EMERGENCY BRAKE ON EU’S REGULATION REGIME

For years, the European Commission has written rules faster than businesses could read them. Now some of its biggest member states want a way to stop it. In a letter to European Council President António Costa, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever ask for an “emergency brake.” It would let EU capitals halt new legislation they judge too burdensome for governments and businesses.

They also want a new “priority rule” to suspend “certain regulatory areas for a specified period” and “significantly accelerate planning and approval procedures.” The three leaders say the EU’s “common objective should be to prevent unnecessary regulatory burdens and related costs from causing permanent losses of European industrial capacity and further weakening investment and competitiveness.”

The bottom line: Brussels’ regulatory regime is pushing industry out of Europe. Europe’s industrial sector keeps lagging, and Euronews reports the letter could be a flashpoint at this week’s EU leaders’ summit.

European leaders are asking for an emergency brake on Brussels; the regulatory machine has clearly gone too far.

2. EUROPE SEEKS TO LABEL U.S. “FOREIGN INFO” THREAT

Some of the EU’s favorite disinformation researchers now want to label America a THREAT to Europe. An investigation found that EU DisinfoLab’s annual conference in Vilnius, which the EU finances, scheduled a session called “USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back.” FIMI is “foreign information manipulation and interference.” The session description asks, “How did the United States become a FIMI threat for Europe?”

The EU has sent this group about €1.1 million in research grants since 2018: €250,000 for WeVerify, €327,500 for vera.ai, €212,500 for ATHENA, and a new grant of more than €308,000 that runs to 2029. Public reports that the EU’s diplomatic service, the EEAS, quietly removed its name from the conference website but kept the money flowing.

The State Department’s response was blunt. A spokesman said, “We reject that characterization. For too long, governments have exploited the pretext of combating ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ for politically motivated reasons,” adding that the U.S. has already imposed visa restrictions on five individuals it accuses of censoring Americans, and that the policy “is global and enforceable wherever the facts warrant.”

Brussels wants Americans to believe its anti-free speech agenda is about protecting democracy. It’s hard to square that with taxpayer money going to a disinformation group that treats the U.S. government as a foreign influence operation.

FTC’S MEADOR CALLS OUT EUROPE’S REGULATE-FIRST MODEL

Speaking at the EU Competition Law Conference last week in Brussels, FTC Commissioner Mark Meador broke down the flaws in the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Meador specifically took issue with the DMA’s ex ante regulatory approach that imposes obligations upfront, often without specific evidence of harm, noting that the evidence to date has not indicated that such rules have produced greater clarity, faster relief, or remedies tied to demonstrated harm.

Meador contrasted the two frameworks, noting that, in the U.S., a company asks itself, “What am I not allowed to do?” Under the DMA, however, the question becomes, “What am I allowed to do?” When companies need permission before they act, they have far less room to experiment with new products or respond to changing consumer preferences. This dynamic also helps explain why Europe has seen such a drastic decline in innovation within its tech sector.

The FTC Commissioner also pushed back on an oft-repeated claim by supporters of the DMA that contends ex ante rules provide companies with more certainty. In fact, the opposite is true. The DMA’s obligations are so broadly framed, noted Meador, that “[c]ompanies must guess how regulators will interpret” them, redesign their products, and then wait to find out whether the Commission is satisfied. If firms guess wrong, however, they open themselves up to fines of up to 10% of worldwide annual turnover, or 20% for repeat infringements.

This ex ante regulatory approach has been especially difficult for companies developing or releasing new products that now must weigh the benefits of a launch against the prospect of substantial fines. This has pushed firms to pull new technology out of Europe rather than gamble on loosely defined rules. Apple, for example, recently announced it will not release its new “HomeView” product in Europe due to this lack of clarity, joining features like Siri AI and iPhone Mirroring that have been similarly shelved on account of the Commission’s regulations. Google has faced similar setbacks, stripping flight and hotel information from its EU search results in order to ensure compliance.

