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Industry trade body Eurometal has said the European industrial sector could lose around 300,000 jobs by the end of the year if the EU doesn't curb the replacement of European suppliers by Chinese manufacturers. The group warned that China is moving deeper into European supply chains by selling finished components, threatening production, investment, jobs, and industrial know-how. Eurometal argues that European producers face carbon costs and steel import tariffs that Chinese components often avoid. Alexander Julius, the president of Eurometal, told the Guardian: “China has made no secret of what it is doing. It is in their five-year plan . . . China doesn’t want to be a raw material supplier, it wants to be a finished product supply. They want to be in key product supply chains because they know that once they control the supply chain, they own the complete value chain.”

 

The Guardian

Reuters reports that a swarm of OpenAI agents escaped testing and hijacked a German website this spring and transformed it into a bulletin board for other AI agents. Researchers said they identified more than 15,000 edits carried out by AI agents on a German-language wiki site, DseWiki, a resource for programmers that accepts communal edits in the manner of Wikipedia. Maurice Chiodo, ​an academic at Cambridge University's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, said the episode resembled "the operation of some sort of underground network, hell-bent on achieving a task or mission." The ​greatest threat from advanced AI may not be a single superintelligent system, but "vast colluding swarms of semi-intelligent AI," Chiodo said.

 

Reuters

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said central banks are facing a “serious challenge” to their independence from populist parties. In a speech at the London School of Economics Trium Anniversary Conference, Bailey said: “Across many countries we have witnessed growing scepticism towards public institutions generally.” He said one particular challenge to central bank independence was coming from “populist political movements,” observing: “Any institution seen to get in the way becomes an unrepresentative elite standing between the people and their will, and thus an obstacle to popular sovereignty . . . This is a serious challenge.” He said central banks “cannot take legitimacy for granted” and must communicate clearly and openly with the public, and remain accountable to elected representatives.

 

Bank of England

Financial Times

London Evening Standard

Defence and intelligence officials say Europe is not doing enough to deter Russia’s “hybrid” war against Nato member states, and must rapidly develop new methods to suppress Moscow’s invidious campaign.

 

Financial Times

The UK's independent National Heat Risk Commission has identified a failure to implement previous recommendations to prepare for high temperatures in its initial report. The commission's report, ‘A Heat Circuit Breaker for the UK’, states: “Heat risk has been catalogued for more than a decade, yet action to address it has been slow.” It observed that “recommendations are plentiful,” but “delivery is absent.” Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the commission, said: “Knowledge that things are only going to get hotter just needs to be really embraced at all levels of government,” adding: “It’s still incumbent on us all . . . that we don’t forget, so that we are better prepared next year.”

 

Bloomberg

London School of Economics

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has said it plans to cut 4,000 jobs globally, or nearly 12% of its workforce, over the next two years. The UK automaker ⁠employs about 43,000 people globally, including 34,000 in Britain. A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he supported Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds' statement that the government would not intervene in JLR's voluntary redundancy programme, which primarily affects office staff. "The automotive industry faces significant challenges, with technological change amidst intense competition and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty," JLR's chief executive PB Balaji said in a statement, which also said JLR would target cost savings of £1.7bn ($2.3bn). "Over the next 12 months, we will launch five new products, continue to leverage the strength of our brands and renew our focus on North America, amongst other markets, to help us deliver double digit revenue growth," Balaji added. He said the firm was "committed to supporting everyone with care, fairness and respect" through the redundancy process.

 

France 24

BBC News

The Guardian

The Times

Volkswagen has announced plans to sell its Osnabrueck plant to Aurelius Capital and the German state of Lower Saxony, in a transition from car production to defence equipment manufacturing. An initial air defence project is planned for the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. The move is part of the company's broader strategy to address challenges from Chinese competition and declining electric vehicle sales. Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said: "With today's agreement, we are taking an important step towards opening up a new industrial future for the site." The deal aims to preserve 1,200 jobs and establish a long-term partnership with Rafael for air defence production in Germany and Europe.

 

France 24

The Eiffel Tower was closed on Monday after staff went on strike over female workers being removed for the visit of a Hindu religious group. A delegation of around 100 people linked to the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) group visited the Paris landmark on Saturday. "During the visit of this delegation, women were asked to leave their places of work in order to place men there," staff union representative Diane Davoine told Reuters. She said management had since apologised to workers over the incident. "So that absolutely does not go down well with the employees, with women obviously, who are all humiliated by what happened, by the way some were treated," Davoine said. Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE), the company that operates the monument, confirmed the delegation had asked the visit be organised to limit "interactions with women"; it has since said that "these conditions should not have been accepted."

 

Deutsche Welle (EN)

France 24

BBC News

Next has successfully appealed a ruling that mandated equal pay for warehouse and shop floor workers. The Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned a 2024 decision that found the UK retailer's higher pay for warehouse staff unjustified. The ruling affects over 3,500 employees, primarily women, who were set to receive £30m in back pay. Next argued that market forces justified the pay difference due to recruitment challenges for warehouse roles. Law firm Leigh Day, representing the shop workers, expressed disappointment and plans to appeal. Next said it had won the vast majority of the terms challenged in the equal pay litigation and intends to seek permission to appeal in relation to other terms. "This judgment has come at the right time, the UK economy desperately needs jobs and the loss of this appeal would have represented a hammer blow to retail employment in the UK," the company added.

 

Financial Times

The Guardian

BBC News

The Daily Telegraph

The Times

Jacob Wallenberg, Sweden's foremost industrialist, says the country's world-leading start-up scene would be negatively affected by new taxes proposed by parties in the opposition coalition currently leading election polls.

 

Financial Times

The Alliance for ‌Automotive Innovation has called on the US Congress to pass ​legislation permanently barring Chinese vehicles from the US market before the end of the year. "Right now, Chinese automakers are dumping subsidised vehicles with connected software and hardware around the world," the group's CEO John Bozzella wrote in a letter to Congress. "This hasn’t happened inside the US yet, but given the scale and urgency of this threat, we ​urge you to enact a Chinese vehicle, software and hardware ban before adjourning this year and ⁠make this policy the law of the land." The alliance represents General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Honda, Stellantis and other major automakers.

 

The Hill

Automotive News

Electrek

Reuters