Will the real Trump whisperer please stand up?

 

Will the real Trump whisperer please stand up?

By Gabriel Gavin

13 mins read

December 24, 2024 7:00 am CET

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/will-the-real-trump-whisperer-please-stand-up/

 

Brussels Playbook

By GABRIEL GAVIN

with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH

 

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Bill Clinton was hospitalized for “testing and observation” in Washington after developing a fever, the former U.S. president’s spokesperson said. Details here.

 

GOOD MORNING and goodwill to all Playbook readers. It’s Tuesday, it’s Christmas Eve and it’s the second day of the end-of-year break for the Commission and the European Parliament. I’m Gabriel Gavin, back to spread some festive cheer and tell you everything you need to know about the Brussels bubble (or should that be bauble?). Further down in today’s newsletter you’ll get a peek underneath lawmakers’ Christmas trees, where lobbyists have been busy placing carefully wrapped gifts. But first …

 

DRIVING THE DAY: TRUMP WHISPERING  Share on Twitter  Share on Facebook  Share on Linkedin  Share on Handclap

NEW YEAR, NEW ECR: If you thought the European Parliament couldn’t shift much further to the right, think again. Mateusz Morawiecki — Poland’s former prime minister and likely next chief of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists — wants to join forces with the conservative European People’s Party and far-right Patriots for Europe to enforce a more right-wing agenda across the EU.

 

On the menu for 2025: Hacking away at green legislation, slashing “red tape” to pave the way for Europe’s reindustrialization and acting as “Europe translator” for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

 

Already in charge: “Basically we have the majority, or close to the majority,” Morawiecki told Playbook’s Nick Vinocur in an interview, referring to the combined forces of the ECR, EPP and Patriots. This presents an opportunity to ramp up “informal cooperation” with the EPP “in all areas related to the economy,” he added.

 

Political tightrope: Any sort of collaboration between the ECR and the center-right is controversial, especially for the German contingent inside the EPP. Morawiecki was careful to say he hadn’t spoken directly to EPP boss Manfred Weber “in the last few months.”

 

Reminder: The Law and Justice party leader is likely to take over the ECR leadership from Italian PM Giorgia Meloni in January. He said the upcoming legislature opens up chances for “practical” and “technical” cooperation between these groups given “commonalities about how the EPP is changing its view on the real economy.”

 

The what spirit? Specifically, Morawiecki said the parties could work together to free up Europe’s “Schumpeterian spirit” by hacking away at the Green Deal, the flagship reform of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s first term. (Joseph Schumpeter was an economist whose theories see technological development as the key driver of economic growth, and neo-Schumpterians tend to favor less regulation.)

 

Un-greening agenda: The Green Deal “has contributed enormously to the loss of competitiveness across Europe,” Morawiecki said. “Look at which country is exporting most of its green production into Europe: It’s China. Wind turbines coming from China. Electric vehicles — it’s China. Electric vehicle batteries — it’s predominantly China.”

 

Do regulatory bonfires produce CO2? Europe’s aim of phasing out the combustion engine by 2035 was “too little too late” and Brussels should take steps to lower the price of carbon emissions. “I encourage the Commission to he really brave on that topic,” Morawiecki said, adding that despite his rejection of the EU’s green targets he was a “believer” in clean energy.

 

TRUMP WHISPERERS: Morawiecki said that he, Meloni and Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán were well-positioned to act as “translators” of European politics for the incoming Republican U.S. president. “I do believe that with my humble role and Giorgia Meloni and her position, we would be an ideal intermediary between the United States and Europe,” he said, adding that Orbán also had a “very good relationship” with Trump.

 

On Ukraine, the ex-Polish PM brushed away concerns that Trump could abandon Kyiv to Russia. “It’s hard to imagine for me that President Trump would want to start his second term with such a defeat as [current U.S. President Joe] Biden did with Afghanistan,” he said.

 

The bottom line: Morawiecki is expected to take over the ECR leadership in January. While he may no longer be able to play the role of disruptor at the Council table, it’s clear he plans to do his best to play one in the Parliament.

 

NOW READ THIS — THE PRINCE AND THE POPULIST: Britain’s hopes for striking a post-Brexit trade deal with Trump’s White House rest on the shoulders of Peter Mandelson, the Machiavellian former EU trade commissioner tapped by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as the country’s next ambassador in Washington. But sidelining right-wing Reform UK leader and Mar-a-Lago insider Nigel Farage for the man once branded the “Prince of Darkness” has drawn criticism, Jamie Dettmer reports.

