EU: Commission Meets In Poland As Tusk Pushes Deregulation & Defence

The College of Commissioners gathers today in Gdańsk, Poland for a meeting with the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. The trip was due to take place in early January but was delayed following European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's hospitalisation with pneumonia. Polish PM Donald Tusk is expected to impress upon the Commission the need to cut red tape and bureaucracy. At the weekend, Tusk posted on X "The revolt against regulation is inevitable! Whether someone in the EU likes it or not. The time is now!”

• Politico reports an EU diplomat saying it is "not the time to race to see how many legislative proposals the Commission can come up with. If you legislate, be careful, do the impact assessments, make sure this isn’t holding us back. Try to get Europe fit for the more transactional, geopolitical world we are living in … The Americans won’t pay for us anymore.”
• There will be calls from Tusk and senior Commissioners for greater defence spending by EU member states, and greater cooperation across borders on security issues. While the rhetoric is there commitments from EU members remain short. No country hits the 5% of GDP target for defence spending demanded by US President Donald Trump, with Poland the closest at 4.3% according to the latest figures.
• A change in gov't in Germany is seen as potentially opening the door to joint EU borrowing to fund European defence, but this is not assured.