliance on Big Tech for its domestic economy. After the GDPR took effect in 2018, it took years before the DPC started imposing sizable fines on tech giants. Commissioners at the Irish DPC are appointed by the Irish government on the advice of the Public Appointments Service, the authority that provides recruitment services for public jobs. The authority is known as publicjobs. In a confidential letter dated May 14 and seen by POLITICO, publicjobs said it had assembled a selection panel of five people to pick the newest privacy chief. According to the letter, that panel included consultant Shirley Kavanagh as chair, Department of Justice Deputy Secretary Doncha O’Sullivan, the head of Ireland’s ComReg communications watchdog Garrett Blaney, publicjobs recruitment specialist Louise McEntee, and Leo Moore, a partner at law firm William Fry. Moore heads the firm’s technology group. He has advised domestic and multinational companies, including “several ‘Big Tech’ and social media companies,” the law firm’s own website states. The law firm advised Microsoft in a landmark court case where U.S. authorities wanted to access data on Irish servers, it said in a 2016 press release. Irish media also reported that the firm had advised the Irish government in a case in which the government pushed back on collecting almost €14 billion in back taxes from Apple. Moore did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment. William Fry did not provide a comment in time for publication. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner enforces Europe’s mighty General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on many of the world’s largest technology companies, including Meta, X, Google, TikTok and others that have their European headquarters in Ireland. | Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images The chair of the panel, Kavanagh, has previously worked in senior leadership roles in the pharma, financial services, retail and public sectors, including with Inizio, Axa, Primark and Ireland’s central bank, she stated on her website. The site said she has also worked with “technology companies” as a “coach and senior team facilitator.” Kavanagh declined POLITICO’s request for comment, directing questions to the publicjobs service and the Irish justice department. REVOLVING DOOR COMPLAINT Sweeney is set to take office Oct. 13 alongside co-Commissioners Des Hogan and Dale Sunderland. The DPC switched to having three top commissioners after former Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon (who carried out the role alone) left office in 2024. Sweeney worked as Facebook’s head of public policy in Ireland from 2015-2019, then as EMEA director of public policy for WhatsApp until 2021, followed by a year working as head of communications for financial technology firm Stripe. She was a director at lobby firm Milltown Partners until this summer, her LinkedIn page showed. Sweeney’s appointment as co-commissioner raised concerns among privacy activists when it was announced in September. Austrian privacy group Noyb described it as Ireland’s “kissing US Big Tech’s backside” and said it left companies like Meta to regulate themselves. A candidate competing with Sweeney for the commissioner role submitted a complaint about the process in April, publicjobs’ May letter seen by POLITICO showed. The complainant’s name was redacted from the documents. The complainant questioned the inclusion of tech lawyer Moore on the panel that selected the former Meta official. They alleged that Moore had a conflict of interest given his role “as a corporate lawyer who represents clients whose business practices are regulated by the very agency this role oversees,” according to the letter, which responded to the complaint. Publicjobs in the letter defended the independence and expertise of the board that it had assembled and said it was “assured that Mr Moore’s professional role was not considered to conflict with his role on the Board.” The complainant also argued that no member of the panel had enough technological expertise to make a fair assessment of applications.   In the letter, publicjobs highlighted the “extensive” expertise of Moore in data protection and cybersecurity. GOVERNMENT STANDS BY APPOINTMENT Publicjobs said in the letter that it found “no evidence that the Board convened was inappropriate, or incapable of assessing candidates against the key requirements of the role in question.”  In a written comment to POLITICO, a spokesperson for publicjobs said the authority has “full confidence in the composition, independence, expertise and qualifications of the chosen Assessment Board” to recruit a third data protection commissioner, and that the complaint submitted about the competition had been “fully addressed” by the service’s review process.     A corporate lawyer who has worked for Big Tech played a key role in picking a former lobbyist for Facebook and WhatsApp as one of Europe’s most powerful privacy regulators. | Samuel Boivin/Getty Images They said publicjobs works to ensure assessment boards for senior roles are “balanced, diverse and not conflicted, with all panelists required to complete a confidentiality agreement and a conflict-of-interest form.” Boards at this level are approved by the service’s Chief Executive Margaret McCabe and Head of Recruitment Talent Strategy Michelle Noone, the spokesperson added. A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration told POLITICO the ministry is “fully satisfied with the appointment process.” The Irish Data Protection Commission declined to comment, saying it was not involved in the appointment process. Blaney declined to comment, directing POLITICO to publicjobs and Ireland’s justice department. McEntee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Robert Benson is the associate director for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. History will likely remember the U.S.–EU Turnberry trade deal less for its technicalities than for what it symbolizes: the moment Washington openly rewrote the transatlantic bargain. Far from a victory for Brussels, this terse 19-point deal merely codified the structural disadvantages the bloc faced in earlier trade talks. Building on the understanding reached at U.S. President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in July — which European leaders had called “a dark day” — the agreement imposed a 15 percent tariff on most European exports to the U.S. and formalizes a commitment to bring auto tariffs to the same level, while leaving the levies on Europe’s car industry punishingly high. Yet, somehow, the release of the deal’s framework text was met with grudging acceptance — and even relief — on the grounds that it was the best bargain Europe could hope for. Essentially, what began as a trade standoff ended in a lopsided pact formalizing America’s leverage over Europe. Then, before the ink had even dried, Washington drew a new battle line, threatening fresh tariffs that would strike at the core of the bloc’s digital sovereignty. This broadside exposes a deeper truth: Europe is adrift in a world