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PRESENTED BY
GREETINGS, this is Nick Vinocur. Sarah Wheaton will be with you Tuesday.
DRIVING THE DAY: TRUMP-VON DER LEYEN CALL
THAT MUST HAVE BEEN ONE HELLUVA “GOOD” CALL: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen finally got Donald Trump on the phone for an extended chat on Sunday — and it looks to have gone rather well. “Good call with @POTUS,” von der Leyen posted on X shortly before 10 p.m. CET. “Europe is ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” she added, referring to trade negotiations to avoid U.S. tariffs. “To reach a good deal, we would need the time until July 9.”
Trump was convinced. “I agreed to the extension — July 9, 2025 — It was my privilege to do so,” he said on Truth Social, above a screenshot of von der Leyen’s X post. Write-up here.
All this offers a glimmer of hope that Europe can head off a devastating trade war that could wreak havoc on its economy, our Morning Trade colleague Camille Gijs writes in to report.
Glass half full: The fact Trump agreed to direct talks with von der Leyen — and then to extend his deadline — are positive developments. Aside from a short encounter in Italy, it was the first bilateral conversation between the two leaders since Trump took office in January. The Commission president has said she’d meet in person with Trump if there’s a concrete package to negotiate.
Glass half empty: The Commission wants to avoid the 50 percent tariff altogether, but the prospects for a negotiated agreement look hazy. On Friday, a call between Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and his U.S. counterparts Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer fell short of a breakthrough.
Hopes and dreams: The Commission had expected to discuss the latest offers it sent early last week, in which it sought to incorporate some of Washington’s demands, and to hear back regarding a potential early-June meeting between Šefčovič and Greer in Paris, Camille reports.
It didn’t pan out. The EU felt Washington’s approach was domineering, demanding unilateral concessions — like the removal of the digital services tax or VAT — without negotiation. That approach is consistent with a memo the Trump administration sent in mid-May.
Tipping point: While it’s unclear whether Trump will eventually follow through on his threat to impose a 50 percent levy on European goods, Brussels is also already looking at what may come next in its retaliation playbook should talks lead nowhere.
For starters: The Commission could now unfreeze its own €20 billion response to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and accelerate a fresh €100 billion retaliation it is currently consulting with EU capitals.
The main dish: A 50-percent tariff would be so damaging for the bloc that it would renew talk of targeting U.S. services, an EU official said on Sunday (before Trump’s decision to delay his deadline). “There, you might see something move much faster,” the official said.
Timing: A delegation of eight members of the European Parliament, including the chair of the international trade committee, Bernd Lange, flies to Washington today.
ALSO AFTER THE VDL CALL — TRUMP CALLS OUT “CRAZY” PUTIN: In a separate Truth Social post a few hours after talking to von der Leyen, Trump blasted Russia’s president over the weekend’s massive attack on Ukraine. “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,” Trump said. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers.”
Reading the runes: The comments indicate that Trump’s position on the Kremlin is hardening as his attempt to broker an end to the Russian war falters with no breakthrough in sight. But before you celebrate too hard, Trump also took aim at Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his post, saying he “is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems.” Playbook’s own Zoya Sheftalovich has the story.
SLOVENIAN PRESIDENT INTERVIEW 
SLOVENE PRESIDENT CALLS FOR “SILENT” TALKS WITH RUSSIA: Before this morning’s latest Trumpy excitement, Playbook sat down with Nataša Pirc Musar during a rare trip to Brussels for the Slovenian president. Musar huddled with von der Leyen, among others, while she was in town.
High on the list of Musar’s priorities? A plea for the EU to start engaging directly with Russia. “One of the mistakes of [the] European Union was that we stopped communicating with Russia,” she said. The EU should nominate a group of “wise men and women” to initiate “silent” diplomacy with Russia as a first step toward direct dialogue, she added.
Price of admission? A refusal to engage directly with Russia and others like Hungary and Slovakia was one of the reasons the EU was “not seen as a politically strong group,” she said. Europe should instead focus its efforts on being invited to the negotiating table with “the United States, Russia, Ukraine.”
Past not precedent: Never mind that Russia keeps pounding civilian targets in Ukraine — including this past weekend. Or that there is little to show for past three months of Trump’s talks with Putin (see above).
Try, try again: Europe has no choice but to pursue “dialogue, dialogue, dialogue” — even if talks with Russia had “not yet” yielded results, she said.
Ursula on board? The lawyer and former journalist (who previously represented Trump’s Slovenian wife, Melania), who came to power backed by center-left parties, said she’d even raised the matter with von der Leyen during their meeting in Brussels.
WAIT, IS THE EU GETTING BACK IN CONTACT WITH RUSSIA? Von der Leyen “told me that they are working on that,” Musar said. If that’s true, it would be remarkable. The EU has shunned direct contact with the Kremlin for years, amid a drumbeat of sanctions. Playbook has reached out to the Commission for comment, but hadn’t heard back as of Sunday night.
