Having emptied out of Brussels for most of August, politicians, officials and diplomats are returning to the heart of the EU policymaking machine, as it begins to whirr back into life.
There wasn’t much of a break for those working behind the scenes of the high-level talks on the the Ukraine war, or for the European Commission’s trade officials tying up the loose ends of the EU-US tariff deal.
The ones who were off gallivanting for a few weeks return to a fairly full in-tray.
Expect one of the first serious fights to be about the Mercosur deal. France is leading the efforts to kill the draft trade agreement the EU has struck with the South American bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
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The deal was negotiated by the commission, the EU’s executive arm that leads on trade. It needs the backing of a weighted majority of the 27 capitals to be ratified.
Germany is keen on the deal as it will open up a new market to sell its cars. Farmers in Ireland and elsewhere fear they will be undercut by imports of cheaper South American beef.
The deal was due to be presented to EU states earlier this summer to approve, or reject, but the commission postponed the row.
Donald Trump’s tariffs have hiked up the cost of doing business with the United States, a fact that will improve commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s hand when making the case for the EU to boost its trade links with other parts of the world.
Any fight where Germany and France line up on opposite sides has the potential for a lot of hair and blood to be left on the floor afterwards.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue to dominate the foreign affairs front.
Europe is expending huge amounts of diplomatic and political effort to make sure Trump doesn’t take a fancy to a Ukraine truce deal crafted by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Separate but related are the union’s defence plans. European leaders have made a lot of noise about intentions to increase the amount spent boosting the continent’s military power. The idea is to rearm Europe by spending much more money, and to spend it together.
A good litmus test to watch for will be whether the EU’s 27 governments will go beyond talk and agree to jointly fund a major flagship project, such as an air defence “shield” on its eastern flank.
Just how united the EU is around these new defence plans will come into question if the likes of Spain, Italy, Ireland and others baulk at chipping in money for something Poland and the Baltic states view as crucial to securing Europe from a Russian attack.
Farther afield, the EU is still struggling to put pressure on Israel to end its continued bombardment and starvation of Gaza. Momentum had been building before the summer break for the union to do something.
A largely symbolic attempt to suspend Israel’s access to EU Horizon funding for start-up companies, in protest over human rights violations in Gaza, fell short of required support from member states.
Since then things have got worse. A famine has been officially declared in Gaza City, with deadly levels of hunger continuing to spread in the Palestinian territory. At the same time Israel has vowed to expand rather than restrain its military campaign.
Germany and Italy will come under renewed pressure to back a joint EU sanction. The two countries sit in the camp traditionally supportive of Israel, but diplomats from other EU states hope one of the two might be convinced to shift position on this occasion. That would lock in enough support to go ahead with certain EU-level penalties on Israel.
A debate about the size of the union’s next long-term budget will take up a lot of Brussels head space over the next year.
The commission has proposed a €2 trillion pot of money that would allocate more cash to defence and reform Common Agricultural Policy subsidies for farmers.
The European Parliament and national capitals will pull the shape and size of the proposed seven-year budget in different directions, before a final version is hammered out.
The breach in the transatlantic bond under Trump has also given a fresh wind to those calling for deeper internal reforms.
Proposals to whittle down national barriers to trade and business between EU states have been logjammed for years, decades even. Most governments agree in principle, but in practice don’t want to make changes to their own financial regimes and national rules.
Trump has repeatedly been described as a wake-up call for Europe, one that it didn’t heed the first time around in 2016. Whether it is on defence, trade or internal reforms, many in Brussels feel the EU really can’t afford to press the snooze button again.
