Author: staff

The Commission’s budget department toyed with the idea of lumping together over 500 different funds into a single cash pot for each country that would determine spending in sectors ranging from farm subsidies to social housing. Spain dismissed this option on the grounds that it “may not be the most effective way to achieve a simpler and more focused budget in practice.” What will be decided, and when? Tuesday’s discussion kicks off a long and Byzantine process that will end before the start of 2028, when the new budget takes effect.   This week the commissioners will rubber-stamp a short…

After right-wing parties won big in last June’s EU election, the European Commission swapped greenness for competitiveness. Its first big initiative, a “Competitiveness Compass,” bluntly pointed in that direction. Fighting deindustrialization was now the priority. The European Parliament is rowing in the same direction. And no group has changed course more radically than the center-right European People’s Party — Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s political family and the largest bloc in both the Parliament and around the EU’s table of national leaders.  EPP support, both in the Parliament and in governments across the continent, was essential to the passage of…

US President Donald Trump said Monday that a precarious ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas should be cancelled if Hamas doesn’t release all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza by midday on Saturday — though he also acknowledged that such a decision would be up to Israel. In comments to reporters after signing a series of executive orders, Trump said, “If they’re not here, all hell is going to break out” and said he feared many scheduled for release are actually already dead. Trump also said, however, “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.”Trump’s comments risked jeopardizing…

The AI dissident: Meredith Whittaker As an influential AI ethics researcher at Google, Meredith Whittaker urged that the company do more about AI’s potential harms. Now, as head of the non-profit foundation behind encrypted messaging app Signal and an adviser to the AI Now Institute, she remains a powerful voice calling Big Tech to account and countering some of the AI hype. Whittaker quit Google in 2019 after leading a series of walkouts to protest workplace misconduct. She has since warned that existing AI systems can include biased datasets that entrench racial and gender biases — an issue that requires…

The businessman was a guest of Macron during the May 2023 Choose France summit meant to attract foreign investment. Musk, who arrived at the Elysée Palace in a Tesla, was due to talk to the French president about setting up a factory for his car brand in the near future. At the end of the meeting, Musk announced that Tesla would be making “significant investments in France.” “Let’s work together,” Macron responded in a message on X accompanied by a picture of the duo. Tesla never ended up investing big money in France, instead choosing to expand its German gigafactory.…

Le Cun joue un rôle influent au sein de Meta. En 2015, il a contribué à l’ouverture du laboratoire d’intelligence artificielle FAIR à Paris, une première en France à l’époque, motivée par sa conviction qu’il existait un vivier de talents inexploités dans la capitale française. Près de dix ans plus tard, d’anciennes entreprises issues de ce laboratoire ont essaimé dans toute l’Europe de l’intelligence artificielle. Antoine Bordes, qui était le codirecteur général de FAIR, travaille pour la start-up de défense Helsing, et un autre employé, Timothée Lacroix, est aujourd’hui cofondateur et directeur de la technologie de Mistral AI. Le Cun…

Zelenskyy is set to attend the conference himself, and said Monday he would meet with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance on the sidelines of the event. The Ukrainian leader also said Kyiv was “working on” organizing a meeting with Trump. Last week, Trump said he would “probably” meet with Zelenskyy in the coming days. Kyiv is trying to win over the White House ahead of any negotiations with Russia to end its full-scale war, which it has been waging for almost three years. Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about providing further U.S. military aid for Ukraine and has called for…

Greece has bought 24 French-made Rafale fighter jets, but Turkey can’t easily match that after it was expelled from the F-35 program in 2019 after buying Russia’s S-400 air defense system. Instead, Ankara now aims to buy 40 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets — 20 used ones from the United Kingdom and 20 new ones — and wants them equipped with Meteors. The missiles are made by Paris-based European arms-maker MBDA. Despite being NATO allies, Athens and Ankara have been at odds for years over a number of bilateral squabbles, including maritime boundaries, overlapping claims to their continental shelves and Cyprus. In…

Ferrand isn’t a judge, but the former head of the French National Assembly and one of Macron’s earliest supporters. Like Ferrand, both the outgoing president of the Conseil Constitutionnel, Laurent Fabius, and his predecessor Jean-Louis Debré, had previously presided over the National Assembly. Fabius and Debré were both politically aligned with the presidents who appointed them as well. But Debré was appointed by former President Jacques Chirac when he was just weeks away from leaving office and thus didn’t stand to benefit from Debré’s new role. Fabius, meanwhile, had not historically been close to the president who appointed him, François…

PARIS — Le patron de Tesla, X et SpaceX Elon Musk ne prévoit pas d’assister au Sommet français sur l’intelligence artificielle, qui a débuté ce lundi matin à Paris. Le milliardaire a déclaré sur X qu’il ne pouvait pas être présent parce qu’il était en plein “travail critique à Washington DC”, mais il a proposé de participer en vidéo. Parmi les invités de marque présents figurent le Premier ministre indien Narendra Modi, le vice-président américain JD Vance et la présidente de la Commission européenne Ursula von der Leyen. Vance et von der Leyen devraient s’exprimer mardi.