Will MEPs put the ‘no’ in November?

ONE RING TO RULE THE HEMICYCLE: Playbook enjoyed reading an email chain between parliamentary assistants about a mysterious gold ring found in the Spinelli building, sparking a flurry of Lord of the Rings memes. We asked Frodo Baggins if he would take it to Strasbourg to destroy it, but he said Mordor’s easier to get to.
READY-SALTED SUITCASE: Someone left a bunch of crisps in Fidesz MEP Enikő Győri’s travel trunk — which had her feeling crummy. After conducting a rigorous scientific assessment, my colleague Aitor Hernández Morales determined they might be Bugles.
LETTA HIM ENJOY HIMSELF! The Belgian government is funding Enrico Letta’s continued traipse around Europe to talk about his report on the single market — but not exactly generously. The former Italian PM confirmed to my colleague Giovanna Faggionato that he is staying in three-star hotels, flies economy and wasn’t paid for the report the Belgians hired him to write. But he said he’s “happy” to have traveled so much.
GOOD FRIDAY morning. This is Eddy Wax. It’s time for some diary admin …
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CANCEL YOUR NOVEMBER PLANS: The seven working days between Nov. 4-12 are being lined up as the crunch dates for MEPs to quiz would-be commissioners in the European Parliament, several sources tell Max Griera and me. It comes as a bit of a surprise since until now mid-October was considered the likely grill zone. A Parliament spokesperson cautioned Playbook that nothing is yet confirmed.
But it’s penciled in: German Social Democrat MEP Bernd Lange, who chairs the powerful body uniting all committee chairs, told Playbook that those November dates are “the proposal so far.” Word was already spreading like wildfire from perm reps to the Commission throughout Thursday. Some say the proposed Commission vice presidents will have to wait until the second week to face the music.
All hail the diary: Organizing hearings in October is said to be tricky due to the Parliament’s own busy calendar, which is locked down a year in advance and treated with the sort of veneration normally reserved for biblical stone tablets (or tomes by Mario Draghi). 
See you next year? Does that mean the start date for the next European Commission — already pushed back by a month to Dec. 1 — will be delayed even further, perhaps into 2025? Not necessarily. As long as MEPs can vote on the commissioners by Nov. 28, it should be feasible to kick off in December. But the whole process will be even more on a knife-edge.
Blood pressure rising: Pushing the hearings so close to the Dec. 1 start date will electrify the politics in an already fragmented and unpredictable new Parliament. Any commissioner facing a tight second hearing, or being parachuted in last-minute as a second-choice candidate, will be under intense time squeeze to get a green light before the end of the month; and MEPs will be under huge pressure to wave them through.
IF THAT’S A BIT TOO MUCH PRESSURE FOR YOU … Paul Dallison has some light relief in the form of a plan for an alternative European Commission, laid out in his Declassified humor column today. And don’t forget to do our news quiz.
NOT BUDGING: Slovenia’s squabbling over its commissioner nominee continues to put a question mark over the composition of the next College. The country’s parliament will not hold a committee meeting to greenlight Marta Kos as its commissioner candidate today, as the standoff continues between liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob and opposition leader Janez Janša and his allies.
Drama in Ljubljana: Franc Breznik, the Janša-ally MP chairing Slovenia’s EU affairs committee, is still stalling as he escalates his demands for answers about why the country’s original candidate Tomaž Vesel dropped out. Breznik said he has written to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asking for a copy of a letter she reportedly sent Golob. (Local media reports von der Leyen’s letter asked for Vesel to be replaced with another candidate — potentially someone with diplomatic experience — by Sept. 11.)
EPP group backs Janša: In Brussels, Manfred Weber’s EPP group — home to Janša’s MEPs — gave its backing to its Slovenian delegation amid the dispute, blaming Golob for the delay, journalist Peter Žerjavič reports. Slovenian Press Agency journalist Blaž Mohorčič writes that it could be another 10 days until Breznik’s committee meets. Meaning von der Leyen can’t give the Council a full list of 26 names for her new top team, as required by the EU’s treaties.
Berlay won’t parlay: Helpfully, the Commission was on hand to explain to journalists in Slovenia and beyond what this all meant at its midday briefing. To summarize: No comment, no comment, no comment.
