Bipartisan pair of Senators press Kalshi, Polymarket over election markets




The competitive gaming industry has grown rapidly over the past two decades, transforming from a niche subculture into a global phenomenon watched by millions of spectators worldwide. More than 3 million fans attended the 2025 Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia alone, according to the tournament’s organizers, where professional players and teams competed for over […]
The post Esports is now geopolitics by other means appeared first on Asia Times.
Logan Ivey
Job applicants have dozens of tricks to make their résumés stand out. They print their CVs on colored paper or use eye-catching fonts. They include prompt injections for AI.
Logan Ivey put his résumé on a balloon.
Ivey has been making videos full-time since 2022, he told Business Insider in an email, and helped scale Matter Neuroscience's Instagram page to over 300,000 followers.
When looking for a new gig, Ivey made a list of what he considered the best companies with the worst Instagram accounts. "I thought airbnb was the coolest!" he wrote. "Being paid to travel and stay in cool places seems like a dream job."
Logan Ivey
So, he put "hire me" in big letters on a star-shaped balloon, along with a comparison of his and Airbnb's Instagram engagement rates, likes per post, and views per reel, based on his calculations.
Ivey then put the deflated balloon in a lockbox, similar to the ones Airbnb hosts use to store their property keys. He then mailed it to Airbnb, who would have to fill the balloon with air (get it?).
Logan Ivey/@heckin.sick
He posted a video about the process on Instagram on October 3. It's since racked up 16 million views, and Airbnb quickly responded: "Logaaaannnn my guy, my friend, check your DMs before this package triggers a security incident."
The company's account said it had the "perfect role" for Ivey.
Sure enough, Ivey posted an update three weeks later. Airbnb had DMed him, he said, and the two sides agreed that Ivey would make some videos. He listed some spots he'd like to film: a treehouse, a former elementary school, and a bath made of rock.
Ivey told Business Insider that he'll be a contractor and that "nothing beyond the follow up video I made has been set in stone yet."
Let's face it: the job market can feel impossible these days, and applicants are aiming for as much visibility as possible. Becoming a "LinkedIn lunatic" might help. Another applicant received her job offer after posting a presentation that pitched herself.
Ivey's takeaway: make yourself stand out. Before making his balloon-résumé video, he'd applied to about 15 jobs without receiving a single interview.
"Making your skillset widely known is definitely beneficial," he told BI. "One company told me they have 10,000 applicants per job posting. There is just no competing with that with a 1 page resume."
From a young chef and a single father to business owners and a pensioner, Guardian readers reveal how John Healey’s measures will affect them
Louie, 24, a chef living in London, says a lot of people have “written off the idea of even considering getting a property” in their 20s.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Graham Robinson

© Photograph: Graham Robinson

© Photograph: Graham Robinson
On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Morning in America,” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said that he wants President Donald Trump to say that Texans need lower prices and “we need to move back to more of a market-based economy. We need
The post GOP Rep. Sessions: Have to ‘Move Back to More of a Market-Based Economy’ to Lower Prices appeared first on Breitbart.
Before we tear up zoning laws to accommodate millions of supposedly missing homes, perhaps we should ask whether those homes will actually be needed.
The post Breitbart Business Digest: What if We’re Building Too Many Houses? appeared first on Breitbart.

Britain and the European Union are attempting to resolve an increasingly consequential dispute over European industrial policy, as proposed rules favouring domestically manufactured goods threaten to complicate the economic relationship that London has spent much of the past year trying to rebuild.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said on 27 October that the two sides were making progress towards addressing concerns surrounding the proposed Made in Europe requirements.
Speaking to Sky News, Reynolds said the governments were “finding a way through” the disagreement, although the precise terms of any compromise remain uncertain.
The negotiations come ahead of the EU–UK summit scheduled for 20 November, when Prime Minister Andy Burnham is due to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa.
For British manufacturers, the immediate issue is whether political promises of closer cooperation can prevent new economic barriers from emerging.
The dispute centres on the European Commission’s Industrial Accelerator Act, proposed in March.
The legislation would introduce European-origin and low-carbon requirements into public procurement and certain government support schemes covering strategic industries.
