THE WAVE DELIVERED: Democrats won the US House of Representatives on Tuesday and closed in on control of the Senate after a stunning victory in deeply conservative Texas, inflicting a sweeping midterm defeat on President Donald Trump’s Republicans. Read the full piece here.

TRAIN CRASH RECKONING: Óscar Puente, Spain’s transport minister and a key ally of Pedro Sánchez, resigned last night, days after a deadly high-speed rail crash killed 69 people. The political fallout comes as the country braces for snap elections later this month.

Good morning from Berlin; it’s Wednesday 4 November. Don’t forget to send tips to our mailbox here. 

In today’s Rapporteur AM:

• Germany still pushes associate membership for Ukraine 

• Marta Kos rows back on setting enlargement dates

• Exclusive details about the Commission’s 2027 plan

On the roundabout: The MEP who – almost – challenged Manfred Weber

Friedrich Merz first cooked up the idea to grant Ukraine ‘associate membership’ of the EU almost exactly a year ago, while at a summit in Angola.

His proposal received a mixed response at best, and Ursula von der Leyen has now promised the same shiny label to Canada. But still the German chancellor hasn’t given up. 

His eureka moment that November weekend was triggered by the sudden emergence of a 20-point US-Ukrainian peace plan that proposed making Kyiv a full EU member as soon as 2027.

The German thinking was that the EU needs to be ready in case peace talks make it imperative that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has something to sell to his people, to soften the blow of land concessions.

In the event, Zelenskyy rejected Merz’s offer, dismissing it as a form of second-class membership that would keep Ukraine permanently in the EU waiting room.

Berlin is adamant that some kind of special status will be needed for Ukraine’s accession, and is convinced that global events – and Zelenskyy’s own deal-brokering – will make Merz’s idea inevitable.

This also explains, as we wrote last week, the German reluctance to endorse the title for Canada. 

And while some contend that the subsequent association offer for Canada shows it was an empty term all along, never intended for real membership candidates, others think Zelenskyy was too hasty to reject it.

“Dismissing the initiative out of hand was a bitter mistake on Ukraine's part. We could take some of its ideas as a baseline,” said Ivan Nagorniak, from the European Policy Institute (EPIK) in Kyiv.

Associate membership for Ukraine will become politically urgent, some believe, as the prospect of real accession wanes. And that’s already happening.

“To put it bluntly, Ukraine has lost the solidarity bonus it was given when Russia started its full-scale war,” said Miriam Kosmehl, senior expert at Bertelsmann Stiftung. She has authored a new report that shows a downward trend in support for Ukraine’s accession, especially in founding EU member states. 

With American negotiators due in Brussels today for talks, there is still significant consensus in the EU that the Russians are not interested in negotiating. And there’s a small chance that Merz may yet be right about associate membership.

Commission rows back on enlargement dates

Marta Kos, the enlargement commissioner, created a lot of excitement in Ukraine, Albania and Moldova when she announced in September that new dates would accompany today’s annual enlargement report. 

The idea was to pin an aspirational timeline – an “anchor”, as the Commission put it – suggesting when these frontrunner countries would end their accession talks. But pushback from capitals means that this won’t now happen, according to officials briefed on drafts of what the Commission will publish today. 

Member states are generally allergic to boxing themselves in by setting dates and insist that merit and reforms must determine the speed of accession.

Montenegro’s moment

Podgorica will have reason to be cheered by today’s enlargement report, which more than ever will establish it as the only country on the verge of EU accession – Croatia willing.

“The next few months will show if the EU is still capable of enlarging,” said Milan Nič, senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations at a conference in Berlin on Tuesday.

Ireland, leading EU talks, is aiming to close all the chapters for Montenegro by 15 December, and will hold another conference on Friday, which it intends to hold every fortnight. 

As EU countries begin to debate the safeguards they will impose on new members – like withholding certain veto rights for up to 15 years – the big question is how much legal experimentation Montenegro will be subjected to. 

Petar Markovic, Montenegro’s ambassador to the EU, warned during a panel hosted by Nicoletta on Tuesday that overzealous imposition of safeguards could look “to less informed citizens [like] a punishment for a job well done.” Strict safeguards could be framed instead as “positive conditionality with a very big stick hiding behind,” he suggested.

