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Good Friday evening, welcome to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Hardline lessons from Denmark
‘Is Europe in the grip of another migration crisis?’ was a question my colleague Miriam interrogated last week. For many across the continent, the answer is a resounding yes. Their concern is driven not just by statistics, though the number of asylum seekers has been rising since the pandemic, but also the evocative images of boat crossings, which serve as a powerful rhetorical device in political discourse.
It’s not only in the EU; debate in the UK has long been fuelled by the spectre of small boats. And as previous efforts to stem the flow have had apparently zero impact, Denmark has emerged a paragon of migration management.
The same policies with which the Nordic nation seeks to wipe itself off the radar of immigrants have put it firmly on the map for states seeking to deter new arrivals. After studying Danish methods, the UK last week announced measures that go further than any other European country to repel and return asylum seekers.
It marks yet another desperate bid by Starmer’s government to win back public favour and project an iota of competence. But lifting lessons from Denmark is unlikely to turn the tide for Labour.
In Danish local elections this week, the Social Democrats were flogged by voters frustrated, among other things, by the government’s obsessively tough migration policy. As one councillor in Copenhagen told Euractiv’s resident Dane Magnus Lund Nielsen, migration hard talk has drawn attention away from other issues and disillusioned many residents.
It’s the afternote that Labour’s zealous legislators likely overlooked, scrabbling for any success but unable to pull the economy from the doldrums. Ironically, the UK’s economic malaise and failed migration policies have a common cause: its inability to establish a better relationship with the EU.
And whilst Denmark’s centre-left government lost its Copenhagen stronghold to parties further to the left, the biggest beneficiaries of Starmer’s failure will be the right-wing populists Reform.
A cloud of our own
In a week dominated by the Commission’s digital simplification package, it would have been easy to miss another development that could be shaping EU tech policy for years: On Tuesday the leaders of France and Germany shared a podium in Berlin to call for a common EU definition of cloud sovereignty.
The countries have long clashed on how to move forward on this key piece of the tech sovereignty puzzle but the Merz-Macron joint front signalled a high-level shift. German government sources also told Euractiv that both would be pushing for a Commission proposal to protect European data from foreign surveillance.
Paris and Berlin unite behind sovereign European cloud push
BERLIN, Germany – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has backed Emmanuel Macron’s call for an EU-wide…
2 minutes
Carbonara controversy
No one takes national cuisine as seriously as the Italians, and the country’s agriculture minister was incensed to find a number of “Italian-style” staples on the shelves of the European Parliament’s supermarket. Especially unsavoury was a carbonara sauce that had not been produced in Italy, arch-blasphemy that may violate EU rules on food labelling, the official stormed.
Invoking concerns about identity, transparency, and consumer protections, the minister has asked for an investigation in the latest instance of food-related malfeasance.
Uranium enrichment company waits on Brussels
The French uranium enrichment firm Orano won’t invest in new projects expanding the EU’s production until Brussels clarifies its proposal to reduce Russian uranium imports.
Visiting the Tricastin uranium enrichment facility in southern France, Stefano Porciello heard that a €1.7 billion project to build additional capacity will mainly feed US and Ukrainian companies. But without concrete commitments from the Commission to phase out all Russian energy imports, new investments to meet the entirety of EU demand have been held up.
French uranium expansion earmarked largely for US and Ukrainian buyers
Europe’s dependence on Russia’s nuclear industry risks being only marginally reduced by a planned expansion…
3 minutes
What the Commission don’t know…
A proposal put forward by Ursula von der Leyen to pool European intelligence with a dedicated unit in Brussels has sparked strong push-back, including from top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who argued it would be costly and could compromise existing structures.
Other critics saw it as another example of overreach by the EU executive, which already has moved to assert itself in coordinating defence – a national competence. Many were doubtful that an intelligence “cell” in Brussels would improve intelligence gathering; some even suggested it would be detrimental to trust among EU countries.
Big Tobacco vs WHO
As the World Health Organization meets to devise stricter rules for the tobacco industry, lobbyists are stepping up efforts to influence negotiations.
Many delegations echoed industry interests, with one attendee describing an “orchestrated battle plan” that allowed certain arguments to infiltrate discussions. In particular, this seeks to promote policies that defend alternative nicotine products, such as nicotine pouches or e-cigarettes. These are frequently framed as protections for public health, despite clear evidence that these novel products can serve as gateway substances for adolescents.
Inside Big Tobacco’s push to sway the World Health Organization
The tobacco industry is deploying every effort to block the adoption of stricter rules at…
4 minutes