Another line from Musar’s interview: Her take on defense spending: it shouldn’t eat too much into welfare. “Every single country needs to be careful in that, not to minimize the social warfare,” she said. People were “afraid” of sacrificing their welfare for defense spending, “and politicians should be aware of that.”
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HUNGARY PRIDE BAN
TENSION RISES OVER HUNGARY PRIDE BAN: Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib sat down recently with Lászlo Sebián-Petrovszki, the leader of the Hungarian parliament’s LGBTQ+ intergroup. An official present at the meeting told my colleague Csongor Körömi that Lahbib demurred on the idea of taking measures against Budapest, due partly to a lack of support from up high.
Locking horns: Lahbib described the conversation as “frank and constructive” in a post on X. But the official, who sat in on the discussion, said it had actually been combative.
Tools on the table: Sebián-Petrovszki asked Lahbib if Brussels would move ahead with an interim measure in the ongoing infringement procedure against Hungary’s 2021 anti-LGBTIQ+ law, to save the Pride march. The Commission would need to activate the interim measure by Tuesday, May 27, as Pride organizers must ask the police for permission to host the event 30 days before it is held (and it’s currently planned for June 28).
No support: MEPs and civil society groups have pressured the Commission to use this legal tool. Lahbib allegedly said “she doesn’t feel the political support, either from within the Commission or from President Ursula von der Leyen, to proceed,” the person mentioned above told Csongor.
Eyes emoji: Von der Leyen’s office asked European commissioners to avoid attending Pride in Budapest so as not to “provoke” Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian government, Euractiv reports.
Waiting it out: The Commission would rather wait to see if the police actually ban Pride and if the courts would consider such a decision lawful, Lahbib said (per our mole), adding that the left-liberal-led city council of Budapest could organize a “Festival of Freedom,” instead of a Pride parade.
Commission reply: A spokesperson for the Commission declined to comment, telling Csongor: “We do not comment on internal meetings held by the commissioner.”
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JOUROVÁ DISHES
PUT THIS ON YOUR SUMMER READING LIST: Former Commission Vice President Věra Jourová is pulling back the curtain on her time in Berlaymont (and more) in a new book out now. Penned by Czech journalist Viktor Daněk, “Bohové, mlíkař a já” (“The Gods, the Milkman, and Me”) takes the form of an extended interview covering Jourová’s career from when she was jailed in her native Czechia up to her clashes as a commissioner with digital “gods” like Elon Musk.
CZECH MATES: The bad news: For now, the book is only available in Czech — the authors are still looking for an English-language distributor. But Playbook got a sneak peek at key excerpts and can share machine-translated versions …
When Věra met Elon: Jourová never hid her feelings about Elon Musk (a “promoter of evil,” as she called him in a POLITICO interview). But the book reveals she actually saw him during an AI security conference in Bletchley, Britain.
How it went: “My team from Brussels was watching me remotely, like Big Brother. They were waiting for the photo of me shaking hands with him … When they could no longer stand it they wrote to my colleague who was accompanying me to finally arrange the handshake with Musk … I snapped at him: ‘With Musk? Never!’ I don’t know why I would shake hands with someone who has personally made it clear many times that he does not want to cooperate … I had no reason to ingratiate myself to him.”
No secret deal: Jourová uses the book to settle a score with Musk, who claimed that she or others at the Commission offered him a “secret deal” to settle their probe of his platform, X. Not so, says Jourová: “There is no secret deal,” she insists.
Musk ghosted: Instead, Jourová offered dialogue to “mutually explain where we each see the boundaries of freedom of speech,” which she said was compatible with an ongoing investigation into X. But, she says, “no response came” to her outreach.
X on the hook? Asked about the Commission’s investigation of X, which is ongoing, Jourová tantalizingly says: “It is possible that Mr. Musk will have to pay something to Europe for the toxic algorithms.” She suggests the money obtained should be used for digital literacy. But she stops short of revealing whether the Commission has found X to be in violation of the Digital Services Act.
See you in court: She does allow, however, that it would be “useful to have a European court decision in this matter as a precedent for future cases” and that “it is probably clear I have no doubt about the EU’s victory in the dispute.”
IN OTHER NEWS
BIG READ TO START YOUR DAY: Mari Eccles writes that the stench of impunity in Brussels is pervasive, in this top story on how the EU always gets away with it.
NEWSMAX COMING TO BRUSSELS: You read that right. The pro-Trump American media outlet is coming to Brussels via … Serbia. In a LinkedIn post sent to us by a Playbook spy, Newsmax Balkans (which shares a logo with the U.S. outfit) says it’s looking for a journalist and cameraman/video editor to set up shop in Brussels. Applications are open until May 31, and those interested must know Serbian and English as well as French or Flemish. Let no one complain about the lack of media diversity in Brussels!
