Why von der Leyen knows the path to Syria’s future runs through Turkey

Good morning. A scoop to start: The EU is close to signing multibillion-euro deals with Jordan and Morocco to strengthen co-operation on reducing migration to the bloc, building on existing — and not uncontroversial — pacts with Egypt and Tunisia.

Today, I preview European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s meeting with supreme Syria powerbroker Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Laura reports on startling research into how TikTok presented Romanian election content to its users.

Nation building

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will discuss the future of Syria with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today, as Europe seeks a role at the table influencing the country’s uncertain transition.

Context: Turkey is the most consequential regional player when it comes to its neighbour Syria. It hosts millions of Syrian refugees, has been a direct military player in its civil war and has close ties with the rebel groups that overthrew former president Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.

Von der Leyen will use the Ankara meeting today to underline the EU’s leverage: humanitarian aid, potential reconstruction efforts and political engagement, according to officials briefed on the trip.

The EU and its member states have provided over €33bn in aid to Syrian citizens since 2011, making it its largest international donor.

“This is a political message that we acknowledge Erdoğan’s influence, and want him to see that we can play a role, too,” said one of the officials.

Von der Leyen, who met the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, in Amman yesterday on her way to Ankara, said after that meeting that the EU “will step up and deliver humanitarian aid through Jordan and support early recovery of basic services and infrastructure”.

Yesterday the EU’s Lebanon-based chargé d’affaires to Syria, Michael Ohnmacht, held meetings in Damascus with representatives of the new government and the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The HTS, which led the rebellion, is still under sanctions by both the EU and the UN.

“The aim is to be in contact . . . and convey messages to the group,” EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas said yesterday. “It should be lower-level [engagement] right now.”

Kallas said that “many” EU foreign ministers at a meeting yesterday called for the EU to condition support to the new Syrian government on the closure of Russian air and naval bases in the country, an issue that she said Brussels would “raise . . . with the [new] leadership”.

But other EU officials cautioned whether the bloc had enough leverage to force such a move, particularly given that Moscow was already engaged in detailed negotiations with HTS regarding the military presence.

Under Assad’s rule, EU aid to Syria was run through the UN refugee agency UNHCR, an approach that would continue while HTS remains on the terror list, EU officials said.

Chart du jour: US invasion

The relentless advance of US asset managers in Europe is forcing local players to partner and scale up — or exit the sector.

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TikTok privileged posts by a far-right candidate who won the first round of Romania’s presidential election with the alleged help of Russia, according to research from the NGO GlobalWitness seen by Laura Dubois.

Context: Romania cancelled the final round of its presidential elections over allegations of a targeted Russian influence campaign. Far-right and pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu won the first round of votes on the back of a viral TikTok campaign, prompting calls for an investigation.

GlobalWitness created separate TikTok accounts that looked at content from each presidential candidate for the same amount of time, and then looked at each account’s “For You” page with suggested content, according to research published today.

The report finds that the results were “deeply one-sided”.

“TikTok’s algorithm consistently recommended content supporting one candidate — Georgescu — at a much higher rate than the other candidate,” the researchers write.

Some of the content was also spreading wrong information, such as false claims about financial support received by Ukrainian refugees, according to GlobalWitness.

The NGO also polled Romanians about what they saw on their TikTok accounts, with three quarters reporting they saw more Georgescu content than any other candidates during the campaign.

According to the survey, 56 per cent of respondents saw frequent posts by accounts supporting a presidential candidate but that looked potentially fake, such as bots.

TikTok has previously said it took down a “cluster” of accounts backing Georgescu and has denied giving preferential treatment to a specific candidate.

The Chinese tech company told GlobalWitness that if a user had engaged with political content, it was “reasonable to expect a recommendation algorithm to suggest more of that content as a result”.

What to watch today

1. EU general affairs ministers meet in Brussels.

2. EU environment ministers meet in Brussels.

3. European parliament to elect next EU ombudsman

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