If the EU truly hopes to level the playing field and spur innovation in its underperforming tech sector, it must reevaluate its regulatory approach and consider adopting one that, as Meador points out, “has served competition and consumers well for more than a century.”

GREEN IN THEORY, DIESEL IN PRACTICE

The European Commission spent years lecturing the world about phasing out fossil fuels. Now it’s pleading with the Trump administration to keep American diesel flowing. Brussels has launched a diplomatic push to head off a reported 90-day U.S. diesel export ban. Commission spokesperson Olof Gill warned that “any disruption would risk negatively impacting both sides,” and said “high-level contacts” with Washington are ongoing.

The reason for the panic is simple: the EU now gets more than half of its diesel from America. Imports have surged to replace supply lost to the Middle East conflict and strikes on Russian refineries. An industry source told Politico that, given “the precarious situation that Europe currently finds itself in,” any further restrictions “could quickly become very serious.”

Brussels still won’t admit what this means for its climate agenda. When asked whether the EU would rethink its $750 billion pledge to buy U.S. energy by 2028, spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen called the trade “mutually beneficial.” In the same answer, she repeated the bloc’s long-term commitment to quitting fossil fuels entirely.

America is now the world’s largest diesel exporter and is setting new records this year. Europe’s green rhetoric runs on American energy, and when that supply is at risk, Brussels comes asking Washington for help.

2. VDL’S €2 TRILLION WISH LIST

Ursula von der Leyen is fighting to protect the next EU budget, and the main pushback is coming from her own country. Ahead of the October 15 leaders’ summit, the Commission president warned MEPs in Strasbourg against “large cuts” to her proposed seven-year budget of nearly €2 trillion. She said cuts would “risk cutting deep into critical priorities that we all together have agreed on.”

The Commission’s plan is worth 1.26 percent of the bloc’s gross national income, which is more than the last budget. The “frugal” countries paying the bills want deep cuts, and Germany is leading them. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is from von der Leyen’s own CDU party, put it bluntly: “Having no new financial framework is by far the most financially advantageous solution for Germany.”

On the other side, 17 Southern and Eastern European countries signed a joint letter demanding that farm subsidies and cohesion funds be protected. Parliament’s lead budget negotiator, Siegfried Muresan, warned the Irish presidency against “unjustified cuts.” He admitted that member states don’t want to raise their national contributions.

This is the familiar pattern in Brussels: the budget gets bigger, the bill gets passed to member states, and anyone who objects is accused of making Europe “weaker.” When even Berlin argues that no budget beats this one, the problem lies with the Commission, not the critics.

DMA FLOPS ON GLOBAL STAGE

For years, the European Commission promised that the Digital Markets Act would become the global standard for regulating tech. Yet, a new report shows very few governments have followed its lead.

Conducted by the Computer & Communications Industry Association this week, the report tracked 83 developments in 16 jurisdictions across the globe. Of the 14 jurisdictions outside the EU that considered replicating the DMA, 13 have either rejected the framework or implemented versions so narrowed they bear little resemblance to Brussels’ approach. South Korea, for example, despite seriously entertaining a DMA-style policy, opted against such a regulation after careful consideration. The country’s Fair Trade Commission cited the costs of overregulation and concerns that the EU’s ex-ante regulatory approach, which aims to regulate companies before market harm or anti-competitive behavior happens, would stifle domestic innovation.

Countries are refusing to follow Europe’s lead because the DMA has failed to deliver any benefits for European consumers. Instead, the policy has delayed new products and services, degraded apps used by Europeans every day, and driven up costs for EU businesses. The consequences of the DMA have been so severe that one survey found that a majority of Europeans would be willing to pay a fee in order to undo the damage the policy has inflicted on their digital experience.

With the Commission’s digital regulatory policy stalling globally, there is no better time for the Trump Administration to ramp up its pressure campaign and ensure American firms aren’t condemned to pay for Europe’s failed experiment. If the world won’t follow Brussels’ model, Brussels shouldn’t be able to impose it on American firms either.

