WSJ : The Next Frontier for Obesity Drugs Isn’t How Much Weight You Lose, but Wh

The Next Frontier for Obesity Drugs Isn’t How Much Weight You Lose, but What Kind
Drugmakers are targeting muscle preservation and fat loss as they build the next generation of weight-loss medications

  • Drugmakers are testing a new generation of weight-loss drugs designed to target body fat and preserve muscle.
  • Regeneron reported mid-stage data showing its experimental drug halved the loss of lean mass over 26 weeks when taken alongside semaglutide.
  • Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly presented new data on experimental treatments that target belly fat and improve patients’ everyday movement.

For as long as drugmakers have been testing weight-loss drugs, the question has been: How much weight do people lose? Now it is changing to: What kind of weight are they losing?

Rapid weight loss can come with a downside—people can end up injured or prone to falls if they shed significant muscle alongside fat. Drugmakers are testing a new generation of muscle-protecting and body fat-targeting drugs to fix that.

At a medical conference in Milan this week, mid- and late-stage studies from companies like Novo, Eli Lilly LLY -2.33%decrease; down pointing triangle and Regeneron indicated that several drug candidates may be able to better preserve muscle and help shed problematic belly fat.

If proven out, these experimental medications could ultimately improve people’s health while they rapidly lose weight on these therapies. It would also give drugmakers a powerful argument for doctors to prescribe—and health insurers to pay for—a new set of drugs.

“I’d rather have more fat loss and slightly less weight loss, but retain more muscle,” said Dr. Juan Pablo Frías, an endocrinologist who was involved in new research presented by Eli Lilly, and who has worked with other companies. “I want you to be able to bend down and tie your shoe without difficulty.”

Regeneron reported mid-stage data on a drug it is developing to preserve muscle when taken alongside a GLP-1. The study found that people taking the drug lost about two-thirds to three-quarters less thigh muscle than those taking semaglutide alone. Over 26 weeks, the highest doses of the drug roughly halved the loss of lean mass, which includes muscle, compared with those who only took semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy.

This is especially critical for older adults, particularly as many more gain access to weight-loss drugs through Medicare. But doctors stress that body composition matters for younger adults, too, who risk losing muscle when they rapidly shed weight, increasing the chances of injuries or conditions such as osteoporosis later in life.

As the weight-loss drug market has taken shape over the past few years, the dominant players, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk NOVO.B 0.62%increase; up pointing triangle, have been marketing drugs that lead patients to lose, on average, 20% or more of their weight over about a year and a half at the highest doses. Now companies need to differentiate their drugs in other ways, doctors, researchers and analysts say.

Novo is studying whether one of its experimental drugs, CagriSema, can cut belly fat as it helps people lose weight. The treatment is an obesity shot that combines the main ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy with cagrilintide, a compound that mimics the appetite-regulating hormone amylin.

In research presented this week at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting, Type 2 diabetes patients taking CagriSema lost 14.3% of their body weight over roughly nine months on average and had less fat around their liver and pancreas when compared with those on a placebo. Fat in and around these organs leads to a higher risk of heart disease and other health problems. The company also studied, using brain scans, the drug’s effects on patients’ thoughts and cravings for food.

“Understanding pain, understanding food noise, understanding something that actually affects you every day, can become differentiators,” said Martin Holst Lange, Novo’s chief scientific officer. “How does that weight loss make you feel?”

The differentiation is increasingly important as the field gets more competitive. International patent applications for GLP-1s rose 28% in the 12 months to March 2026, according to an analysis by law firm Pinsent Masons.

Lilly also presented new data on its experimental next-generation weight loss drug retatrutide, which helped patients lose as much as 28.3% of their weight on average in an earlier study. In the new study, patients self-reported better everyday movement while taking the drug when compared with those on the placebo.

“We now routinely measure functional outcomes in terms of muscle strength or activity in these clinical trials, and we usually see a very significant benefit,” said Dan Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific officer.

Other experts caution that the metrics in these trials don’t always tell the full story about patients’ health.

Wei Shen, an assistant professor at Columbia University and body composition researcher, said lean mass shouldn’t be equated with muscle, because it includes other non-fat tissues in addition to muscle. Improvements in self-reported questionnaires don’t prove that patients maintain their muscle, other experts said.

