Macron and Starmer to lead Europe’s Trump charm offensive when they travel to US – Europe live

European Commissioner for tech, security and democracy Henna Virkkunen says the bloc ”will not accept” actions or other disruptions seeking to sow confusion.

“It is a great concern to see the number of incidents over recent months on our critical undersea infrastructure. These incidents have been have potential to disrupt vital services to our society, such as connectivity and electricity transmission and also carry a significant security risk,” she warns.

She says the EU’s Cable Security Action Plan, adopted today, is “not only for the Baltic Sea area, but a truly European level initiative.”

It focuses on preventing incidents with new, coordinated risk assessment framework and investment in new cables to “increase our resilience.,” as well as increased monitoring.

A new Baltic sea hub will be established to “detect incidents, ideally before they occur.”

Details of the plan have just been available here.

Fittingly, given the developments in Sweden, senior EU commissioners are about to brief the press on the bloc’s plans for undersea cable safety.

You can watch it here and I will bring you the latest here:

Pope Francis is showing improvement, is alert and doing some work, the Vatican said, as the 88-year-old pontiff began his eighth day in hospital battling pneumonia, Reuters reported.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said in a brief update on Friday that Francis had slept well overnight and was able to eat breakfast.

A Vatican official, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorised to speak about the pope’s condition, said that Francis was breathing on his own, without help of any machines.

The pope was able to move around his hospital room, was taking some phone calls and was continuing to do some paperwork, the official said.

Sweden is investigating a possible breach of an undersea cable off the island of Gotland on the country’s southwestern coast in the Baltic Sea, the coastguard said on Friday, in an area where multiple seabed cables have been damaged in recent months.

The Baltic Sea region is on alert and the Nato alliance has boosted its presence after a series of power cable, telecom and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Most were caused by civilian ships dragging their anchors, Reuters noted.

Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson said in a social media post that he was being kept up to date on the relevant authorities as they are investigating the reports.

“We take all reports of possible damage to infrastructure in the Baltic Sea very seriously. As I said earlier, they must be seen in the context of the serious security situation that exists,” he said.

Morning opening: Charm offensive

Jakub Krupa

French president Emmanuel Macron and UK prime minister Keir Starmer will lead Europe’s charm offensive next week as they both travel to the US to meet with president Donald Trump in an increasingly desperate bid to change his mind on Ukraine and European security.

Macron outlined parts of his strategy on Thursday night. During a Q&A session on social media that he would tell Trump not to be “weak” on Russian president Vladimir Putin, warning about the consequences that would have in relation to other powers around the world, like China. “That’s not who you are, it’s not your trademark,” he said he would argue. Let’s see if this works.

But other leaders, like Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, are also rumoured to be looking into how to get to see Trump soon.

Landing these European arguments with the US president will not be easy, but Ukraine’s future and the continent’s security are at stake.

Several countries in central and eastern Europe signalled growing concerns about Russia potentially trying to use the peace talks to revive its plans for “spheres of influence,” and request the removal of US troops in the post-1997 Nato member states like Poland and Romania, with far-reaching consequences for their security.

Before anyone gets to Trump, Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski is expected to speak about all these issues with US state secretary Marco Rubio when the pair meets in Washington tonight.

However, looking at this list of names exploring diplomatic channels to get to the US, there is a notable absence of anyone representing Germany.

Amid the whirlwind of developments in Ukraine, it is easy to lose sight of the German federal election this Sunday, which commentators describe as potentially the most consequential in decades.

And with just two days to go, more than a quarter of German voters are yet to decide who to vote for. This could still change the result and cause an upset on Sunday night.

In a major policy speech in Berlin in 2011, at the height of the euro crisis, Poland’s Sikorski said he feared German power less than German inaction. Could this still be the case 14 years later in the new security environment?

And if so, will post-election Germany be able to deliver on that?

It’s Friday, 21 February 2025, and this is Europe live. It’s Jakub Krupa here.

Good morning.