Among the sectors affected are steel, cement, aluminium, automotive manufacturing and technologies associated with the energy transition.
Brussels argues that such measures are necessary to strengthen European manufacturing and reduce dependence on overseas suppliers, particularly in industries exposed to competition from China.
The economic difficulty is that European industrial production does not stop at the EU’s external borders.
British manufacturers supply components, materials and specialist engineering services to European factories, while many UK production facilities rely on parts and technologies imported from the continent.
Automotive manufacturing illustrates the problem.
Vehicles assembled in Britain frequently contain components produced in several EU countries. Equally, European automotive manufacturers incorporate British-made parts into their own production.
If eligibility for subsidies or public contracts depends increasingly on where products and components originate, companies could face incentives to reorganise supply chains.
The question is therefore not merely whether British products can enter the European market, but whether they will qualify for the same industrial support arrangements as competing European products.
The dispute has exposed differences among EU governments.
As EU Today reported earlier this month, France has argued for a restrictive interpretation of European origin requirements, while Germany has favoured a broader approach allowing certain trusted trading partners to participate.
Berlin’s position reflects the interests of industries whose production networks extend beyond the EU, including manufacturers operating in Britain.
According to reporting on the negotiations, France and Germany have discussed a potential compromise under which Britain might receive preferential treatment if it aligns with European tariffs on Chinese goods.
Such an arrangement would have implications extending beyond manufacturing.
It would involve coordination over trade policy towards China, an area in which Britain currently retains independent decision-making authority.
No agreement has been finalised, and any legislative compromise would require approval through the EU’s institutional procedures.
For Burnham’s government, the industrial disagreement coincides with a wider attempt to redefine relations with Brussels.
The forthcoming summit is expected to concentrate on practical agreements covering agricultural and food trade, emissions trading and temporary mobility arrangements for young people.
A sanitary and phytosanitary agreement could reduce inspections and documentation requirements for certain food products moving between Britain and the EU.
Closer coordination between emissions trading systems could also reduce complications created by different carbon-pricing regimes.
However, these initiatives do not resolve the wider question of Britain’s relationship with the European single market.
Burnham has indicated that he intends to open a broader discussion about future options, while maintaining Labour’s existing commitments against rejoining the single market, customs union or restoring general free movement during the current parliamentary term.
Reynolds has acknowledged that repeated changes in EU policy create uncertainty for British companies operating across the Channel.
The underlying difficulty is structural.
Britain seeks the benefits of close industrial integration while maintaining the independence acquired through Brexit. The EU, meanwhile, is increasingly using common industrial rules, subsidies and procurement preferences to pursue economic-security objectives.
These priorities are not necessarily incompatible, but reconciling them may require new arrangements governing regulatory alignment, product origin and relations with third countries.
As EU Today previously examined, London’s request to be treated as a trusted industrial partner has already become part of the broader political negotiations.
The November summit may establish a framework for resolving some immediate concerns.
It will not, however, eliminate the fundamental problem facing British manufacturers: future decisions taken in Brussels can materially affect their competitiveness, even though Britain no longer participates directly in making those decisions.
Thousands of protesters gathered outside Portugal’s parliament in Lisbon on 27 October, demanding action over soaring housing costs and criticising police operations against housing activists, as the country’s long-running property crisis developed into a broader political confrontation.
The demonstration coincided with parliamentary debate on the government’s proposed 2027 budget and followed several days of protests in Lisbon and Porto.
At the centre of the dispute is an increasingly familiar European contradiction: property values continue to rise, while wages and household incomes have failed to keep pace with the cost of obtaining accommodation.
For Portugal, the problem has become particularly pronounced.
House prices have more than doubled since 2017, while rents for newly agreed tenancies have almost doubled over the same period.
According to figures reported during the demonstrations, the cost of housing in Portugal increased by 147 per cent between 2015 and 2025, compared with an EU average of 60.5 per cent.
The result is a growing disparity between earnings and the cost of independent living, particularly among younger adults.
In Lisbon, a one-bedroom flat can routinely command monthly rent of approximately €1,500.
Portugal’s minimum wage stands at €920 per month before tax.
Although these figures do not represent every household or property, they illustrate the scale of the affordability problem for lower-paid workers.
