Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition is expected on Wednesday to approve a budget for next year that complies with EU fiscal rules, amid mounting concerns about potential contagion from France’s deepening debt crisis.

Meloni and her allies will seek to secure a second term in general elections next year against a backdrop of simmering frustration with Italy’s sluggish economic growth and soaring living costs. That anger has recently begun boiling over into protests, including last week’s disruptive strike by truck drivers and violent riots in Milan earlier this month.

But in drafting its last budget before going to the polls, Meloni’s three-party coalition faces intense pressure to ensure it does not spook the international investors with holdings in Italy’s crushing debt pile, which is one of Europe’s biggest at 138 per cent of GDP. 

The government is aiming for a package of €23.5bn in tax cuts and spending increases. To fund some of its programme, the government intends to raise €5bn in extra revenues through fresh taxes on banks and insurance companies — something that has provoked complaints from lenders.

“The country’s financial credibility — especially in times like these — is an asset that must be preserved at all costs,” Italy’s finance minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told parliament earlier this month.  

During its four years in power, Meloni’s government has impressed rating agencies with its fiscal rectitude and determined efforts to cut Italy’s once yawning budget deficits. This year’s deficit is forecast to come in at 2.9 per cent of GDP, just below the EU’s 3 per cent official deficit ceiling.

Italy has nevertheless suffered one of the biggest jumps in borrowing costs among big bond markets since the beginning of the US-Iran war, which has pushed its 10-year yield up from under 3.3 per cent in late February to around 4.5 per cent.

The close-watched gap — or spread — compared with German 10-year debt surged earlier this month to nearly 1.3 percentage points, its widest in more than a year, amid rising worries of contagion from France’s bond-market woes. The spread was sitting at just above 1.1 points on Tuesday, though Italy’s borrowing costs remain below those of France, which recently hit the highest levels in a quarter of a century.

After four years of continuous decline, Italy’s budget deficit is forecast to rise again in 2027 to 3.4 per cent of GDP, as Rome takes advantage of the EU’s national escape clause. This grants a temporary exemption from the EU’s deficit cap provided that the extra spending is devoted to defence and energy security.

But even with this additional fiscal space, agreeing the precise package of tax cuts and spending increases to ease economic pressure on ordinary citizens — while maintaining fiscal discipline — has proved challenging. 

“Unfortunately, the blanket is too short,” Giorgetti warned entrepreneurs this week, deploying a common Italian expression signifying inadequate resources to fully cover all the wishes of Meloni and her coalition partners.

In a series of long, late-night negotiating sessions in recent days, Meloni and her allies have haggled intensely over how to target spending increases and other measures to address pressing public needs.

Among their shared priorities are incentives to encourage the employment of young people and women with children, and handouts for the elderly to help compensate for eroding pension income. 

Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has argued for lowering the retirement age, while foreign minister Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia party has advocated for raising the income threshold for taxpayers before they are pushed into a higher tax bracket.

The process is also said to have been delayed by last-minute negotiations with Brussels over exactly what measures Rome can adopt, as the European Commission will not agree to subsidising energy costs.

“The central theme of this budget bill will be the effort to address household purchasing power and, above all, to address energy issues for businesses — in short, these are the two main pillars,” Marco Osnato, a lawmaker from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and chair of the parliament’s budget committee, said.  

Social media videos believed to be produced with artificial intelligence and linked to Russia are misusing real people’s names and photographs to spread disinformation about two Democratic Senate candidates in the final stretch of midterm voting.

European Council President António Costa is pushing national capitals to agree new EU-wide levies to finance the budget.

Deal marks concrete step toward closer ties between the EU and Canada.

Students at all Hungarian universities can join Erasmus+, the EU’s study abroad program, again. In 2022 the EU cut off 21 universities that the Orban government had placed under foundations run partly by politicians, citing conflicts of interest, so their students lost access from 2024. After the new government reformed the foundations, EU ministers lifted the ban on October 13 and new agreements were signed. Regular student exchanges are expected to restart in the spring 2027 semester.

Europe’s five biggest defense powers vowed to stand behind Ukraine in its fight against Russia, even as the US offers Moscow a financial lifeline and presses Kyiv to make a deal.

“We are totally committed” to Ukraine, said French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin, speaking Monday in Paris at a press conference with her counterparts from Germany, the UK, Italy and Poland. “It’s very important to not allow ourselves to be intimidated and never become disunited.”