“It’s going to take time to learn what data we should be tracking and focus on the right outcomes,” said Dr. Nidhi Kansal, an obesity medicine doctor at Northwestern Medicine. “We call them weight-loss drugs, but the goal medically is fat loss.”

WSJ : What Grip Strength Can Tell You About Your Health A simple squeeze can giv

What Grip Strength Can Tell You About Your Health
A simple squeeze can give you information about your muscle strength and future health risks

What’s in a forearm? Turns out, a lot.

Grip strength is increasingly being viewed as an important biomarker of our overall strength and fitness.

While not used as widely as body-mass index, or BMI, as a screening tool for health, doctors and researchers say awareness of its value is growing. That’s happening as research shows that grip strength is associated with future health risks and even longevity.

At the University of Michigan Medical School, many clinics test patients’ grip strength, says Mark Peterson, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

“We do it with our older populations but I have also gotten it pulled into clinics in our neurological population,” he says.

Some doctors think grip strength should be used more routinely in wellness appointments. “I have really tried to encourage geriatricians to think about incorporating grip strength, it seems to trump almost every single measure including cardiovascular fitness training,” Peterson says.

Even in children, studies have found grip strength to be associated with cardiometabolic health.

What is grip strength?
Technically it’s a measure of the force produced by your forearm and hand muscles. But doctors say it’s a good proxy for overall strength in both your upper and lower body.


Grip strength is measured using a portable device called a handgrip dynamometer, says Ryan McGrath, an associate professor of exercise science at North Dakota State University. You squeeze the device as hard as you can for a few seconds and a needle gauge measures your strength in kilograms.

Doctors typically do the test two or three times in each hand and record the highest reading. The test takes just a few minutes and the devices are relatively inexpensive. They can even be bought on the commercial market for less than $100, though clinical-grade instruments run several hundred dollars.

“It’s simple to administer,” says McGrath.

Why it’s important
The median grip strength for a 50-year-old man is about 48 kilograms or 100 pounds, while a woman’s is about 29 kilograms or 64 pounds, studies show.

But grip strength can vary considerably depending on someone’s age, sex and body size.

Grip strength isn’t useful to see who’s strong, but rather who’s weak and at risk for frailty and other health risks, says Peterson.

“Why it’s useful isn’t because we care anything about muscles in the forearm,” says Peterson. “It’s highly associated with all muscle strength or weakness. If somebody is very weak in their grip, they are at very high risk for whole body frailty and weakness.”

Grip strength is a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than even blood pressure, he says.

A weak grip is also associated with a higher risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke and dementia. “It’s like another vital sign for us,” says Dr. Michael Fredericson, professor and co-director of the Center for Longevity and founding director of the Lifestyle Medicine Program at Stanford Medicine. “It does give us an idea of somebody’s functional capacity.”

Age-related strength declines
As we age, we naturally lose muscle mass, starting in our 50s and 60s, notes Dr. Linda Fried, director of the Robert Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Sarcopenia is the progressive loss of muscle mass, strength and function. Grip strength can help assess if someone is at risk for that.

Grip strength can also help predict who may develop frailty, which is a large risk for falling down and having difficulties with everyday activities. “Poor grip strength indicates that you’re at risk of losing function, you’re at risk of falling, you’re at risk of becoming frail and losing mobility,” says Fried. “And it can be a marker of just general conditioning that is associated with a lot of diseases.”

As you get older it’s important to have a buffer. So if you’re injured or have to go to the hospital and lose strength, you don’t fall to the level of developing sarcopenia, says Fredericson.

“Then things go downhill pretty quickly,” he says. “You need to build up your functional capacity so you’ve got some reserve there.”

Can you improve grip strength and does it matter?
Improving your grip strength doesn’t mean you’re improving your overall health, doctors say. Rather than focusing on grip strength alone, you should prioritize overall strength and fitness training.

People with greater grip strength have a lower biological age, which is how old your body appears on a cellular level, according to a study Peterson published three years ago.

But increasing grip strength in isolation won’t increase your longevity, notes Fredericson.

He doesn’t think grip strength should replace BMI as a screening tool. Rather, it provides an additional piece of important information.

That said, exercises that target grip strength specifically aren’t useless. Your hand and forearm strength can be important to everyday functions, like opening a jar or turning a key in a difficult lock. “So strengthening your arms matters and your hands matter,” says Fried.

