HOWDY. Sarah Wheaton here with your Friday edition of Brussels Playbook, where — as a journalist who proudly put “poop” in a headline to get people to read an article about colon cancer screening — I take some issue with Pope Leo equating “clickbait” to “junk” information. Sometimes it’s hard to get you, dear reader, to read what’s good for you.
Nick Vinocur is writing Monday’s Playbook. You should need no additional inducement to read.
DRIVING THE DAY: FRANCE LOOKS FOR A PM 
WHO’S NEXT? French President Emmanuel Macron promised to name a new government by this evening. Part of the urgency, as my Playbook Paris colleagues explain this morning, is that the French government has until Monday to present its 2026 budget proposal if it wants to vote on it before a Dec. 31 deadline. “The international situation is delicate and everyone is watching us,” a finance ministry adviser told my colleagues in the French capital.
The good news for Macron: He doesn’t need to have a full government in place by Monday — a prime minister can put forward a budget alone.
**A message from DP World: Having started as a local port operator in Dubai in 1972, today we are an end-to-end logistics operator with operations across the globe. Since 2023, we have a representative in Brussels, given the EU’s paramount role in shaping logistics policy and driving competitiveness. Connect with us on X: @DPWorldEU.**
But who wants to drink from that poisoned chalice? Former minister and ex-MEP Jean-Louis Borloo’s name has been mentioned as a potential option, but while he could appeal to Les Républicains, he’s not universally popular. Other runners and riders include Boris Vallaud, the leader of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, and former European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, now the head of the French national audit office, Clea Caulcutt reports.
Next PM same as the last? But the signs actually seem to point to Sébastien Lecornu getting another shot at the job. To try to make this premiership stick, he’d have to stack his government with some new, less political, faces. Read the full details in Playbook Paris.
If his next PM falls, there are no good options for Macron. He could resign (something he has repeatedly ruled out) … or call a new election (something Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally would relish).
The markets are watching: Meanwhile, the markets are reflecting concern that France, the eurozone’s second-largest economy, has become so ungovernable it can’t pay its bills, risking financial contagion to the rest of the common currency bloc. Joshua Berlinger and Riya Misra have more in this highly digestible primer.
TRUMP’S NOBEL MOMENT
CEASEFIRE MOVES FORWARD: The Israeli government overnight approved the first phase of the Donald Trump-brokered peace deal — effectively setting the ceasefire in place. Assuming Israel’s troop withdrawals play out as planned (a big assumption), Hamas will have roughly through Monday to release all the remaining hostages from its Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
How the deal was done: POLITICO’s Felicia Schwartz and Dasha Burns take you behind the scenes to reveal that as talks were stalling earlier this week, Trump’s emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner swept in to dictate key compromises.
NOBEL MOMENT: The Nobel Peace Prize is set to be awarded at 11 a.m. today. Trump has made no secret of the fact that he feels he deserves it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who agree (a group that includes, incidentally, Malta’s Socialist foreign minister, for Trump’s work on Armenia and Azerbaijan). Even the Guardian is holding out the possibility that Israel-Gaza could be Trump’s “biggest diplomatic achievement.”
“Even Hamas …”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pushing for a similarly serious intervention by Trump in Europe. “Even Hamas shows deal-making acumen, but not Putin. For now,” he posted on X. “We strongly expect that just pressure on Russia will bring peace to Ukraine and to our entire region as well.”
In the meantime: Russia launched a huge attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight and this morning, with parts of Kyiv without power. CNN has more.
NO-CONFIDENCE POSTMORTEM
THE PARLIAMENT WON. That’s the main takeaway from Nick Vinocur’s sharp analysis of this week’s two motions of no-confidence in Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission. Sure, MEPs failed to take down the Commission chief — they were always doomed to. But they succeeded at forcing her to take the Parliament, which is typically the weakest of the EU’s three institutions, much more seriously.
THE DEFECTORS: While the motions’ failure was no surprise, the roll-call showed some eyebrow-raising breaks from the party line …
Les Républicains: Four of six French EPP MEPs backed the Patriots’ censure motion, including EPP Vice Chair François-Xavier Bellamy. (Even before they were under such acute pressure from the far right at home, French conservatives have consistently embraced opportunities to reject a second von der Leyen term, voting against her nomination as the EPP lead candidate in 2024.) Those four stuck with the group to actively reject The Left’s motion.
Maltese Socialists: Three Socialists broke ranks to back The Left’s censure motion, including Irish MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and two members of Malta’s governing Labour Party: Daniel Attard and Alex Agius Saliba (they both abstained on the Patriots’ motion).
