تابع رؤية 2030
بذكاء سياقي

In July 2024, a European Union law came into force requiring plastic bottle caps to remain attached to their bottles. The regulation was widely mocked by social-media jokesters and Silicon Valley billionaires alike. This, people said, was Brussels at its worst: bureaucrats micromanaging, treating citizens like children who couldn’t be trusted to recycle a cap. What went almost entirely unreported was the evidence behind it. Plastic bottle caps have been identified, across decades of coastal cleanup data, as among the top items found littering European beaches. Small, light and made from a different plastic than the bottle itself, the caps float independently once separated, travelling far longer distances than the bottles they came from. They are far more likely to be swallowed by seabirds, fish and marine turtles who mistake them for food. Now consider what happened next. After lobbying against the rule, some of the world’s largest beverage companies redesigned their caps and adapted. But companies such as Coca-Cola also did something revealing: while they trumpeted the design of the new caps as a sign of their unwavering commitment to sustainability, they maintained the detachable ones virtually everywhere else. Not because the physics of plastic pollution differ across continents, but because no other country, be it the US or in Asia, has passed a national law requiring the change. The bottle cap story is a parable for a larger fight playing out at the highest levels of European politics. One side claims that EU rules are the problem: a self-imposed burden of standards on business that slow Europe down while the US and China race ahead. The other says those rules are not a handicap but a source of power, the only instrument a continent without a single government possesses to shape its own economic future while protecting its people and the planet. At present, the first camp is winning. The political coalition behind it is broad, stretching from Brussels to Berlin, Warsaw and Rome. The argument sounds on the surface entirely reasonable. From that diagnosis follows a programme of “simplification” championed by the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen: cuts to environmental protections, digital rules, consumer and food safety requirements. Standards that Europe spent two decades building are being rolled back, all in the name of competitiveness. There is one problem at the foundation of all this. The diagnosis is at best questionable and at worst wrong. double quotation mark The alleged EU red tape explosion is a fiction. The red tape explosion that would allegedly account for the widening growth gap with the US is a fiction. The OECD’s latest data shows that the regulatory burden on European business has arguably risen only modestly over the past 15 years. Even the landmark 2024 report by Mario Draghi, the former chief of the European Central Bank commissioned by the EU to diagnose Europe’s economic weaknesses, cannot substantiate the claim. The report’s most-cited figure, that more than 60% of EU companies saw regulation as an obstacle to investment in 2023, turns out on inspection to mean that only about 25% identified it as a major obstacle. This share has since risen but a larger proportion of European businesses remain concerned by other obstacles, such as energy costs. More importantly, Draghi’s central demand was not for a less regulated Europe, but a more coordinated, better-funded and strategically capable one. And even if you accept the diagnosis, the proposed cure – deregulation – barely makes a difference. The European Commission’s own estimate of the annual savings from its entire simplification programme – the legislative packages at the centre of this agenda – is €12bn, or roughly 0.07% of EU GDP. Europe’s productivity problem is real. But the caricature of a continent collapsing under regulation is not. Much of the apparent US-European growth gap reflects population growth, purchasing power, working hours and the very different social bargain Europe has chosen to preserve. This suggests that Europe does not need to become the US to become more competitive. Dismantling Europe’s regulatory framework does not merely fail to deliver growth. It surrenders something that Europe has spent decades building. Consider what the targeted rules actually do. When the EU forced Apple to open its App Store to rival app developers and payment routes, Apple complied – at least in Europe. This reveals how EU digital market rules are not costly tick-box exercises, but the actual reason European consumers now have choices – in apps, in payment and platforms – that consumers in the US still lack. The wider European rulebook is also why Google, Meta and Amazon face limits on how they combine, harvest and monetise Europeans’ data. Weaken them, and US platforms – and their tech billionaires – gain even greater control over Europe’s markets and people. View image in fullscreen Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump after announcing a trade deal in July 2025. Von der Leyen is now leading a push to “simplify” EU laws Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters The timing of this push for deregulation is not a coincidence. The Trump administration formally designated Europe’s digital rules as trade barriers, threatened punitive tariffs if Brussels refused to weaken them and demanded their rollback as a condition for any deal on steel and aluminium. The deregulation agenda playing out in Brussels is precisely what Washington has been demanding through every available lever: weaker European rule-making, greater access for American firms and a continent less able to offer an economic or even ideological alternative to the US model. Europe’s rules are not necessarily constraints, but at their best, they are instruments of power. They shift the burden of collective choices away from individuals and on to the companies best placed to bear them. That is why those companies so often oppose them and why, once the rules exist, they usually comply. The bottle cap is still attached to the bottle in Europe. The question is whether Europe retains the will to be itself – a political project that uses rules to protect its people and shape global markets – or whether, in the name of competitiveness, it surrenders that power to exactly the interests that want that power gone.