Still, squeezing a tennis ball repeatedly isn’t going to improve your overall strength, says McGrath.

So ditch the ball for some dumb bells and squats and get to work.

WSJ : Trump Administration Finalizes Plan to Lower Drug Prices in Medicare The p

Trump Administration Finalizes Plan to Lower Drug Prices in Medicare
The program to tie U.S. drug costs to prices in other nations is less ambitious than initially proposed after deals with drugmakers

  • The Trump administration is launching Globe, a program to match Medicare payments for certain high-cost drugs with prices in 19 other nations.
  • The final rule applies to only four manufacturers after health officials exempted rare disease drugs and companies that cut pricing deals.
  • The program is estimated to save $440 million over seven years, down from an initial projection of $11.9 billion.

The Trump administration is rolling out a program aimed at getting Medicare to match prices in other countries for certain high-cost drugs, such as cancer and autoimmune disorder medicines.

Health officials plowed past objections from drugmakers and said the new effort, known as Globe, would start Jan. 1. Drugmakers that cut earlier deals with the White House to lower their prices are expected to be exempt from the current effort.

The final rule governing the program, issued Wednesday, applies to few drugs and is less ambitious than the administration initially proposed. Still, it represents one of the most legally significant attempts yet by the second Trump administration to bring down U.S. drug costs by linking them to overseas prices.

The plan calls for Medicare to set what it pays for certain drugs based on what 19 other countries with similar economies pay. Under an experiment run by Medicare’s Innovation Center, the pricing plan will be tested for some patients receiving some of the drugs covered by Medicare Part B—generally expensive drugs that doctors or hospitals administer in person, rather than pills taken at home. An example is Entyvio, made by Takeda, for Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. If the five-year program shows it saves taxpayers money without sacrificing quality, it could be expanded nationwide.

“Medicare Part B patients and American taxpayers have paid significantly more for prescription medications than people in comparable countries,” said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. “At CMS, we’re focused on more than promises to make healthcare more affordable—we’re taking action to pilot a new approach to lower costs and strengthen the quality of care while preserving medical innovation.”

The trade association representing large pharmaceutical firms, which has opposed government-led efforts to bring down prices, decried the move as unlawful and harmful to patients.

“This policy exceeds agency authority, does nothing to lower patients’ out of pocket costs, and imports foreign prices based on discriminatory value metrics and government price controls that delay, limit, or deny access to new treatments,” said Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America spokesman Chanse Jones.

The Globe program applies to a small slice of medicines, but is expected to have far-reaching implications if it survives legal challenges and demonstrates cost savings.

The final version of the pilot program, first proposed in December, applies to far fewer drugs than originally envisioned. Health officials exempted rare disease drugs and other medicines based on comments received from the public, they said in a Federal Register document released Wednesday. In addition, more than 20 companies have now cut deals with the administration on drug prices, and their products are also exempt if they participate in another experiment covering Medicaid, the joint federal and state insurance program aimed at people with limited income or disabilities.

Just four manufacturers will be covered under Globe, CMS said in a footnote in the rule.

The changes mean that Globe is expected to save far less money. The administration estimates the program will save $440 million over seven years instead of the $11.9 billion it initially projected.

“The set of drugs and potential impact of the program has shrunk dramatically with the scale of these exclusions,” said Rachel Sachs, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

The changes also mean companies with cancer treatments or other drugs used more often in the older population covered by Medicare could wind up dodging substantial hits to their bottom lines by participating in the alternative program for Medicaid, where they have fewer patients, said Dr. Thomas Hwang, director of the Cancer Innovation and Regulation Initiative at Harvard Medical School.

“Companies gave a little where it costs them least, to avoid giving a lot where it costs them most,” Hwang said.

Pharmaceutical industry analysts have been skeptical that the Trump administration’s pilot programs will have significant impacts on companies. Investment bank TD Cowen analyst Molly Turco said that the Trump administration deals and demos “draw headlines” but the Biden-era CMS price negotiating program codified in 2021 will result in bigger discounts.

Drugmakers could sue over Globe; pharmaceutical representatives called the program “illegal” in letters to the administration. The administration has yet to finalize a rule governing another program, known as Guard, also aimed at lowering drug prices based on what other countries pay, but for a different set of medicines.

The first Trump administration also tried to lower drug costs by looking to other nations’ prices, but the attempt came late in the term and was blocked by courts.

