You’re reading Rapporteur on Wednesday 13 May. Eddy Wax here in Brussels. This is our last edition of the week before a short break – we’ll be back on Monday. In the meantime, regular politics coverage continues on Euractiv.
Need-to-knows:
🟢 EPP-S&D battle for Parliament heats up
🟢 We set the record straight for Albania’s Edi Rama
🟢 Booking train travel is about to get easier
From the capital
Centre-right European Parliament leader Roberta Metsola is edging towards an unprecedented third term in 2027 – a move that would keep the role in EPP hands and make the Maltese politician the institution’s longest-serving president.
But only if she can secure a majority.
Standing in her way are the Socialists, who insist the presidency should return to them under Parliament’s longstanding informal practice of alternating the role between its two largest groups midway through the mandate.
Publicly, MEPs say it’s too early for such discussions. The vote is not due until January next year. Privately, however, Parliament’s cafés are already thick with spin and plotting, as potential candidates weigh whether to declare before or after the summer.
The Socialists say they possess a written agreement, signed by EPP leader Manfred Weber, to prove their claim to the role, and intend to field a challenger. Names including Katarina Barley and Nicola Zingaretti are being tested in hushed tones.
Yet Metsola’s centre-right allies believe they have two cards up their sleeve.
The first is António Costa, the socialist president of the European Council, whose 2.5-year term also expires next year. The prospect of EPP leaders orchestrating his removal is fanciful. EU leaders like genial Costa, and his short mandate is only a quirk of the treaties. His predecessors have all lasted five years. But still, the threat is there.
“The document leaves sufficient leeway for several outcomes,” one EPP member told Rapporteur. “And that also applies to the president of the European Council.”
Metsola’s second advantage is arithmetic. The EPP could theoretically get her elected on a right-to-far-right ticket, with the support of ECR and Patriots for Europe.
That is not her preferred route. Such a coalition would shatter the fragile centrist majority that still passes most laws – if not the most controversial ones. Getting the Patriots’ support also wouldn’t come free, and could open up a cascade of other political changes.
Jordan Bardella’s group is demanding Metsola drops the firewall surrounding the 20-MEP bureau, Parliament’s administrative nerve centre. That could pave the way for figures such as Kinga Gál of Fidesz to secure a vice presidential role – an outcome many centrists regard as unacceptable.
Which helps explain Metsola’s low-key opening gambit.
Sources told Euractiv’s Pietro Guastamacchia and me that her pitch is for there to be no grand bargain, or political tumult at all. Instead, the current bureau, comprising Metsola, 14 vice presidents and five quaestors, would simply be rolled over and voted through again as a standalone package.
It sounds like being the continuity candidate might fly with other centrists. “Overall, we want the EP President to make the centrist coalition work and to keep the extreme right out of the bureau,” a Renew source told Pietro.
For this strategy to fly, the Socialists would need to back down and not put forward a challenger. The calculation inside the EPP is that they could be persuaded to do so by retaining their disproportionately high number of vice presidential posts (five), alongside other concessions.
The question now is which side blinks first. The EPP or S&D. The showdown is delicately poised.
Edi vs Eddy
Rapporteur was surprised to see a social media post from Albania’s PM Edi Rama on Tuesday, challenging our reporting of an interview conducted on Monday with Ferit Hoxha, the country’s foreign minister, which triggered a political debate in Italy.
The interview focused on Hoxha’s statement that the Italy-Albania migration deal would not be extended after 2030 because, by then, Albania expects to have joined the EU.
The remarks were widely picked up in the Italian press, from La Stampa to Corriere della Sera. Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister, told journalists: “2030 is so far away; let’s focus on what we need to do now.”
Rama wrote online: “To all journalists from Italy, and beyond, who are reaching out regarding a misleading quote reported by a media outlet … let me reiterate, clearly and hopefully once and for all, that our Protocol with Italy is here to stay, for as long as Italy wants it.”
Giorgia Meloni responded to his post last night with a brief: “Grazie Edi.”
For the record, this is what Hoxha told me, word for word: “I’m saying to you that after five years, once Albania joins, that is no longer extraterritorial. It’s the territory of the European Union. First of all, it’s for five years and I’m not sure that there will be an extension. Second, there will be no extension because we will be a member of the European Union.”
I would be happy to share a copy of the transcript with the prime minister, should he wish to see it.
Track changes
One day after it proved impossible to get to Schuman by public transport, the Commission is preparing a new ‘passenger package’ aimed at making rail travel easier to book across Europe. See how fast things go when the EU mothership is affected!
Joking aside, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the transport commissioner, has promised legislation that would allow passengers to book a train trip anywhere within the EU with a few taps on a smartphone.
Campaigners argue that one reason low-cost airlines dominate Europe’s city-break market is the maddening difficulty of booking rail tickets for journeys that stretch across borders. Price, of course, is another matter.
Alongside proposals for ‘single digital booking and ticketing,’ we are promised a revision of the EU regulation on rail passengers’ rights and obligations, according to Stefano Porciello. One can only hope the negotiations will be less fraught than those for air passenger rights.
EU wants to ban conversion ‘therapy’
The Commission is set to respond today to a citizens’ initiative calling for a ban on conversion practices – coercive attempts to stop people expressing their LGBT identity.
After one million signatures were gathered, the petition was formally submitted last November. Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib is due to formally respond this afternoon to demands that such practices be added to the list of EU crimes.