While many may be focusing on the transfer of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus on NATO’s northeastern Baltic States border, the bloc's security apparatus is at least as concerned about imminent attacks on the region's energy infrastructure, a senior source who works very closely with the European Union's (E.U.'s) energy security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “Russia’s effectively been at war with the West since February 2007 when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin condemned NATO’s expansion to the East, which was followed by a huge cyber-attack against Estonia,” he said. “Then we had the beginning of the land pushback, with Russia’s war on Georgia in 2008, where we [the West] did nothing to dissuade him from further actions Westwards, then the first invasion of Ukraine and annexation on Crimea in 2014, where we did nothing much again [as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order], and then the second invasion of Ukraine in 2022,” he added. “We’re into the final phase now, in which we’re making a stand, and Russia’s testing how resolved we are,” he underlined. So, what happens next in terms of Europe’s crucial energy infrastructure? “We expect hybrid attacks of the sort we’ve seen in recent years, and more direct physical ones, which have also increased in recent months, primarily against gas infrastructure, electricity cables, offshore networks, and control systems,” said the source. “The full array of these measures has already been used by Russia in Ukraine, so they’re ready to roll out whenever Putin wants -- it’s just a question of how far he’s willing to push the boundaries before he thinks we’ll react with true deterrent force,” he added. As also highlighted by the E.U. Institute for Security Studies, there have been several incidents since Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in which undersea energy cables were severed by Russian-affiliated vessels. For example, in December 2024, Russian shadow fleet vessel Eagle S was apprehended by Finnish authorities after severing EstLink 2, a critical electricity interconnector linking Finland and Estonia. The ship had military-grade detection hardware in its hull, indicating a direct, premeditated, and malicious attack on European energy infrastructure. Similarly, a Russian vessel, the Scanlark, was detained by authorities after being caught launching surveillance drones and carrying spying equipment near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Station in Finland. “Subsea electricity interconnectors and gas pipelines in the Baltic and North Seas are also highly vulnerable to the same style of attacks, with the same capabilities also available for the targeting of power grids to trigger cascading regional blackouts across the highly interconnected European electricity grids,” the E.U. source told OilPrice.com last week. Indeed, an attempted dual nature energy-telecommunications hit was tried by Russia within the last couple of months, as revealed by the British Ministry of Defence on 9 April. Three Russian submarines were mapping and surveying vital gas pipelines in the North Sea, and undersea electricity interconnectors vital to trading power with mainland Europe. “This is all part of Russia’s ongoing grey war with the West, focused on Europe right now, which aims to critically undermine us without crossing the boundary that triggers Article 5 and outright war between NATO and Russia,” the source underlined. Related: Sanctioned Russian LNG Tanker Stops at Norwegian Port The key reason why there has been a surge in the scale and scope of Russia’s grey war in recent weeks is that Putin thinks time is running out for his ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine, according to security sources in Washington and London exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week and exclusively confirmed by a very high-level Moscow-based source in the current Russian Administration. Part of Putin’s belief comes from the burn rate of Russian soldiers on the frontline, with only 70% of those killed now able to be replaced by new recruits. “This is the big problem, because it means that the [recruitment] net will have to be widened to areas that could cause political problems,” said the Moscow source last week. In this context, much of the burden of the war to date has been borne by Russia’s ethnic minorities and those from poor regions, for whom the relatively high military salaries and death benefits are life-changing money for them and their families, whether they live or die. So far, the more affluent, better-connected, and more highly educated ‘middle class’ Russians from the major metropolitan hubs -- specifically Moscow and St Petersburg -- have been largely insulated from the war. But, with Putin’s choice now being either an end to the war on Ukrainian terms or extending recruitment to the previously protected class, this could change, although both possibilities have been prepared for. On the one hand, Putin said on 9 May that the Ukraine war is ‘coming to an end’ -- the first time in over four years of fighting that he has used this specific phrasing. On the other hand, Russia rolled out a unified digital conscription registry last May, which sends draft notices electronically via state portals. The likelihood of major protests erupting if this system is used across Russia’s major metropolitan hubs may have been foreshadowed by the