Between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026, Portuguese house prices increased by almost 20 per cent, according to national statistical figures cited in recent reporting.
Rental costs have also continued rising, recording an increase of approximately 68 per cent since 2020.
The country’s attractiveness to foreign investors, retirees and remote workers has contributed to demand, particularly in Lisbon, Porto and coastal areas.
Tourism has introduced additional competition for residential property, with some homes converted into short-term accommodation.
However, investment and tourism are only part of the explanation.
Restrictions on construction, administrative delays, limited affordable housing supply and the geographical concentration of employment have also contributed to pressure on the market.
These conditions have produced a widening gap between those who already own property and those seeking to purchase or rent their first home.
The immediate political confrontation concerns government proposals that would accelerate certain eviction procedures and remove restrictions on rents for new tenancy agreements.
The legislation passed its first parliamentary reading, with the right-wing Chega party abstaining.
Housing campaigners argue that removing protections without first increasing affordable supply could leave tenants more exposed to rising rents and displacement.
The minority centre-right government, led by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, has pursued measures intended to encourage construction and increase the availability of housing.
These include tax reductions for new building projects and a commitment to deliver 145,000 homes.
Such measures, however, require time before additional properties become available, while many households face immediate financial pressures.
The housing dispute intensified following police operations to remove protest encampments in Lisbon and Porto during the weekend.
Police used batons during the clearances, while campaigners alleged excessive force.
According to accounts of the subsequent parliamentary demonstration, police reported 11 minor injuries, including three officers. The housing organisation Casa para Viver claimed that 60 people had been injured.
Portugal’s internal affairs watchdog has opened an inquiry, while prosecutors are conducting a separate investigation into officers’ conduct.
Montenegro defended the police response in parliament, arguing that officers had acted according to the principles of necessity, proportionality and adequacy.
President António José Seguro has convened a meeting of the Council of State to consider the growing protests.
The dispute has consequently expanded beyond housing economics to include questions about policing, public demonstrations and political accountability.
Portugal’s demonstrations follow similar protests in Spain and growing political scrutiny of housing affordability elsewhere in the EU.
The European Commission has begun addressing the issue through initiatives intended to encourage construction, facilitate investment and give authorities greater legal certainty over short-term rental restrictions.
As EU Today recently reported, the proposed European Affordable Housing Act would provide additional regulatory tools for areas facing severe housing pressure.
Yet the principal responsibilities for housing supply, planning and tenancy law remain with national and local governments.
This division creates a political challenge: Brussels can support investment and coordinate legislation, but the most immediate decisions affecting rents, construction and evictions are taken elsewhere.
For Portugal, the next test will be whether the government’s housing measures can deliver sufficient additional supply while responding to demands for immediate tenant protection.
The demonstrations outside parliament show that housing affordability has become more than a question of property prices. It now affects the government’s legislative agenda, the 2027 budget debate and the relationship between the authorities and an increasingly organised protest movement.
The figures reveal a persistent difficulty for European energy policy: although the continent has an increasingly interconnected electricity market, businesses and consumers remain exposed to very different underlying wholesale costs depending on location.
According to European day-ahead electricity market data, Sweden’s SE2 bidding zone recorded an average of €6.23 per megawatt-hour, while Finland stood at approximately €6.65. Romania reached €255.20, roughly 41 times northern Sweden’s price. Bulgaria registered approximately €254, Hungary €241 and Greece €225. Germany recorded approximately €155, Belgium €160 and France €162.
These are wholesale prices for delivery on 27 October, not final bills for households or businesses. Their differences nevertheless raise questions about how effectively Europe’s electricity networks distribute power from areas of lower-cost generation to those facing greater costs.
European electricity trading is organised through interconnected national and regional markets. Cross-border capacity allows relatively inexpensive power to reach regions where demand is greater or local generation is more expensive.
When transmission capacity is adequate, neighbouring prices can converge. Physical networks, however, have limits. Congested interconnectors can prevent additional imports even when large price differences exist.
Other influences include availability of power stations, renewable output, fuel prices, consumption and system stability. Regions with substantial hydropower, nuclear generation or strong renewable production may experience comparatively low prices. Markets relying on gas-fired generation can be more expensive when gas plants are needed to satisfy the final increment of demand.