Agius Saliba, vice chair of S&D, told Max Griera that he couldn’t vote against The Left’s motion “when I have been critical for months” on the complaints it enumerated: the “Commission’s inaction on Gaza, on the way that we are dealing with Trump and the U.S. and also on the lack of social ambition.”
PATRIOTS’ CORDON TAKES SHAPE: With a few exceptions, members of The Left actively rejected the Patriots’ motion, while the Patriots generally abstained on The Left’s — despite their shared goal of ousting von der Leyen and complaints about her transatlantic trade deal.
Patriots-Socialists team-up? But Danish MEP Anders Vistisen, the Patriots’ whip, told the EU Confidential podcast that if S&D ever decides to follow through on its threats to launch their own motion of censure, “we would be happy to supply them votes.”
LISTEN UP — MORE ON THOSE S&D THREATS: In this week’s episode of EU Confidential, recorded in Strasbourg, the S&D’s René Repasi warns that his group could mount its own censure motion if von der Leyen doesn’t keep her promises over the next six months.
Plus: The Left’s Marc Botenga on how the censure motion succeeded (even though it was doomed to fail); French Green MEP Marie Toussaint (who voted to depose von der Leyen) on divisions within her group about how oppositional they should be; and researcher Sophia Russack on how the censure motion is supposed to be used under EU law — compared with reality. Listen and subscribe here.
PARLIAMENT IRONIES
WHERE’S THE (PLANT-BASED) BEEF? Isn’t it ironic? Within a day of the Parliament voting to ban veggie alternatives to meat products from using labels like “sausage” or “burger,” the Strasbourg canteen was serving up “vegan burgers” as a healthy option — and they appear to have sold out quickly. This counts as proverbial(!) red meat for POLITICO. Bartosz Brzeziński and Max Griera serve up this romp.
AUDITORS’ TOLD-YA-SO MOMENT: The European Court of Auditors called out the Parliament’s administration for ignoring a 2021 recommendation to rewrite the rules governing how political groups dole out millions of euros through public procurement.
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take: Those very rules which the auditors say need to be changed are at the heart of alleged misspending of €4 million in funds for public contracts by the far-right Identity and Democracy group (now defunct). The Parliament administration wants to recover the money from the present-day Patriots for Europe, reasoning that the new group is the continuation of Identity and Democracy. The Patriots reject allegations of wrongdoing and say they won’t give the money back.
And who would’ve thought? It figures … “Parliament has taken note of the report,” the press service said in a statement.
Life has a funny way … Given the substance of the report, Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s grip-and-grin with ECA President Tony Murphy seemed a little, well, ironic. After one popular Brussels bubble influencer posited that it was either a “cry for help from Metsola” or “a super gangsta move,” Metsola herself weighed in with (let’s be honest) uncharacteristic public levity: “Let’s go with super gangsta.” We hope it feels good, Madame President.
CAUSTIC RESPONSE ON MEP DETAINED IN ISRAEL: On a note of zero irony … Greens co-leader Bas Eickhout spoke to the plenary on Thursday about MEP Mélissa Camara, who was arrested in Israel earlier this week as she participated in the flotilla protest of Gaza’s blockade. As he expressed concern that she “may be taken to a maximum-security prison,” hoots and cheers broke out on the right side of the hemicycle. “I hope this is on record how people are reacting here,” he said.
Metsola intervenes: “We are in constant contact with the Israeli authorities,” the Parliament president replied, “to ensure that all members for the European Parliament are treated with dignity,” even when they are not on official missions.
ALARMING DISCOVERIES
DE WEVER PLOT: Belgian federal authorities arrested three suspects in connection with what prosecutors said was an attempted terrorist attack on the country’s politicians, including Prime Minister Bart De Wever.
HUNGARY FOR SPIES: The European Commission said Thursday it would probe reports that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government deployed intelligence officers to Brussels to gather information on EU institutions and recruit an EU official.
IN OTHER NEWS
SAYING NO TO THE DON: The EU won’t tear up its environment and human rights rules to cement a deal on tariffs with Donald Trump. That was the message the bloc’s top trade official had for a meeting of ambassadors behind closed doors earlier this week, according to five diplomats and officials who spoke to Gabriel Gavin and Marianne Gros.
We won’t change who we are: That statement comes after the Financial Times reported the Trump administration was doubling down on its push against EU regulations it says penalize American businesses with a new position paper. But, for now, Brussels is rebuffing the efforts — even as it begins work on its own drive to cut red tape.