“This initiative is a celebration of European democracy at its best. There is no place for conversion practices in our Union of values, diversity and inclusion,” Lahbib told Rapporteur.
Lula’s burgers are off the menu
Brazil reacted with “surprise” after Brussels singled it out on Tuesday over alleged failures to meet EU food safety standards.
The move, linked to the use of antimicrobials in livestock, could halt imports of Brazilian meat from September, Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro reported.
The measure risks undermining Brazil’s ability to benefit from the newly implemented EU-Mercosur trade deal, which lowers tariffs on beef exports to the bloc.
Did pensioners get EU Covid funds?
A row is brewing in Madrid over the alleged use of EU Covid recovery money to plug holes in Spain’s pension system, Inés Fernández-Pontes reported.
The country’s Court of Auditors said the government used €2.4 billion in Recovery and Resilience Facility funds in 2024 to cover shortfalls linked to civil service pensions. Brussels said it is reviewing the information and remains in contact with Spanish authorities, while the opposition Popular Party warned the move could expose the country to EU sanctions.
Pedro Sánchez’s government denies any diversion of funds, insisting that not “a single euro” was spent outside the recovery plan.
That’s a problem for the NextGeneration
Europe’s €650 billion Covid recovery fund, known as NextGenerationEU, was designed to shield the bloc’s economies from the pandemic’s fallout – not burden its future finances.
But as calls grow to delay repayments, due to begin when the EU’s next long-term budget takes effect in 2028, a political battle is looming between fiscal hawks such as Germany and the Netherlands and countries pushing to kick the bill further down the road. Read the full story by Victoria Becker and Thomas Moller-Nielsen.
The capitals
BERLIN 🇩🇪
Brussels is weighing opening an excessive deficit procedure against Germany as Friedrich Merz’s government ramps up spending on defence and infrastructure while tax revenues disappoint. The move, which could be proposed on 3 June, would mark a striking rebuke of the EU’s largest economy after Germany’s fiscal watchdog warned Berlin’s deficit could hit 4.25% of GDP this year – well above the bloc’s 3% ceiling.
– Thomas Møller-Nielsen
BUDAPEST 🇭🇺
The new government used parliamentary hearings this week to sketch out a break from Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power, with Péter Magyar’s ministers pledging closer ties with Brussels, eurozone accession by 2030 and efforts to unlock €10.4 billion in frozen EU funds. Incoming ministers also promised institutional vetting, education reforms and a more “value-based” healthcare system, while maintaining pragmatic ties with China and Russian energy imports. Read the full story.
– Mátyás Varga
WARSAW 🇵🇱
Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that planned rules allowing same-sex marriages performed abroad to be entered into Poland’s civil registry would not extend adoption rights to same-sex couples. Tusk urged ministers to quickly finalise the regulation following rulings by the EU’s top court and Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court. Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski said the capital would begin registering same-sex marriages concluded elsewhere in the bloc.
– Charles Szumski
PODGORICA 🇲🇪
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned in Montenegro that actors seeking to destabilise the Western Balkans were attempting to drag the region backwards, adding that security could no longer be taken for granted. Rutte thanked Montenegro for its support for Ukraine and urged other Balkan nations to raise defence spending and boost military production. He praised Montenegro for spending 2% of its GDP on the military.
– Bronwyn Jones
MADRID 🇪🇸
Spain confirmed its first hantavirus case on Tuesday after one of the 14 Spaniards aboard the infected cruise ship docked in the Canary Islands tested positive for the rodent-borne disease. Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo accused the government of Pedro Sánchez of “deliberately hiding” the true number of infections, allegations Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres dismissed as “conspiracy theories.”
– Inés Fernández-Pontes
ATHENS 🇬🇷
A party reportedly being prepared by former PM Alexis Tsipras would emerge as the main challenger to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, according to a new poll released amid mounting speculation over snap elections. Mitsotakis’ New Democracy leads on 26.8%, followed by a prospective Tsipras-led party on 13.7%, narrowly ahead of PASOK on 13.2%.
– Sarantis Michalopoulos
HELSINKI 🇫🇮
Finland’s Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Mika Poutala has proposed a %E2%80%91free-generation-across-europe/”>UK-style generational tobacco ban that would prevent anyone born in 2009 or later from purchasing tobacco products. Poutala said tougher restrictions were needed if Finland is to meet its legally binding goal of becoming tobacco- and nicotine-free by 2030, warning that rising nicotine use among young people showed “stricter tobacco policy” was required.
– Magdalena Kensy
Also on Euractiv
Starmer is a symptom of Britain’s deeper malaise
Sir Keir Starmer seems to have survived another day — but for how many more,…
5 minutes
Euractiv columnist Simon Nixon argues that Britain’s political chaos reflects deeper structural failures: a collapsing Thatcherite economic model, an unsustainable refusal to match European-style public spending with higher taxes, and a political class still unwilling to confront the economic costs of Brexit.
With bond markets again flashing warnings after Labour’s disastrous local election results, Nixon writes that the country risks remaining trapped in “economic limbo,” churning through prime ministers while separatists and populists continue to rise.
Contributors: Claudie Moreau, Magnus Lund Nielsen, Pietro Guastamacchia, Vince Chadwick, Victoria Becker, Magnus Lund Nielsen, Thomas Møller-Nielsen, Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro, Angelo di Mambro, Björn Stritzel
Editors: Christina Zhao, Sofia Mandilara, Charles Szumski
