EDIP unblocked
EU negotiators reached a compromise on the €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) late Thursday, finally ending months of gridlock over eligibility rules.
First proposed in March 2024 to boost European defence production and support Ukraine’s defence industry, EDIP is widely viewed as a blueprint for the EU’s future defence budget.
Thursday’s trilogue came after last week’s collapse in talks between Parliament and Council, which had reignited divisions among member states over whether third-country arms manufacturers should be allowed access to EDIP funding. My colleague Charles Cohen has all the late-night details.
MFF damage control
Italy’s European Commissioner Raffaele Fitto may have gotten a little carried away. After a week of tense meetings with regional leaders, he claimed the Commission is “open to improv[ing]” the legal provisions on regional involvement in its plan to centralise the 2028–2034 EU budget.
But Brussels quickly pushed back. “At this stage, the Commission does not speculate on individual elements of the proposal,” the EU executive said on Thursday, a thinly veiled rebuke to Fitto. Kata Tüttő, President of the Committee of the Regions, told my colleague Jacob Wulff Wold that Fitto was “absolutely in line with us,” yet admitted “nothing concrete” has been offered. Commission officials “are just saying that [regions] can have some guarantees within the national plans," she said. "But we don't want national plans."
Will Italy really kill the EU’s anti-corruption drive?
That’s the question diplomats will be asking next week as talks to agree on the bloc’s anti-corruption directive quietly creep back into the Justus Lipsius building, months after they sank in July. Last time, Italy, Germany and a coalition of allies torpedoed efforts to make abuse of functions an EU-wide corruption crime.
The clause, which would criminalise cases where public officials exploit their position for undue advantage, has become the make-or-break issue of the entire file. MEPs want it to remain mandatory; some EU members want it gone.
Months later, abuse of functions remains the core of the deadlock, and little has changed for some members, notably Italy, which scrapped the offence from its own criminal code in 2024. According to an internal Council document seen by Rapporteur, abuse of functions is still described as “of primordial importance” to the final compromise, with Parliament insisting on the mandatory criminalisation of at least certain acts under that definition. For many around the Council table, this round is the last chance to salvage the directive before it joins the graveyard of stalled justice files.
Some fear Italy could trigger the emergency brake clause, sending the debate up to the leaders’ level. But one diplomat believes the directive could still pass before that happens. “They don’t have a blocking majority, and if Berlin agrees on a compromise, there’s room to manoeuvre,” one other EU diplomat said. For now, negotiators are racing to revive the file in time for a possible trilogue in November.
Ribera hugs tree law
Senior Commissioner Teresa Ribera pushed back against mounting calls to delay or “deregulate” the EU’s deforestation law, calling it “critical” to climate goals.
On Thursday, Ribera warned against watering down the regulation stressing that deforestation “remains a real concern.” As Sofía Sánchez Manzanaro reports, 17 ambassadors backed the delay this week. Ribera is so far the only commissioner openly resisting her colleague Jessika Roswall’s plans to delay and even simplify the rules.
Egypt summit faces human rights blowback
The EU will host its first-ever EU-Egypt summit next Wednesday, aimed at breathing new life into the €7.4 billion Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership sealed in March 2024 to boost political and economic ties. EU ambassadors are expected to discuss a draft joint declaration outlining the bloc’s position later today.
But the run-up to the meeting has already triggered pushback. In Parliament, MEPs are sounding the alarm over Brussels’ embrace of Cairo despite intensifying repression under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council chief António Costa, MEPs Tineke Strik and Mounir Satouri, joined by over 30 lawmakers from the left and green groups, urged EU leaders to press al-Sisi on Egypt’s human rights record, warning that EU financial support must stay conditional on tangible democratic progress.
China told MEPs that NATO shouldn’t exist
In their first meeting in seven years with EU lawmakers from the delegation for relations with China, Chinese officials bluntly declared that NATO should no longer exist, showing that no détente is in sight, Sarantis Michalopoulos reports.
The Chinese delegates openly questioned NATO’s legitimacy, arguing the alliance lost its purpose with the fall of the Soviet Union. Delegation chair Engin Eroglu called the statement “outrageous”, citing Russia’s ongoing war and threats to Europe’s east.
“They completely denied giving support to Russian military, but they had Russian rhetoric,” said Miriam Lexmann, an MEP also present for the three-hour meeting. “It wasn’t a dialogue,” she said.
Sakharov Prize candidates revealed
EU lawmakers convened on Wednesday to decide on the three candidates for the Parliament’s annual human rights award. Group leaders will have to pick between a Belarusian and a Georgian journalist, backed by EPP; journalists and aid workers in Palestine, nominated by Socialists; or the Serbian student protesters, supported by Renew.
Last year, the collective right-wing joined forces to laud Venezuelan opposition figures, giving name to the now infamous “Venezuela Majority". The winner will be picked and announced on Wednesday in Strasbourg.