Consumer advocates questioned whether the Medicare pilot will result in meaningful drug discounts for patients.

“The administration is likely to end up wasting more taxpayer money fighting the likely lawsuits on this model than it saves for patients,” said Public Citizen Access to Medicines director Peter Maybarduk in a statement.

WSJ : Apple’s Biggest Battleground for Foldable Phones Is China Huawei and other

Apple’s Biggest Battleground for Foldable Phones Is China
Huawei and other Chinese competitors reported higher demand for foldables after announcement of iPhone Duo

BEIJING—Demand for some foldable phones in China is surging, even before Apple’s new foldable iPhone Duo arrives.

That suggests an opportunity for Apple to expand what has been a niche category—if it can overcome competition from Chinese brands.

Winning over China is key to Apple’s fortunes. The country makes up more than a third of global folding smartphone sales and is the largest single market for foldables, according to research firm Counterpoint Research.

Chinese company Huawei is currently the market leader in China, both for foldables and smartphones generally. Huawei released its first folding smartphone in 2019. Other Chinese brands, including Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Honor, have been selling foldables for years.

After Apple announced its first foldable iPhone in early September, sales during the following four days of Huawei’s Pura X Max—which has similar dimensions to the Duo—grew about 77% from the same period a week earlier, according to Huawei. More than 1.4 million units of the Pura X Max have been sold since its release in April, according to Huawei.

Xiaomi’s 18 Fold, another passport-size folding phone, notched record first-week sales for the company’s foldables after its release in early September, a representative said.

Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business, said the company has invested heavily to make breakthroughs in screen reliability and camera quality for its foldables.

“I know how hard-earned these achievements were, which is why we are a leader in this business,” said Yu.

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Foldables are still a relatively niche product, making up roughly 4% of smartphone sales in China and about 2% globally, according to Counterpoint. They can be fragile, and it is harder to put a good camera on a folding smartphone.

Still, brands hope foldables can attract higher-end customers. Huawei’s Pura X Max starts at the equivalent of more than $1,600. It also has been selling trifolding smartphones that unfurl twice, like a pamphlet. Huawei’s second-generation trifold, called the Mate XT2, released in early September, starts at nearly $3,000.

The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 in the U.S. and 15,999 yuan in China, equivalent to nearly $2,400. Apple has said consumers in the U.S., China and many other countries will be able to preorder the iPhone Duo on Oct. 16, and it will be available a week later.

Fans of foldables often use the devices to work on the go. The larger screens help with multitasking and reviewing documents.

Wang Rui, an 18-year-old college student in Beijing, said he was considering buying the Mate XT2 and went to Huawei’s flagship store in Beijing to check it out. He also visited Apple’s store across the street in hopes of testing the Duo, but it wasn’t on display yet. He said he has previously used foldable phones made by Oppo and Vivo.

“I like cutting-edge technology,” said Wang, pulling up stock-market data on the Mate XT2’s 10.2-inch screen. “As of now, Apple hasn’t reached this level yet.”

Despite Apple’s late entry into the market, Counterpoint projects the company will sell up to six million foldable iPhones this year and take a quarter of the global foldables market. The firm predicts Apple will beat out Huawei’s 22% global market share.

Foldable pioneer Samsung, which has only a small presence in China, is expected to maintain its lead with a 38% global share in foldables, according to Counterpoint.

Huawei is effectively barred from selling its products in the U.S. It has been blacklisted by the U.S. government since 2019 and is effectively blocked from using American technology.

The company has gotten around these U.S. barriers by developing its own chips and operating systems. Its latest lineup of smartphones, the Mate 90 Series, released Thursday, uses technology to layer circuits within a single chip, aiming to boost computing power despite lacking access to cutting-edge machinery.

FT : Louvre boss promises ‘culture of security’ after heist

Louvre boss promises ‘culture of security’ after heist
New director Christophe Leribault is on a fundraising push while seeking to turn the page after the theft of historic crown jewels from the Paris museum

The Louvre’s new director says he is instilling a “culture of security” at the world’s most visited museum, a year after thieves exploited glaring weaknesses to steal 19th-century crown jewels.

“Museums once assumed that the most famous works of our heritage were essentially unsellable and untouchable,” said Christophe Leribault, a well-regarded museum administrator appointed by the government in February to calm the crisis sparked by the daylight heist.

