Russia has quietly withdrawn approximately 20 diplomats from Brussels in line with European Union demands, without resorting to any retaliatory measures against the EU mission in Moscow.

According to a report by the EUobserver portal, EU foreign affairs spokesperson Christian Wigand said the previous day: “The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the EU has complied within the deadline with our decision to cap the maximum number of staff at 40 people, excluding the head of mission.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, had set a deadline of 1 September for Russian Chargé d’Affaires Karen Malayan to complete the staff reduction. She cited Russia’s “abuse of diplomatic power” and the necessity of establishing a balanced staffing presence with her mission in Moscow.

The stated rationale of “abuse” rests on allegations that Russia has deployed hundreds of spies to Europe under the cover of diplomatic immunity.

Germany decides to close consulate

In an announcement on 1 September, Germany directly blamed Russia for an attack carried out at Leipzig Airport in early August and announced countermeasures.

Under these measures, it was announced that Russia’s Consulate General in Bonn as well as the Russian House in Berlin would be closed. Following the developments, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also summoned the Russian Ambassador to the ministry.

The crisis in question began on 4 August with the detection of an explosives-laden unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport.

Russian ambassadors summoned across Europe

Following Germany’s attribution of the Leipzig attack to Moscow, numerous EU member states summoned Russian embassy representatives to their foreign ministries.

Condemning Russia’s “dangerous and irresponsible” actions, the Finnish Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian Ambassador. In its statement, the ministry said: “Russia’s actions will receive a resolute and clear response.”

Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka stated that Germany’s findings regarding the UAV attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport were alarming and had to be taken seriously.

Emphasising that he planned to discuss the issue with the Czech intelligence services in the coming days, Macinka announced that he had summoned Russia’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Anna Ponomaryova, to the ministry.

Sweden, Portugal, and Denmark were also among the countries that summoned Russian ambassadors. In his assessment of the matter, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said: “The Russian Ambassador has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a meeting. Germany has reported that Russia was behind the failed hybrid attack in Leipzig. We stand shoulder to shoulder within NATO and the EU. We remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine and in strengthening our collective defence capabilities.”

On the same day, alongside the European Union, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands also summoned Russian representatives to their foreign ministries.

Some of Germany’s biggest industrial bosses are reigniting the debate over longer working hours.

Nearly 40 years ago, German metalworkers secured a 35-hour working week by winning one of the most contentious disputes in the country’s post-war history.

According to a report in the Financial Times (FT), prominent companies, including Mercedes-Benz and toolmaker Stihl, have demanded that employees work 40 hours a week without additional pay, arguing that high labour costs are undermining the country’s competitiveness.

Speaking to the Handelsblatt newspaper earlier this summer, Martin Brudermuller, chairman of the supervisory board of Mercedes-Benz Group, said, “By international standards, labour here has become too expensive,” arguing that the country had lost its “productivity advantage over key competitors.”

“We must seriously consider returning to a 40-hour working week,” Brudermuller said.

Labour costs in Germany are among the highest in the EU. Hourly labour costs in the manufacturing sector stand at 49.50 euros, which is 47% above the EU average of 33.70 euros and triple the cost of 15.60 euros in Hungary.

Although German employees are more productive than their Eastern European counterparts, unit labour costs, which measure worker productivity, have risen significantly faster since 2023 compared with previous years, according to a study by the IMK, a think-tank funded by German trade unions.

The calls to return to a 40-hour week have come ahead of industrial unions starting their latest wage negotiations in October.

The 35-hour working week was phased in over more than a decade following a dispute in 1984.

In that dispute, tens of thousands of metalworkers in former West Germany staged a seven-week strike to secure shorter working hours.

Today, the 35-hour working week is the collectively agreed standard for approximately one-fifth of German employees, concentrated in sectors such as automotive, engineering, iron, and steel. Across all sectors, the average weekly working time is 37.8 hours.

Germans work fewer average annual hours than employees in almost all other OECD economies. However, this comparison is heavily skewed by the country’s high rate of part-time employment.

What has turned a decades-long debate into an urgent issue of competitiveness is the deepening crisis in the German manufacturing sector.

Having peaked in late 2017, German industrial production has fallen by more than 15% as manufacturers have been hit by back-to-back energy price shocks stemming from anti-Russia sanctions, intensifying competition from China, US tariffs, and the profound shift towards electric vehicles.

According to Marcus Berret, global managing director of the consultancy Roland Berger, high labour costs were once offset by Germany’s other attractive features for employers, such as political stability, strong infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and dense industrial clusters.

However, these advantages have begun to erode as the cost gap with countries in Eastern Europe and beyond has widened:

“When it comes to labour costs, we are not talking about a 10% or 20% gap [with rival economies]. In some cases, we are talking about a three- or fourfold difference.”

So far, manufacturing employment in Germany has declined at a much slower pace; despite the sharp drop in output, approximately 6.5 million people continue to work in the sector.

However, Berret predicts further job losses:

“If I piece together the information I have from individual companies, I estimate that the number of people employed in manufacturing will drop to below 5 million.”

Currently, around 12,000 to 15,000 manufacturing jobs are being lost each month, and major employers such as Volkswagen have already indicated that many more positions in Germany will need to be eliminated.

Economists argue that longer working hours may become inevitable for employees who manage to keep their jobs.

