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The Brief – 27 June 2025: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Orlando Whitehead Euractiv Jun 27, 2025 18:13 4 min. read Opinion
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer's interpretation of facts and data.
Good Friday afternoon. Well done for making it through the succession of early doorsteps and late nights, roundtables and sideline stunts, and all the thrills that came with a double-barrel week of NATO and EUCO summits.
As is always the case when Trump is on the bill, the meeting in The Hague was the focus of attention, his arrival prefaced by debate in Europe about defence spending. Keeping the big man sweet was the name of the game, and alliance chief Rutte was prepared to prostrate himself (and European allies) for his excellency's pleasure.
Any self-respecting person would have told him to knock it off. Instead, Trump shared the intimate messages. And the NATO comms team kept up the nauseating narrative, sharing a "family photo" shortly after the 'daddy' of the group cast doubt over America's commitment to Article 5 – the very cornerstone of the alliance. It's almost as if someone's forgotten who came to their assistance on the only occasion the crucial article has ever been invoked...
Surprising perhaps, was the general acceptance that this degradation was vindicated by Trump's apparent satisfaction with the 5% pledge. A credulous Rutte vaunted a "stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance", and others applauded his efforts. If realpolitik demands spinlessness, so be it.
The President's parting homage to "the love and the passion that [EU leaders] showed for their country" was especially uncomfortable to hear. "I've never seen anything like it,' he beamed. Neither had we. But will it stop him clobbering the continent with 50% tariffs in two weeks? Don't hold your breath.
EUCO
With NATO hailed a success, a weary procession headed closer to Euractiv HQ for the European Council summit, which president António Costa was intent on keeping to one day (they overshot by a couple of hours).
High on the agenda was the EU's response to incoming US tariffs, and how to strike the balance between assertiveness and provoking an aggressive pushback.
While the jury is out on the best strategy for dealing with POTUS, the desire to reduce economic dependence on America is universal. To this end, von der Leyen floated the idea of an alternative to the World Trade Organisation, whose rules Trump has interpreted as optional as he rides roughshod over free trade agreements.
But besides indicating that this could not include the US, the proposal is still in gestation. A Space Act to make Musk blast off? Not content with wrapping 27 member countries with red tape, the Commission plans to turn its regulatory spray gun on the cosmos, with a landmark Space Act that aims to set the global standards for launching rockets and maintaining satellites.
The law won't apply until at least 2030, but it could be on a collision course with tech companies already angling to exploit the extraterrestrial zone. Greenwashing back on the menu? The controversy that broke last Friday when the Commission announced that the Green Claims law would be dropped, continued to boil this week.
Whilst a Commission official told The Capitals newsletter on Sunday that the law – which is designed to prevent companies from making unfounded claims about the environmental or climate friendliness of their products – would live on (albeit substantially diluted), Italy withdrew support for the law on Monday, casting further doubt over its future.
Progressive MEPs have been fuming over the subterfuge but EPP president Manfred Weber was unrepentant, describing a "authoritarian wave" of green policies that his party is on a mission to kill. Vilified by the left, assailed by the right At the same time, the Commission was targeted by a motion of no confidence on Thursday, brought forward by 74 right-wing MEPs belonging to the Patriots for Europe and ECR groups.
But the motion lost momentum as Meloni's allies were divided on whether to get behind the campaign and it transpired that an eventual plenary vote would likely be unsuccessful.
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