Will Europe stand up to Elon Musk?

 

Will Europe stand up to Elon Musk?

By Nicholas Vinocur

January 6, 2025 7:41 am CET

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/will-europe-stand-up-to-elon-musk/

 

Brussels Playbook

By NICHOLAS VINOCUR

with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH

 

GREETINGS, welcome to Brussels Playbook and happy new year if you’re just tuning in after a quiet holiday. I’m Nick Vinocur and I’ve managed to keep winter bugs away, though the same can’t be said for European President Ursula von der Leyen, who had to cancel commitments in Lisbon and Warsaw after coming down with a case of “severe pneumonia,” per a Commission spokesperson.

 

Where is she now? Von der Leyen is recovering in Hannover, Germany, but is in “daily contact” with her teams in Brussels. Read our story here.

 

What if she can’t work? The Commission doesn’t have an official succession plan, but Teresa Ribera is primus inter pares among the Commission’s six EVPs and would, theoretically, be next in line to run the EU executive if von der Leyen’s unable to.

 

DRIVING THE DAY: THE EU’S MUSK PROBLEM 

WILL EUROPE PUSH BACK AGAINST ELON MUSK? Here’s a monster of a back-to-school problem for EU officials as they return to their desks today: How to deal with tech mogul Elon Musk and his growing attempts to support right-wing and far-right figures against mainstream leaders in Europe?

 

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ICYMI: The extremely online billionaire is obsessed with politics in Europe and the U.K., publishing a torrent of X posts and a newspaper op-ed in the past couple of weeks that promoted the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), attacked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, called for an early election in Britain and turned against his former ally Nigel Farage.

 

Maybe he’ll forget us? Musk’s attention seemed to have diverted mostly to the U.K. in recent days — “Starmer must go. He is national embarrassment,” he posted last night, a few hours after declaring that Farage should be replaced as Reform UK leader. But Musk hasn’t forgotten about Germany — he plans to appear on a livestream conversation on X with AfD leader Alice Weidel this Thursday.

 

Many elections to influence: Once that’s done, Musk could wade in on the upcoming Polish presidential election in May, the Romanian election do-over, the Czech parliamentary election in October, the Irish election in November and, who knows what else.

 

Warning from the Berlaymont: Commission Executive Vice President Stéphane Séjourné said Donald Trump’s incoming administration “must take into account that other countries also have the right to choose their leaders sovereignly and democratically and without interference,” Giovanna Faggionato and Aude van den Hove report. (More from their interview with Séjourné below.)

 

Breaking out the “F” word: Marietje Schaake, a former MEP who’s now a fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, told Playbook that “Musk’s support for anti-democratic and fascist politics is dangerous.” It’s particularly troubling given his comments attacking the leaders of key European nations that have historically been allies of the U.S. could be taken as representing the views of the incoming president.

 

There are options. Schaake argued Europe could attempt to rein in Musk by invoking laws against foreign interference or threatening sanctions — but the EU’s Digital Services Act is “probably the most relevant law that can be invoked to assess whether Musk poses a systems risk to elections.”

 

Will Brussels do it? Despite the Commission telling X last July that the platform was in breach of the DSA, according to a preliminary assessment, the EU executive has yet to follow up with legal action.

 

Meanwhile, anonymous Commission officials distanced themselves from a letter sent by ex-Commissioner Thierry Breton in August warning Musk he was at risk of amplifying harmful content. The officials had briefed journalists that Breton had failed to inform the College before sending it (maybe so, but he didn’t have to).

 

Elon abhors a vacuum: Breton is no longer a member of the Commission College. There have been few updates on the DSA probe into X. Musk’s tweeting on European politics has gone from drip-drip to obsessive. And the EU has been walking on eggshells as it hopes to avoid a trade war with Trump’s incoming administration, in which Musk is a major stakeholder.

 

EU officials may be keeping mum, but Breton isn’t. On Saturday, he warned the AfD’s Weidel in an X post of his own that she would be offered a “significant and valuable” advantage compared to rivals by appearing on the livestream with Musk.

 

What does the DSA actually say? “Nobody can definitely say whether Musk’s actions violate the DSA because there is no legal precedent,” said Felix Kartte, a senior adviser at Reset, a technology accountability lobbying group. “Evidence strongly suggests that Musk’s hyper-visibility is engineered: reports indicate that users are bombarded with his posts as soon as they open the app.”

 

No, I can’t summarize this: “The DSA does not outright prohibit Musk from leveraging his platform to promote his views. However, the law’s risk-based framework allows regulators —and society at large — to evaluate whether specific corporate practices are acceptable. If Musk’s engineered prominence generates public risks, such as amplifying illegal hate speech or undermining media pluralism, regulators could argue that X is failing its risk mitigation obligations under the DSA,” added Kartte.

 

In other words, if there’s a will, there’s a way to use the DSA to pressure Musk. But is there the political will to press forward with investigations that would inevitably provoke a wrathful response on Musk’s platform?

