On 18 December 2025, the EU Court of Justice clarified that Frontex is subject to effective judicial accountability. 🇪🇺⚖️ CATHARINA ZIEBRITZKI on the W.S. et al and Hamoudi vs Frontex rulings – and how they might reshape EU liability law at Europe’s borders. verfassungsblog.de/w-s-et-al-an...

What the US needs for national security isn’t Greenland, but a rational, sane leadership that isn’t burning almost every alliance it has.

I think European leaders in failing to condemn the US invasion of Venezuela out of some fear of provoking Trump’s ire are missing the point that (a) Trump clearly doesn’t care what they think anyway, (b) Trump couldn’t hold them in more contempt anyway. /1

I support international law. By which I mean, I look out for its results from time to time and own an international law-arbitrary crime of aggression half-and-half scarf.

You can tell people are reeling because they’re saying things like, “this isn’t about terrorism or drug trafficking; it’s about American imperialism and oil”, as if still stuck in a time when there would be some thin tissue of lies offered in justification. He said it out loud, guys.

A boots-on-the-ground military occupation of Venezuela? Good luck with that, guys.

Infantino: “Guys, sit down, it was the FIFA Peace Prize for *2025*.”

PM Farage logic: start a cheeky little war with [insert foreign country here] to make China and Russia think twice.

Half-baked versus overcooked federalism.

Constitutionally, what we’re seeing is an overly pluralistic, divided, and weak executive power in foreign policy (partly from institutional design and partly from political choice) (EU) struggling to react meaningfully to the actions of an overly powerful, unitary, and unaccountable executive (US)

The reputation of the FIFA Peace Prize lies in tatters. I can only assume the august FIFA Peace Prize Committee is in emergency session, demanding the World Cup be withdrawn from the US.

When national courts refuse to refer questions to the CJEU, reasons matter. PETER HILPOLD explains how the European Court of Human Rights strengthened the duty to give reasons in Gondert v. Germany — and where judicial dialogue still falls short. verfassungsblog.de/gondert-v-ge...

can't wait to dig into the data with @tommasopavone.bsky.social. This is probably one of the largest survey experiments ever run in Slovakia, a country you will not find analysed in the big journals very often

You know who would have stayed on X? The Weimar Republic.

It’s 2030. Elon Musk announces the release of Tesla murder bots to kill every one in ten X/Twitter users. Governments and liberals with high follower counts adopt wait-and-see approach.

New year, new EU? In 1754, Benjamin Franklin designed the famous "Join or Die" poster later used to argue for independence and against loose confederation. It could now be applied to Europe My new year screed: davekeating.substack.com/p/europes-ch... (h/t @martin.rauscheronline.de for new image)

Any reasonably legal pathway implementing a strong political will to prevent the collapse or subjugation of our Union is highly worth considering. Without a federal Union, we will fail. #toFedEU #federalEurope verfassungsblog.de/eu-constitut...

2026. What a time to be dead.

Twitter/X, a timeline 2010: legitimate concerns about immigration 2020: Enoch was right 2025: Hitler was right

Happy new year, everyone! Who knows, maybe this year could be your year for the FIFA Peace Prize.

Interesting comment by Konrad Schiemann, former judge at the Court of Justice, at the foot of the piece (copied into my next post below), which is quite revealing about longstanding cross-party apathy, even antipathy, in the UK towards EU institutions and those working in them.

To add absolutely nothing useful, I’m unconvinced of the necessity of the role of Shadow Attorney General.

My timeline (whether US or UK) is almost all about citizenship right now. And arguably the biggest case in the EU this year, Commission v Malta, was about the meaning of citizenship. It says an awful lot about the times in which we live.

Trump’s statement that Putin wants Ukraine to succeed at least sheds more light on what Trump means by making America great again.

Trump: “Russia wants Ukraine to succeed.” Audience: “Oh no, he doesn’t!”

