QUESTIONS OF POWER: The big eurozone reform debate may in the end just boil down to how to divide labor (or power) between the Commission and the European Stability Mechanism, the EU’s bail-out fund. The two institutions will today showcase unity by signing this memorandum of understanding on how they will operate. In a nutshell, as per Point 3 of the text: When a euro country asks for assistance, the Commission will in future assess “financial stability risks, public debt sustainability and the financing needs,” while the ESM will still be the body to grant those loans.

Nothing to see here? The MoU formally spells out the current working relationship between the Commission and the ESM. So why formalize things now? To send a joint signal that things work well as they are and there’s no need for a certain former German finance minister’s (we’re looking at you, Mr. Schäuble) ideas on transferring to the ESM competencies that currently belong to the Commission. And then there’s that Commission internal power balance (or dare we say it, power struggle).

Look who’s signing the MoU: ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling, Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, who was authorized to do so in a Commission decision dated April 25 that Playbook has seen, and Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, who oversees the ECFIN directorate-general that actually does the risk and sustainability assessments in question.

SMALL STEPS FOR MAN … North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossed over the world’s most heavily armed border to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in for talks on his country’s nuclear weapons. BBC has the video. Kim is the first North Korean leader to cross the border into the South since the war. The Guardian is running a live blog covering today’s summit, which is scheduled to wrap up with a formal dinner.

NATO NOSTALGIA

ICELANDIC FAREWELL: NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels today, for the last time in the Alliance’s soon-to-be ex-headquarters. Staff have partly moved across the street already, and Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will follow next week. It’ll be the American representation that moves last and switches off the lights, leaving “partners” from Russia to Nordic almost-allies behind in the compound, which has housed the Alliance for more than 50 years and looked like a provisional arrangement even in its early days.

Too good to throw away: To mark the last meeting in the old building, Stoltenberg is expected to use a gavel donated to NATO in 1963 by the Icelandic government. It was used for special meetings of the Council until the 1980s, but was then packed away and forgotten, until being rediscovered during preparations for the move.

Talk around the table: Russia, Russia, Russia, and its “dangerous behavior,” in NATO speak. Discussions will range from the nerve agent attack in Salisbury and the West’s diplomatic reaction to it, to Russia’s role in Syria. Later in the day, Russia will come up again when ministers discuss NATO’s so-called open-door policy towards countries who’ve been knocking — think Ukraine and Georgia. No news to be expected on that, or on Bosnia-Herzegovina or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

But wait: The paperwork is ready for the latter, as soon as there’s an agreeable name to fill in — diplomats told POLITICO the country’s name dispute with Greece is the only practical hurdle left for it to clear before it can join the club.

Other matters: The situation in the Middle East including Syria, the Iran deal and plans to scale up (a bit) NATO training in Iraq; EU-NATO co-existence (or even cooperation); and, of course the crucial question of who pays the bills, raised by U.S. President Donald Trump.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be in Brussels today, the State Department said Thursday in a statement. The U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination just in time for Pompeo to jump on a plane and meet two other newcomers: Ministers Heiko Maas from Germany and Stef Blok from the Netherlands.

MERKEL’S TRUMP PROBLEM

THE MERKEL COMEDOWN: Trump will today meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel for lunch. POLITICO’s Matthew Karnitschnig tells you all you need to know about that second European visit to Washington this week — and about Merkel’s Trump problem. The highlights reel …

— Trade: Managing expectations, the German government said Thursday it expects that Trump will not extend the EU’s exemption on steel and aluminum tariffs beyond the upcoming deadline. Speaking to journalists ahead of Merkel’s trip, a government official said that “we have to expect that the tariffs will come on May 1.” Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow said the U.S. wants “concessions” from Europe, such as lower import duties for American cars.

— Iran: Europe, and particularly Merkel, likes to portion problems like Iran’s behavior in the region and beyond into digestible pieces. The EU side wants to keep the deal in place at almost any cost, as it contains the country’s nuclear ambitions (and it works, according to diplomats’ assessment).

— Russia: Trump seems to have recently developed an interest in Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that annoys Eastern Europe. Why? Who knows. But criticizing it doesn’t cost the U.S. a dime.

FINALLY! The U.S. now has an ambassador to Germany: Meet Richard Grenell.