Kremlin’s drive to isolate the country’s internet, allowing it to suppress the kind of widespread dissent that fuelled the Arab Spring uprisings. There are three other factors in the ‘why now’ equation for Russia, according to the Washington, London, and E.U. sources, again confirmed by the very highly placed source in Moscow. The most immediate catalyst was the unblocking of the €90 billion E.U. package for Ukraine, following the removal from power of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who acted as Putin’s de facto blocking vote on E.U. legislation the Russian premier did not want. Two-thirds of this money is strictly earmarked for spending by Ukraine on hard defence assets rather than just keeping the government afloat. Even without this, Ukraine has dramatically expanded its capabilities of hitting key military and civilian infrastructure targets deep inside Russia for the first time, with repeated hits on key sites connected to its ability to monetise its oil and gas resources by exports. Last year, according to industry figures, Russian oil firms suffered RUB1 trillion roubles (US$12.9 billion) in combined losses across 120 recorded energy facility strikes. But since January alone this year, Russia has already lost over US$7 billion in oil revenue, driven by the prolonged downtime of facilities and steep export reductions from disrupted Baltic Sea shipping hubs like Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Worse still for Putin is that his long-running project to keep U.S. President Donald Trump on its side has backfired as, no longer under the shackles of U.S. arms supply deals, Ukraine is no able to keep hitting any target it wants inside Russia up to 1,200 miles, putting over 70% of the Russian population within Ukraine’s crosshairs. Putin knows that this is only going to get worse, as Ukraine continues to develop the range and accuracy of its own missiles and drones with the funding from the new €90bn package. The second reason for Russia stepping up its pressure on the West is that Europe is moving ahead with new sanctions designed to end all imports of Russian gas and oil and cut off Moscow’s access to the financing that supports them. Liquefied natural gas imports will end by the end of this year, natural gas by 30 September next year, and crude oil and petroleum products by the end of next year. To this end, its latest (20th) Sanctions Package, adopted on 23 April, was structured specifically to cut off Russia's financial loopholes and squeeze what remains of its energy revenue. It focuses on eliminating its Shadow Fleet of vessels still transporting Russian oil and gas covertly around the world, and on ending crypto escape routes that allow Russia to use digital assets to circumvent traditional Western banking blocks. And the final reason, again an unintended by-product of Putin’s misjudgement in attempting to use Trump for his maximum benefit to Russia, is that because of Europe’s uncertainty now over the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5, it is rearming at pace, at scale, and in size. Even before this current round of military build-up, the chance of Russia defeating a united European military force -- without the U.S. -- was minimal, which is why Moscow has continued to fight a grey war under the boundary that would trigger outright conflict. But European NATO’s membership has expanded since the Ukraine invasion, and commitments to new spending and realised new expenditure have increased dramatically. In the end, Europe’s energy grid is no longer just infrastructure — it is the front line. And Russia’s grey war will keep pressing against it until Moscow is convinced. European officials fear Russia’s “grey war” is entering a more dangerous phase, with gas pipelines, electricity interconnectors, offshore networks, and subsea infrastructure increasingly vulnerable to sabotage and cyberattacks. The West is finally prepared to push back in a way that convinces Putin that he must go no further. By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Oil prices opened trade this week with a decline on reports that a deal between the U.S. and Iran was imminent. Brent crude slipped below $100 for the first time in days. But then President Trump said there was no rush on a deal and the U.S blockade in Hormuz would remain. While traders scratch their heads, analysts are warning that crude could remain well above $100 per barrel for years. This is literally uncharted territory for oil. Negotiations with Iran were “proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner,” the U.S. president told media over the weekend, fueling optimism that has actually been a feature of oil markets ever since the Iranian army closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. and Israeli missile attacks on the country. Despite the supply crunch that the closure caused, traders remained remarkably certain that it would not last more than a few days, possibly a couple of weeks. Three months in, this optimism remains. Indeed, oil traders have been boosting their short positions on crude for no less than seven weeks in a row in anticipation of an end to the crisis that has removed some 14 million barrels from the world’s daily oil supply. According to John Kemp, bearish positions in Brent crude had gone up to 100 million barrels by May 19, from 40 million barrels at the end of March. Meanwhile, the blocked waterway remains almost unused and the ripple effect