PARLIAMENT BRAVELY CELEBRATES EQUALITY AS FREEZERS DEFROST AND PLANES DIVERT

BRUSSELS — It was, by any measure, a busy week for Europe. On Monday, hackers took over the refrigeration systems of supermarkets in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, Estonia and beyond, pushing freezer temperatures to around 50 degrees and turning tonnes of frozen food into an unscheduled barbecue. Italy was not spared: at 4 a.m. someone remotely reset the fridges of supermarkets in Palermo, Catania, Ragusa and Trapani, with further cases in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, and Rome convened an emergency meeting of its cybersecurity agency. It was the second wave in a month, after some 700 French supermarkets were hit in October. From Monday to Thursday, hoax bomb threats forced dozens of passenger flights across the continent into diversions, searches and emergency landings; at one point Italian fighter jets escorted a Finnair plane to the ground.
Fortunately, the European Parliament had its priorities in order. From 3 to 6 November it held its seventh European Gender Equality Week, this year dedicated to women in leadership. Organisers declared themselves very satisfied with the turnout, the panels and the hashtag.
Asked how the Union planned to respond to a coordinated hybrid campaign against its food supply and its airspace, the Commission was unequivocal: Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen called the repeated attacks deeply concerning. A common European response is expected as soon as someone can agree on whose competence freezers fall under. Member states, meanwhile, are investigating separately, as is traditional, so that each can discover the same thing on its own.
Security analysts note that this is precisely the kind of threat a sovereign Europe would need to face together: cheap, deniable, cross-border, and aimed at ordinary people rather than ministries. Brussels has pledged to tackle it with the full force of a working group.

COMMISSION PRESIDENT FINDS HER VOICE, IN FRENCH

There was, however, one moment of genuine European leadership. Visiting Montreal for the EU–Canada summit, Ursula von der Leyen was criticised by Quebec media for delivering her opening speech entirely in English. She responded decisively: on 31 October she posted a video from the top of Mount Royal, speaking French and singing Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On.
Diplomats were impressed by the speed of the response, which compares favourably with the Commission's reaction time on supermarket freezers. Some observers found the song choice unexpectedly fitting for a Union whose budget talks resemble a large ship heading for an iceberg while the band keeps playing.

FRUGALS VS. EVERYONE: THE SEQUEL NOBODY ASKED FOR

The main course of the next European Council remains, once again, the 2028–2034 budget. Leaders gather informally in Dublin this month and then for an extraordinary summit on 26–27 November, dedicated to the MFF and to Ukraine's funding.
Previews suggest an unprecedented plot twist: the frugals will ask for cuts, the cohesion countries will ask for money, and everyone will agree to meet again. Organisers have reportedly pre-booked December, and, as a precaution, January.

PARIS AND BERLIN NEGOTIATE ON UKRAINE, INFORM OTHERS AFTERWARDS

On foreign policy, the Union marched in perfect disorder. This week Brussels hosted talks on Ukraine's reconstruction and security guarantees with the United States, NATO, the World Bank, the Commission — and, among Europe's capitals, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, which is not even a member.
The absence of the other twenty-five member states was explained by the well-established European principle that the countries with the shakiest domestic politics should speak for everyone else. Paris and Berlin may struggle to keep a government or a coalition in one piece at home, but both remain top of the class in the one subject that matters: deciding who sits at the table.
Enter Giorgia Meloni. On 5 November the Italian Prime Minister wrote to European Council President António Costa calling it unacceptable that the EU shows up in random order, and demanding that the Twenty-Seven finally decide who speaks for Europe and with what mandate — otherwise, she warned, Europe condemns itself to irrelevance. The proposal is radical: a European negotiator, chosen by Europeans, representing all Europeans. Several capitals are said to be studying it carefully, in the hope of finding a precedent.

ECB: THE CHOICE BETWEEN TWO WAYS OF SAYING NO

With Christine Lagarde leaving in February, the race to succeed her is down to two front-runners: the Dutchman Klaas Knot, a reformed hawk, and the Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos, a pragmatic dove. Eurozone finance ministers review the nominations on Monday.
The debate is passionate. Those who fear a hawk point to Knot; those who fear a dove point out that any president will still have to keep Berlin and The Hague happy. What nobody is debating is the elephant in the Eurotower: with prices up again and public debts higher than in 2011, the next sovereign-debt scare would find the ECB with less room than last time. A truly sovereign Union might consider revisiting Article 123 of the Treaty, which bars the Bank from financing governments directly, and give Europe a genuine lender of last resort. Instead, it will spend the winter choosing which accent will explain why that is impossible.

CARS: THE URSULA MAJORITY SAVES THE INDUSTRY, ECR SAVES ITS AMENDMENTS

The Parliament's Environment Committee approved Massimiliano Salini's report on CO2 standards for cars on 4 November, by 48 votes to 30. The 2035 target falls from 100 to 87.5 percent, with another 7.5 percent covered by credits for low-carbon European steel, and cars running only on renewable fuels count as zero-emission. Combustion engines will still be registrable after 2035.
The text is the fruit of a deal between the EPP, the Socialists and Renew. Everybody praised its remarkable power to repair the green follies of the last term. The ECR voted against: Fratelli d'Italia's Carlo Fidanza called it a step in the right direction but insufficient, regretting that the EPP preferred the Ursula majority over a centre-right one that could have produced a bolder text. The ECR will table amendments in plenary in December.
Corridor reading (unconfirmed, but widely held in the cafeteria): between now and January, when Roberta Metsola needs her re-election, the EPP will be scrupulously Ursula on every file. The so-called Venezuela majority — EPP, ECR and Patriots — is not dead; it is merely resting until after the vote. The ECR has been asked to wait patiently, in the true spirit of Saint Benedict.

POLAND: RULE OF LAW RESTORED BY RIOT POLICE

In Warsaw, the long war over the Constitutional Tribunal reached a new peak. On 30 October a judge elected by Donald Tusk's majority announced the suspension of the Tribunal's PiS-era president and vice-president for a month, police cordoned off the building, Jarosław Kaczyński addressed protesters outside, and President Karol Nawrocki cut short a trip to Senegal to accuse the government of plunging the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The underlying problem is real: a court whose composition depends on whichever majority last held the Sejm will always be the hostage of the next one, and fixing that would require a constitutional reform nobody has the numbers for. In the meantime, both sides have opted for the traditional alternative — force, followed by press releases about the rule of law. The Commission urged the President to swear in the new judges, and the US ambassador urged everyone to stay calm, which, by Brussels standards, counts as decisive intervention.

Deus nos salvet a chao. See you next week.