by Ross Elwood
BRUXELLES (Public Policy Europe) – This week featured a speech on “Manchesterism” by potential future UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham (see relevance to the EU in our analysis below), the launch of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council, which included notable priority signals in the accompanying speeches (see analysis below), and the beginning of a reset in EU–China trade relations.
The Facts
The following facts are compiled from hundreds of updates on the Public Policy Europe Newswires this week. Find out more about the newswire here.
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Methane regulation: On Wednesday the Commission said it’s making solid progress on its recommendations for implementing the Methane Regulation, work that’s been ongoing since December’s Energy Council. A spokesperson said the work is “now at a very advanced stage” but declined to give a publication date.
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EU-US digital dialogue talks: On Monday a Commission delegation was in Washington to scope out a future EU-US digital dialogue — covering its scope, meeting frequency, and participants. Commission digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the dialogue is meant to address shared concerns in the digital sector, including frontier AI models, and confirmed the US restrictions on access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 could come up in talks.
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Digital omnibus: The two rapporteurs on the digital omnibus, Aura Salla (EPP) for ITRE and Marina Kaljurand (S&D) for LIBE, have submitted a draft report trying to balance the Commission’s simplification agenda against privacy and fundamental rights. Amendment deadline: 15 July. Key changes can be read by subscribers on the Public Policy Europe platform.
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Housing: On Wednesday the Commission launched a call for input on simplifying rules affecting housing supply and affordability, feeding into a forthcoming simplification package under the European Affordable Housing Initiative. Open to national/regional/local authorities and housing, construction, finance and civil society stakeholders. Deadline for contributions: 30 September 2026.
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Radio Spectrum: Asked about EVP Henna Virkkunen’s direct satellite-to-smartphone consortium announcement, the Commission said work on the Iris2 satellite constellation is being accelerated, with a target of operational services in 2029 (brought forward from 2030). Separately, it’s tabled a proposal on mobile satellite service spectrum, framed explicitly around security, resilience and sovereignty. Under the proposed split: one-third of available spectrum reserved for government services (to be run by a European operator), and of the remaining two-thirds for commercial use, one-third exclusively for European companies and one-third open to European and non-European providers alike. Now goes to co-legislators.
The analysis
01. Is There A Place For The EU In Manchesterism?
On Monday, Andy Burnham, the frontrunner to become the UK’s next prime minister, set out his first major speech and vision for a premiership. On the whole, it was about devolution and localism, with no mention of the EU or the international order. That’s noteworthy given that Starmer’s response to the leadership threat was to make resetting relations with the EU a cornerstone policy. Someone who puts localism, or “Manchesterism,” at the heart of their agenda doesn’t sound like someone for whom the EU is a priority — in fact, it sounds off-message: globalism and localism don’t obviously sit together. This makes the potential new PM’s positioning on the EU all the more interesting. In 2025, Burnham said he wanted to see Britain re-join the EU, but in May this year he had already walked that back, stating he was “not proposing that the UK considers re-joining the EU.”
On Wednesday, British EU Relations Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds met Commissioner Šefčovič in Brussels to discuss the now-postponed EU-UK summit (no new date but thought to be held in October). The summit had been expected to produce deals on food trade, carbon markets and youth mobility, but with Starmer’s strong EU push, it was also seen as a potential moment for a big resetting announcement. Although nothing will be clear until the new PM is in place and outlines his thinking concretely on EU-UK relations, a major resetting announcement now looks unlikely, and more like “more of the same, then gradually more than that,” as this article on Burnham’s EU positioning recently put it. In other words: slow, incremental movement toward the EU, rather than the bigger moves that had previously seemed possible under Starmer. However, he will come under pressure from a significant pro-EU wing of his own party potentially led by Wes Streeting, who, while positioning for a possible leadership bid in May, called for a “new special relationship with the EU” and said Britain’s future lay in rejoining the bloc.
02. Tracker: EU/China, Irish Presidency, Air Conditioning
On Monday this week, EU Trade Commissioner Šefčovič met Chinese Trade Minister Wang Wentao, hot off the back of the EU Council discussion two weeks ago on China, in which member states agreed to be slightly more aggressive in their dialogue with China but not to threaten any retaliatory measures just yet. The Commission was at pains to highlight the meeting as significant because it marks the beginning of meaningful dialogue, pointing to the first joint statement since 2019 and the start of a structured dialogue — known as the EU-China Trade and Investment Consultations (TIC) — as proof of this. INTA Chair Bernd Lange summarised it well: “The fact that China has accepted a new consultation mechanism is an unexpected signal, but it does not constitute a real turning point.”
Tracker: The key items are a roadmap outlining what is to be achieved by October (expected to be published in the coming days), and a meeting in October, led by Šefčovič or possibly von der Leyen, in China to announce concrete achievements and possibly include elements of a reset in relations, depending on how the next few months go.
The Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union began this week, on Wednesday 1 July. It consisted of a press conference between Council President Costa and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, as well as an opening ceremony and a number of speeches from members of the government, as well as Ukrainian President Zelensky. Martin’s and Costa’s speeches are interesting as an indication of priorities, with Martin highlighting the “One Europe, One Market” roadmap as the Irish presidency’s most important task, and notably placing protecting children online unexpectedly high up the agenda. Costa, interestingly, highlighted Ireland’s expertise as a proponent of multilateralism and international law (a personally held belief of Costa’s given the current geopolitical situation, having recently said there is no alternative to multilateralism, which ties into the EU’s UN/WTO and trade-diversification agenda), as well as noting a wish to finalise Montenegro’s accession process to the EU during the Irish presidency, a message that the EU club is still open to the many hopefuls who doubt this.
Tracker: In terms of where the Irish presidency will come under attack from other member states journalists from France and Italy asked whether Ireland is serious about defence policy and spending and making it European-made, as well as about Ireland’s position on a digital tax as an own resource in the budget negotiations it will finalise. Keep these on your radar, as they will certainly come up again.
As discussed in last week’s newsletter, the recent heatwave across Europe has brought climate adaptation back onto the agenda in the form of air conditioning. The major issue with climate adaptation from an EU perspective is that it is a member state competence (it also costs a lot of money, which the EU does not want to divert). The Commission received a number of questions this week from journalists asking it to outline its position on air conditioning, which it politely declined to answer.
Tracker: Interestingly the Commission hinted that some climate adaptation/cooling/air conditioning initiatives may be included as part of housing policy under the upcoming Affordable Housing Act, as well as separately as part of the very soon to be published Electrification Action Plan, under the theme of cooling. (Public Policy Europe)
