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PARIS — US tech titan Mark Zuckerberg has plunged into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with the European Union by withholding his new Threads app from users in Europe, but analysts say he will struggle to win the fight.

Threads, billed as the killer of Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk, has added more than 100 million users in its first week in app stores.

But Zuckerberg's firm Meta said it could not be released in Europe because of "regulatory uncertainty" around the Digital Markets Act, an antitrust regulation that will not come into force until next year.

"The reason they gave made me laugh," said Diego Naranjo, head of policy at campaign group European Digital Rights.

"The regulation is not uncertain, it's very certain, it's just that Meta doesn't like it."

His theory is that Meta will give Threads to the rest of the world and Europeans will become so vexed at missing out that they will pressure the EU to water down the DMA.

Naranjo, for one, thinks the ploy will fail.

But either way, the rest of the big tech platforms will be glued to their screens as this fight could shape the future regulatory landscape in Europe for all of them.

'Fatal' blow

Meta and the rest are already regularly in trouble with EU regulators over their data gathering and retention policies.

They struggle to keep to the terms of Europe's mammoth five-year-old data privacy regulation (GDPR).

When the DMA was announced, their reaction was muted as it seemed to be about business and competition, a simpler topic for them though not without pitfalls.

The DMA bans the biggest tech firms from favouring their own platforms, particularly problematic for the latest launch as Threads and Instagram accounts are linked.

But the DMA's Article 5.2 contained a bombshell: The firms will be banned from transferring user data across platforms unless they get consent.

Berin Szoka, president of the pro-business US think tank TechFreedom, said the DMA's rules would require Meta to ask for the consent of someone's Instagram contacts before their data could be transferred to Threads.

"In practice, this could prove fatal to Threads' rollout," he said, as the network effect would be dead on arrival.

"I don't really see a good way out here for Meta."

Naranjo has little sympathy for Meta, saying the European embargo was just a "political push" by the firm against the EU.

"We will see who loses more," he said. "My guess is that Meta will lose more from not having 450 million potential customers on their network."

'Question of time' 

The European Consumer Group (BEUC) said the Threads issue showed the DMA doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

"The DMA does not stand in the way of new products or innovation," said the group's competition specialist Vanessa Turner.

"It creates an environment for innovation from more competitors and at the same time protects consumers."

Meta has left the door open for a Threads launch in Europe and few expect it to maintain its embargo indefinitely.

European law expert Alexandre de Streel said big tech firms would probably be hammering out compliance issues with the EU over the coming months.

"I think it's more a question of time to understand the scope of the legislation and have a dialogue with the commission," he said. 

But Szoka suggested the EU might be about to get a dose of unintended consequences.

"It would be particularly sad if DMA shields Twitter from competition," he said.

Meta, he argued, had committed to making Threads compatible with its competitors, adding: "That's something Twitter has only talked about."

BAGHDAD — Iraq on Monday signed agreements with TotalEnergies for a $10 billion set of projects that aim to improve the country's electricity supply through capturing flared gas and harnessing solar energy.

The deal, originally unveiled in 2021 but delayed by disagreements over the terms, was signed by TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne and Iraq's Oil Minister Hayan Abdel Ghani at a ceremony held at Iraq's Ministry of Oil headquarters in Baghdad after lengthy negotiations.

"Today, we commit with Total and all partners to serious and fruitful cooperation to begin implementing these contracts in the field," said Abdel Ghani during a speech before the signing of the four projects.

"TotalEnergies will retain 45 per cent of the project, Basrah Oil Company 30 per cent, and QatarEnergy will join us with 25 per cent," Pouyanne told AFP.

"In one month, the concrete steps will begin on the ground, including infrastructure construction," Iraqi oil official Bassem Khdeir told AFP, adding that "in three years, the projects will bear fruit".

The first part of the $10 billion Gas Growth Integrated Project (GGIP) aims to recover flared gas from oil fields to power electricity-generation plants.

Another will involve the construction of a 1 gigawatt solar plant to supply electricity to the Basra regional grid.

The deal also aims at increasing production to 210,000 barrels per day at Artawi oil field in the south of the country.

The GGIP also includes the construction of a seawater treatment plant to provide water used in oil production — an alternative to using fresh water from rivers and aquifers. 

The project will eventually produce five million barrels of water per day, according to officials at the ceremony.

Pouyanne told AFP that work will start on the ground over the summer.

"The first phase of the solar plant will come in two years, and then we will work to implement a first phase on the oil field, which should increase production to 120,000 barrels per day within two years as well," he added.

Pouyanne said the entire set of projects is expected to be completed by 2027-2028, putting the total cost at over $10 billion.

When the Iraqi government first announced the deal in September 2021, it spoke of a $27 billion project, a figure that factored in operating costs over the years.

DUISBURG — Duisburg once touted itself as Germany's "China city" due to strong links to the Asian giant, but it is now desperately seeking an image makeover as geopolitical tensions upend bilateral ties.

Located in Germany's rustbelt and long in decline, Duisburg got a welcome boost in 2014 when President Xi Jinping promoted it as a key stop on China's new "Silk Road" during a visit.