What it means for the big reveal: Von der Leyen is expected to announce her plans for the next Commission in Strasbourg next Tuesday. But nobody knows exactly what that will entail, since we’re in uncharted waters. She could unveil all the candidates’ names and their matching portfolios, but that seems unlikely given the ongoing Slovenian showdown. Or she could tell MEPs how she intends to structure the College and what the portfolios will be, without attaching names to them.
Kicking and screaming: Even that second option would be a major coup for the Parliament, which adapted its internal rules this year in order to corral the Commission president into informing the Parliament of her intentions before hearings kick off.
The Commission was outraged. In a letter Maroš Šefčovič sent to the Parliament earlier this year — seen by Playbook — the top commissioner said the rule change “conflicts with the prerogatives conferred upon the President of the Commission by the Treaties.” He added: “The internal organisation of the Commission is the sole competence of the Commission president.” The Parliament ignored him and adopted it anyway.
And speaking of potential portfolios — there’s one no one wants: It’s the health commissioner job, reports Mari Eccles.
SPAIN BACKPEDALS AFTER SÁNCHEZ’S CHINA COMMENTS: Madrid is doing damage control after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s comments about the need to “reconsider” EU tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles were widely picked up, including in Thursday’s Playbook.
“We haven’t sided with China”: A Spanish government official called Playbook to stress that all Sánchez meant was that there is a need to resolve tensions through more dialogue with China. “He said ‘reconsider the whole issue.’ We haven’t sided with China,” said the official, authorized to speak on behalf of the prime minister. Spain’s massive pork exports are at threat if the EU and China go for a full-on trade punch-up.
Who’s telling porkies? Asked by the Financial Times point blank at a press conference in China whether Spain is reconsidering its position on tariffs, Sánchez said: “I think we need to reconsider all of us — not only member states but also the Commission — our position towards this movement … We don’t need another war, in this case a trade war. I think we need to build bridges between the European Union and China.”
HAPPENING TODAY: U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden meet at the White House later today to discuss plans to allow Kyiv to strike targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles. Biden has long resisted giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the green light, fearing Moscow could escalate the war by retaliating against a target inside NATO.
What changed Biden’s mind? A large shipment of Iranian missiles sent to Russia, giving President Vladimir Putin a significant boost as his army extends its grip in eastern Ukraine with advances on the strategic city of Pokrovsk, report POLITICO’s Dan Bloom, Esther Webber and Jamie Dettmer.
Putin’s last-ditch attempt to scare Kyiv’s Western allies: With Starmer en route to Washington to get the green light for Kyiv, Putin said: “This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict … It would mean that NATO countries, the U.S., European countries, are at war with Russia.” 
Starmer stuff: “Russia started this conflict,” Starmer told journalists on board his flight to D.C. (including Dan, who has more details in an hour in London Playbook). “Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict straight away,” Starmer continued.
MEANWHILE, IN BRUSSELS, CROISSANTS AND FROZEN ASSETS: Over on this side of the Atlantic, Ursula von der Leyen’s head of Cabinet Björn Seibert will brief the EU’s 27 ambassadors at 9 a.m. on using the profits generated by frozen Russian assets to back a loan to Ukraine. The Coreper meeting will be crucial to gauge their response to the Commission’s options on how to structure the loan, writes my colleague Gregorio Sorgi. Diplomats expect the legal proposal to land next week.
The $50B question: How to convince the U.S. to contribute to the loan, given its lingering concerns about the EU’s current sanctions rules, which must be renewed every six months and allow a single country to unfreeze Russia’s assets (here’s looking at you, Viktor). More details for Financial Services Pros here.
GEORGIEVA’S TRIPPING: Ukraine’s top allies in the EU will today grill International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva over her organization’s upcoming trip to Russia for the first time since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Wrong message: Pro-Ukraine states say the IMF is sending the message that relations with Russia are normalizing despite the country’s continuing invasion of Ukraine. “What kind of advice would the IMF give to Russia? How to optimize its war economy?” said an EU diplomat.
Who’s unhappy: Lithuania’s ambassador to the EU raised the issue during a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. He was supported by Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, according to diplomats with knowledge of proceedings. “Lithuania, together with other countries in the region, expresses its dissatisfaction with the IMF’s plans to resume missions in the RU(Russia) and calls on the Fund’s management to change its mind,” the government in Vilnius wrote in a statement. 