“Now, we know we must be extremely vigilant,” he told the FT. “Urgent renovations have begun and continue. Security must be integrated from the outset into all our choices.”

Previously at the helm of the Château de Versailles and Musée d’Orsay, 62-year-old Leribault has been welcomed at the Louvre by often restive labour unions, which saw his predecessor, Laurence des Cars, as out of touch and authoritarian. Leribault, a specialist in 18th-century French painting, has already quelled strikes.

But now he has the difficult task of quickly upgrading the Louvre’s chronically underfunded security infrastructure while also going ahead with its most ambitious renovation in 40 years.

Last October, thieves posing as workmen in high-visibility vests parked a truck-mounted furniture lift on the Seine side of the Louvre and hoisted themselves into the gilded Galerie d’Apollon.

They made off with eight pieces of diamond- and emerald-studded royal jewellery, including the pearl crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Eugénie. Estimated to be worth €88mn, none have been recovered, although five people have been arrested and put under official investigation.

The heist was part of a spate of brazen museum thefts across Europe over the past two years, with criminals usually targeting objects that can easily be converted into cash. In the past two months, thieves have stolen two Renoirs from a museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer in southern France, a major Bronze Age gold hoard near Alicante in Spain and a diamond necklace in Vienna.

Europol warned in August that museum heists were employing increasingly “aggressive methods”, potentially indicating “the involvement of new criminal networks”.

“What is frightening is the new violence involved,” said Leribault. “In Vienna and Spain, serious organised criminals targeted museums, which is a challenge for our staff who are really geared towards welcoming visitors and monitoring galleries.”

Since the robbery, the Louvre has installed metal bars where the thieves entered, added cameras, repaired access gates and brought in extra private guards. It has also begun a long-delayed security overhaul costing more than €80mn, although major elements have yet to be implemented, including perimeter surveillance and a new central command post.

The remaining crown jewels have been removed from the Galerie d’Apollon to a secure location before they can be displayed elsewhere. “We did not want a morbid type of tourism where people come to the gallery only to see the scene of the crime,” the director explained.

In a scathing audit carried out just before the robbery, the Cour des comptes criticised the Louvre for spending €105mn on new artworks from 2018 to 2024, compared with only €3mn on security upgrades. As of late 2024, just 39 per cent of rooms were equipped with at least one security camera.

Leribault pointed to the hiring of a senior police officer to oversee security across the museum as evidence of a new approach. “He sits in an office only metres away from mine and has the task of introducing a culture of security across all departments,” he said.

Leribault is also overseeing a €1.1bn initiative championed by President Emmanuel Macron that aims to ease chronic overcrowding by creating a new entrance and a larger gallery for the “Mona Lisa”. Critics have argued that the Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance project should be shelved in favour of urgent security and other infrastructure upgrades.

But Leribault defended the project: “The renovation is key to improving security, both from outside threats and also from climate change, the risk of flooding from the Seine and overcrowding.”

About 40 per cent of the renovation cost will go towards replacing the museum’s archaic cooling and heating systems, which endanger fragile works, as well as upgrading toilets strained by 9mn visitors a year.

Leribault’s ornate Second Empire office, with its massive fireplace, is equipped only with portable heaters and a fan. “I’m moving out this week so works can begin,” the director said.

Leribault is seeking funds around the world as the French state will contribute only about one-third of the €1.1bn renovation. The Louvre’s Abu Dhabi outpost will provide €300mn in licensing fees, with the rest to come from wealthy individuals and companies. Leribault has travelled to the US and Japan in recent months to court donors, whom he said were “very welcoming”.

The pitch is that the Louvre will fund less glamorous work such as repairing roofs and rewiring galleries, leaving donations for the new entrance and “Mona Lisa” gallery.

He aims to complete the fundraising within “six months”, ahead of the presidential election, and secure enough backing to seek approval from the next government.

The stakes were high, he said, as leading museums around the world were also modernising to meet changing visitor expectations. “There is an ebullition at major museums, so we must keep up.”

FT : EU steel exports hit by high energy costs, tariffs and China oversupply Sh

EU steel exports hit by high energy costs, tariffs and China oversupply
Shipments abroad have fallen by a fifth with production at historic lows

European steel exports have fallen by a fifth with production at historic lows as the industry contends with soaring energy costs, US tariffs and the knock-on impacts of vast oversupply from China.