Huge numbers of freight trains were soon arriving from the world's second-largest economy to the biggest inland port on Earth, and a flurry of China-linked initiatives followed. 

But escalating tensions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine have prompted heightened concerns in Germany about relying too heavily on authoritarian powers, particularly China.

It comes as Europe's top economy is taking a harder line against China, its biggest trading partner, on other issues ranging from Beijing's sabre-rattling towards Taiwan to its human rights record.

On the ground in Duisburg, population 500,000, the chill can be felt: a tie-up with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has ended while shipping giant Cosco dumped its stake in a project at the port.

Markus Teuber, the dedicated China representative in Duisburg — the only German city to have such a role — insists that China remains an important partner but recognises times are changing.

"There was a kind of 'China hype' after [President Xi Jinping's] visit," Teuber told AFP in an interview in the city's town hall.

But he acknowledged that "the global political situation is different and it won't change so quickly. It won't be the same again as it was three, four years ago."

Changing times 

The shift in Duisburg, northwestern Germany, is a microcosm of what is happening in the wider economy as tensions rise between Beijing and Berlin.

Manufacturing powerhouse Germany has built up by far the biggest investments of any European country in China. 

Just four of its companies — automakers Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz along with chemicals giant BASF — accounted for a third of European investment in China between 2018 and 2021, according to a study by independent research firm Rhodium Group. 

But in the first quarter of this year, German exports to China plummeted 12 per cent compared to the period a year earlier.

Big firms are being impacted, with Volkswagen and BASF both suffering first-quarter sales slumps in China.

"Europe and Germany are more siding with the United States, through the eyes of China they are seen more as allies to the United States," ING economist Carsten Brzeski told AFP.

"Whether it is conscious or unconscious, there will be more reluctance to buy 'made in Germany' these days." 

This adds to other factors putting the economic relationship under pressure, such as Chinese firms now manufacturing products that rival those from Germany, he said.

'Foreseeable risks' 

Back in Duisburg, one of the most high-profile and controversial projects was the tie-up with Huawei, which has faced growing national security concerns in the West.

Officials and the company signed a memorandum of understanding in 2017 that aimed to transform Duisburg into a "smart city" but the agreement was allowed to expire at the end of last year.

Nothing concrete emerged from the tie-up, and it ended for "technical" rather than "political" reasons, Teuber insisted.

Another initiative that drew attention was Chinese shipping giant Cosco's stake in a major new project in the port, Duisburg Gateway Terminal. 

In June 2022, it transferred its shares to the port's owner, although the Duisport group — which encompasses the owner and other companies — said the transaction "had no political background".

Despite the worsening geopolitical climate, about 30 freight trains still ply the rail route between Duisburg and destinations throughout China each week, with the journey, at up to 15 days, quicker than sea shipments.

That is down from 60 to 70 trains a week during the pandemic, when port closures pushed up demand for rail freight, but around the same level as prior to it.

Officials now emphasise the approximately 200,000 containers travelling annually to and from China represent a small fraction of the four million handled by Duisburg's port each year.

Duisburg is not about to close the door, however, with Teuber insisting that the city remains open to doing business with China, noting that Chinese delegations started visiting again in recent months after a pandemic hiatus.

Political opponents, however, remain convinced that focusing so heavily on China was misguided.

It was "definitely" a mistake, said Sven Benentreu, deputy chairman of the local chapter of the pro-business FDP party.

"The risks were already foreseeable several years ago." 

PARIS — After years of overshooting budget and debt targets, EU members need to rein in spending even as they reel under high inflation and rising interest rates, the powerful chief of the Eurogroup said Friday.

In an interview with AFP, Paschal Donohoe — who runs the monthly informal eurozone finance minister meetings known as Eurogroup — said members must find a balance between controlled spending and higher taxation to bring their financial position to a solid footing, or face the pain of ballooning borrowing costs.

"We have a narrow and demanding path upon which we are trying to walk," said Donohoe, a former Irish finance minister and currently minister for public expenditure and reform.

Most EU members' budgets are wildly out of line with the bloc's public finance criteria which call for deficits to remain below three percent of GDP and public debt below 60 per cent.

After years of heavy spending to offset the impact of the COVID pandemic and high energy and commodities prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some countries are running deficits of up to eight percent and debt levels of well above 100 percent of GDP.

'Hard-wired' 

The rules are currently suspended to give countries room to spend their way out of trouble without fear of European Commission fines, but Donohoe said there was no chance that they would be abolished, or even revised.

"For lots of countries they're hard-wired into their laws," he said. "It would be very, very hard for many countries to move away from those figures".

The Eurogroup has, however, discussed more flexibility which Donohoe said could take the form of generous deadlines for the return to fiscal orthodoxy.

"That decision regarding speed can be every bit as meaningful as what the figures themselves should be," he said.

Donohoe said he was "confident enough" that finance ministers will reach agreement on such a timetable "later on in the year".

