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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

EU leaders plan to approve Ursula von der Leyen for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission on Monday evening, as the bloc’s capitals choose continuity over change amid the war in Ukraine, tensions with China and political uncertainty in key countries. 

The heads of the EU’s 27 member states will use a private dinner in Brussels on Monday evening to give political backing to von der Leyen remaining in office, diplomats and officials from across the continent said, ahead of a formal rubber-stamping later this month.

“Nobody is discussing any other outcome,” said a senior EU diplomat who has spent the past week in discussions with key capitals. “For her, the die is cast.”

Von der Leyen would then need to win a majority of the newly elected European parliament to remain as the EU’s most powerful official through 2029, running the bloc’s executive branch with the power to regulate the world’s largest single market, propose new legislation and steer the continent’s policy direction.

Her supporters are quietly confident of securing parliament’s assent, given the victory of her centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the EU elections this month, and the majority held by centrist parties in the chamber despite a surge in support for the far right.

Von der Leyen is respected for her leadership of the EU through the Covid-19 pandemic and the bloc’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But she has irked some capitals and many in her own commission with her centralised decision-making and a record of pushing the limits of her institutional powers. 

Her campaign stressed the value of stability, and played up the dangers of a change in leadership given the war in Ukraine and the uncertainty in the US-EU relationship that would result from a potential Donald Trump victory in US elections in November.

Her supporters have reinforced that message in the light of the political chaos unleashed in France by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election — a move that startled EU allies who worry about the future influence of the far-right in Paris.

Monday’s private dinner will also feature discussions on who to select for president of the EU Council — the official who chairs meetings of bloc leaders — and for high representative, the bloc’s chief diplomat. 

Officials said Portugal’s former premier António Costa was the clear frontrunner for the former, succeeding Charles Michel, while Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was the most likely choice for the latter, taking over from Josep Borrell.

They cautioned, however, that on the eve of the meeting, neither choice was as definite as von der Leyen.

Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister who was an unheralded choice for the post in 2019, received a boost last week from the bloc’s three most powerful members — France, Germany and Italy — offering their tacit acceptance at the G7 summit.

Following the summit on Italy’s Apulian coast on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said they believed a deal would be struck at Monday’s dinner, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she believed the EPP had the right “to propose a commission president”.

The private dinner has been arranged as a prelude to a formal summit on June 27 and 28 at which a final agreement is due. A parliamentary vote on the next commission president is set for the week of July 15.

“Everyone wants to use [Monday] night to send a crystal clear message . . . so there’s no doubt over what the final decision will be,” said a second senior EU diplomat involved in the negotiations.

A wildfire northwest of Los Angeles has burned more than 14,600 acres and forced the evacuation of about 1,200 people, California fire officials said.

The fast-growing blaze, which began around 2 p.m. on Saturday in Gorman, in Los Angeles County west of the I-5, was moving southeast toward Pyramid Lake, CalFire said on Sunday.

Fueled by strong winds and low humidity, the so-called Post Fire exploded overnight. It spread into Ventura County to the west, burning 2,000 acres there, largely in the Los Padres National Forest, LAist reported.

The fire was 2% contained as of Sunday evening.

Complicating firefighting efforts, strong winds that had picked up on Sunday were expected to last until at least Monday. Wind gusts had reached 55 mph in the region and were forecast to reach up to 70 mph at night, the National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon, before decreasing throughout Monday.

"Conditions will be favorable for rapid rates of fire growth and spread, especially [Sunday night]," the NWS said.

Evacuation orders were in place for Hungry Valley Park — where state park officials evacuated some 1,200 people — and Pyramid Lake, which has been closed.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to CalFire. No injuries were reported.

California’s wildfire season is off to an aggressive start. This year so far, fires have consumed about 41,900 acres, higher than the average of 27,100 acres burned during the same period for the past five years, according to CalFire data.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves would seek to break down EU trade barriers and secure billions of pounds through an early international investment summit if Labour wins the general election.

Reeves, in an interview with the Financial Times, signalled an ambitious push to revisit parts of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, including seeking closer alignment with EU rules in areas such as the chemicals sector and a better deal for workers in the City of London.

“We would look to improve our trading relationship with Europe, and do trade deals around the world,” she said, as she vowed that an incoming Labour government would “reset” Britain’s global image.

Her comments signal that Labour wants to go further than previously thought in seeking better trade terms with the EU, tackling head-on the “adversarial” Conservative post-Brexit relationship with Brussels and ditching a Tory fixation on regulatory divergence.

“I don’t think anyone voted Leave because they were not happy that chemicals regulations were the same across Europe,” Reeves said. “When my constituency voted leave it was purely because of immigration.” 

Labour has been reluctant to talk about Brexit in the election campaign, but as polling day approaches — and with the party 20 points ahead of the Conservatives — Reeves and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have given more glimpses of what they hope to achieve.

She also said Labour would take risks and was willing to “upset some people” to unlock the potential of the British economy, adding that she would use her political capital by pushing for growth rather than “having a fight about different taxes”. 

Ahead of the July 4 election, the Conservatives have warned of a Labour “tax trap”. But Reeves insisted the party could fund its priorities without resorting to tax rises on the wealthy, adding: “We’re not seeking a mandate to increase people’s taxes. We’re seeking a mandate to grow the economy.”

On Brexit, any attempt to reopen what Starmer has called Johnson’s “botched” 2020 trade deal with the EU would be highly complicated; there is little appetite in Brussels for a renegotiation and long-standing opposition to the idea of Britain “cherry-picking” parts of the single market.

Reeves talked about a “bespoke” arrangement for the chemicals industry, which is in talks with the government about a new regulatory system intended to avoid £2bn of extra costs associated with having to register products with a new UK regime. 

She reiterated Labour’s existing red lines in the area, saying there would be no rejoining the single market or customs union, and that freedom of movement and a deal on youth mobility were off the cards. These will limit the scope of any future EU deal.

Reeves stressed the importance of seeking greater mutual recognition of professional qualifications with the EU, pointing to the benefits this would entail to the services sector, including financial services.

“The majority of people in the City have not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses,” she said, arguing that services and financial services were “pretty much excluded” from Johnson’s Brexit deal.

But she said that Labour’s manifesto promise to seek a mutual recognition deal for professional qualifications with the EU, along with a veterinary deal and improved touring rights for UK artists were “examples” of what she wanted to achieve. “That’s not exclusive,” she said.

Reeves said she accepted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment that Brexit would lop 4 per cent off Britain’s productivity potential.

The shadow chancellor, who on Monday will host senior business leaders at a meeting of her new “shadow” British Infrastructure Council, said she wanted a Labour government to hit the ground running and exploit the fact that the world would be looking afresh at the UK after election day. 

Among the further steps in the first 100 days of a Labour government would be an investment summit that aimed to lure in foreign investors who had been deterred by political instability in the UK, she said.

Reeves said she had spoken that morning to a business leader in the City who had said their global chief executive had been reluctant to come to a recent UK investment summit organised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government. 

“They said ‘What’s the point, we’re just getting a bit tired of what’s happening in the UK. Do I have to come to this?’,” Reeves said. “This is a real reset moment to a different way of doing government.”

She added: “It’s not just inviting businesses in for a summit, but really bringing them into the centre of government. I want to make the Treasury not just a tax-and-spending department but a department for growth.”

Reeves said there was “a role for investment” from countries including China and Saudi Arabia, but added that it was right that Sunak’s government had excluded Chinese investment from the rollout of broadband and future nuclear projects.