Exports to the US fell by 29 per cent in the first half of 2026 compared with a year before owing to US tariffs of 50 per cent on EU steel imports, according to figures from the European steel industry body Eurofer. Exports to Turkey, India and China all fell by at least 18 per cent as European companies were outcompeted by cheaper foreign production.

Overall exports dropped 20 per cent, while raw steel production in the bloc fell 3 per cent to 126mn tonnes in 2025 and dropped a further 1 per cent in the first five months of this year before making a small recovery of 1.1 per cent growth in May, Eurofer said.

“We are the only major region adapting steel capacity downwards,” Axel Eggert, director-general of Eurofer told the FT, adding that industry would “not go back” to previous production highs of around 155mn tonnes in 2015.

Europe is the second biggest steel-producing region worldwide but its output pales compared with Asia which accounts for almost three-quarters of global crude steel production, while Europe makes up 14 per cent. The bloc is the fourth biggest exporting region after China, Japan and South Korea but is the top importer, according to World Steel.

Brussels has made more efforts in the past two years to protect Europe’s steel industry as it becomes increasingly apparent that the continent could lose critical domestic supply chains for its defence and infrastructure sectors.


While Brussels has imposed anti-dumping duties of up to 90 per cent in some cases on specific Chinese imports such as steel cylinders, that has resulted in the diversion of more Chinese products into other markets where European steelmakers were attempting to compete

Geert Van Poelvoorde, chair of the board of ArcelorMittal Europe and incoming president of industry body Eurofer, said that Europe’s high cost base was “dangerous”, making steel products for customers such as automakers too expensive to sell abroad.

“When Europe is going to limit its production to only internal consumption, there is no problem because the inhabitants will pay a bit more. The cost for the green products is not dramatically internal, but export is highly problematic,” he added. 

Steelmakers still face multiple challenges including perennially high energy costs being pushed even higher by the Middle East conflict, with EU gas prices having surged more than 140 per cent since the start of the year.

The European Commission introduced trade quotas in July to protect the industry and has also included steel in its carbon border tax (CBAM). CBAM charges foreign exporters an additional tax to bring their costs in line with European producers who have to pay for EU carbon permits to cover their emissions.

Eggert said the trade measures had helped the sector’s output with forecast growth of 1.5 per cent after two years of declines, but the recovery was coming from a “very, very low level” at a time when steelmakers were also facing increasingly steep investment costs in order to decarbonise.

China was exporting around the same amount as the EU’s total market production, he added, and that was the “tip of the iceberg”.

Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, iron and steel lead at the NGO Global Energy Monitor, said that the EU was home to half of all developing green steel production and that was a “huge advantage”.

“The European industry isn’t going to be able to compete with the scale of other producers like China and India, particularly not with its ageing coal-based blast furnaces. Europe’s edge lies in leading the green steel transition and jumping ahead of the rest of the industry,” she said.

FT : ‘Political tomb’

‘Political tomb’

Immigration is a “political tomb” where European governments are dying by wrongly trying to go toe-to-toe with rightwing populists, Spain’s former foreign minister told Barney Jopson.

Context: Populist and far-right parties are on the rise across Europe with anti-immigration policies that channel public angst over population change, but also stoke fear and perceptions of insecurity.

Arancha González, Spain’s foreign minister in 2020 and 2021, said it was fruitless for governments to ape the policies of anti-immigration populists because “there will always be someone who is tougher than the toughest”.

González, who served under Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, said governments should treat immigration as “a management problem” and lay down clear red lines on what they are and aren’t willing to do.

“Otherwise it is your political tomb,” she said. “We are seeing it with all European governments. Every European government encounters someone more radical on the right who eats into its political space.”

Sánchez is the last senior EU leader still advocating a liberal immigration policy. But angst over the rapid growth of Spain’s migrant population — and the rush of more than 70,000 people into a Spanish exclave in July — is fuelling support for Vox, an anti-immigration party.

At a press conference with Sánchez in Madrid yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron lamented the deaths of more than 140 people who tried to swim to Ceuta, and said Spain had been the victim of “an attack”.

In an apparent reference to Giorgia Meloni’s Italian government, which criticised Spain over Ceuta, Macron said: “As a European I am surprised that others have not shown solidarity, because they received that solidarity before, when they themselves were directly affected.”