is spreading. Related: Why Hasn’t Oil Hit $150? Rapidly falling inventories, missing Middle Eastern exports, and rising summer demand could push global oil markets into dangerous territory by July or August, the head of the International Energy Agency warned earlier this month. “This may be difficult and we may be entering the red zone in July-August if we don't see some improvements,” Fatih Birol said. Unlike some earlier warnings that sounded more like a theoretical note, the inventory data increasingly suggest that Birol may actually have a point. The secretary-general of the IEA said oil stocks are being steadily eroded while “no new oil was coming from the Middle East” just as demand begins climbing into peak travel season. No oil from the Middle East is the bigger and more immediate part of the problem—but there is another one, and that part is the years of subdued investment in new oil supply on a global level. Investment in the oil and gas industry has been weak for about a decade, since the U.S. shale boom from the 2010, natural resource analysts and investors Leigh Goehring and Adam Rozencwajg wrote in their latest quarterly commentary. As a result, global production has been largely stalling in terms of growth pace everywhere except in the U.S. shale patch, where growth is slowing down as well. Now, with the Strait of Hormuz closed, the world is in an unprecedented situation of supply tightness. “The market has never before attempted to function for an extended period with such a large volume impaired simultaneously,” Goehring and Rozencwajg wrote, adding that “The industry appears to have entered another structurally tight phase following years of inadequate capital spending, just as the market confronts an acute physical bottleneck of historic proportions.” The experts suggested that if the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz extended further in time, $120 to $150 would become the new normal for Brent crude over the next few years—once market players realize the extent of the supply problem, presumably, because right now, this is being grossly underestimated. “At least 15 million barrels per day of supply appears to be directly curtailed. On volume alone, the disruption exceeds every previous oil crisis. Yet dated Brent — still the best measure of physical delivered crude — managed at its peak to exceed its 2008 high by only $4 per barrel,” Goehring and Rozencwajg pointed out, going on to add that “The market, in other words, has been presented with an energy dislocation larger than any previously recorded and has responded as though it were a difficult but ultimately temporary inconvenience.” The moment this perception is shattered by physical markets would likely be the moment when oil prices make up for lost time, as it were, soaring higher and staying there, unless, of course, that notorious deal that Trump is negotiating with Tehran actually materializes. Yet even with a deal and a reopened Hormuz, the global energy system is in danger of a breakdown due to the sheer scale of the supply crunch, which Goehring and Rozencwajg estimate at as much as 15 million barrels daily. Bringing back this amount of daily production online takes time. And if a deal does not materialize soon, traders may begin to lose their optimism as the effects of the crisis in the physical market become more pronounced. “Oil moves slowly through the global system,” Goehring and Rozencwajg wrote. “So does information. In both cases, the true condition of the market often reveals itself only after the underlying imbalance has become considerably more serious than first believed.” By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Beset with financing difficulties, Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy entity, is begging for more time to start building Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Balkhash. The site was selected after extensive study by Kazakh authorities. But at a recent meeting in Moscow, Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev told the head of Kazakhstan’s Atomic Energy Agency, Almassadam Satkaliyev, that the Russian entity will need “at least a year of observation of the site in order to form all the necessary reports … and implement the project in clear reference to the natural, geological and weather conditions of this particular place.” Western sanctions imposed following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine have severely hampered Rosatom’s ability to finance projects. Kazakhstan awarded the contract to Rosatom to build the Lake Balkhash facility back in 2025. The two countries agreed in principle on an arrangement in April under which Russia would assume 85 percent of the financing burden for the project, which has an estimated cost of $15 billion. But that agreement has not yet been finalized. During the talks in Moscow, Satkaliyev pressed Likhachev on the issue of localizing the nuclear fuel cycle in Kazakhstan. In most cases, Rosatom retains an enduring and controlling role in its nuclear plant operations by maintaining responsibility for nuclear fuel supplies. But Kazakhstan, which has abundant supplies of uranium of its own, seeks full control of the Balkhash plant’s nuclear fuel cycle. A report distributed by a Russian news outlet, Atomic Energy, quoted Likhachev as saying “we have found a common understanding on all positions. Basic approaches have been developed that fully meet the interests of our states