Metsolas Blame the Nazis Davos BTS Gift – POLITICO

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Dear readers,

It’s been a week of digging for many in our newsroom, particularly in Brussels where we landed a series of eye-opening stories about European Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s decision to declare 142 gifts on a public register. for deputies, thus missing the deadline for 125 of these articles. We also revealed she was given a free luxury trip to Burgundy paid for by an elite wine company, a gift she also said was out of time. Our report highlights how lax Parliament’s transparency rules are and how inconsistently they have been followed.

“Karma is a bitch,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told a POLITICO panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, moderated by our editor Jamil Anderlini, taking a pop from Metsola who was also on stage. More than half of EU countries would no longer be able to join the EU, Rama said, in a not-so-veiled jab at what he sees as hypocrisy from a club demanding higher standards than those it sets for candidates. himself.

If, like me, you’ve left the party in the mountains to others this year, I highly recommend this preview from our EU Confidential podcast.

Wishing you all a good weekend,

Kate Day

Associate Editor

**A message from Hedera: Hedera is the sustainable blockchain for the Web3 economy. Whether you’re a startup or enterprise, creator or consumer, Hedera goes beyond blockchain, so developers can create the next era of speed, fairness, and security. distributed applications that bring trust back to the world. Learn more.**

EDITORS CHOICE

Champagne, chocolates and gold: the head of the European Parliament reveals a huge harvest of gifts

With regard to the European Parliament’s transparency rules, the institution’s president, Roberta Metsola, is setting an example by belatedly declaring the gifts she has received during her term of office. This article revealed both the range of items attributed to him and the nonchalant approach of Parliament and its Speakers in following the letter of the law. The 142 gifts declared by Metsola include a white dress with gold embroidery, Sennheiser wireless headphones, a blue sheep model, champagne and a jerky sausage. The problem? She declared 125 after the official deadline and now argues that the rules do not apply to her. Read the story.

Germany’s strategic timidity

Why do the Germans refuse to press their support for Ukraine against the Russian war of aggression with tanks? Germany’s do nothing, blame the Nazis strategy is working, argues POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent, Matthew Karnitschnig, in this deconstruction of why postwar Germany is, by design and his temper, a militarily useless ally. Read the story.

Succession has nothing on Davos: elite conclave ponders next leader

POLITICO started its coverage of Davos with a bang: a deeply reported piece on the nagging question of who will succeed Davos’ ultimate man, Klaus Schwab. The founder and president of the event has created a multi-million dollar business from the annual Magic Mountain Gathering. His relationships with world leaders and top CEOs are second to none. So who can replace him when he resigns or dies on the job? All Davos was asking this question after this article. Read the story.

You hurt my country: Manchin faces Europe’s wrath

POLITICO delivered a fascinating read on Joe Manchin, the US senator who somewhat unwittingly, if we believe, sparked Europe’s ire and a potential transatlantic trade war with his windfall industrial subsidy package. Read the story.

Ursula against the wolf

The wolf that killed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pony has been put on a kill list, but only until January 31. POLITICO’s bespoke countdown tracks the days and hours until its death warrant expires. Read the story.

The parable of the last corals on Earth

This colorful deep dive used the story of the remarkable heat-resistant corals of the northern Red Sea to reveal a deeper truth: how divisions and rivalries keep the world from solving environmental challenges, both local and global. . Read the story.

Russian Lukoil continues to pump in Europe for the time being

This article details how Russian energy company Lukoil has managed to continue operating in Europe despite Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, including an account of how the company’s trading arm has reacted to the outbreak of war. Read the story.

YOUR WEEKEND PLAYLIST

EU Confidential: From Davos: Tanks to Ukraine Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar EU-US trade fight

The EU Confidential team takes you this week to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the rich and powerful worlds come together. POLITICO Suzanne Lynch, Ryan Heath, Erin Banco and Alex Ward unpack Wednesday’s big speeches from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The team discusses the latest international efforts to send tanks to Ukraine, and we hear from Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on this issue. Looking ahead to Ukraine’s reconstruction, the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Odile Renaud-Basso, shares her views on what we can expect. We also continue to report on the transatlantic tensions raging on the sidelines of the WEF main stage, in particular on the subsidy of green technologies between the EU and the US. And Agns Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, shares her thoughts on whether countries with concerning human rights records should be given a platform at the event. Listen to the episode.

Westminster Insider

Westminster Insider is on hiatus, but our episodes are not time-sensitive: listen to our catalog here or via the links below.

DECLASSIFIED

Read this week’s Declassified column.

Subtitle contest

The ABBA meeting goes to Davos.

Can you do better? E-mail [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque

Last week, we gave you this picture:

Thanks for all the entries. Here is the best of our mailbag.

So I said: tanks, but no tanks! by Joel Horowitz.

**A message from Hedera: Hedera is the sustainable blockchain for the Web3 economy. Whether you’re a startup or enterprise, creator or consumer, Hedera goes beyond blockchain, so developers can create the next era of speed, fairness, and security. distributed applications that bring trust back to the world. The Hedera leaderless public proof-of-stake network is powered by hashgraph consensus, achieving the highest level of security possible, with lightning-fast transaction speeds and incredibly low bandwidth consumption. It is ten times faster than other blockchain alternatives, with always predictable gas fees and proud to be carbon negative. Governed by leading global organizations including Google, IBM, DLA Piper and ServiceNow, Hedera is a smart contract, made smarter. Learn more.**

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More… Jamil Anderlini and Kate Day

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