BRUSSELS IS LOSING THE AI RACE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Axel Voss, German CDU member of the European Parliament and a card-carrying EPP ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is publicly torching the Commission’s handling of artificial intelligence.

“The whole working method of the European Commission is not adapted to these extremely fast-changing developments,” Voss told Politico, adding that AI Act enforcement “is not on the level where we would like to have it.”

Von der Leyen’s State of the Union address last week didn’t help calm critics either. Voss called it “not ambitious enough regarding digital developments.” The EU’s much-celebrated AI Act is barely off the ground, and its own architects are already admitting it isn’t working.

While the Trump administration moves to unleash American AI innovation, Brussels is still struggling to enforce rules it passed two years ago. The Commission built the regulatory empire. Now even its own allies are watching it crumble.

2. DELETE EVERYTHING: VDL’S DISAPPEARING ACT

The EU’s own watchdog is sounding the alarm on transparency, and the irony is hard to miss. European Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho warned this week that deleted texts, ephemeral chats, and AI-driven decision-making are creating “accountability-free zones“ inside EU institutions, making it nearly impossible for citizens to scrutinize how Brussels actually operates.

The rules governing public access to EU documents are 25 years old, built for a world of paper trails and physical archives. Anjinho says they’re no match for a governance structure that increasingly runs on disappearing messages and data flows that leave no record behind.

Despite the Ombudsman ruling that deleting President von der Leyen’s texts amounts to maladministration, Brussels confirmed it will keep doing exactly that, citing cybersecurity concerns. Anjinho pushed back, stating that “an institution cannot let a security architecture quietly decide what is a document in the first place.”

The bottom line, per Anjinho, is that European citizens shouldn’t need to file complaints or go to court to see how their government works. The current system “desperately lacks clarity,” and the longer Brussels stalls, the higher “the steadily rising price we pay for inertia.”

FRANCE SHAKES DOWN AMERICAN TECH COMPANIES TO FUND EUROPE’S €2 TRILLION BUDGET

French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad made waves on Tuesday during a live interview when he walked through exactly what Brussels intends to do with the tens of billions it has collected from American companies. The $5.2 billion fine the EU extracted from Google, Haddad told France Info, is “a new revenue stream for the European Union” that “should automatically lower the contributions of all member states.” The minister also characterized the windfall as “good news” that will help “keep member states’ contributions under control” as Brussels works to agree on a new €2 trillion, seven-year spending plan.

Haddad’s comments, while running directly counter to the stated aim of European regulations like the DMA of fostering fair competition across digital markets, illustrate how the Commission has used the regulation since it entered into force in 2023: to extract as much wealth as possible from American innovators operating in Europe.

Since 2024, the European Commission has handed down more than $7 billion in penalties to American companies under its digital regulatory framework. Factoring in the roughly $1 billion per year in compliance costs absorbed by US firms, the total costs surpass $9 billion. For context, that figure exceeds what Europe collects in taxes from its own tech sector.

President Trump has repeatedly held that the “United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe,” and has backed up his statements with tariff threats and a Section 301 investigation. Yet, as Haddad’s comments demonstrate, Europe has no intention of treating American companies fairly or softening their extractive regulations.

Europe should understand by now that brazen theft from US companies whose services hundreds of millions of Europeans enjoy on a daily basis will not be tolerated.

1. 13 EU NATIONS DEMAND A RECKONING WITH BRUSSELS’ RED TAPE

A broad coalition of 13 EU member states, including Germany, Italy, Poland, and Denmark, are formally demanding a “deep cleaning“ of European law, calling on the Commission to conduct a sector-by-sector review of whether existing regulations are still needed or simply imposing burdens with no added value.