and the strategic nature of relations.” In case you missed it in the Caucasus… In Armenia, an American consulting firm, AECOM, has commenced site survey work on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. AECOM representatives met with Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan on May 13. The work is being done under the auspices of the State Department’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment initiative. TRIPP is the centerpiece of a provisional peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, brokered by President Trump last August. Azerbaijan is grappling with a major backup of Central Asia-bound long-haul cargo trucks due to the ongoing US-Israel-Iran conflict, local news outlets report. Many transport companies are rerouting their trucks to Caspian Sea port facilities in Azerbaijan, rather than risk an overland run to Central Asia via Turkey and Iran. According to local news outlets, roughly 4,000 cargo trucks have piled up at the Azerbaijani port of Alat, waiting for ferries to take them across the sea to ports in Turkmenistan. The wait time for a ferry slot was estimated at about 12 days. The cost of trans-Caspian ferry transport reportedly experienced a 5 percent increase in April, compared to prices in March. A draft resolution prepared by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) castigates Georgia’s government over the “continuing breakdown of democracy in Georgia and the lack of any response to the recommendations of the Assembly to address this.” The resolution adds that the Georgian Dream government’s continuation of its current political course “would effectively establish a one-party dictatorship in Georgia, which violates essential democratic principles and is incompatible with Council of Europe membership.” Under present conditions, free and fair elections in the country are not possible, the draft resolution states. While deploring the government’s conduct, the draft indicates PACE “remains committed to an open and results-oriented dialogue with [Georgian] authorities, as well as all other political and social forces in the country.” Meanwhile, across the Caspian… Kyrgyzstan’s Justice Ministry has ordered 50 businesses suspected of violating Western sanctions to suspend operations. A Justice Ministry statement said the action was undertaken “to protect the national economy and prevent the negative consequences of possible secondary sanctions.” In April, Kyrgyzstan became the first foreign state to be slapped by the European Union with “anti-circumvention” sanctions covering an entire sector of goods. Earlier EU sanctions had targeted specific entities and individuals. In response, Bishkek adopted an inter-agency plan to “identify unscrupulous participants in foreign economic activity and operations.” The 50 businesses shut down were allegedly “involved in high-risk transactions,” according to the Justice Ministry. Manon Sodikov, a former high-profile figure in Tajikistan’s now banned Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT), has died under disputed circumstances. Government officials have characterized the death as a murder by two individuals during a robbery. IRPT representatives describe the official account as dubious. The IRPT once shared power with incumbent Tajik leader Emomali Rahmon following the end of Tajikistan’s civil war in the late 1990s. But Rahmon gradually sidelined the IRPT and established total control over the government. The IRPT was officially banned in 2015. BP has signed a deal to develop six blocks of Uzbekistan’s North Ustyurt region. The production sharing agreement, announced May 13, involves BP, the Uzbek energy company Uzbekneftegaz, and the state-owned Azerbaijani firm SOCAR. BP will have a 40 percent stake in the venture, with Uzbekneftegaz and SOCAR each getting a 30 percent share. “We believe Uzbekistan has significant resource potential and see this as an opportunity to support the exploration and development of the country’s oil and gas resources, delivering long-term benefits to the region,” a BP statement quoted Gio Cristofoli, the head of BP operations in the Caspian Basin, as saying. An Uzbek court earlier in May added 2.5 years of incarceration to the 16-year sentence that a prominent Karakalpak journalist and attorney was already serving for his role in the July 2022 protests in Nukus against constitutional changes to Karakalpakstan’s autonomous status. A court in the central Uzbek city of Navoi sentenced Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov to additional time for “actions disrupting the work of an institution for the execution of punishment,” exiled Karakalpak activist Aqylbek Muratbai said on social media. Tazhimuratov and his lawyer have said the charges were a result of Tazhimuratov’s “reaction to provocations, insults, and humiliation by the prison colony administration,” Muratbai wrote. The 47-year-old advocate for Karakalpakstan’s independence has maintained his innocence. The court named Tazhimuratov an “especially dangerous recidivist,” and he will likely be transferred from a prison in Navoi to a harsher penal colony in the Bukhara Region, RFE/RL reported. Tazhimuratov likely will not appeal the decision in hopes that accepting the verdict will speed his transfer back to prison, his brother told the broadcaster. By Eurasianet.