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How to navigate Spain’s EU presidency policy agenda like a pro

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

Spare a thought for Spanish diplomats in Brussels. They’re going to be working flat-out until Christmas.Sweden has spent the last six months trying to process a huge pile of legislative files, many of which were proposed late by a European Commission distracted by COVID-19 and Russia’s war on Ukraine.Despite commendable progress, many of these files still need a lot of work before being passed into law. Look at the files we’ve laid out below, then look back at what we wrote six months ago, and you’ll see many of the same entries.Spain’s turn leading the Council of the EU is the last full-length presidency before next year’s European Parliament elections, which will take place from June 6-9; campaigning will eat away at legislative capacity for several weeks before that, leaving Belgium just a few short months to wrap everything up before a new Parliament and Commission reset the agenda.Here’s a selection of the files weighing down Spain’s in-tray.Grappling with the AI bo...

Can Spain close urgent EU fiscal reforms? Don’t bank on it

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

Spanish negotiators will feel pressure to make progress on all files before EU election next June, which will throw the legislative agenda into disarray. But one file stands out for its urgency: If new fiscal rules aren’t agreed soon, an outdated rulebook suspended during the pandemic will come back into force with little hope of compliance.The EU’s Stability and Growth Pact was put on ice in 2020 to allow governments to jolt their economies back to life after COVID-19. Since then, supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion — and weathering the related surge in energy prices — has ballooned their budgets further.The pact is due to come back into force on January 1, 2024 and it’s unlikely that new rules will be in place by then — which is why the Commission already issued provisional guidelines for 2024, trying to create a bridge between the old rules and the new ones under negotiation. If Spain can reach a deal in the EU Council by the end of the year, and lawmakers can do like...

How Spain (almost) got its way on power market reform

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

Spain takes the helm of the EU Council with a recent win under its belt, namely persuading the European Commission and member countries to budge on its demand to reform the bloc’s wholesale power market.Over two years of volatile energy prices, Spain’s push to decouple wholesale electricity prices from natural gas has moved from a marginal position to one that has, partially at least, become part of the European Commission’s legislative proposal.But the initiative has been controversial, and Spain may be limited in how much further it can push as Parliament and Council work on their responses to the Commission’s plan. Its presidency of the Council, rather than giving it more heft, may in fact require Madrid to step back from its strong stance in order to be seen as a fair arbiter between the various interests at the table. But skeptics of Madrid’s ability to be even-handed were handed fresh ammunition during Monday’s su...

Chaining the chatbots: Spain closes in on AI Act

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

AI, caramba!Spain’s stint chairing EU Council meetings comes at an opportune time for its AI policy leaders: After the European Parliament adopted its position on the AI Act last week, Spain has the opportunity to start — and perhaps finish — final negotiations to see the sweeping bill passed into law. The country has bet big on its own AI sector, encouraging investment and preparing the ground for regulation. Since the U.K. left the EU in 2020, Spain has a reasonable claim to be the new heart of the bloc’s AI industry; shepherding through the AI Act would be a crowning achievement.It won’t be simple, though. Parliament and Council are split on how to treat facial recognition applications, with lawmakers favoring a strict ban and governments hoping for carve-outs for policing purposes. They are also split on how exactly to define “high-risk” AI applications, which will bear the brunt of the AI Act’s enforcement powers.Spain must be seen to respect other governments’ views in tr...

Can Spain’s charm offensive win over Latin America?

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

Spain is smitten with Latin America. The region has vast mineral reserves needed for Europe’s green and digital agendas, and a trading bloc that’s tantalizingly close to sealing a deal with the EU; but also unpredictable politics and a patchy record on sustainable resource exploitation.Madrid is hoping to capitalize on this potential during its Council presidency. With its cultural and linguistic ties to the region, and with a path marked by the European Commission’s new strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain looks well-placed to make progress.“We’ll be strengthening everything related to open strategic autonomy,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said last week as he presented Spain’s priorities. “It’s absolutely vital that we complete three agreements: one with Chile, one with Mexico, and the Mercosur agreement.”In particular, recent movement in talks with Mercosur — comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay — has opened up what Sp...

Don’t mention the election!

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

“It’s not the first time in Europe that elections take place during a rotation. There have been changes of government as well,” said Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, while laying out an ambitious work program for Spain’s six-month stint chairing talks in the Council of the EU, which begins on July 1.He said little else about next month’s election during his 45-minute press conference, though it must be at the front of his mind: Voters dealt him a terrible blow in regional elections last month and his Socialist Party (PSOE) is trailing the center-right Popular Party (PP), according to POLITICO Poll of Polls.SPAIN NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS All 3 Years 2 Years 1 Year 6 Months Smooth Kalman circle.fill-ES-parliament-PP, rect.fill-ES-parliament-PP, svg.colorize path.fill-ES-pa...

EU looks to ban companies from making sensitive tech in China

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

BRUSSELS — The EU will on Tuesday reveal plans to prevent European companies from making sensitive technologies such as supercomputers, artificial intelligence and advanced microchips in countries like China.The European Economic Security Strategy, to be unveiled by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will outline plans for Brussels to intervene more in how European companies invest and trade in countries around the world. EU heads of government and state are expected to discuss the proposals in the 14-page strategy paper, obtained by POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook, at their June 29-30 summit.The document avoids any specific mention of China — but it’s clear that Beijing, along with Russia, are the top targets. The paper refers to the risk of “overreliance on a single country, especially one with systemically divergent values, models and interests.”The document also follows themes from last month’s G7 meeting where “de-risking” from China was a major point of discussion.T...

Germany, China hold high-level meeting amid tensions over trade, Ukraine

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Trade, climate change and the war in Ukraine are on the agenda Tuesday as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meets Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who is on his first foreign trip since taking office.The meeting in Berlin is the seventh time Germany and China have held high-level government consultations and comes a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, indicating an effort by Beijing to reach out to the West and improve frosty relations.Li, a former Communist Party secretary for Shanghai who took office in March as China’s No. 2 official, met Monday with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and had dinner with Scholz at the Chancellery before the start of formal talks.Germany is keen to maintain good ties with China, its biggest trading partner, despite wariness over Beijing’s growing assertiveness and refusal to criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany’s recently published national security strategy des...

Rescuers race against time to find missing submersible in Atlantic bound for Titanic wreckage site

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean raced against time early Tuesday to find a missing submersible carrying five people on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century ago.The submersible named the Titan, part of a mission by OceanGate Expeditions, carried a pilot, a renowned British adventurer, two members of an iconic Pakistani business family and another passenger. Authorities reported the vessel overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center. Every passing minute, however, puts the Titan’s crew at greater risk. The submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply when it put to sea at roughly 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate. “It is a remote area — and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger, a commander for the U.S. Coast Guard,...

New study says high housing costs, low income push Californians into homelessness

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:45:34 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Homeless people in California are already a vulnerable group, often struggling with poor health, trauma and deep poverty before they lose their housing, according to a new study on adult homelessness.The study released Tuesday by the University of California, San Francisco attempts to capture a comprehensive picture of how people become homeless in California, and what impeded their efforts at finding permanent housing. The representative survey of nearly 3,200 homeless people found that when they lost housing, their median household income was $960 a month, and for renters on leases it was $1,400 a month, of which on average half went to rent. Homelessness is a national crisis, and all too pervasive in California, where an estimated 171,000 people — or 30% of all homeless people in the U.S. — are homeless. Political leaders are divided over how to address the crisis, with some, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, favoring tent encampment sweeps and a tough-...