Governments needed to accept meanwhile that a long period of light debt servicing costs linked to a context of ultra-low interest rates was over.

"We're going back to a more normal world of financial borrowing," Donohoe said.

Any deviation from EU rules would in future not only spark warnings from the European Commission, but also bring financial costs as debt market operators demanded higher and higher returns for sovereign debt.

"It will be a combination of what the commission may say or do, and then a reaction by the market to statements and analysis from the commission," Donohoe said.

'A big effect' 

No eurozone member has ever been fined for overshooting budget or debt targets, but Donohoe said "I believe that the statements and the warnings that the commission will give about a high level of borrowing of itself will be a sanction."

He said that "if we even just slowed the pace of government expenditure growth ... it can have a big effect".

The eurozone entered into a technical recession in the first quarter.

But Donohoe noted that the economic slowdown had not caused havoc in the jobs market as countries have maintained an "extraordinarily high" level of employment.

"The most meaningful example of what economic growth can look like is whether you have a job," he said.

The 48-year-old Donohoe, who has been president of the Eurogroup since 2020, was also Ireland's finance minister until last year, when he moved to his current post under the Irish government's rotation agreement.

Ireland, which is home to several US multinationals' European headquarters, is one of the few eurozone countries to run a budget surplus, thanks partly to a tax windfall of 22 billion euros ($24 billion) after new tax rules on global revenues for major companies gave the Irish treasury a major payday.

'So far, so good' 

Donohoe said the government was holding back from spending the surplus to avoid creating "a huge inflationary risk for a small open economy", instead placing the money in funds to be used for future investment.

He said that Ireland had learned from mistakes made during the fast-growth "Celtic Tiger" period in the 1900s and early 2000s that ended abruptly with the 2008 financial crisis that plunged Ireland's financial sector and economy into a deep downturn.

"We've been here before," he said. "I'm very humble about what the future could yet bring, and very conscious that that strength in public finances needs to be preserved."

But he added, with a smile: "So far, so good."

NEW YORK — JetBlue said Wednesday it will wind down an alliance with American Airlines rather than challenge a US court ruling that determined the joint venture was anti-competitive.

While JetBlue held a "deep conviction" that the Northeast Alliance (NEA) with American enhanced the offerings to customers at New York and Boston airports, the carrier "has made the difficult decision not to appeal the court's determination", JetBlue said in a statement.

The company has "instead initiated the termination of the NEA, beginning a wind down process that will take place over the coming months," it added.

The move comes after US District Judge Leo Sorokin sided in May with the federal Department of Justice (DoJ) in concluding that the American-JetBlue alliance at Boston's Logan Airport and the three New York City-area airports was anti-competitive.

JetBlue said it would now focus instead on winning approval for its $3.8 billion takeover of low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, which the Justice Department has also challenged in a separate case.

"As it relates to the Spirit combination, terminating the NEA renders the US Department of Justice's concerns about our partnership with a legacy carrier entirely moot," JetBlue said. "With that, the DoJ should reconsider and support our plan to bring a national low-fare competitor to the Big Four; the flying public deserves better than the status quo."

The Justice Department in March sued to block the Spirit deal, arguing that removing low-cost Spirit would expose tens of millions of travelers to higher fares.

VIENNA — Saudi Arabia on Wednesday dismissed talk of discord with oil ally Russia, praising their coordinated decisions to remove barrels from the market in efforts to prop up prices.

Oil producers are grappling with falling prices and high market volatility amid fears of global economic slowdown and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has upended economies worldwide.

On Monday, Riyadh said that it would extend a production reduction of one million barrels per day (bpd), which began in July, to August to boost prices.

At the same time, its ally in the OPEC+ group of oil producers, Russia, decided to slash exports by 500,000 bpd in August.

Speaking at an OPEC seminar in Vienna on Wednesday, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said the coordinated announcement was "quite telling".

"Part of what we have done with the help of our colleagues from Russia was also to mitigate the cynical side of the spectators on what is going on between Saudi Arabia and Russia," he added.

Moscow and Riyadh have not always talked with one voice regarding oil quotas, with Russia less enthusiastic than Saudi Arabia about cutting production as it needs the revenue amid its war in Ukraine and Western sanctions.

The latest cuts, however, have failed to drive up international oil prices.

Analysts say the kingdom needs oil to be priced at $80 per barrel to balance its budget, which is well above recent averages. 

Brent North Sea crude, the international benchmark, was trading at around $75 per barrel on Wednesday.

Estimates show that Russia, on the other hand, is far from reducing its production by the volume promised, and is concentrating on Asian markets such as India and China.

Faced with these accusations, OPEC+ has called on "independent sources" to verify Russia's figures, said the Saudi minister. 

Moscow has "committed to this exercise and they are going to be doing it on a monthly basis", he insisted.

Asked about the markets' muted reaction to the recent production cuts, Prince Abdulaziz called for patience as he deplored the prevailing "negativism".

"We will do whatever is necessary, whatever it takes" to stabilise prices, he added.

OPEC did not invite journalists from three major financial news outlets — Bloomberg, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal — to cover the talks.