{"id":270892,"date":"2025-07-18T02:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T02:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270892\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T02:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T02:28:09","slug":"the-great-european-vanishing-act-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270892\/","title":{"rendered":"The great European vanishing act \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While her staff had probably penciled in a week of \u201cstrategic recovery\u201d on a discreet Greek island, the EU budget refused to cooperate. With member states bickering over green spending, defense funds, and leftover cash like tourists fighting for the last sun lounger, Her Majesty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-seven-year-budget-ursula-von-der-leyen-taxes-green-spending\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ursula remained anchored in Brussels<\/a> a little longer. There\u2019s no recess from responsibility \u2014 though sources say she was spotted wistfully eyeing a Ryanair flight to Santorini throughout the talks.<\/p>\n<p>And speaking of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-parliament-no-confidence-vote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">that no-confidence vote<\/a>, Parliament President and VdL\u2019s favorite frenemy Roberta Metsola also made an appearance. She had the thankless task of chairing the debate \u2014 doing actual work! In July! In Brussels! Uncroyable \u2014 which translates to spending most of her time trying to get rowdy MEPs to shut up. Surely Metsola\u2019s favorite way to start the summer, one imagines.<\/p>\n<p>But now that the shouting\u2019s died down, President Metsola can finally head off to Malta\u2019s beaches, swapping political chaos for cocktails \u2014 proving that even Europe\u2019s most patient leaders know when it\u2019s time to log off.<\/p>\n<p>After all, mid-July marks the end of the first semester in Brussels, meaning that both the European Commission and Parliament enter their seasonal shutdown: 80 percent of staff on leave, 15 percent pretending to telework from Ligurian terraces, and 5 percent still trapped in the Berlaymont, wondering if the elevators are political metaphors and questioning most of their life choices.<\/p>\n<p>The EU machine, ever forward-looking, is officially gearing up for its annual period of strategic horizontal reflection: August.<\/p>\n<p>In Plux, pigeons have resumed full sovereignty. Caf\u00e9s report record sales of ros\u00e9 and low political ambition. The same out-of-office auto-reply from most DGs simply reads: \u201cThe Single Market is tanning. Try again in September.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While her staff had probably penciled in a week of \u201cstrategic recovery\u201d on a discreet Greek island, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1442,19132,31,2000,12921,299,5187,24479,11665,31621,6861,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-270892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-competition","9":"tag-declassified","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-eu-budget","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-malta","16":"tag-meps","17":"tag-roberta-metsola","18":"tag-single-market","19":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114871881167067346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}