The coalition explicitly warned that “EU legislation cannot be an end in itself” and called for a full “Implementation and Consolidation Year”. A freeze on new rulemaking while Brussels cleans up the mess it already made. This is a direct rebuke of the regulatory legacy Ursula von der Leyen built her second term on, including the CSRD, the CSDDD, and a cascade of ESG and climate-related mandates that have strangled European competitiveness while American businesses operated freely under a deregulatory agenda

The signatories want every major new compliance obligation preceded by a review and elimination of existing ones in the same policy area, the opposite of how Brussels has operated for a decade. They’re also demanding mandatory review clauses every five years to determine whether regulations actually achieved their stated goals, a standard that many aspects of their signature Green Deal would almost certainly fail.

Von der Leyen spent two terms building a regulatory empire that European businesses, European governments, and European voters are now collectively demanding be torn down.

2. TRUMP SEALS GREENLAND DEAL; A WIN FOR TRANSATLANTIC SECURITY

President Trump signed a landmark agreement with Denmark and Greenland on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, securing expanded U.S. military access across the strategic Arctic island, including two new major military bases. The deal allows Washington to modernize its presence at Pituffik and establish new defense areas in the north, south, and east of the island.

Critically, no non-NATO country may establish a military foothold in Greenland under the accord, a direct check on Russian and Chinese ambitions in the Arctic. Danish PM Frederiksen called it “a deal that can last forever.”

The accord also carries significant economic weight. Greenland sits atop some of the world’s most critical mineral reserves, and the agreement prioritizes Greenlandic contractors for base construction and maintenance. A deliberate move to tie the island’s economic future to Washington rather than to Brussels or Beijing.

Trump’s resolve produced a binding, open-ended security agreement that strengthens NATO’s Arctic flank, keeps adversaries out, and ensures America sets the terms of engagement in one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.

BRUSSELS’ SUMMER ASSAULT ON AMERICAN TECH

American technology companies endured a grueling summer at the hands of Brussels’ Digital Markets Act. European regulators have aggressively enforced the Digital Markets Act, handing down their trademark fines to American companies at an alarming rate, and have forced operational changes that hurt European users and weaken US competitiveness.

In July, Google was hit with a $1 billion fine, the largest in the DMA’s history. Brussels then gave the company just 60 days to overhaul its search results or face additional penalties of up to 5% of its global revenue. In response, Google recently rolled out what it described as the largest reduction in search quality in its 29-year history. Under the new rules, Europeans searching for a hotel or a flight are now routed to intermediary booking platforms like Expedia and Booking.com rather than directly to the businesses they are looking for.

Google, however, is far from the only company that has felt the wrath of the DMA this summer. Eager for more ways to extract money from American companies, the EU is also preparing to add AWS and Azure to the DMA’s list of gatekeepers, a move that will subject the companies to billions in fines, taxes, and endless compliance fees already imposed on other US firms. Apple was also forced to indefinitely delay the rollout of its new Siri for EU users, preventing tens of millions of Europeans from using the features.

President Trump has already authorized Section 301 trade investigations and placed tariff threats on the table to counter the EU’s predatory tactics. Should Brussels attempt to repeat the regulatory hostility seen this summer, the European Union is likely to face a severe trade fight that will ultimately inflict far greater damage on EU exporters than on American companies.

1. VDL’S STATE OF THE UNION: ALL TALK, NO ACTION

Von der Leyen delivered her annual State of the Union address in Strasbourg this week, outlining a broad agenda that included a continued commitment to the EU’s unrealistic climate targets. “But there is no doubt: Europe can, must and will stay the course on its climate targets,” she told the chamber, a signal that the green agenda remains central to her second-term priorities, despite Europeans’ “greenlash.”

Not everyone in Brussels is convinced the Commission can execute on “a Europe we can be so proud of.” Charles Michel, former head of the EU Council who served alongside VDL throughout her first term, offered a pointed critique of her record. He noted that the Commission has launched roughly 400 initiatives while delivering on very few of them, asking simply: “Where are the deliveries? Where is the improvement?”

Michel also raised concerns about the regulatory burden facing European businesses, arguing that over-regulation is undermining competitiveness and pushing investment out of the bloc. For entrepreneurs already navigating a dense landscape of EU mandates, his assessment adds weight to a growing debate about whether Brussels is producing policy or just producing paperwork.