 

BULGARIAN BUST-UP  Share on Twitter  Share on Facebook  Share on Linkedin  Share on Handclap

YOU CAN’T FIRE ME, I QUIT! Lawmakers from the European Parliament’s Renew Europe grouping were denied the chance to boot out two MEPs from Bulgaria’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) party on Monday. After Playbook reported that Taner Kabilov and Elena Yoncheva were facing expulsion over their ties to U.S.-sanctioned oligarch Delyan Peevski, the pair jumped before they were pushed.

 

Tough crowd: In a letter seen by POLITICO, Kabilov and Yoncheva — who are said to be loyal to Peevski, the billionaire DPS leader — would “terminate as of now our membership in the Renew Europe Group as Members of European Parliament.” They gave no reason for their decision, but were likely to lose a secret ballot among their colleagues that would have seen them ejected. Playbook hears the pair also left the ALDE international party ahead of anticipated disciplinary action.

 

Hitting back: “This decision is not impulsive,” Yoncheva told Playbook. “It is the culmination of thorough analysis and extensive debates regarding our future path, our priorities and our expectations moving forward.” The liberal coalition, she added, has “consistently applied double standards in its assessment of events in Bulgaria” and not acted on reports of corruption among other politicians.

 

Background: Peevski was last week elected as the DPS’ sole leader after an acrimonious party summit. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, he “has regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes … to exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society.”

 

Internal split: Speaking to Playbook, Bulgarian MEP and Parliament legal affairs committee Chair Ilhan Kyuchyuk, a member of the DPS who opposes Peevski, said: “The rule of law, press freedom, and democracy are what make Europe strong and prosperous.” He added: “Peevski’s model threatens to set Bulgaria back.”

 

2024 WRAPPED UP  Share on Twitter  Share on Facebook  Share on Linkedin  Share on Handclap

ON THE LAST DAY OF CHRISTMAS, THE LOBBYISTS GAVE TO ME: Whether your presents are already beautifully wrapped beneath the tree or you’re heading out for a last-minute shopping spree, those of you celebrating the holidays know their true meaning is lavish materialism. But that goes double for the legions of lobbyists and corporate charmers who’ve been busy stuffing the stockings of policymakers and politicians around Brussels this year.

 

5 gold rings: While officials in the European Commission and diplomats from EU countries generally have tough rules on what they can and can’t accept, MEPs and assistants who spoke to Playbook described a festive frenzy of freebies in recent months. According to Olivier Hoedeman, research coordinator at the Corporate Europe Observatory, “for MEPs there’s not really any meaningful limits on what kind of hospitality they can accept” and key registers on handouts “are not very well enforced or maintained.”

 

Gilty pleasures: So far only six gifts have been declared in this Parliament’s register (required for any prezzies worth more than €150). Five of those went to Parliament President Roberta Metsola, among them a model jumbo jet by Lufthansa, a signed, gilt tray from U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson and a pair of luxury Persol sunglasses (a souvenir from the G7 speakers’ meeting in Verona in September).

 

Making a list, checking it twice: Even for conscientious parliamentarians the system is not always clear. “A Danish stakeholder within the sustainable food industry told me they intend to send me a special type of plant-based butter product,” said Sigrid Friis, a dairy-shunning Danish MEP on the industry committee. “Naturally I’m thrilled because it’s a product I truly miss after my recent move to Brussels. However, I also had to ask my lovely employees to check if I’m allowed to receive a pallet of butter as a gift and, if so, how to declare it!”

 

Oh, you shouldn’t have! “The large scale in which gift-giving takes place within this institution did surprise me,” said Slovenian Renew MEP Irena Joveva who, along with a handful of colleagues, has helped support the LobbyLeaks network designed to promote whistleblowing on the practice. “I truly believe that if a gift is given with an implication of a looming return favor, it is a bribe, regardless of its value,” she said.

 

No need Taipei for it: “The craziest ones were always the Taiwanese,” one Greens MEP told POLITICO, granted anonymity to speak frankly. “Huge baskets with pâtés and snacks and jams — for some reason they were always Belgian snacks rather than Taiwanese. I’m not sure whether they realized that actually hurt their lobbying efforts.”

 

Crumby gifts: Notorious YouTuber-turned-MEP Fidias Panayiotou even did an unboxing of “presents” received from lobbyists in a video posted in October. One, a “Brussels Survival Kit” sent by Steel for Packaging Europe, appeared to include boxes of tinned biscuits. “This is not the best present I receive in my life,” the 24-year-old Cypriot said dryly.