Dr von der Leyen wields the scalpel 

The European Commission will shift its focus in 2027 towards implementing existing legislation, reducing regulatory burdens and boosting EU competitiveness, rather than introducing a raft of new laws, according to a draft of its work programme obtained by Rapporteur.

The executive plans to accelerate the delivery of legislation already on the table, and continue its drive to simplify EU rules and ease the burden on national governments and businesses. 

Just look at the trend over the past three years: the Commission work programme for 2025 contained 45 initiatives; 2026 had 38. The latest has just 23.

But the programme also envisages targeted new initiatives in other areas, including a proposed ‘deterrence pact’ to limit China’s ability to coerce the bloc and measures to accelerate the uptake of artificial intelligence across different sectors of the economy. Read more.

The agenda signals a further retreat from parts of the EU’s flagship Green Deal, with the Commission planning to withdraw two key legislative proposals, including a planned overhaul of EU rules governing fuel and electricity taxation. Read what’s in store for 2027.

Here are three new stories from Rapporteur:

• Forbidden wines back on Brussels' table

• Berlin, Madrid, Paris warn Commission to lay off EU nature laws

• How Israelis view European criticism

THE EPP POWER GRAB THAT WASN’T: Manfred Weber’s unbroken 13-year tenure as EPP group chairman appears unshakable. He secured another 2.5-year term two weeks ago. But his reign is not undisputed. He headed off a Polish challenge following private meetings in Sicily last month. Officials and MEPs told Rapporteur that Weber’s would-be usurper – Andrzej Halicki, a close ally of Donald Tusk – was preparing a bid for the top role “but somehow they were talked out of it” over the course of a seaside lunch. Read the full piece by Eddy and Pietro Guastamacchia.

🇩🇪 BERLIN

Friedrich Merz pledged additional support for Ukraine to protect energy infrastructure and strengthen air defences. The assurances came as Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Berlin ahead of a meeting in Brussels to discuss Ukraine’s reconstruction, which will convene national security advisers and representatives from Ukraine, the United States, France, Germany, Britain, NATO and the World Bank. Merz extended an invitation to the Coalition of the Willing to meet in Berlin on 19 November. 

– Björn Stritzel

🇵🇱 WARSAW

Eight Constitutional Tribunal judges declared themselves empowered to adopt resolutions on Tuesday, deepening Poland’s constitutional crisis over the court’s leadership. The judges ruled that eight members constituted a quorum, excluding three disputed or suspended judges, including President Bogdan Święczkowski, sidelined last Friday. The assembly was convened to approve the court’s 2027 budget and address disciplinary proceedings against its leadership. President Karol Nawrocki demanded the changes be reversed by 11 November, while Supreme Court leaders challenged their legality.

– Charles Szumski

🇭🇺 BUDAPEST

Hungary will start releasing tens of thousands of communist-era secret police records on Wednesday, raising fears that individuals could be publicly branded as informants without sufficient evidence. The release date marks 70 years since Soviet troops crushed Hungary's 1956 uprising and has been described by Péter Magyar's Tisza government as an overdue reckoning with dictatorship.

– Mátyás Varga

🇸🇰 BRATISLAVA

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s coalition lost a reliable parliamentary majority on Tuesday after another MP defected, leaving the government one seat short of the threshold needed to pass legislation. The decision caught the governing coalition off guard, forcing it to postpone a planned parliamentary vote by a week. Fico’s government can now rely on just 75 MPs – one short of the 76 needed to secure a majority in Slovakia’s 150-seat parliament.

– Natália Silenská

🇧🇬 SOFIA

Bulgaria's fiscal council said on Tuesday that the budget deficit had reached €5.2 billion, or 4% of GDP – the greatest in 20 years. A flash estimate from the statistics office the same day put harmonised inflation at 6% year-on-year. Sofia has been under an excessive deficit procedure since June, with the Council capping the growth in net spending at 3.4% for 2027. Parliament will vote on that budget on Friday. Bulgaria joined the euro area at the start of the year.

– Konstantin Karadjov

🇽🇰 PRISTINA

Kosovo has lost an estimated €43.8 million in EU Growth Plan funding after missing a reform deadline on 30 June. A prolonged political crisis has prevented Kosovo from adopting several required reforms. The country must complete another 22 reform steps by the end of the year or risk losing an additional €131.5 million in EU funding. The setbacks highlight the financial consequences of Kosovo’s political deadlock as it struggles to meet Brussels’ reform requirements.

– Bronwyn Jones