DRIVING THE DAY IN VARNA (AND BEYOND) 

It’s been a while since EU representatives met with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in person, and today’s face-to-face in Bulgaria doesn’t seem particularly promising.

Bulgaria’s Boyko Borissov brings the phenotypical resilience towards a foreign strongman to the table, Council President Donald Tusk carries the strong words of 28 EU leaders, and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker packs the most personal experience in dealing with Erdoğan. The trio is off to Varna this afternoon, on the generally friendly Bulgarian shores of the nonetheless flighty Black Sea; it took the Argonauts some effort to cross.

They’ve also got an additional €3B for refugees in Turkey in their back pockets, plus pre-accession money that was redirected as much as legally possible, but not halted, in the wake of Erdoğan’s post-attempted-coup backlash. And another carrot, of sorts — the EU has never actually taken visa liberalization for Turks traveling to the union completely off the table.

The EU wants something in return, as per the conclusions of last week’s EU summit. In a best-case scenario, the Varna meeting would result in the release from jail of two Greek policemen, who were arrested by Turkish forces after crossing the border, as well as Ankara quelling its appetite for potential gas fields off Cyprus. Turkey on Friday protested against an alleged EU bias in favor of Cyprus at the expense of Turkey (the former an EU member, the latter obviously not), but seems to have some interest in the meeting, with no word of a Turkish no-show so far. Make no mistake: Keeping the 2016 refugee deal with Ankara is still very much on the EU’s list of interests.

RUSSIANS ON THE OUTS: A mass expulsion of Russian diplomats from across the Western world is expected to be announced today in a coordinated global response to the Salisbury attack, with at least 10 EU nations plus the U.S. set to show solidarity with the U.K., our London Playbook colleague Jack Blanchard reports today (full details at around 8 a.m. Brussels time here). He links to CNN’s senior diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kosinski, who tweeted this morning: “Source — Expecting a coordinated announcement between U.S. and multiple European countries [today], expelling Russian diplos in droves. A ‘significant number’ likely getting the boot.”

SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE COMMISSION 

COMMISSION’S SELMAYR TRASH DAY: In the grand tradition of governments needing to release unpleasant information, the European Commission published its answers to the questions of the European Parliament’s budget committee on the appointment of Martin Selmayr as the EU’s top civil servant — at the not at all suspicious time of 3 a.m. Sunday.

“The Commission proves again its subtle humor by sending the document just when Europe executes its clock change to summer time,” Green MEP Sven Giegold quipped in a statement.

We won’t bore you with the minutiae of what happened when and who didn’t know what, because it’s Monday morning after all. The Commission’s 80-page response, which we read so you didn’t need to, can be found in full here. If Human Resources Commissioner Günther Oettinger follows the Commission’s written answers in Tuesday’s committee hearing in Parliament (from 2:30 p.m.), don’t be surprised to see him following this playbook …

1. It may not look it, but it’s kosher: You may not like what’s possible within the rules, but Selmayr’s appointment to deputy secretary-general then transfer to the sec-gen post within a single College of Commissioners’ meeting is within the rules.

2. Those rules can be changed: The Commission “stands ready to discuss with the other EU institution whether and how the application of the EU staff regulations, which apply to all EU institutions, can be further developed and strengthened.”

3. This was a group decision, and no one’s hands are clean: “The fact that the decision was taken unanimously shows that all members of the Commission were in agreement with the proposal of the president presented in agreement with the commissioner for budget and human resources and after consultation of the first vice president [Frans Timmermans].”

4. Every institution should appoint its own top civil servants: Transparency is an “important principle,” the Commission writes, but “it must not lead to senior management decisions becoming the object of negotiations between member states and/or political parties.” Oh and by the way, the “appointment of Mr. Selmayr as secretary-general was not discussed in advance with any national government or outside party, but reserved for the College of Commissioners.”

5. Leave Selmayr alone: “There was no promotion” because Selmayr actually lost money in the move, according to the Commission. “His appointment as secretary-general had a negative effect on his salary and emoluments since he was in step 2 of grade AD15 as a seconded official [as Juncker’s head of Cabinet] but in step 1 of grade AD15 in his basic career as a Commission official.” (Before you reach for the tissue box and take to YouTube channeling Crocker, no need to feel sorry for Selmayr on that count — the salary still ain’t bad, with new AD15 recruits promoted last year earning over €15,000 monthly before tax.)

WELL BRIEFED: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday when asked to comment on the Selmayr case during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel called (on a general note) for both geographical balance and procedures to be followed religiously. Of Selmayr specifically, Macron said: “I want to say here as president of the French Republic that I have always appreciated the professionalism of the person concerned,” adding that he hoped European Parliament was the right place to deal with the issue.

Side note: He also took the opportunity to praise journalists for their work. Accepting that message, coming from Europe’s most powerful man, requires a subtle sense of irony.