The result is a market responding to common European conditions but still shaped by local generation and transmission constraints.
The European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, ACER, has repeatedly examined the causes of regional price divergence. In its 2026 assessment of cross-zonal electricity trade, the agency considered unusually high prices and limited access to lower-cost power in southeastern Europe.
Constraints include available cross-border capacity and shortages of flexible generation able to respond to changing renewable output, especially in the evening. Countries including Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia have encountered substantial regional differences.
Those findings do not prove the cause of each price movement on 27 October. They do, however, explain why disparities can persist despite common market rules. ACER has advocated improved coordination among transmission operators, more effective use of existing networks and additional flexibility through storage and demand management.
Energy-intensive industries, including steel, chemicals and fertiliser production, are particularly sensitive to electricity costs. Where contracts are exposed to wholesale markets, sustained regional price differences can influence output and investment decisions.
The relationship between wholesale prices and bills is not immediate. Firms may hedge prices, use long-term contracts or produce their own power. Network charges, taxes and government support also affect the amount paid. Still, persistent market differences can shape industrial competitiveness.
As EU Today reported, EU energy ministers are due to examine proposed changes to electricity network charges and market administration on 29 October. Network tariffs are distinct from wholesale prices, but both affect total electricity costs.
According to ACER’s energy-market monitoring, renewable sources represented around half of EU electricity generation in 2025. Solar energy can reduce prices during the day, but output falls sharply towards evening, sometimes requiring more expensive power stations to increase generation.
This increases the value of storage, flexible production, responsive demand and international connections that can balance surpluses and shortages between regions. Yet major transmission lines can take years to complete owing to planning, permitting, investment and construction requirements.
The priority is therefore not simply to install more renewable capacity. Europe’s grids and supporting technologies must be capable of moving and using that output efficiently.
A single day’s wholesale prices should not be mistaken for long-term average electricity costs or a permanent competitive advantage. Nevertheless, the persistence of regional disparities documented by regulators shows the problem extends beyond isolated daily volatility.
For EU institutions, the question is whether further market integration can make energy more affordable while preserving incentives to invest in generation and transmission. National governments must balance security of supply, infrastructure financing and industrial competitiveness.
Electricity trading across Europe is increasingly integrated. The physical systems supplying it remain considerably less uniform. Until those constraints are addressed, the price of power will continue to reflect geography as well as the underlying cost of energy.



Maria Korneeva/Getty Images
When Hans Romine finished his architecture degree in 2025, the 24-year-old began looking for work. After about 50 job applications yielded a single interview appointment, he started feeling despondent.
That's when a friend told him about a new show called 877UNMPLYD.
The show is on Twitch, a streaming platform favored by gamers and fans, but has an unlikely host: Jeremy Zimmer, the former CEO of United Talent Agency, along with digital-savvy producer Rachel Braun. The show offers career advice, discusses labor market news, and fields live call-ins from people looking for work.
When Romine called in, he mentioned he'd spent a few months as a recreation supervisor, building morale at an isolated research station in Antarctica. Zimmer and Braun found that the most interesting part of his whole story, and told him to play it up in applications and interviews.
Romine took their advice, and when he went in for that interview, he highlighted his experiences out on the tundra. After he landed the job, he called back in to let the hosts know.
That's the kind of win Zimmer and Braun hope to replicate. Over their first season, the duo hosted 12 episodes, with one episode filmed live on the streets of New York garnering over 54,000 views.
The show is a small experiment in career guidance at a moment when the entry-level job market is getting harder to navigate — especially in New York City. A new report from Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business advocacy group, found that the number of entry-level jobs has shrunk disproportionately among professions highly exposed to AI; entry-level postings in design, media, and writing fell by 40.6%.
Nationally, employment in white-collar industries has fallen, even as output has gone up — indicating that AI might be effectively replacing entry-level white-collar work.
That dearth of entry-level opportunities is part of what spawned the show, a partnership between TikTok savant Adam Faze and the economic mobility nonprofit Schultz Family Foundation. Judith Dubin, the head of content at the foundation, said that they'd drilled down on investments in career navigation after recognizing how difficult it is to be graduating from high school or college into the current labor market.
