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Welcome to Rapporteur. This is Eddy Wax, with Nicoletta Ionta in Brussels. Got a narrative we should always find out about? Drop us a line – we learn each message.
Need-to-knows:
- France: PM Sébastien Lecornu to stipulate coverage priorities earlier than lawmakers as censure votes loom
- Migration: Interior ministers anticipated to conflict over EU deportation guidelines in Luxembourg
- Parliament: MEPs again stronger air passenger rights, placing them on a collision course with the Council
From the capital
It must be a easy query. Is the brand new boss of the European People’s Party drawing a second wage for her work, on high of her MEP pay packet? After all, that is public cash we’re speaking about right here.
Yet Dolors Montserrat, put in in April because the EPP secretary basic, has ignored our questions for weeks about whether or not she’s drawing an additional pot of cash for the position.
It is well-known that Manfred Weber earns €14,120 per thirty days for his work as EPP president, on high of the roughly €11,000 he makes as an MEP. But Montserrat has stored schtum, refusing to have interaction regardless of telephone calls, emails to her and the get together, and even an impromptu go to to her Parliament workplace that I made on Monday.
A former Spanish well being minister underneath former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Montserrat has turn out to be a strong determine within the EPP, and her Spanish delegation – with its final boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo – wields appreciable sway over the EPP in Brussels, because it seeks to knock Pedro Sánchez out of energy. Montserrat took over from Thanasis Bakolas, the Greek official who was near Kyriakos Mitsotakis. She led the cost towards Teresa Ribera’s nomination as commissioner final yr.
A doc from an inside EPP get together assembly in June, seen by Euractiv, exhibits that the full finances allotted per yr by the EPP for the additional salaries of the EPP “management” crew – comprising Weber and Montserrat – is a complete of €350,000. Over the course of the following three years, meaning the 2 MEPs may obtain a complete of €1.05 million in taxpayers’ cash.
“Following the EPP presidency’s resolution on May 21, 2025, it was proposed and agreed that the management could be remunerated for his or her capabilities, persevering with a long-standing precept,” the doc states. “The complete yearly gross remuneration was set to not exceed €350,000, which was lower than the earlier mandate, and this quantity could be totally eligible from the EU finances.”
Either Weber himself is making €350,000 per yr gross, or that sum – because the phrase “their” would recommend – is unfold between the Bavarian and the Spaniard. Emails to the EPP, Montserrat instantly, and Montserrat’s crew in Parliament went unanswered. Montserrat has not declared to Parliament that she receives any wage.
Several members of the presidency instructed me and Euractiv Chief Correspondent Sarantis Michalopoulos that Montserrat had made it clear earlier than her election that she wasn’t planning to take a wage – however none have been certain what the present scenario was. The political meeting of the EPP meets later this week in Vilnius.
Most of the EPP’s get together funds come from the EU finances by way of the European Parliament. While she maintains her deafening silence about what she is doing with the general public purse strings, Montserrat is quietly constructing her community. Per week in the past, she employed Ángela De Miguel Pérez as her head of workplace within the get together, who’s the companion of one of many high staffers within the Parliament, José Luis Concejero Lasso de la Vega.
The Greeks are out with a bang. The Spanish are in.
Luxembourg talks will take a look at unity on migration
EU inside ministers meet in Luxembourg right now for a heated debate on migration, from Frontex’s beefed-up mandate to returns to Syria and the thorny returns regulation. No formal choices are anticipated, however the talks will feed into December’s Council, the place the presidency hopes – ambitiously – to shut all key migration information.
The most delicate debate will centre on the mutual recognition of return choices, the rule requiring one EU nation to implement one other’s deportation order. The measure stays divisive, with France and Germany warning it may show overly burdensome. A leaked presidency compromise seen by Rapporteur would water down the mutual recognition precept and delay its binding utility till three years after the Migration Pact enters into power, moderately than the initially proposed 1 January 2027.
Ministers will even talk about whether or not circumstances now permit for the return, and even compelled deportation, of sure classes of Syrian nationals, in keeping with a dialogue paper seen by Rapporteur. At the identical time, governments will weigh Frontex’s future position – together with the controversial possibility of letting the company coordinate migrant transfers between non-EU states, presently barred underneath EU guidelines.
And hanging over the talks is the Commission’s annual migration stress report, initially due this week, a politically explosive train that can decide which international locations are deemed “underneath stress” and the way the brand new solidarity mechanism will chunk. Poland, for one, has already made clear it gained’t play alongside.
Region campaign provides stress for finances rejection
Regions are fuming at being “lied to” and “amputated from the EU” within the Commission’s seven-year finances proposal, and tensions will soar even greater this week as mayors descend on Brussels for the EU Week of Regions and Cities occasion, my colleague Jacob Wulff Wold stories.
The “nationalised” finances compelled areas and farmers right into a “starvation recreation for much less funds,” mentioned Committee of the Regions President Kata Tüttő in a joint press convention with Cohesion Chief Raffaele Fitto on Tuesday. Tüttő mentioned she has heard an identical messages from German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Polish areas: the nationwide plans are a mistake.
Meanwhile, the EPP is discussing whether or not to formally be a part of the S&D in rejecting these nationwide plans. Manfred Weber will meet ECR chief Nicola Procaccini to debate the finances right now.
Business as normal for Commissioner Várhelyi
Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi is urgent forward together with his official engagements this week, even because the European Commission is investigating allegations of an espionage recruitment operation run from the nation’s EU embassy in Brussels when he was ambassador.
Media stories have alleged that between 2015 and 2017, Hungarian intelligence operatives posed as diplomats to assemble info and construct contacts inside EU establishments, and supplied cash to an EU official in trade for info.