MEP FACES EXPULSION OVER MOSCOW TRIP: Right-wing MEP Fernand Kartheiser faces expulsion from his political group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), over his plans to visit Moscow this week, as first reported here by POLITICO’s Max Griera.
In a letter seen by POLITICO, written by Charlie Weimers and signed by the heads of several national ECR delegations, Kartheiser is urged to abandon his trip, which the author says risks “severe reputational damage” to the group, Max reports. “Should you not confirm your intent to cancel, we, the undersigned heads of delegations, will have no other choice than to initiate steps to expel you from the ECR Group,” per the letter.
The deadline was on Sunday. Max checked in with Kartheiser’s assistant, who said his boss still planned to travel to Moscow. Ipso facto …
EEAS CUTS FOLLOW-UP: After POLITICO reported last week on planned restructuring in the European External Action Service, the EEAS and the European Commission held a meeting last week to discuss the changes, per an EU official. Dozens of concerned staffers attended. Officials flagged that while six foreign delegations would see staff reinforcements, 11 would face downsizing with as many 130 local staff facing job cuts. (Our story had flagged around 10 delegations and some 100 local staff positions facing cuts.)
EPP PRESSURES SÁNCHEZ ON BORDER SECURITY: After a two-day fact-finding mission, six MEPs from the European People’s Party on Friday called for the deployment of Frontex in Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s autonomous cities on the North African coast, to bolster protection of the EU’s southern border.
A strategic outpost: Situated on the northern edge of Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla are the only European cities on the African mainland. Their unique position makes them critical (and vulnerable) entry points for migrants seeking to enter Europe. Though under Spanish control for centuries, Morocco claims sovereignty over both.
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: Nicușor Dan will be sworn in as Romania’s president today. Tim Ross and Andrei Popoviciu have this analysis of the scale of the task ahead of him.
THE BARD IS MIGHTIER THAN LE PEN: In just a few weeks, Jordan Bardella has risen from potential Plan B to France’s most likely presidential candidate. Marion Solletty explores what that means for his political mentor Marine Le Pen.
**Is the shift to a SIU a game-changer for Europe’s competitiveness? Last seats available at POLITICO Live’s event "The Savings and Investments Union: Unlocking new capital" on June 5 in Brussels. Apply for onsite participation today!**
AGENDA
— Foreign Affairs Council (Development). Arrivals and doorsteps at 8 a.m. … press conference at 2 p.m. Agenda. Watch.
— Agriculture and Fisheries Council. Agenda.
— Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius is in Rome; attends the joint session of EU affairs and defense committees of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies; press conference at 4:30 p.m. Watch.
— Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis is in Riga, where he gives a keynote speech at a high-level conference on investment and security in the Baltics. Watch.
— Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner is in Vilnius; meets Vladislav Kondratovič, Lithuania’s interior minister.
— Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen meets Alois Rainer, Germany’s minister of agriculture.
— Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall receives Norbert Totschnig, Austria’s climate and environmental protection minister; receives Hendrik Johannes Terras, Estonia’s regional affairs minister.
— Preparedness Commissioner Hadja Lahbib is in Madrid; meets Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, Spain’s home affairs minister.
— Culture Commissioner Glenn Micallef is in Berlin; meets Wolfram Weimer, Germany’s culture minister.
— Innovation Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva receives Phenyo Butale, Botswana’s minister of international relations.
— NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte participates in the spring session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, U.S.
— France’s President Emmanuel Macron visits Vietnam.
— Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz travels to Turku, Finland; meets Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and heads of government of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland over dinner.
BRUSSELS CORNER
WEATHER: High of 19C, sunny, chance of rain.
ILS L’ONT FAIT: Brussels’ Union Saint-Gilloise won the Belgian men’s football league for the first time since 1935, after beating Gent 3-1 in a nervy final-day clash on Sunday. They finished three points above defending champions Club Brugge. Reuters wrote it up.
CONTROVERSIAL FRENCH COMEDIAN COMES TO BXL: The Jacques Franck Cultural Center in Saint-Gilles has offered to host a show by Guillaume Meurice, a French comedian fired by public radio after making jokes about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the Uccle Cultural Center canceled the performance because of concerns about “public order.” RTBF has the story.
PHOTO EXHIBITION: MAD Brussels hosts “Come as You Are,” a fashion exhibition by Belgian photographer Laetitia Bica showcasing portraits of dancers, drag artists and DJs styled by local designers.
BIRTHDAYS: MEPs Emil Radev and Tilly Metz; former MEPs Claude Rolin, Julia Pitera and Ulrike Lunacek; former U.K. Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn; Digital Europe Associate Policy Director Hugh Kirk; POLITICO’s Ketrin Jochecová.
THANKS TO: Playbook editor Alex Spence, reporter Šejla Ahmatović and producer Catherine Bouris.
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