"The current job marketplace is so disrupted with the advent of AI," Dubin said. "It's just an additional barrier for young people."
In August, Zimmer and Braun set up a desk on a plaza at Baruch College, with a sign that said "Ask a CEO," and fielded questions from students. One student asked for advice on how to negotiate salary expectations, especially in the interview process. Braun said that not all advice-seekers are new grads: One Gen X marketer called in after being laid off, feeling pushed out of the tech industry.
Going into the show, Zimmer focused on what it must feel like when getting a job is no longer as simple as putting your head down, working hard, and expecting things to work out.
"That age-old mantra doesn't feel as relevant today," Zimmer said. He's been struck by the contrast between callers who are hyper-focused on what they want, eschewing any concern about why that can't happen, and those who are baffled that they've applied for hundreds of jobs and haven't gotten any interviews. He's found both the naivety and the determination of the callers exciting.
Braun, the show's other host and a producer, said that AI emerged as a major theme throughout their first season — both the opportunities it presented and the way that it was shaking up the entry-level job hunt.
Romine, who landed a job, hopes that employers can once again understand the value of having fresh talent on their teams. But as the labor market continues its entry-level contraction, getting a leg up — even if it's through advice on a Twitch show — is ever more important.
"In the meantime, students and graduates need to really figure out how to work the current system and make themselves stand out in such an intense market," Romine said.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times


Russia's state-backed payment firm A7 took in at least 283 tons of cash rubles, worth more than $14 billion, between November 2024 and July 2025, and turned much of it into payments to China that hide where the money came from, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Russian investigative outlet Proekt reported on 21 October, citing leaked internal records.
Cut off from Western banks over its war against Ukraine, Russia now moves money the way drug gangs launder theirs: cash goes in, and clean-looking wire transfers come out abroad. The overlap is literal.
Last year, UK investigators found that a network laundering British drug gangs' cash had bought a Kyrgyz bank that was handling payments for Promsvyazbank, Russia's state defense bank. That same bank co-owns A7, which "is also likely to facilitate cash-based money laundering," anti-money-laundering expert George Voloshin told ICIJ. On 1 October, the US Treasury named A7 a "significant transnational criminal organization." Most of the market cash pays Chinese suppliers, and China supplies about 90% of the high-priority Western-restricted items Russia imports for its weapons. Drone makers working for the Russian army are among A7's clients, Proekt found in April.
Much of the cash came from Moscow's giant Sadovod market, where broker teams known as "departments" collect bags of rubles from traders, the records show. Vans take the numbered bags to an A7 office, where about 50 cashiers count the money before it is trucked to Promsvyazbank. The bank vaults it and credits A7. At its peak, A7 handled at least 58 tons of cash a month.
Russia's central bank has flagged the problem itself. Money of unknown origin comes "primarily" from Moscow's wholesale and retail markets and from illegal crypto exchanges, a senior Central Bank official said in September, as quoted by ICIJ.

A7 then orders shell companies outside Russia to pay its clients' suppliers, mostly Chinese exporters. The money moves through Kyrgyzstan, largely via the state-owned Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the wire transfers carry no trace of cash or of Russia. The records list accounts at ICBC, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and China Construction Bank. One $287,000 transfer went through Standard Chartered's Hong Kong branch with "Sadovod" recorded as the client.
Chinese banks began refusing Russia-linked payments in December 2023 under the threat of US secondary sanctions. Stripping the funds of their origin makes them easier for Chinese banks to accept, illicit-finance expert Zachary Tvarozna told ICIJ. "The only company that sees everything is A7 itself," Voloshin said.
A7, Promsvyazbank, the Chinese banks, and Kyrgyzstan's economy ministry did not answer ICIJ's questions. A7 has publicly rejected the US accusations, saying it runs "a modern, multi-tiered compliance system."
A7 launched in late 2024, co-owned by Promsvyazbank and led by Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, a "sanctioned and convicted criminal fraudster," according to the US Treasury. Ukraine sanctioned its network in February, and the UK followed in May. A7 claimed to have moved more than 7.5 trillion rubles, about 13% of Russia's 2025 foreign trade transactions, and its network also helped Iran sell oil and buy weapons, the Treasury said.