The IMF’s reply: “The Fund and its member countries have a mutual obligation to conduct consultations under Article IV of the IMF Articles of Agreement (under which the IMF holds annual discussions with officials of every member country). Article IVs are not an option, but an institutional obligation for the Fund and are carried out for the benefit of the whole of the membership,” the IMF wrote in a statement to our colleagues at the Morning Financial Services newsletter.
Georgieva’s Budapest boost: Lithuania and others are expected to turn the screws on Georgieva during a session with eurozone finance ministers in Budapest today. But officials note the IMF chief might have an easier ride because finance ministers from pro-Ukraine countries are snubbing the informal gathering in response to Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s controversial trip to Moscow in July, and are sending officials instead. 
DRAGON-BEAR OPS: Playbook’s own Nick Vinocur has this must-read story on how China’s and Russia’s spy operations overlap in Europe.
CROATIAN COMMISSIONER’S TRAVEL EXPENSES: Commission Vice President Dubravka Šuica went on 148 official trips from 2019 to 2024, amassing total travel expenses of €360,000, the Croatian newswire Index reported. Nearly 60 of these visits were missions in Zagreb, while 23 official trips were connected to her hometown Dubrovnik, where she was once mayor. This is despite a pledge Šuica made when accepting her mandate that she “would go where politicians rarely go” to hear what citizens think. Šuica is Croatia’s nominee for another five-year term in Brussels.
Par for the course? While these figures may raise eyebrows among us common folk, they might well be typical for high-ranking EU commissioners. Šuica’s team, however, did not reply to Playbook’s request for comment, and nor did the Commission’s press services, my colleagues Una Hajdari and Šejla Ahmatović report.
Housing commissioner? While her mandate in Brussels has largely been scandal-free, Šuica has often come under scrutiny in Croatia due to the unknown source of her wealth and property in Croatia and Bosnia. Before entering politics, Šuica was an English and German teacher and her husband was a sailor — professions which don’t usually lead to the accumulation of several properties worth around €5 million, according to local investigations.
Friend in high places: Šuica’s renomination to Brussels is seen as a sign of her close relationship with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, with whom she has been on good terms since she supported his presidency of their party. Plenković has shot down criticism of Šuica’s wealth as unfounded.
SCHOLZ’S FOCUS ON MIGRATION CONTINUES: Ahead of the key Sept. 22 election in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, Chancellor Olaf Scholz continues his efforts to win back ground from the anti-migration AfD. Today, Scholz will meet with Kenya’s President William Ruto to sign a deal which will see Germany accept and integrate qualified workers from Kenya, while the East African country agrees to take back rejected asylum seekers (though as our Berlin Playbook colleague Hans von der Burchard reports today, there are only a few hundred of them). 
Then this weekend, Scholz will travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. A similar migration agreement is pending with Uzbekistan, Hans reports, amid hopes the country could be a helpful mediator to help send failed asylum seekers back to neighboring Afghanistan. Further migration deals are planned with Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines, Hans writes.
FROM NATO TO DAVOS-WITH-GUNS: Jens Stoltenberg will be the new chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Gordon Repinski and Nicholas Vinocur report.
TRUMP CHICKENS OUT OF DEBATE REMATCH: Donald Trump won’t debate Kamala Harris again, saying in an all-caps post on his own Truth Social: “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” Write-up here.
FRIDAY FEATURES: Does Europe’s economy need a shot of espresso — or a bottle of Mountain Dew? This week’s episode of the EU Confidential podcast considers just how bad the economy is, and the factors fueling the obsession with the Draghi report. And over at Westminster Insider, Jack Blanchard talks to journalists about U.S. election coverage over the years.
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— Informal meeting of economic and financial affairs ministers in Budapest. Eurogroup meeting kicks off at 9:30 a.m., followed by a press conference at around 11:30 a.m. Ecofin follows, with a presser at around 5 p.m. Agenda.
— EU ambassadors meet in Coreper II and deputy ambassadors meet in Coreper I in Brussels.
— European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Munich, Germany; delivers speech at the DLD Nature Conference at 9:30 a.m. Watch.
— Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski in Cuiabá, Brazil, participates in G20 agricultural ministers’ meeting.
— NATO Military Committee Conference in the Czech Republic; Czech President Petr Pavel will join the opening. 
— Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz receives Kenya’s President William Ruto; will sign a migration deal.