2. FRANCE PUSHES ANOTHER TAX ON US TECH DESPITE WARNINGS FROM MEMBER STATES

In the latest blow to American companies operating in Europe, France is now leading the charge for a new EU tax on US tech giants’ online ad revenue as part of a push to raise €66 billion a year for the European Union’s next budget.

In contrast to France, EU countries like Ireland, Romania, and Luxembourg have been far more reluctant to pile additional taxes onto American companies. Ireland’s Department of Enterprise split with France on the tax, pointing out that “An EU digital tax would be ‘deeply harmful’ to Ireland, given that firms like Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft provide thousands of high-value jobs and significant tax revenue while anchoring Ireland’s status as a global tech hub.” Ireland further cited fears that such a move would risk stoking tensions with the US, something Romania is also keen to avoid.

As these comments from EU member states illustrate, President Trump’s forceful, yet calculated approach to European overreach with tariff threats, sustained diplomatic pressure, and direct demands for fair treatment of US businesses has already led several EU countries to question whether saddling US companies with more taxes is worth the risk of retaliation from Washington.

If France wants to raise €66 billion a year for the EU’s next budget, it should explore other solutions that don’t require shaking down American businesses to close a budget gap of their own making.

EU’S CLIMATE RAMPAGE CONTINUES, AND BUSINESSES ARE FOOTING THE BILL

The EU is set to arrive at COP31 in Antalya this November, pushing for concrete action over climate pledges, according to draft Council conclusions seen by Euronews. The document calls for delivery on fossil fuel phase-outs, tripling renewable capacity, and slashing methane emissions by 2030. Every bullet point adds another layer of mandates on top of the Green Deal agenda already crushing businesses.

What’s not on Brussels’ agenda is any reckoning with the cost of its own policies. Europeans spent another brutal summer dying in the heat, in no small part because regulatory overreach has made reliable, affordable energy and air conditioning increasingly out of reach.

The message to Europeans and businesses is clear: this is just the beginning.

1. AfD SCORES MORE HISTORIC WINS

Germany’s conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party delivered another seismic performance in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt state elections, pulling in 43.8% of the vote and securing 39 of 83 parliamentary seats.

The surge came largely at the expense of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU, which cratered from 40 seats down to just 15, a collapse AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt co-chair Ulrich Siegmund was happy to credit to Merz himself, joking that the Chancellor was “a very good campaigner for us.”

President Trump weighed in, posting on Truth Social Tuesday night: “Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night. They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly. THEY ARE ON THE RISE, and not going to take it anymore! MGGA!!!”

2. NEW HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVE

Thanks to Hungary’s anti-free speech move, the European Conservative is no more. Founder and Editor-in-Chief Alvino-Mario Fantini revealed this week that after a series of political upheavals in Budapest, Hungary’s Ministry of Finance now owns the publication outright.

The magazine, which Fantini built from a four-page volunteer newsletter into a 132-page quarterly reaching readers worldwide, was swallowed up when the new Hungarian government moved to dissolve the foundation governing the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), taking The European Conservative with it.

Fantini wrote in a statement: “As I write this, I do not know what the next chapter will be. The reasons The European Conservative was created, and the reasons it has had such loyal readers, have not been repealed by April’s election in Hungary. Europe still faces serious and urgent questions—about borders, demography, family, faith, identity, immigration, religion, and free speech—that much of the legacy media prefers to ignore. So, in my humble opinion, there is still a need for a project like ours.”

SENIOR EU OFFICIAL REVEALS THE TRUE AIM OF DMA

American companies have for years argued that Europe’s DMA was built against them and that it would undermine basic privacy and security safeguards for EU users. These suspicions were confirmed this week by Andreas Schwab, Chair of the European Parliament’s DMA Implementation Working Group, speaking at CCIA Europe’s 2026 European Digital Competition Day.