MACRON’S TRUMP CONUNDRUM: Nicholas Vinocur on the question of whether Emmanuel Macron left Washington as Trump’s French poodle or a savvy politician. The verdict isn’t yet final, but “Trump had, in subtle ways, made Macron his ‘petite chose,’ or beloved plaything, during the trip.”

QUOTABLE

“After he died in 2016, I discovered in his papers a kind of diary from the war time. I was crying.” — Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on his father, a steelworker from Luxembourg who was forced to serve in the Wehrmacht in WWII.

Dutch newspaper Trouw’s Stevo Akkerman and Christoph Schmidt gave Playbook a preview of an interview with Juncker due for publication on Saturday. Talking points: war and peace, Europe’s place in the world, the role of religion, Russia, and past NATO and EU enlargement (and the differences between the two). The Juncker interview is the grand finale of a series called “Kop op, Europa” (Cheer up, Europe).

Juncker on EU enlargement: “Without the past EU enlargement to the east, we would have seen enormous border conflicts in the region.”

On that point: European Council President Donald Tusk said in Sarajevo: “European history teaches us that inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions bring only pain and tragedy. But European history and the history of the European Union also teach us that reconciliation is indeed possible, even between sworn enemies during centuries. And that the result of reconciliation and cooperation is peace, prosperity and, in fact, a better life for everybody.”

THE EU’S REAL STRATEGIC PLAYERS

This Sunday, a team of EU officials hailing from Finland to Spain and the U.K. to Bulgaria hopes to win big and get promoted to the top league of Belgian chess. Europchess has made its way up to the second division from the fifth since it formed 10 years ago.

If it takes that last step, it would be the first time an EU team will have played in a national first division of any sports (we think), showing that ambitious amateurs can beat clubs that may have stronger individual (some of them professional) players. “We are — if even strong — amateurs and have scored surprisingly well by being united and consistent,” Europchess President Frank Hoffmeister, a head of unit in DG Trade, told Playbook.

Their équipe comprises players from eight countries; some world chess body FIDE masters included. The secret ingredient for their success: the EU’s enlargement — two of the strongest players are from Bulgaria.

Best of luck for a clear victory on Sunday against the Eisden club from Kortrijk, which would take the team into the first division.

GREECE ON THE AGENDA

JUNCKER’S REMINDERS: In his Thursday speech in Athens, delivered in French, the Commission president said: “It will of course be necessary to restore Greece’s access to market financing [after the current rescue program ends], but it will also be necessary to implement all the reforms that have been decided upon and pursue sound economic and budgetary policies in order to establish a lasting recovery … The country also needs healthy banks, serving growth and the general interest and not just individual interests. Corruption must be eradicated once and for all.”

The money shot: “In return, Greece’s European partners will also have to fulfill their commitments on debt measures. Pacta sunt servanda!”

OPEN QUESTIONS:

1. What have they done to Juncker’s hair, and who did it?

2. The eurozone’s finance ministers are talking Greece in Sofia today — and would love to know whether the IMF will come on board with the EU’s rescue program for Greece before it ends. Actually, the IMF’s ability to have input on how EU countries (using their own money) should help Greece sustain itself has an expiry date of August 20. Even the German conservatives, who’ve always wanted the IMF to participate, are running out of arguments about why the fund should pump (limited) cash into Greece when the EU’s earmarked funds are far from depleted.

THE UPDATE

ON ANOTHER STRATEGY GAME: The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier seems well placed to succeed Juncker as European Commission president, writes Pierre Briançon in this week’s last instalment of our coverage of the race for the top EU job. But to secure his European Peoples’ Party’s nomination, Barnier needs to run as the (unlikely) choice of his French conservative party back home. Plus he’ll need French President Emmanuel Macron’s backing — and that’s no sure bet.

MIGRATION FIGHT IS BACK: Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, all on the EU’s external borders, are bucking a proposed overhaul of asylum rules, imperiling efforts to strike a deal by June’s summit of European leaders, report POLITICO’s Giulia Paravicini and David M. Herszenhorn. The full story here.

NO PROGRESS ON BREXIT DEAL WITHOUT NORTHERN IRELAND SOLUTION: Dublin won’t allow the Brexit withdrawal agreement to move forward if a deal on the border with Northern Ireland is not firmed up by the European Council summit in June, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Thursday. Our own Joshua Posaner has the story.

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO PARLIAMENT? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reports Laurens Cerulus. (Though it’s not a done deal yet.)