where it no longer shapes the norm and stands increasingly vulnerable to American revisionism. This realization may be frightening, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had already laid out this vision last fall — that the U.S. must leverage Europe’s security dependence to rewrite the global economic order in its favor. Turnberry is simply the first full implementation of this strategy, and pressure will only mount from here. The deal itself is structurally skewed, front-loading a 15-percent asymmetric tariff in favor of U.S. industries and shielding American sectors from reciprocal obligations. Its bold promises — including $750 billion in U.S. energy exports and $600 billion in EU investment — are also unrealistic and deliberately designed to collapse under their own weight. So, when the EU inevitably falls short, the U.S. can then seize the opportunity to press for greater concessions on tech regulation and digital services. The real purpose isn’t compliance, it’s coercion. And while the fact that we’ve so far managed to avoid a full-blown trade war may appear to some as evidence of successful diplomacy, this reading overlooks the real cost of Brussels’s concessions: sharp economic contraction, political backlash and the normalization of bullying in international diplomacy. Europe is navigating a maze of interdependencies, and Washington knows exactly how to exploit that. As evidenced by Congressman Jim Jordan’s August visits to Brussels, London and Dublin, MAGA will now frame the EU’s digital regulation — on content moderation, data privacy and platform accountability — as violations of “free speech” and anti-American bias. This is more than a rhetorical ploy, it’s a calculated effort to destabilize Europe’s liberal democracies by amplifying fringe political actors, sowing division and undermining trust in centrist institutions. Beyond pushing back against tech standards, Washington is positioning itself to challenge Europe on the ideological legitimacy of its entire regulatory model. Thus, the battle over digital sovereignty will be cast in civilizational terms — free markets versus bureaucratic overreach, expression versus censorship, sovereignty versus globalism. And Europe’s far-right narrative of elite censorship will have the imprimatur of U.S. policy. These grievances will then likely merge with U.S. demands for greater burden-sharing on defense or security concessions on Ukraine. It’s also entirely possible the Trump administration will exploit divisions among member countries on digital sovereignty, tying reviews of America’s force posture to regulatory rollbacks, a retreat on digital taxes or alignment with its own tech standards.  Brussels needs to be prepared for the battles ahead. Thankfully, some of the consequences are already coming into focus: First, driven by anemic growth forecasts of 0.5 to 0.9 percent — particularly in export-heavy economies like Germany — the risk of a far-right surge across Europe is growing. This economic pain will translate into political volatility. Populist parties will frame Brussels as complicit in Washington’s coercion and incapable of defending national interests. And despite its ideological affinities with the U.S., Europe’s far right won’t have any qualms with turning on its ideological bedfellows in the White House. Germany’s Alternative for Germany and France’s National Rally are already exploiting anger over the deal and are calling for a loosening of transatlantic ties.   Brussels needs to be prepared for the battles ahead. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Next, when it comes to security, the U.S.–EU decoupling that’s already in motion will only accelerate. France and Germany are currently reviving proposals for a European Security Council, accelerating cooperation under Permanent Structured Cooperation and weighing investment in a European Defense Fund. Public opinion is shifting too. Majorities in Germany and France now support greater autonomy in defense planning and procurement, with pluralities favoring a European army. Even staunchly Atlanticist Poland is moving away from reflexive alignment with Washington. Finally, there’s the fact that, sooner or later, markets will wake up to the implications of this global reordering. So far, they’ve largely shrugged it off, treating Turnberry as theater, and investors have priced in volatility without grasping the deeper structural shift underway. But if capital flows start reflecting the risk of permanent transatlantic divergence — on currency regimes, regulatory frameworks and trade access — the spiral could be swift. And unlike the 2008 financial crisis, the shock wouldn’t be easily sutured. Europe isn’t powerless here. It retains economic scale, regulatory clout and unused tools — but it must be prepared to use them. This means treating economic security like national security, and embedding defense autonomy, energy resilience and technological sovereignty into a unified strategic doctrine. It also means strengthening Europe’s defenses against asymmetric coercion. Brussels’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, a trade tool meant to counter economic blackmail by imposing targeted measures on U.S. service providers, was a step in the right direction — even if it ultimately wasn’t deployed. Now, the EU must also build legal firewalls against extraterritorial enforcement and deploy its regulatory power to actively shape global norms. Europe’s challenge isn’t to restore the old transatlantic bargain but to build a new one before the next crisis hits and Trump dictates the terms once more. If the bloc hesitates, it won’t get to choose at all.

The European Commission has launched a review of its digital competition rules for Big Tech and is seeking views on how the regulation has worked to date and whether it needs to be reformed. The Digital Markets Act fully came into effect in the Spring of 2024 and includes a list of do’s and don’ts for the six Big Tech companies that fall under its scope: Meta, Google, Alphabet, Apple, ByteDance and Amazon. The law, which is intended to ensure competition within a tech sector dominated by global giants, has become heavily politicized in recent months, with the U.S. administration accusing the EU of unfairly targeting American companies and classing it as a non-tariff trade barrier in U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war. The EU executive is asking the public to give their views on whether the DMA has met its core objectives to inject fairness and contestability into digital markets, as well as its real-world impact. The Commission is obliged to review the regulation by mid-2026. Interested parties are also asked to give feedback on whether the Commission should modify its list of prescriptions and prohibitions, or the list of core platform services covered by the DMA.  Senior members of the European Parliament have called on their Commission to designate AI chatbots and cloud services under the DMA. The Commission is giving interested parties until September 24 to tell the Commission what they think of the regulation.