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The European Union’s busy summit takes the focus in today’s newsletter as the bloc tackles how to tame soaring energy prices, imports of electric vehicles from China and emissions rules.
Before we get into all the EU summit discussions, I’d like to thank readers for your positive feedback about the series on data centres.
The Reuters team also sends its best wishes to one of our leading climate correspondents, Kate Abnett, whose reporting has been a cornerstone of this newsletter, as she embarks on a new chapter in her career.
Now, back to the EU summit in Brussels where members of the bloc put high energy prices on the agenda.
The summit takes place at a time of heightened economic anxiety, with fuel price spikes since the Iran and Russia-Ukraine wars put cash-strapped governments on the back foot.
Meanwhile, Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared that Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire covering energy sites announced by US President Donald Trump. Click here to revisit the Russia energy deal.
The leaders from the EU's 27 members also discussed their recent agreement with Beijing to limit imports of hybrid cars from China, a first step towards cutting a goods trade deficit that hit €360 billion ($400 billion) in 2025.
They discussed the Franco-German proposals, a joint package targeting EU automotive emissions, industrial policy, and the UK's participation in European manufacturing rules, which they released last week.
The proposals mark a sharp turn for Germany, which only two years ago was the most vocal critic of EU anti-subsidy tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Under the plan, which still needs to be confirmed, the automotive sector’s "Made in Europe" label would cover the EU's 27 countries and other European partners that were part of the EU internal market on January 1, 2020. That would include Britain, which left the EU single market at the end of 2020.
It also waters down the CO2 emissions target for cars which would see it drop by 90% from 2021 levels in 2035. The softened target is broadly in line with the wishes of German automakers.
The EU’s two largest economies, France and Germany, also said there was an urgent need for measures to deal with imports of chemicals and PET — the plastic widely used in packaging — and called for measures to retaliate quickly against countries that harm the bloc.