There seems to be a self-reinforcing circle of bad takes on football fan YouTube. It is now frequently stated as an unchallenged truth that Ashley Cole is the greatest ever left back. People regularly place the likes of Rio Ferdinand and John Terry in the same bracket as Baresi and Nesta. /1

If the Common Good Constitutionalists would just let Aquinas rest.

I get it now. The FIFA Peace Prize was a clever nod to Orwell’s 1984; war is peace, etc. It’s really the FIFA War Prize. Very literary folks at FIFA HQ.

Merry Christmas, everyone. This is our first Christmas as a family of five (we were joined by our third, a boy, in November), so it is extra special this year. Peace and love to all.

Our six-year-old thinks the song goes “jinx the halls with a thousand parties.”

"If needed, we will respond..." Just weak... and this has never been about freedom of expression as alleged by the Trump regime.. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

I don’t see how EU and national leaders can go on publicly pretending that everything is normal for another 3.5 years and beyond.

The Vice President of the United States at 3am in his pants with a big bag of Bob Dawson’s pork rinds on Reddit trying to solve the Charlie Kirk assassination. This man is Trump’s insurance policy against impeachment.

I’ve always said it’s the precise moment it ceases to be funny that we’ll know Manchester United are no longer a big club.

In future, I’m just going to tap on this meme.

Apart from the stupidity of the “I’m for the European Single Market but against free movement” take commonly heard in the U.K., it never seems to dawn on the people saying it how insulting it is: “we like your money and goods, but you? Eww.”

I have a letter in today’s Irish Times about Ireland and the ECHR and the apparent shift in the Irish government’s position towards reform of the Convention signalled recently by the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan TD #ECHR

Just sold all my shares in black redacting pen companies. Off to shop for yachts.

Undoing all these perverse and tawdry “honours” will be therapeutic. Just like scraping all that tat off the Oval Office walls.

🇪🇺⚖️🇵🇱 Revenge is a dish best served cold (and after five years). Moments ago, CJEU, in the case Commission v. Poland, found that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal has not only violated EU law with its anti-EU rulings, but also was (is) not an independent court established properly by law. 1/

CJEU, border controls 🚨 MASSIVE defeat for Frontex in two judgments - the agency is liable if it assists Member States to do pushbacks etc in breach of human rights; rules of evidence are simplified for migrants curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo...

A new episode in the fight between captured Constitutional courts and the CJEU. A Member State cannot rely on constitutional identity to disregard the values in #Article2TEU, especially the rule of law, effective judicial protection, independence of the judiciary curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/...

Being opposed to Erasmus+ is (unsurprisingly) the most Brexit thing ever: being unhappy about something that in no way effects you negatively (or at all) but which might improve the life of someone else.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel for the members of the FIFA committee who awarded Donald J Trump with the highly prestigious FIFA Peace Prize. To see it brought into such disrepute so early must be devastating for them professionally.

It’s one of the frustrations of life that the people who voted for Trump and who should now be feeling like complete idiots are almost invariably complete idiots and therefore won’t be feeling like complete idiots.

Uk to rejoin Erasmus scheme - set to be confirmed formally tomorrow www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

“Is the @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social a social court protecting the ‘have nots’ or an economic court beholden to the ‘haves’?” @silje-hermansen.bsky.social, @louisabo.bsky.social & I have an answer on @verfassungsblog.de. This holiday season, our analysis give us reason to be biased for hope:

Just in time for Christmas, a detailed look at the possible remedies for breaches of Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. Launched today and ft. @aoifemod.bsky.social @colinmurray.bsky.social, @sylviademars.me, Eleni Frantziou and me. A great gift for the whole family 😊 nihrc.org/publication/...

If you’re going into a career in hedge fund management, you shouldn’t be doing it for the money… you should be doing it out of love of being a hedge fund manager.

The US President is now the kind of litigious moron that would be perfect Judge Judy-fodder.