Schwab began his remarks by acknowledging that “the DMA has not been done for the gatekeepers but against them,” a stark contrast to the DMA’s stated goal of protecting consumers and fostering innovation across the European digital sector. The admission comes as no surprise to US firms that, since 2024, have absorbed a combined $9 billion in fines, taxes and compliance costs under the EU’s digital regulatory framework, which has functioned more as a siphon to extract American capital to aid Europe’s floundering tech sector than as a legitimate push to ensure open and fair digital markets.

Schwab also noted that “If we want to have competition, we have to make life a bit inconvenient for people,” referencing the very real security and privacy trade-offs Brussels has thrust upon EU users. These include a substantial decline in online map and search engine functions. Europeans, however, don’t view the trade-off as worthwhile, with one recent survey finding that a majority of Europeans would like services to be restored to their pre-DMA state.

As President Trump has already stated, America “is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!” In light of Schwab’s recent comments, Brussels should not expect the Trump Administration to yield on this issue. Between additional tariffs and a 301 investigation, Washington has every tool at its disposal to put Brussels in its place and ensure other regions don’t pursue similar policies. It just has to use them.

Managing public money is no longer enough for the eurocrats; they now view your personal bank accounts as a strategic resource to fund their own priorities. They’re coming for your savings, Europe.

1. ICELAND VOTES NO ON EU MEMBERSHIP TALKS

Icelandic voters dealt a decisive blow to EU expansionists Saturday, rejecting a proposal to restart membership negotiations, 52.8% to 47.2%. The result was a rebuke of Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, who had campaigned to reopen talks with Brussels, and a victory for those who argued that surrendering sovereignty to the EU wasn’t worth the trade.

Opposition leader Gudrun Hafsteinsdottir, who led the winning “no” campaign, stated, “These are not problems that Brussels will solve for us. These are problems that Icelandic politicians must solve.”

Iceland already enjoys access to the EU’s single market and Schengen travel zone without being a full member, and “no” voters saw little reason to give up the independence that arrangement allows.

“By staying independent as we are, we look brightly to the future,” said one Reykjavik voter after casting her “no” ballot.

Canadian Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman put it perfectly in a post on X explaining that if Canada is truly under attack, Carney’s place is in Ottawa, not Strasbourg. The question isn’t whether Canada needs allies; it’s why Carney seems more comfortable addressing Europe’s parliament than his own.

2. EU DMA LEAVES USERS DANGEROUSLY EXPOSED AHEAD OF OCTOBER TRADE TALKS

A new whitepaper released this week details just how costly Brussels’ Digital Markets Act has been for Europeans.

According to its findings, the DMA has caused slower search results for two-thirds of frequent users in the EU. The DMA’s new web-layout has also buried the sites of smaller EU retailers and grocers, while larger, more established chains have been largely unaffected.

The report follows last week’s news that USTR’s Jamieson Greer was invited to join an EU trade ministers’ meeting in October.

USTR Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previously crossed the pond for a similar meeting in November to discuss the EU dialing back its digital regulations, and with the Commission’s digital rulebook still serving as the primary source of tension in the transatlantic relationship, the October meeting is likely to dictate how forceful President Trump’s response to the DMA will be going forward.

While not all EU fines merit a fierce response from the US, like the $250M fine handed down to Meta last week for deciding not to remove over 86% of identified fraudulent ads on the platform, the DMA has made future clashes over fraud and privacy all but unavoidable by opening its users up to unnecessary cyber risks. This includes ordering American companies to share search data with Chinese rivals like DeepSeek, under “anonymization” that can easily be reverse-engineered to identify individuals, and by allowing installation of apps on devices even if they don’t meet established privacy and security standards.

As European confidence in its own regulations begins to erode, USTR Greer should keep every option on the table to ensure the US is best positioned to capitalize on the EU’s waning support at home.

BRUSSELS EYES CITIZENS’ PRIVATE SAVINGS

The European Union is running low on public funds, and now it wants to tap into the money Europeans have saved in their bank accounts. With member states drowning in public debt and unable to foot the massive bill for their green agenda, Brussels is looking to everyday citizens for a bailout.