But the ministers didn’t offer any new pledges to help meet Ukraine’s mounting financial and military needs, referring instead to past commitments.

Still, the gathering — part of the so-called E5 format — was an attempt to display unwavering support for Ukraine as US-led peace talks resume in November. Kyiv needs all the help it can get: Its relationship with Washington has hit a new low, budget needs are spiraling and the country lacks the air defenses needed to fend off Moscow’s expected winter onslaught.

The situation has left Europe contemplating how it can keep Ukraine in the fight without any aid from the US, which has taken recent steps that help Moscow and constrain Kyiv.

“We will be with Ukraine as long as it takes,” said UK Defense Secretary [Wes Streeting](bbg://people/profile/20267263). “It’s important that we step up and do more together as allies.”

The pressure on Europe has mounted in recent weeks, as US President Donald Trump signals a possible shift toward Russia. Trump agreed to let Russia sell diesel on the global market, upending years of energy sanctions and giving Moscow much-needed cash. He also waived massive new Russia tariffs mandated under a law championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

The moves prompted bitter exchanges between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who accused the US president of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering. Zelesnkyy said Washington was delaying deliveries of crucial Patriot air defense missiles, failing to share early warnings about Russian attacks and restricting the Elon Musk-owned Starlink satellite communication network used to coordinate military actions.

In a possible sign of detente, Ukraine said over the weekend that the Starlink limits had been lifted.

Even so, Vautrin said, “We talked about the necessity to help Ukraine equip itself in terms of satellites to reduce its dependency.”

In the meantime, added German Defense Minister [Boris Pistorius](bbg://people/profile/23246407), “We will do everything we can to ensure that the U.S. also supports Ukraine with supplies, as well as with intelligence and satellite data.

Pistorius noted the five countries are separately working on its own air defense system with Ukraine: “This is intended to protect Ukrainians from air attacks in addition to the Patriots.”

Trump is also leaning on Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russian fuel refineries — part of his attempt to lower gas prices for US voters ahead of the November midterm elections. Kyiv recently restarted these attacks after Moscow kept hammering Ukraine’s energy systems and civilian infrastructure.

Moscow’s attacks, Pistorius said, are “nothing less than sheer terror,”

Russia is also a growing problem for Europe outside of Ukraine. In a joint statement published after Monday’s meeting, the five countries agreed that Russia represents the most acute and long-term threat to the continent’s security.

“Russia’s aim is to spread social anxiety in European nations supporting Ukraine,” Pistorius added.

The message is a response to Russia’s intensifying a campaign of hybrid attacks across Europe, including suspected sabotage, cyberattacks, arson, drone incursions and threats to critical infrastructure and defense companies.

The E5 group will meet again in March in Rome.

PM suggested this weekend that a return to freedom of movement could be in Labour’s next election manifesto

Source: https://bsky.app/profile/eunews.social/post/3mys6mpw2or2u

The WSJ reports that Trump administration officials are floating former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán for UN secretary-general, potentially backed by the US, Russia and China, though nothing is confirmed and his selection remains uncertain.

EU leaders and senior officials welcomed the Student List’s election win in Serbia, offering support for reforms and a path to membership after Vučić conceded defeat.

Violence in earlier protests prompted authorities to take additional security measures, with massive deployments of police and even soldiers observed across several European capitals.

Protests over a range of issues have taken place in cities across Europe, from Milan and Madrid to Lisbon and Tirana. Demonstrators are taking to the streets over pensions, housing, education, corruption and opposition to war, reflecting a diverse mix of grievances across the continent.

In this article I have fact-checked Weidels claims in the Economist Interview regarding Ukraina-Russia. The article illustrate why she is Kremlins favourite Kremlin-Gremlin in Germany.

The TL;DR of the article is that yes she is a Russian apologist. Blames Zelensky for not wanting to stop the war; Nord Stream was a state terror attack done by Ukraine, but Leipzig airport attack by Russia doesn't have any evidence; NATO provoked Russia to invade; the infrastructure she is worried about being destroyed is refineries in Russia, because muh diesel.

Saturday’s demonstrations across France were largely peaceful, easing fears of a repeat of the violence seen last weekend. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demand action on the rising cost of living and more funding for public services, with students, workers and retirees marching side by side. Many say their anger shows no sign of fading. The government put turnout at 410,000 nationwide, while the CGT union estimated the figure was almost twice as high.