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Pope Leo has denounced the “culture of power” driving the rapid rise of artificial intelligence while warning that the technology must be subject to the “most rigorous” ethical constraints as it infiltrates everything from work to war. In his encyclical – the first major text on safeguarding humankind of his papacy – he also apologised for the Catholic church’s long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as “a wound in Christian memory”, and spoke of the “new forms of slavery” due to the digital economy. In a break from tradition, Leo, who soon after being elected in May last year said he considered AI to be the biggest threat to humanity today, presented the document himself on Monday during an event at the Vatican. Among those in attendance was Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, a US-based AI firm thatis embroiled in a lawsuit with Donald Trump’s administration over the ethics of AI. Encyclicals are one of the highest forms of teaching from a pope to the Catholic church’s 1.4 billion members, and typically outline his priorities while highlighting the major issues in society. In the document, called Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), Leo, who was born in Chicago and is the first US-born pope, referred to “a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics” and said AI was helping to facilitate the “normalisation of war”. “For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms,” he wrote. Leo urged the “disarming” of AI, while stating that some autonomous weapons systems are “practically beyond any human reach” to control. “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” he wrote. “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” adding that the technology should be “human-friendly”, accessible to all and opened to discussion and debate. In a passage that appeared to be targeted at Silicon Valley, the pope warned that power over digital systems, infrastructure and data “does not rest with states but with major economic and technological actors”, and that when such power was concentrated “in the hands of the few” it tended to “become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities”. View image in fullscreen The pope listens to the Vatican secretary of state Pietro Parolin during the presentation of the encyclical. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP Olah said on Monday that the development of AI cannot be left solely to technology companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society. Olah, who was sitting alongside the pope, said there was “a real possibility” that AI would displace human labour “at very large scale”. “If that happens, supporting those displaced will be a moral imperative of historic proportions,” he said. Companies like his operated “inside a set of incentives and constraints”, such as under strong commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures, that can sometimes conflict with “doing the right thing” for the broader interests of society, therefore making outside scrutiny essential. Leo, whose family history includes both enslaved people and enslavers, wrote on slavery: “It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord … For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon.” Past popes have apologised for Christians’ involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. But no pope has ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologised for, the role that popes themselves played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels”. Alongside two of his cardinals, others at the presentation included the theologians Anna Rowlands and Léocadie Lushombo. View image in fullscreen Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, speaks on Monday during the presentation of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical. Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP Rowlands, professor of Catholic social thought at Durham University, said the encyclical “brings the vision of the Gospel to bear on the cultures of AI”, and in doing so “warns of a growing culture of power that is reshaping work, family, education, and political life”. The Vatican has been seriously engaged on questions surrounding AI for several years now, including having regular dialogues with Microsoft, Google and other big technology firms. The pope said on Monday that the Catholic church wanted to work with AI developers to discuss proper use of the technology. “What Leo has done in this document is put the full weight of his office behind the Catholic church’s efforts to be in dialogue with big tech,” said Christopher White, the author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy and a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. “He’s clearly approaching AI from a position of humility and making it clear that the church doesn’t have all of the answers when it comes to what sort of policies are necessary for AI regulation. But he is being clear-eyed that AI development can’t simply be the wild west like some of its advocates would like to see.” In reaction to the encyclical, Christine Allen, CEO and director of the Catholic aid charity Cafod, said the pope’s message spoke of the “inherent dignity of humankind”. “We are not simply instruments of production but living beings, entrusted with a moral compass,” she added. “In a world full of imbalances, we have a duty to use AI responsibly. Today’s message is that it should not be used to further exacerbate inequality and suffering.”