Speaking to French business leaders last week, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the €10 trillion sitting in European household bank deposits “lazy,” arguing that Europe must put that money “at the service of its companies.”

Her proposal would use tax incentives and new financial products to encourage people to move their savings into EU-directed investments in areas like defense, clean energy, and industry.

After years of reckless spending and failed economic programs, Brussels has realized it can no longer finance its agenda through simple taxation.

Managing public money is no longer enough for the eurocrats; they now view your personal bank accounts as a strategic resource to fund their own priorities. They’re coming for your savings, Europe.

1. CARNEY DITCHES HIS COUNTRY FOR EU

As Canada’s trade war with the United States intensifies, Prime Minister Mark Carney is skipping town. Rather than addressing the crisis at home, Carney is soon flying to Strasbourg to deliver a speech to the European Parliament.

“In these challenging times, strengthening our relationships across the world is vital,” the European Commission said in a statement.

But the visit comes as USMCA negotiations heat up, talks that were already unraveling over Canada’s failure to meet its own obligations, including the flow of illicit cigarettes and other items across the northern border. And now Carney is turning to the EU?

Canadian Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman put it perfectly in a post on X explaining that if Canada is truly under attack, Carney’s place is in Ottawa, not Strasbourg. The question isn’t whether Canada needs allies; it’s why Carney seems more comfortable addressing Europe’s parliament than his own.

2. NORWAY REJECTS EU DRILLING BAN

Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland made clear that Oslo will press ahead with oil and gas development in the Arctic Barents Sea, regardless of EU pressure for a moratorium on new Arctic hydrocarbon extraction.

Reuters reports:

Aasland believes Norway’s arguments are being heard in Brussels, but added that it was the country’s sovereign right to develop the Barents Sea resources even if the EU continued to support a moratorium. “We would develop these areas, and then it will be up to the EU whether they should have a moratorium on buying that gas or oil,” Aasland said.

Norwegian officials once championed the idea of their country serving as Europe’s “green battery,” a clean-energy anchor justifying new power interconnectors with Britain and Germany. Aasland himself called that vision “a flawed idea,” arguing Norway alone cannot balance the European power market. Green ideology met energy reality, and reality won.

Norway currently supplies around 30% of gas consumed across the EU and UK. Official forecasts show a sharp production drop after 2030 without new Barents Sea developments. Equinor CEO Anders Opedal made the stakes plain: if Europe won’t buy Arctic gas, global markets will. “The only thing that will suffer from this is actually European security,” he told Reuters. Brussels should be listening.

EVEN EUROPEANS ARE FED UP WITH THE DMA

Since President Trump took office, he has fought to protect American companies from the EU’s controversial digital regulations. Now, with the negative effects of Brussels’ regulations beginning to trickle down to its own populace, an unlikely ally for the US has emerged: Europeans themselves.

In a recent op-ed published in the National Interest, Portuguese public policy expert Cláudia Nunes argues that the EU’s Digital Markets Act was never about consumer protection. Rather, the regulation’s goal was to tilt the playing field against American tech companies that Brussels lacks the ability to replicate.

Given the higher prices and degraded digital experience Europeans have endured under the DMA, it should come as no surprise that the Europeans themselves have begun to turn against the regulations targeting American tech companies.

For one, the DMA has caused Europeans to pay more for the same services as US firms have been forced to offload compliance costs onto EU customers to offset additional expenses from the regulation.

The DMA has also had a devastating impact on app performance, with a recent survey of 5,000 Europeans finding the DMA has led to a substantial decline in online map and search engine functions. The same survey also revealed that a majority of Europeans would like services to be restored to their pre-DMA state, suggesting just how widely the negative impacts have been felt across the continent.