Merkel had an answer ready too (she also had more time to consider her response as Macron went first): Firstly, she said people shouldn’t be obsessed with all the Germans in high places in Brussels. On Selmayr specifically, she said there was no reason for Berlin to think he “would always do what suits Germany.” She added: “He decides in a very European way, but he is also someone who makes sure that the decisions are effective … and I very much welcome that, because some events in Europe take a very long time. Sometimes it’s us [the European Council] that doesn’t decide, and that’s why I really appreciate his work.” Read: He’s a terrible pain, but who else would make us eventually work?

QUOTABLE

“Thank you for believing in this community. I promise to do better for you.” — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal. On that note, POLITICO’s Mark Scott writes ominously in his latest digital politics column that while people are rushing to leave the world’s largest social network in response to the scandal, “You can check out of Facebook anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

‘If you look at our time in 100 years from now, you will see quite clearly that this was one of the great turning points, not only of the economy but also of human co-existence.” Max Hollein, director of San Francisco’s de Young Museum, told dpa, referring to his exhibition on a quasi-religious “Cult of the Machine” in the early 20th century. It opened Saturday and is on until August 12.

I’VE NEVER FELT CLOSER TO EU: Exciting news for those of us on the opposite side of the world from Europe (and those up you who’ve always wanted to drop by for a koala cuddle): Australian airline Qantas has made history with the first non-stop flight from Australia to the U.K. The Guardian’s David Munk was on board for the 17-hour journey. See you on Tuesday?

SUMMIT STRATEGIES REVIEW

ON BREXIT: Giving Theresa May time to appease her Conservative Party on the trickiest part of Britain’s EU divorce settlement (since the prime minister has caved on almost everything else, as Paul Taylor writes) is the EU’s strategy for the Irish border. POLITICO’s Tom McTague and Charlie Cooper report that U.K. Brexit negotiators are now developing a plan to solve the issue by keeping the whole of the U.K. aligned with a subset of the EU’s single market rules.

ON TRADE, the EU’s strategy was to wait and see what conditions U.S. President Donald Trump would put in place for the EU to secure an exemption from punitive steel and aluminum tariffs, rather than preempting him. That meant leaders walked out of their meeting Thursday night with only a few words to reporters rather than the usual press conferences. (With the exception of Council President Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, who wouldn’t comment on anything reporters were interested in in their quite useless evening press conference.)

What’s next in fending off a trade war? Last Thursday, Trump set an expiration date of May 1 for the EU’s tariff exemption. Now European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is working feverishly with her U.S. counterpart Wilbur Ross to seek a permanent exemption by creating a task list for a bilateral working group, diplomats briefed last week by the Commission told Playbook. The aim is to convince the U.S. that there are worse, or to use Trump’s own words more “unfair,” powers in the world than the good old Europeans (though of course that’s not quite how diplomats put it).

The EU would engage in addressing issues of steel overcapacity (for which both the EU and Washington blame China), improving the functioning of the Word Trade Organization and balancing trade imbalances (if there are any 😇). That could well mean reducing tariffs for cars made in the U.S., which might please a president who has complained of not having seen enough Cadillacs on European streets, shouldn’t cripple the EU’s carmakers who claim their cars are superior, and would be good news for consumers who may be interested in getting behind the wheel of one of those intriguing new Mustangs coming out this year. Just saying.

Problem is: Under WTO rules, Japanese carmakers — whom the EU’s power-players do see as serious competitors — may want or even be entitled to the same favorable treatment.

ON TIME MANAGEMENT: Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė’s summit strategy: Wrap up fast and hit the town. “Have just seen Ms. Grybauskaitė in the Woluwe Shopping Center,” Janice MacCormack emailed to report on Friday afternoon. “Two bodyguards in tow, of course … assume that the summit has finished.” It had … just about.

IN OTHER NEWS 

PUIDGDEMONT DETAINED IN GERMANY: German police stopped former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont on Sunday after he crossed the border by car from Denmark on his way back to Belgium from Finland, his lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas tweeted. Puigdemont’s in detention as he awaits a decision, expected today, from a Schleswig court about whether to place him in extradition custody (he’s the subject of a European arrest warrant). Not quite the position the German government will want to be in, but alas, leading the EU has a cost.

— Meanwhile in Brussels: Hans von der Burchard emailed in this photo of around 150 Catalan protestors gathered outside the Berlaymont Sunday.

THE DOCTOR WHO BROUGHT ABORTION OUT OF THE SHADOWS IN IRELAND: POLITICO’s Jillian Deutsch profiles Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch doctor and activist whose Amsterdam-based abortion pill service, Women on Web, last year received nearly 5,000 emails from women asking for help in the Republic of Ireland and nearly 3,500 from Northern Ireland.

TRUMP’S STORMY NIGHT: Adult film actress Stormy Daniels signed a statement denying she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump in 2006 because she was scared, she told Anderson Cooper in a interview that aired Sunday night on “60 Minutes.” Watch the interview in full here.

PUT A LITTLE FAITH IN YOUTH: Hundreds of thousands of Americans descended on Washington D.C. over the weekend to demand action on gun control. InStyle has a gallery of the best posters from the mass demonstration.