Várhelyi reportedly instructed Ursula von der Leyen he was “not conscious” of the alleged spying actions. He left the ambassador put up when he joined the Commission in 2019 and was appointed as EU well being chief for one more five-year time period final yr.
MEPs green-light cuts to company local weather guidelines
A proposal to weaken EU guidelines forcing corporations to make sure their provide chains are free from environmental hurt or human rights abuses cleared a key Parliament committee on Monday, a serious win for the centre-right EPP and a blow to the Green Deal agenda. The deal, struck after tense talks with the S&D and Renew teams, handed 17–6 and now heads to plenary in Strasbourg.
EPP negotiator Jörgen Warborn hailed the result, saying it “strengthens competitiveness and retains Europe’s inexperienced transition on observe.” He’s betting the cross-party majority will maintain when the complete Parliament votes later this month. Lara Wolters – who resigned because the S&D’s lead negotiator when her group threw within the towel and backed the cope with an EPP that had threatened to ally with the far proper – voted towards the settlement.
“Brussels doesn’t provide you with something without spending a dime”
Instead of attending the summit of world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, von der Leyen spent the day touring the Western Balkans. In Tirana, she arrived bearing presents – saying that roaming prices between the EU and Albania will probably be scrapped subsequent yr and unveiling a €100 million disbursement from the EU’s Growth Plan – a cash-for-reform honeypot designed to maintain the area aligned with the bloc.
But “Brussels doesn’t provide you with something without spending a dime,” native sturdy (and tall!) man Edi Rama mentioned, standing beside von der Leyen. “We don’t meet our duties for the sake of the European Union,” he mentioned. “We do them for our personal sake – to make Albania stronger and extra practical as a state.”
Von der Leyen is visiting Bosnia later right now, earlier than heading off to Serbia and Kosovo on Wednesday.
The capitals
PARIS 🇫🇷
PM Sébastien Lecornu faces a make-or-break day in parliament as lawmakers debate two no-confidence motions simply two days after he named a brand new authorities. Lecornu will current his 2026 finances plan this morning that goals to convey France’s deficit under 5% of GDP, earlier than he heads to Parliament, the place the Socialist Party’s stance may determine his destiny. The left is demanding the rollback of pension reform and an finish to the usage of Article 49.3 to push legal guidelines by means of with no vote. Emmanuel Macron, talking from Egypt, blamed rivals for France’s deepening political turmoil.
ROME 🇮🇹
Giorgia Meloni met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the Sharm el-Sheikh peace summit, reaffirming Italy’s assist for Gaza’s reconstruction and a two-state resolution as the idea for lasting peace within the Middle East. Al-Sisi underscored the significance of the ceasefire, brokered with Qatar and the US, as a step towards ending the humanitarian disaster and paving the best way for a Palestinian state.
MADRID 🇪🇸
A brand new state-run ballot exhibits Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party sustaining a robust lead, with 34.8% of voters saying they’d again the PSOE if an election have been held right now. The conservative Popular Party trails at 19.8%, simply forward of the far-right VOX, which has surged to 17.7%, its highest degree but. Sumar, the leftist alliance that governs alongside Sánchez, has slipped to 7.7%. Sánchez stays the nation’s favoured selection for prime minister, with 42.3% assist – far forward of VOX’s Santiago Abascal and the PP’s Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
CHISINAU 🇲🇩
PM Dorin Recean mentioned on Monday he wouldn’t search a brand new time period following the pro-Western Party of Action and Solidarity’s parliamentary election win, which bolstered President Maia Sandu’s management as she makes an attempt to speed up the nation’s path towards EU accession. Recean, in workplace since early 2023, mentioned he’ll depart politics as soon as a brand new cupboard is permitted, as the federal government prepares to revive an financial system weakened by the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
BERLIN 🇩🇪
Germany is reportedly poised to approve a near-€7 billion package deal to modernise the Bundeswehr’s fleet, ordering tons of of armoured automobiles. A €3.5 billion cope with US contractor General Dynamics would ship 274 scout automobiles from 2028, whereas €3.4 billion would fund 150 “Schakal” infantry carriers.
Schuman roundabout
Meloni remembers Maggie: The European Conservatives and Reformists’ assume tank New Direction launched a brand new award for cultural and political excellence on Tuesday, honouring former British PM Margaret Thatcher. Geoffrey Van Orden, who as soon as led the Tories, claimed Maggie “would love Giorgia Meloni” at an occasion within the European Parliament.
Also on Euractiv
MEPs on collision course with governments over air passenger rights
Passengers must be entitled to each a small bag and a bit of hand baggage…
2 minutes
The European Parliament and nationwide capitals are on a collision course over air passenger rights, after MEPs agreed to protect three-hour delay compensation thresholds, assure free carry-on baggage, and curb airline surcharges. The Council’s push to dilute protections will probably be examined in negotiations on 15 October.
Agenda
📌 EU inside ministers meet in Luxembourg, press convention anticipated round 6:15 p.m.
📌 Informal assembly of commerce ministers in Horsens, Denmark, adopted by a 2:30 p.m. press convention with Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič
📌 António Costa holds conferences with former British PM Theresa May at 3 p.m. and Teresa Ribera at 6:30 p.m.
📌 Ursula von der Leyen visits Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, assembly Council of Ministers Chair Borjana Krišto and touring the Srebrenica Memorial Centre
📌 Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is in Brazil getting ready for COP30
📌 Roberta Metsola addresses the Martens Centre’s Academic Council at 5:15 p.m. in Brussels
Contributors: Sarantis Michalopoulos, Magnus Lund Nielsen, Jacob Wulff Wold, Laurent Geslin, Inés Fernández-Pontes, Elisa Braun, Aleksandra Krzysztoszek, Aneta Zachová, Alessia Peretti
Editors: Christina Zhao, Sofia Mandilara