SPAIN IN TRUMP’S SIGHTS: Trump on Thursday suggested NATO should consider booting Spain from the alliance over its low defense spending.
HUAWEI’S BACK: Jordyn Dahl reports Huawei is using its membership at Europe’s dominant solar panel lobbying group to gain access to European institutions.
EU VS. BEIJING + RUSSIA: The EU should its aid budget to compete more aggressively with Russia and China for global influence, International Partnerships Commissioner Jozef Síkela told the FT in an interview.
ELECTION TIME IN PORTUGAL (AGAIN): Five months after Portugal held a national election in which the far-right Chega party surged to become the second-largest force in the parliament, voters will on Sunday cast their ballots in nationwide local elections that could see ultranationalist politicians conquer city halls across the country. Aitor Hernández-Morales has more.
FRIDAY FUNNY: Paul Dallison looks at the politics of garden ornaments in this week’s Declassified humor column.
AGENDA
— Informal meeting of EU telecommunication ministers continues in Horsens, Denmark. Doorsteps from 8 a.m.; press conference by the Danish presidency and the European Commission expected at 3 p.m.
— Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) begins at 11 a.m. in Brussels.
— Global Gateway Forum 2025 continues in Brussels. Full agenda.
— European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is in Riga, Latvia.
— Tallinn Digital Summit. High Representative Kaja Kallas and Justice Commissioner Michel McGrath among those to attend.
BRUSSELS CORNER
WEATHER: High of 18C. Cloudy.
NEW JOB: Benedetta Berti, who served as NATO’s director for policy planning under Jens Stoltenberg and Mark Rutte, is set to succeed Ruxandra Popa as secretary-general of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. It’ll be made official on Monday at the assembly’s plenary.
DISRUPTION AHEAD: Brussels’ public transport network is expected to be heavily affected by a national strike against federal government measures on Tuesday, Oct. 14. Metro, tram, and bus services may be interrupted, and some lines could be delayed due to strike participation and planned demonstrations, STIB warned.
GAZA THROUGH CHILDREN’S EYES: UNICEF has opened an exhibition in Brussels’ Cinquantenaire Park depicting daily life for children in Gaza amid war and deprivation. “A Question Mark Hangs over Gaza,” features photographs and sound recordings from Gazan artists and is on at the Pavilion of Human Passions until Oct. 22.
EUROPALIA FESTIVAL: The Europalia arts festival kicked off this week with Spain as this year’s focus, bringing a wide-ranging program of Spanish arts to Brussels and other Belgian cities until February — including an exhibition examining Goya’s legacy. Program’s here.
BIRTHDAYS: MEP Katrin Langensiepen; former MEP Élisabeth Morin-Chartier; European Commission’s Christine Frayne and Anca Păduraru; Vincent-Immanuel Herr, of Herr & Speer; Commission’s Alexandre Adam; OMMAX’s Stefan Sambol; EEAS’ Wolfram Vetter; Finnish Coreper I Ambassador Lauri Hirvonen.
Celebrating on Saturday: MEPs François-Xavier Bellamy and Nicola Zingaretti; former MEPs Gilles Lebreton and Mady Delvaux; former French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin; Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands; Anna Hill from Open Doors International; logos’ Marie-Myrtille Marichal.
Celebrating on Sunday: MEP Georg Mayer; former MEPs Anna Bonfrisco, David Lega and Martin Horwood; European Court of Auditors member Ivana Maletić, also a former MEP; former European Commissioner Neven Mimica; Daniel Azzopardi, Malta’s ambassador-designate to Italy and San Marino; Universal Music Group’s Robbert Baruch; Professor Jem Bendell; European Commission’s Franco Accordino. Spain’s National Day.
THANKS TO: Max Griera, Aitor Hernández-Morales, Gabriel Gavin, Dionisios Sturis, Abigail Frizon and Karl Mathiesen; Playbook editor Alex Spence, reporter Elena Giordano and producer Dean Southwell.
**A message from DP World: As part of our growing engagement with EU Institutions, we are bringing our European leadership to Brussels. On 2 October, our Executive Vice President Western Europe, Tony Hotine, joined a panel discussion at Politico’s Competitive Europe Summit. Tony stressed the importance of a balanced approach to foreign investments in the EU’s economy, given the fast-changing geopolitical context on the one hand and the revision of Foreign Direct Investment screening rules across the bloc. In November, DP World’s Vice President Sustainability, Nick Mazzei, will speak at the 25th edition of the European Business Summit in the Egmont Palace. We hope to see many of you there.**
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