Sanctions did hit A7's crypto side. Daily volume of its ruble token A7A5 fell 96% from its peak by June 2026, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic found. The cash channel is harder to touch: Western banks can see where A7's money lands, but not where it starts.

© The New York Times
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the initiative during a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, following discussions among EU leaders over growing global trade imbalances.
The proposal would form part of a wider package addressing economic dependence on foreign suppliers and attempts by third countries to exert commercial pressure on individual EU member states. Although the Commission has not yet published detailed legislation, the announcement signals Brussels’ intention to expand its capacity to intervene in international trade disputes.
European manufacturers have faced increasing competition from imported products in sectors including chemicals, machinery, vehicles, steel and industrial components.
Much of the concern centres on China, where extensive manufacturing capacity and government support have enabled companies to expand their presence in international markets.
European producers argue that differences in subsidies, production costs and market access place them at a competitive disadvantage.
According to the European Commission, the EU’s goods trade deficit with China exceeded €1 billion per day in 2025.
Von der Leyen has described the imbalance as unsustainable and argued that European trade policy must respond more effectively to market distortions.
During her 21st October address to Parliament, she confirmed that the Commission was working on additional safeguards intended to address sudden increases in imports affecting European businesses.
The proposed measures follow a Franco-German initiative calling for stronger instruments to counter systemic economic imbalances.
France and Germany have urged Brussels to act more quickly where existing trade investigations and enforcement procedures prove insufficient.
The announcement follows recent negotiations between Brussels and Beijing aimed at reducing tensions over industrial competition.
Earlier this month, the two sides reached an arrangement restricting Chinese hybrid vehicle exports to the European market.
As EU Today reported on 13rd October, the agreement established an annual ceiling of 350,000 vehicles, potentially reducing Chinese manufacturers’ expected market access.
However, European officials acknowledge that restrictions covering a single automotive category cannot resolve the wider trade imbalance.
Other industries remain concerned about Chinese production capacity, including chemicals, machinery and manufactured components.
Beijing has warned against further unilateral European restrictions, arguing that protectionist measures could damage commercial relations.
The Chinese authorities have also demonstrated a willingness to pursue trade investigations involving European products.
As previous EU Today coverage established, China opened an anti-dumping investigation into an EU chemical product in early October, adding to existing commercial disputes.
Further European restrictions could therefore prompt additional Chinese countermeasures affecting exporters from member states.
The proposed market-access mechanism is intended to give Brussels greater scope to act when existing safeguards cannot address economic threats quickly enough.
However, its legal structure, enforcement thresholds and relationship with existing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation have not yet been specified.
The EU already possesses several trade-defence instruments, including duties against unfairly priced or subsidised products and safeguards designed to protect industries from damaging import surges.
Those mechanisms generally require formal investigations and evidence demonstrating the conditions for intervention.
The new proposal could introduce a faster response, but questions remain over how any restrictions would comply with international trade obligations and the EU’s commitments under World Trade Organisation rules.
Member states would also have to consider the consequences for European businesses that depend on imported materials, components and finished goods.
The Commission’s strategy extends beyond restrictions on imports. Von der Leyen confirmed that a separate initiative, known as DiversifyEU, would be presented in December.
The programme is intended to help European companies reduce excessive dependence on individual suppliers and countries, particularly where critical raw materials and strategic technologies are involved.
The Commission also plans a solidarity mechanism designed to assist member states and industries facing external economic coercion or retaliation. Such arrangements could become relevant when a foreign government targets exports from a particular member state in response to an EU policy decision.
The initiative follows growing concern that Europe’s access to strategically important industrial supplies can be disrupted through export controls or political disputes.
The Commission will still have to translate the proposed measures into legislation and secure sufficient political support among member states and the European Parliament.
National governments have different commercial relationships with China and varying levels of dependence on imported industrial goods. Countries with substantial export markets in China may be particularly concerned about retaliation, while manufacturers facing foreign competition are likely to press for faster intervention.
The Commission must also determine whether new trade powers should be exercised centrally in Brussels or require additional approval from national governments. For European industry, the immediate question is whether the new mechanism can provide effective protection without increasing production costs through restrictions on essential imports.
The Commission’s forthcoming legislative proposals will establish how far the EU intends to move towards a more interventionist trade policy.