Good morning. A scoop to begin: Brussels plans a top-to-tail restructuring of the EU’s trillion euro widespread funds, in accordance to a leaked European Commission document seen by the FT that proposes lumping 50 spending programmes into simply three streamlined funds — and extra money for shared defence investments.
Whilst you slept, Donald Trump introduced tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports. Right here, our commerce correspondent studies from the sharp finish of the US president’s first measures to hit the EU, and we’ve got a dispatch from Warsaw on Poland’s appointment of an Elon Musk-esque official to slash pink tape.
Struggling
US tariffs are the very last thing the EU’s battered metal business wants. “We’re deindustrialising whereas we’re talking,” business boss Axel Eggert tells Andy Bounds.
Context: Donald Trump final night time confirmed 25 per cent tariffs on all metal and aluminium imports. The levies will apply from March 4, reviving a paused commerce dispute with the EU from his first term.
Eggert, director-general of Eurofer, stated the transfer would pile extra stress on Europe’s shrinking metal sector. Manufacturing fell to its lowest stage in 2023, slumping by 20 per cent in contrast with 2018 heights, earlier than Trump imposed metal tariffs for the primary time.
Some 3.7mn tonnes of metal bought to the US come from Europe, out of whole US metal imports of 18mn tonnes. Owing to the tariffs, not solely will a few of it’s shut out, however low cost metallic from China, Indonesia and elsewhere may also attempt to discover a new market exterior the US — competing with pricier EU merchandise.
“Probably the most open market is the EU, so we endure twice,” Eggert stated. He estimates that Trump will most likely put tariffs on merchandise that use numerous metal, equivalent to automobiles, too.
In retaliation to Trump’s 2018 measures, Brussels erected a protect with tariffs of 25 per cent for imports of metallic above a sure threshold, however it’s more and more rusty. The so-called safeguard measure has been weakened over time to permit extra metallic in, and it has to finish in June 2026 underneath WTO guidelines.
Eggert urged the European Fee to tighten it once more earlier than Trump’s new tariffs hit, after which discover a approach to keep safety.
In the meantime, different EU industries worry turning into collateral injury. In 2018 the EU additionally imposed tit-for-tat sanctions on bourbon whiskey, motorbikes and denims. That prompted Trump to hit EU spirits in return. EU exports to the US fell by 1 / 4, a drop of €131mn.
With China not too long ago putting tariffs on brandy, it’s a dangerous time to be a distiller.
“We name on the EU and the US to work collectively to take care of tariff-free transatlantic spirits commerce,” stated Spirits Europe boss Ulrich Adam.
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No strings connected
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk appears to have taken some inspiration from US President Donald Trump and chosen his very personal deregulation tsar, writes Raphael Minder.
Context: Trump has chosen Tesla proprietor Elon Musk as the pinnacle of a brand new unit tasked with “dismantling government bureaucracy”. This comes because the EU is also looking to cut red tape and simplify guidelines for companies to bolster its flagging industrial base.
Tusk introduced yesterday that Rafał Brzoska, one in every of Poland’s most profitable entrepreneurs, would lead an advisory workforce tasked with elaborating deregulation proposals.
Tusk burdened that Warsaw’s objective was to “create circumstances that may make it doable for you [corporate leaders] to compete with entrepreneurs from different international locations”, relatively than dismantling the general public sector, as Trump and Musk have set out to do in Washington.
Brzoska, who based the parcel locker firm InPost, has beforehand criticised Tusk’s authorities, and the premier has now urged him to place his cash the place his mouth is.
“You stated that deregulation just isn’t troublesome, you simply must need it and that you realize what must be completed,” Tusk advised the entrepreneur throughout a press convention, including a Trumpian flourish: “So get on with it.”
Tusk can also be creating a brand new financial council to deal with complaints from companies about extreme pink tape and the sluggish tempo of reforms for the reason that ruling coalition took workplace in December 2023.
The premier additionally stated that he would within the coming days welcome the bosses of Google and Microsoft in Warsaw to “finalise their funding plans”.
He had three phrases to summarise why 2025 could be “a breakthrough 12 months” for Poland: “Investments, investments and as soon as once more — investments.”
What to observe at this time
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European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen meets US vice-president JD Vance in Paris.
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European Fee presents its 2025 working programme.
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Casual meeting of EU growth ministers in Warsaw.
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