Martin Werding, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, says that the mechanisms manufacturers once used to compensate for high labour costs, such as relying on temporary agency workers who could be laid off during periods of weak demand, are no longer sufficient.

“Today’s challenges have grown so large that this flexibility is no longer enough,” Werding said.

A shift from 35 to 40 hours without additional pay would increase working time by 14% without changing weekly wage costs. Werding added that the debate over working hours is “far beyond symbolic politics.”

With more than 2.2 million members, IG Metall, Germany’s largest and most powerful trade union, rejects the claim that factories are bound by a rigid 35-hour working week constraint.

Nadine Boguslawski, head of collective bargaining at IG Metall and a member of the Mercedes supervisory board, stated that agreements with employers already provide companies with significant flexibility to increase or reduce working hours.

“A rigid 35-hour working week, as is sometimes portrayed, simply does not exist in the companies I know,” Boguslawski said.

She added that IG Metall remains open to finding tailored solutions for struggling companies.

At the heart of the debate lies a fundamental disagreement between unions and employers over whether longer working hours destroy jobs by distributing a fixed amount of work among fewer people, or protect jobs by making German factories more competitive.

Boguslawski argued that one of the main reasons IG Metall fought hard for the 35-hour working week in the 1980s was to “bring more people into employment” by sharing available work among more people:

“If you reverse this and increase weekly working hours to 40, you generally need fewer workers, regardless of whether those additional hours are paid or unpaid.”

However, economists such as Werding argue that the volume of available work is not guaranteed and depends on the competitiveness of firms.

They suggest that if lower labour costs per unit of output make German factories more competitive, companies can retain production and jobs that would otherwise move abroad or disappear.

It remains unclear whether the push for longer working hours will make it onto the negotiating agenda between unions and employers this autumn.

Gesamtmetall, the metal industry employers’ association, declined to comment on calls to abandon the 35-hour working week, citing “internal deliberations.”

Berret worries that the political and public debate has not yet caught up with the scale of the crisis facing German industry.

“Many people are living in a different reality regarding what lies ahead of us,” Berret said.

Eight European Union member states, including Germany and France, want to reorganise the bloc’s foreign policy decision-making process.

The member states circulated the proposal, obtained by Bloomberg, ahead of informal meetings of EU defence and foreign ministers taking place in Ireland this week.

Many foreign policy decisions require unanimity, a requirement that has caused specific initiatives to remain blocked for years.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban regularly used this veto power to block sanctions against Russia or halt support provided to Ukraine.

The document acknowledges a “radically altered environment shaped by strategic competition, growing instability, and attempts to undermine the rules-based international order”, and notes that the EU must “mobilise its collective political, economic, and diplomatic weight swiftly and effectively”.

Although the countries support “consensus as far as possible”, they are seeking solutions to accelerate the decision-making process and prevent bottlenecks without the need to rewrite the treaties, a step that would itself require unanimity.

The document proposes principles such as “sincere cooperation, avoiding linking unrelated policy debates, and constructive abstention” to ensure that member states can oppose a decision without vetoing it.

A group of countries made a similar attempt last year, but the effort is being brought back onto the agenda in the context of a broader debate on transforming the EU’s diplomatic service.

A proposal backed by Germany aims to integrate this service into the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, in order to centralise foreign policy activities.

Under the Franco-German plan, Kaja Kallas would assume a more active role and hold broader responsibilities within the European Commission. However, Ursula von der Leyen would retain the final say on foreign policy.

Under the complex architecture of the Lisbon Treaty, the High Representative leads the European External Action Service (EEAS) and designs, coordinates, and implements foreign policy on behalf of the 27 member states.

The High Representative also serves as one of the vice-presidents of the European Commission.

However, heavy portfolios that shape the course of international policy, such as trade, energy, climate, and migration, fall largely under the Commission’s remit, leaving the EEAS without tangible leverage to bring to the table.

Enlargement, another area with a distinct geopolitical dimension, rests entirely within the hands of the Commission.

This division of competences has allowed Ursula von der Leyen to expand her foreign policy role significantly.

She has also pursued an intensive travel schedule to sign various high-profile agreements.

Von der Leyen’s expanding influence has caused surprise in capitals and generated occasional criticism alleging “overreach” and a “power grab”, despite her being frequently encouraged by EU leaders to take the lead in global crises.

The Franco-German plan envisages giving Kallas an active role in coordinating external relations areas run by Commission directorates-general (DGs), such as development aid (DG INTPA), humanitarian aid (DG ECHO), defence industry (DG DEFIS), and neighbourhood relations, which are divided between DG ENEST (Eastern Europe) and DG MENA (Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf).

The high-stakes trade portfolio could also be considered.

To strengthen the new structure, a dedicated foreign policy department would be established. Until its integration into the EEAS in 2010, the Commission operated a directorate-general for external relations (DG RELEX).

In practice, Kallas would have broader and direct responsibilities within the Commission.

Yet this expansion of authority would ultimately benefit von der Leyen, as she would remain the supreme authority as Commission President, mirroring the hierarchical relationship between a prime minister and a foreign minister at national level.

The EEAS, which Kallas currently runs independently of von der Leyen, would be weakened to reduce the risk of institutional conflict.

This reform requires amending the 2010 decision establishing the European External Action Service (EEAS) rather than the Lisbon Treaty. Unanimous agreement will also be required on this matter.