 

The bottom line: Musk’s use of X is turning into a major concern for EU leaders. The bloc has a law designed to minimize the harmful impact of digital platforms. Von der Leyen’s new Commission could use it to rein in Musk. But, in the short-term at least, playing nice with Team Trump seems a bigger priority.

 

MELONI AT MAR-A-LAGO

MELONI MAKES FLORIDA PILGRIMAGE: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, frequently mentioned as one of Europe’s potential “Trump whisperers,” huddled with the incoming U.S. president for 90 minutes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this weekend, Hannah Roberts reports.

 

“Fantastic woman”: Trump reportedly called Meloni a “fantastic woman,” telling a crowd she had “really taken Europe by storm.” His comments will add to perceptions that Meloni will be one of Trump’s main interlocutors in Europe during his second term in the White House, despite some of his hardcore loyalists recently criticizing her MAGA credentials.

 

Agenda: The unannounced visit to Florida came ahead of Meloni’s planned talks with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden this week in Rome, the last international trip of his term. Observers expected Meloni and Trump to talk about Ukraine, potential U.S. tariffs on European companies and the Middle East. But above all, Meloni was keen to find a quick solution to the detention of an Italian journalist in Iran.

 

Free Sala: Cecilia Sala, a journalist for Il Foglio, was arrested in Tehran in December after Italian police detained an Iranian wanted by the Americans, Mohammad Abedini-Najafabad. If the U.S. were to drop the extradition request or make other concessions to Iran it could facilitate Sala’s release, which would be a big win for Meloni at home.

 

HANDSHAKEGATE OVERSHADOWS SYRIA OUTREACH: The EU ramped up diplomatic contact with Syria’s new leaders over the weekend during a visit by the French and German foreign ministers, who were mandated to represent the bloc.

 

That was quick: The trip by Germany’s Annalena Baerbock and France’s Jean-Noël Barrot showed that European powers are keen to engage with the country’s new leadership amid pressure from capitals to normalize ties with Damascus and speed up returns of Syrian asylum-seekers.

 

Conditions: “Both of them reaffirmed the EU’s support for Syria, which is contingent on progress toward a peaceful and inclusive future,” said European Commission spokesperson Anouar El Anouni, who added that closer ties also depend on Syria’s leaders “protecting civilians and minorities.”

 

Handshakegate: But the visit was partly overshadowed by Syria’s de-facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa declining to shake Baerbock’s hand, and sort of missing Barrot’s as well (watch the footage here). The non-handshake sparked debate online over how compatible Syria’s new leadership could be with EU values if its leader refused to shake a woman’s hand.

 

Even so: That’s unlikely to deter Brussels from edging closer to Syria given the huge political pressure from member countries to start deporting asylum-seekers back to the country. (Recall that several countries stopped processing asylum claims by Syrians almost immediately after Bashar Assad’s regime fell.) Forced deportations would require the consent of Syrian authorities as well as assurances that conditions in the country aren’t inhumane.

 

We’re not there quite yet: “With the political and security situation in Syria still uncertain, it is obviously crucial that returns remain voluntary, safe and dignified,” said the Commission’s El Anouni. “And while discussions on returns are expected to take greater prominence, caution remains essential.”

 

The EU does have some leverage. Sanctions implemented when Assad was in power remain in place. And Brussels can use the carrot of potential billions for economic development and migration aid, if Damascus can convince the EU it’s protecting minorities and women and ensuring democratic plurality. While Brussels has yet to name a special envoy for Syria, the EU’s chargé d’affaires for the trip, Michael Ohnmacht, was along for the ride.

 

WORRYING FOOTAGE: Meanwhile, video emerged showing a man, believed to be the Syrian Justice Minister Shadi al-Waisi, presiding over the executions of two women accused of corruption and prostitution in 2015. News outlet Middle East Eye quoted an anonymous senior official confirming the man in the videos was al-Waisi, but arguing the footage showed “enforcement of the law at a specific time and place, where procedures were carried out in accordance with the laws in effect at that time.”

 

Not everyone is rushing into Damascus with open arms. While the United States and the EU have now established contact with Syria’s new leaders, regional power Israel is treading carefully. “It is our interest more than Europe’s that Syria will be stable,” Israel’s ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev, told Playbook. “We’re on the immediate border, and it’s in our interest to weaken Iran. But the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. We have to be very careful.”

 

Smart cookie: Regev said al-Sharaa was “very smart, very careful. He understands that he needs to play the game. He’s changing his image. It’s nice, but it needs to be checked by action on the ground. These people cannot change their mind in one week from jihadists into a Western gay rights person.”

 

“Let’s see,” Regev said. “Let’s see how he handles minorities. We do not expect him to turn [Syria] into the Swiss Confederation, but let’s see how he handles things. It can be a moderate government.”