— Nordic Left MEPs Li Andersson, Per Clausen and Jonas Sjöstedt in Umeå, Sweden; will visit Tesla’s workshop to support striking workers at 10:30 a.m.
— European Economic and Social Committee President Oliver Röpke in Vienna, Austria; participates in the Conference on Just Transition; Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s federal minister for climate action will attend. 
WEATHER: High of 26, sunny intervals with light showers.
CONDOLENCES: Antici Christian Bauckhage, the right hand of German EU Ambassador Michael Clauß, died last weekend aged 48. A spokesperson of the German permanent representation to the EU said “the news about the sudden and unexpected passing of our colleague Christian fills us with immense sadness. Christian was much more to us than just a colleague. He will be greatly missed by all of us.”
CONSULTANCY HIT BY CYBERATTACK: 3E was hit by a cyberattack that reached as far as the POLITICO newsroom, where one of our reporters received a phishing attack from one of the consultancy staffers, cybersecurity reporter Sam Clark reports. 3E told Sam “all affected individuals were promptly notified to prevent the further spread of the phishing campaign” … and helpfully included the dodgy link in the email.
MEATY RESTAURANT REVIEW: Colonel Fort Jaco is a meat lover’s heaven! From Wagyu beef burgers to rotisserie chicken, this lux Uccle restaurant does everything well. POLITICO’s Alistair Walker gave it a go.
NEW PORTUGUESE DIPLOMATS IN TOWN: The Portuguese Permanent Representation to the EU has three new faces: Pedro Severo de Almeida is the new antici, working as the right-hand man of Ambassador Pedro Costa Pereira. Rosa Podgorny is the new mertens. And Rui Miranda is now part of the Nicolaidis Group.
Fun fact: The only returning Portuguese MEP is the EPP’s Lídia Pereira.
JOB MOVE: Paulina Dejmek Hack, a head of unit in DG FISMA, is set to be the new chief of staff to the future Swedish Commissioner Jessika Roswall, several EU officials briefed on the upcoming job move told Barbara Moens and Kathryn Carlson. Dejmek Hack has a dual Swedish-Czech nationality.
SPOTTED … at Acumen’s party last night at Rooftop 58, where former MEP Richard Corbett launched the 10th edition of his guide to the European Parliament: Acumen’s Elaine Cruikshanks, Laura Villa and Ivan Zalinkevicius, Matteo Albania, DigitalEurope’s Hugh Kirk, POLITICO’s Elisa Braun, Bloomberg’s Santiago de la Presilla, CEPS’ Sophia Russack, European Parliament’s Neil Corlett and Tara Hadviger, European Commission’s Martin Bailey, Lucia Klestincova, TikTok’s Aedín Conboy, Matthias Heck from AstraZeneca.
SUSTAINABLE CRAFT MARKET: Explore Saint-Gilles’ “BOOM créatif et durable” market, featuring a feminist guided tour, workshops on beekeeping and zero-waste cooking and live music. Opens Sunday at 11 a.m.
TRAVELING EXHIBITION: Designblok Cosmos at Tour & Taxis showcases 10 original Czech glass masterpieces in an immersive, futuristic audio-visual experience. Starts today at 10 a.m.
BIRTHDAYS: MEPs Jordan Bardella and Lina Gálvez Muñoz; former MEPs Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Claude Gruffat, Sophie in ‘t Veld, Paul Brannen and Jarosław Wałęsa; OLAF’s Nadine Kolloczek; Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of South Sudan.
CELEBRATING SATURDAY: MEP Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi; former MEPs François Alfonsi, Morten Petersen and Monika Vana; POLITICO’s Christina Gennet; NOS’ Arjan Noorlander; Livia Spera of ETF; International Republican Institute’s Paul McCarthy; European Parliament’s Lucas Tripoteau; Rachel Ryan of FTI Consulting; Ron DeSantis, Florida governor.
CELEBRATING SUNDAY: MEP Stefan Berger; former MEPs Mislav Kolakušić and Alyn Smith; member of the court of auditors Petri Sarvamaa; Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico; POLITICO’s Molly Fluet; Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa; President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni.
PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: Sarah Wheaton, Max Griera, Barbara Moens, Jacopo Barigazzi, Giovanna Faggionato, Una Hajdari, Sam Clark, Gregorio Sorgi, Kathryn Carlson, Playbook reporter Šejla Ahmatović and producer Catherine Bouris.
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