Luxembourg talks will test unity on migration
EU interior ministers meet in Luxembourg today for a heated debate on migration, from Frontex’s beefed-up mandate to returns to Syria and the thorny returns regulation. No formal decisions are expected, but the talks will feed into December’s Council, where the presidency hopes – ambitiously – to close all key migration files.
The most sensitive debate will centre on the mutual recognition of return decisions, the rule requiring one EU country to enforce another’s deportation order. The measure remains divisive, with France and Germany warning it could prove overly burdensome. A leaked presidency compromise seen by Rapporteur would water down the mutual recognition principle and delay its binding application until three years after the Migration Pact enters into force, rather than the initially proposed 1 January 2027.
Ministers will also discuss whether conditions now allow for the return, or even forced deportation, of certain categories of Syrian nationals, according to a discussion paper seen by Rapporteur. At the same time, governments will weigh Frontex’s future role – including the controversial option of letting the agency coordinate migrant transfers between non-EU states, currently barred under EU rules.
And hanging over the talks is the Commission’s annual migration pressure report, originally due this week, a politically explosive exercise that will determine which countries are deemed “under pressure” and how the new solidarity mechanism will bite. Poland, for one, has already made clear it won’t play along.
Region crusade adds pressure for budget rejection
Regions are fuming at being “lied to” and “amputated from the EU” in the Commission’s seven-year budget proposal, and tensions will soar even higher this week as mayors descend on Brussels for the EU Week of Regions and Cities event, my colleague Jacob Wulff Wold reports.
The “nationalised” budget forced regions and farmers into a “hunger game for less funds,” said Committee of the Regions President Kata Tüttő in a joint press conference with Cohesion Chief Raffaele Fitto on Tuesday. Tüttő said she has heard identical messages from German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Polish regions: the national plans are a mistake.
Meanwhile, the EPP is discussing whether to officially join the S&D in rejecting those national plans. Manfred Weber will meet ECR chief Nicola Procaccini to discuss the budget today.
Business as usual for Commissioner Várhelyi
Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi is pressing ahead with his official engagements this week, even as the European Commission is investigating allegations of an espionage recruitment operation run from the country's EU embassy in Brussels when he was ambassador.
Media reports have alleged that between 2015 and 2017, Hungarian intelligence operatives posed as diplomats to gather information and build contacts inside EU institutions, and offered money to an EU official in exchange for information.
Várhelyi reportedly told Ursula von der Leyen he was “not aware” of the alleged spying activities. He left the ambassador post when he joined the Commission in 2019 and was appointed as EU health chief for another five-year term last year.
MEPs green-light cuts to corporate climate rules
A proposal to weaken EU rules forcing companies to ensure their supply chains are free from environmental harm or human rights abuses cleared a key Parliament committee on Monday, a major win for the centre-right EPP and a blow to the Green Deal agenda. The deal, struck after tense talks with the S&D and Renew groups, passed 17–6 and now heads to plenary in Strasbourg.
EPP negotiator Jörgen Warborn hailed the outcome, saying it “strengthens competitiveness and keeps Europe’s green transition on track.” He’s betting the cross-party majority will hold when the full Parliament votes later this month. Lara Wolters – who resigned as the S&D’s lead negotiator when her group threw in the towel and backed the deal with an EPP that had threatened to ally with the far right – voted against the agreement.
“Brussels does not give you anything for free”
Instead of attending the summit of world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, von der Leyen spent the day touring the Western Balkans. In Tirana, she arrived bearing gifts – announcing that roaming charges between the EU and Albania will be scrapped next year and unveiling a €100 million disbursement from the EU’s Growth Plan – a cash-for-reform honeypot designed to keep the region aligned with the bloc.
But “Brussels does not give you anything for free,” local strong (and tall!) man Edi Rama said, standing beside von der Leyen. “We do not meet our tasks for the sake of the European Union,” he said. “We do them for our own sake – to make Albania stronger and more functional as a state.”
Von der Leyen is visiting Bosnia later today, before heading off to Serbia and Kosovo on Wednesday.
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