 

ROAD TO GERMAN ELECTION 

CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF: Candidates in Germany’s upcoming election are officially in vote-getting mode after the campaign kicked off on Sunday. Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz — considered the front-runner to succeed Olaf Scholz as chancellor — gave a speech near Bonn to mark the 149th birthday of Konrad Adenauer, the pioneering post-war West German leader, and laid a wreath at his grave in the Rhöndorf forest cemetery.

 

Looking to Northern and Eastern Europe: The center-right Merz is calling for a “close alliance” between Berlin and Eastern Europe (especially Poland) and the Nordic and Baltic countries, our Berlin Playbook colleague Hans von der Burchard reports. “Europe must finally grow up, especially in terms of security policy,” Merz said in his speech Sunday, in a clear swipe at Scholz.

 

Sweat and tears: Merz, whose CDU/CSU group is leading in the polls ahead of the Feb. 23 election, promised to get Germany’s economy back on track, but warned: “In the coming years, we will all need to contribute more, together, to secure our country’s prosperity, freedom, and security.”

 

Hoping for another miracle: Scholz, who also spoke Sunday, is hoping to pull off a political comeback that would be even more improbable than his ascent to office in 2021, when his Social Democrats (SPD) narrowly defeated the Christian Democrats and took power in a fragile three-party coalition. So far, the SPD has been languishing at between 15 and 18 percent in the polls.

 

NATIONAL AFFAIRS 

AUSTRIA LATEST: Talks between Austria’s two biggest centrist parties on forming a coalition government without the far-right Freedom Party led by Herbert Kickl have collapsed, and the Austrian president is due to meet Kickl at 11 a.m. today to discuss “the new situation.” The move looks set to pave the way for Kickl to become the Freedom Party’s first Austrian chancellor in a tie-up with the conservative People’s Party.

 

PiS BETS ON A HISTORIAN: Law and Justice (PiS), the right-wing party that controlled Polish politics from 2015 to 2023, is banking on an underdog in May’s pivotal presidential election. In polls, historian Karol Nawrocki trails Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform — but Nawrocki is seeking to appeal to “ordinary” Poles to spark an upset similar to the election of outgoing President Andrzej Duda in 2015. Wojciech Kość has more on the state of the race.

 

HOW SLOVAKIA’S DEMOCRACY WENT BANKRUPT: A leak of a wiretap file proving government corruption in Slovakia in 2006 ended multiple political careers, but the failure to punish the culprits killed public faith in the system — and ultimately paved the way for the return of Robert Fico. My colleague Tom Nicholson has the analysis.

 

SARKOZY ON TRIAL: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy today goes on trial in the most serious case he is facing, accused of illegally accepting money from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his first presidential campaign. Victor Goury-Laffont has the full details. The latest trial comes after the French supreme court last month upheld a corruption sentence against Sarkozy and ordered him to serve a year under house arrest.

 

IRELAND IS “SCREWED”: Irish officials are frustrated about the country’s dwindling influence in EU economic policy, illustrated by its struggles to secure key roles in the new European Commission, Kathryn Carlson reports.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

TRUDEAU TEETERS: The Globe and Mail reported overnight that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce as early as today that he’s quitting as leader of the ruling Liberal Party, ahead of an election that must be held by late October.

 

MORE FROM SÉJOURNÉ: Stéphane Séjourné is taking up his role as the EU’s industry czar by promising “an emergency and strategic plan for certain sectors in difficulty,” he said in an interview published in this morning’s Fair Play newsletter. The European Commission’s Clean Industrial Deal, due next month, will mean “action plans for strategic sectors” including steel, aluminum and other metals, cement and energy. Séjourné said he also wants chemicals included in the list.

 

Preparing for Trump: Séjourné also told POLITICO that the EU should aim to “keep the 27 [national governments governments] united on our American strategy,” which he said should be both “defensive and offensive.”

 

SPEAKING OF TRUMP — IT’S CERTIFICATION DAY: The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate will convene later today to certify Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. My Stateside colleagues report the transfer of power is set to be peaceful this time around. Trump, though, is complaining that flags will be flown at half-staff on the day he takes power, in tribute to the late Jimmy Carter. Flags are usually flown at half-staff for 30 days to mourn the death of a former U.S. president.

 

UKRAINE LAUNCHES KURSK OFFENSIVE: Amid a drumbeat of pessimistic stories about Ukraine’s war effort, Kyiv has launched a fresh offensive in Kursk — just two weeks before Trump is sworn in. According to footage posted online, columns of Ukrainian armored vehicles made gains in the region, with local media reporting Kyiv’s troops were pushing toward the villages of Velykye Soldatske and Pushkarne, my colleagues Gabriel Gavin and Veronika Melkozerova report here.

 

Now read this: A coalition of NATO allies should “physically step in and help secure a future demarcation zone between an independent Ukraine and a Russian-occupied one,” writes Krišjānis Kariņš, the former prime minister of Latvia, in this opinion piece for POLITICO.