What do Paul McCartney, the US First Amendment and mashed peas have in common?

It sounds like the start of the joke, but they all have a stake in one of Brussels’ latest fights – one with all the farce and fury of a Wild West showdown.

The story starts in 2024, with Commission officials searching for some way to appease farmers after a wave of protests. They began with carving concessions out of the EU’s much-loathed green rules, before pushing mandatory written contracts in agriculture to strengthen farmers’ bargaining power when negotiating with industry and supermarkets.

Yet to do so meant opening the beast that is the CMO regulation, which deals with everything from market intervention rules to labelling standards. Officials hoped they could slip contracts into the text without touching much else. But others had different plans – and that’s where things started to spiral.

Enter Céline Imart, a French grain farmer-turned MEP. Back home, her centre-right party was losing voters to the far right, largely on issues of identity politics and culture wars. Imart saw a chance to score an electoral win in Brussels by pushing to adjust EU law so that “burger”, “sausage”, and “steak” would only be applicable for real meat products. It would put a stop to vegan marketing gimmicks and persuade French farmers that her party was on their side.

The move caught the attention of a certain Paul McCartney, who waded into the debate in defence of the veggie “burger”, around which his late wife Linda had built a successful vegan business. And spotting a classic case of EU overreach, British tabloids piled in, warning that vegan sausage rolls might soon struggle to cross the Northern Ireland border.

Meanwhile in Brussels, negotiations dragged for months, with Imart campaigning ferociously and pitted against the likes of Germany’s farm minister – despite him being a trained butcher.

The skirmish was further complicated when a Texas court invoked the First Amendment to strike down a law imposing burdensome labelling rules on plant-based products. The EU veggie industry took note, arguing that freedom of speech isn’t just a cowboy-country privilege.

This brings us to last Thursday, which saw the final round of talks on the ban. The indefatigable Imart faced weary Council and Commission negotiators. By this point, the dispute had consumed so much time that even MEPs once sympathetic to Imart’s cause were pressuring her to drop it. Instead she made a counteroffer: she would let go of the “burger” and the “sausage” bans provided that “steak” and “liver” (or “foie”) remain exclusive to animal products.

Crucially, the decision would prevent lab-grown versions of foie gras from masquerading as force-fed goose liver, which is precisely what some companies have been pushing for (and has boiled much French blood).

Imart prevailed, allowing her to deliver the steak ruling to her home supporters. Meanwhile the back-room brains will hash out the details of the lab-grown ban this Friday.

But for onlookers who were hoping this might close the matter so that Brussels can busy itself with more consequential issues, Imart has other ideas, warning that the battle will continue.

Pea burgers and soy sausages might have dodged a bullet, but they’re certainly not out of the firing line.

Roundup

Von der Leyen retreats on ‘interest-driven’ foreign policy statement – Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed the EU’s commitment to the rules-based international order, days after drawing criticism for saying the bloc’s foreign policy should be more “interest-driven”. Speaking to MEPs in Strasbourg, von der Leyen struck a more conciliatory tone following backlash from senior EU officials.

Italians make up largest share of Eurocrat job hopefuls – Nearly 80,000 applicants to the new generalist exam that offers a lifetime EU civil service job are Italians, according to an internal report, making up 45% of applicants. According to the Commission’s targets for nationality diversity amongst its staff, Italians should make up only 11,2% of its workforce.

Far-right resistance jeopardises EU-backed abortion funding – Barely two weeks after the European Commission gave the green light to the ‘My Voice, My Choice’ initiative, the future of its financing has become uncertain amid an ongoing battle between pro- and anti-abortion groups. The Commission previously opened the door to financial support for abortion access across the EU by adding it to the European Social Fund Plus.

Across Europe

Greece caps fuel and supermarket prices due to Iran war – The Greek government announced that it will cap profit margins on fuel and supermarket products for three months. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s key oil chokepoints between Iran and Oman, has not yet reached the pumps, but fuel prices have surged as energy markets reacted to risk.

Commission takes Spain to court over VAT laws – The Commission referred Spain to the EU’s top court for failing to implement two VAT-related laws that would ease the fiscal burden of small and medium-sized businesses. After multiple ultimatums, Brussels will now ask the Court of Justice of the EU to impose financial sanctions on Spain, the only EU country that has failed to implement the directives into law.

German Kiel Institute backs joint EU defence spending – The Kiel Institute is calling on Berlin to consider using Eurobonds to support Europe’s joint defence spending – an idea the government has never been keen to pursue. The fragmentation of Europe’s defence market has been a longstanding issue. But rising defence spending across the continent has raised questions about how to make that allocation more effective.