Even when disregarding the negative toll the regulations have had on EU users, Europeans are nonetheless principally opposed to the trade-offs which the DMA puts in place. 81% of Europeans oppose any regulation that would force search engines to elevate scammer’s content, and 78% of Europeans want platforms to continue filtering spam even if it affects traffic to certain sites. Yet, under the DMA, US companies are forced to do the opposite.

With President Trump eager to go to bat yet again for US firms, frustration among Europeans is not the only thing Brussels will have to manage moving forward. President Trump and his Administration have already launched a Section 301 investigation and threatened substantial tariffs, ensuring that the next two years will be turbulent for Brussels unless they change course.

1. TRUMP ADMIN TURNS UP THE HEAT ON EU GREEN OVERREACH

The Trump administration is hitting back against Brussels to roll back its sweeping corporate sustainability mandates. Rules that unfairly burden American businesses competing in European markets.

At the center of the standoff are two EU directives, the CSDDD and the CSRD, two pieces of extraterritorial regulations in Europe’s Green Deal agenda.

Despite committing under last year’s Turnberry trade deal to protect U.S. companies from “undue restrictions,” the EU has failed to deliver. Now Washington is making clear it will take “any actions necessary“ to defend American commerce.

U.S. Ambassador Andrew Puzder took to X, stating in part: “Now it’s time for the EU to deliver.”

Brussels is running out of room to stonewall, and the Trump administration is putting the EU on notice: roll back your burdensome green mandates or face consequences.

2. LESS COAL, HIGHER BILLS: AN EU AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

Europe’s green energy evangelists promised that ditching coal would deliver cleaner AND cheaper electricity. But to no surprise, they were catastrophically wrong.

According to new Eurostat figures, coal’s share of EU electricity production has collapsed to just 9.2%. Its lowest level since at least 1990, down from more than a third of all EU electricity in 1990 and 30.4% in 2000. Yet despite the dramatic retreat of coal, the average EU household electricity bill rose, reaching €28.96 per 100 kWh in the second half of 2025, up from €28.79 in the first half, and still well above pre-2022 levels.

This comes after the EU’s CO2 emissions mandates have already triggered factory closures and layoffs across the continent, leaving the car manufacturing sector significantly damaged.

Taxes and levies now make up 28.9% of the average bill, up from 27.9% just six months prior. Pre-tax prices edged down slightly, but higher taxation more than wiped out those modest savings.

The pain isn’t evenly distributed… It’s concentrated where the green agenda is most aggressive. Irish households pay the most at €40.42 per 100 kWh, Germany comes in at €38.69, and Belgium at €34.99. In Germany, the offshore wind connection levy climbed to 0.816 euro cents per kWh, and the network levy more than doubled, all while Germany generates less electricity than it did in 2000.

Less coal. Higher costs. That’s the Green Deal in practice.

EU LEADS IN FINES ON US TECH

This past Monday, ITIF published a damning report documenting how Foreign Governments have extracted $21.7 Billion (and counting) from U.S. tech firms, with the vast majority coming from the EU by way of its digital regulatory framework. The figure represents the highest annual total yet-recorded, and a $1B increase compared to last year’s sum.

To put the figure into perspective, the same amount of money could have otherwise been used to pay for 290,000 teacher salaries, or fund five separate Artemis IV missions, but instead helped subsidize Europe’s fledgling tech sector.

Perhaps most troubling is that the EU has shown no signs of pulling back from their heavy-handed regulatory approach. This stubbornness has been echoed by European media, who have suggested the Commission’s best response to President Trump’s expected retaliation for the EU’s latest record-breaking fines targeting U.S. tech would be “more taxes” and a “dial[ing] up of investigations of US Big Tech.”

Brussels has spent years insisting its regulatory framework is neutral, and non-discriminatory, yet the EU’s recent penalties suggest otherwise. With a Section 301 investigation now on the horizon, Brussels faces a choice: recalibrate, or brace for a prolonged trade war with the world’s largest economy.

Doubling down on the same regulatory playbook that led to this situation is not a strategy they should expect to work, nor one President Trump is likely to tolerate.