González said parties such as Vox were promising European voters a return to an “idyllic utopia” that would never materialise. She argued that mainstream parties must respond with an alternative “vision for the future”.

With a Spanish general election due by next August, González said it was “not inevitable” that Vox would form a government in coalition with the larger, conservative People’s Party.

FT : France and Germany inch towards grand bargain on EU car regulation

Grand bargain

France and Germany are in advanced talks on an agreement that would redraw Europe’s car policy but profound differences over Brussels’ “Made in Europe” proposals are complicating the discussions, writes Ian Johnston. 

Context: The European Commission has proposed a string of automotive legislation, including a review of the phaseout of combustion engines and requirements for cars to be made in the EU to benefit from public money. The sector is in serious trouble from a slowdown in demand and Chinese competition.

The Élysée Palace and the Chancellery had been negotiating for months on the combustion engine phaseout and measures to protect carmakers from Chinese EVs. Progress has been slow, said people familiar with talks, but officials and industry groups say a deal remains in reach in the months ahead.

The negotiations could help German carmakers reliant on combustion engine vehicle sales by softening emissions rules for cars in 2030 and 2035, while delivering a French priority of favouring EU manufacturers in public contracts, under a proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.

The car legislation was so intertwined that “the only way is to find a deal on the overall automotive package”, one Commission official said. 

One French official said: “We are ready for flexibilities, loosening [of CO₂ standards] but we want these to reward carmakers who are choosing to invest in Europe.” Relaxing the emissions rules would amount to a significant move from Paris, which has championed electric cars.

Germany, meanwhile, has consulted with its car industry during the talks, industry sources said. Their priorities are to relax CO₂ standards in 2030 to avoid fines for breaching emission rules, and for legislation to be more accommodating of alternative fuels and plug-in hybrid vehicles and to make targets for the greening of corporate fleets voluntary.  

But the negotiations have been hamstrung by divergence on “Made in Europe” rules. A German position paper repeating a preference to include manufactured goods from free-trade partners in the Industrial Accelerator Act underlined the differences with France, whose industry minister Sébastien Martin repeated demands for an EU27 approach.

France is also not just reaching out to Germany. One minister said Martin had spoken to his counterparts at last week’s Competitiveness Council to “find allies for landing zones”.

>>> US After Hours Summary: VICR +8.6%, FDS +3.3% higher on earnings; PRGS -2.2%

After Hours Summary: VICR +8.6%, FDS +3.3% higher on earnings; PRGS -2.2% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance:VICR +8.6%, FDS +3.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news:LPA +16.1% (Completes $145 million sale of Parque Logístico Lima Sur while retaining management responsibilities and earning fee income.), GLUE +10.2% (Will present Phase 1 MRT-8102 safety and activity data in elevated cardiovascular-risk subjects Oct. 1.), INGN +9.9% (Agreed to sell oxygen rental business to Rotech for up to $25 million and raise buybacks $15 million.), CSV +6.0% (Terminates its $100 million ATM equity program, expands revolving credit to $300 million and lowers targeted leverage range.), NU +5.7% (Clarified it is not pursuing a transaction with Monzo, denying recent media speculation.), CRVS +5.6% (Began enrollment in a Phase 1b trial of soquelitinib for moderate-to-severe hidradenitis suppurativa.), ZENA +3.1% (Sold its entire 14.97 million-share Plurilock Security stake for $0.21-$0.22 per share.), CEG +2.7% (Signed a 20-year Amazon agreement tied to 690 MW from Calvert Cliffs, supporting over $3 billion in investment.), LAB +2.7% (Terminated Multiplex Bio agreement and agreed to sell Mass Cytometry business to Element Biosystems for $5.5 million cash.), GOOG +1.5% (Introduces Gemini 4 Argon, according to CEO Sundar Pichai.), INIO +1.1% (Completed the acquisition of Enerflex’s APAC aftermarket operations, including long-term service agreements with major oil and gas customers.)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance:PRGS -2.2%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news:PK -1.6% (Repaid a $1.275 billion Hilton Hawaiian Village loan using $1.3 billion in mortgage and term-loan financing.), CSTL -1.4% (Presented prospective data supporting DecisionDx-Melanoma use in biopsy and surveillance decisions.)