50bn/year for 10 years is not so expensive across European govts. But, once again, it needs to be on a single plan not thirty different ones. www.demorgen.be/nieuws/europ...

In Budapest, hearing the inside story (or one of them) of the defeat of Orbán.

New in Nature: LLMs give "the party line" in the languages of authoritarian regimes. This works when they control the media, which feeds pretraining data. We show more state control over the media means less critical LLMs. 6 studies spanning 38 languages & 13 models. Details ↓

OK, the Chinese are out. It's down to one last final Brit against Kresy Poles, Lwów and Wilno. Oh boy.

Steve, The Lord Claridge

Give it to Big State til the end of the season.

Bet the Earl of Minto's great at polo...

Bobson Dugnutt, The Viscount Dugnutt. (List of new Tory life peers in the UK)

As a founder of an NGO this feels familiar. (From Le mage du Kremlin, Giuliano da Empoli. English in ALT).

Five days with my wonderful project partners in Budapest is great. But not every minute of those five days, eh?

So, Timothy Chalamet, if no one cares about ballet anymore, why is *every* channel on my TV showing Swan Lake right now?

This is why we need chicks and balances.

"Niet bevorderlijk voor het algemeen belang" Wat een prachtige samenvatting van de politieke carrière van Dewinter.

I know it's been said a million times but honestly, honestly, the US-Israeli war on Iran is genuinely one of the most fucked up things I have seen in international affairs in my life. It is genuinely shocking to me, in a way I think it would be bad to lose sight of, just how bad this has been.

There are various factors but Brexit and its aftermath is the key. It is not a coincidence that Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland all now have governments led by parties that want to leave the UK. England is divided five ways and we will have 7 prime ministers in a decade

Counterpoint: it would be healthy for the British system if PMs/Ministers did not need to be serving MPs but sat outside Parliament (with suppléants serving on their behalf for those who were in fact MPs). (I don't necessarily believe this, but I think it's arguable)

Doubly interesting - not just the Armenian PM disclaiming Karabakh completely, but Putin quoted as saying that the Ukraine war was caused by the Ukrainian attempt to join the EU (meaning, I assume given timings, the Euromaidan / Revolution of Dignity). www.euronews.com/2026/05/11/p...

Check out our new webpage on the EU coordination of the hantavirus public health response 👇 health.ec.europa.eu/health-secur...

saw a truck for a company called Absolute Chimneys and I can’t stop saying that to myself as if I’m an English soccer announcer calling a free kick that sailed over the crossbar

I am actually GenX. The feeling when the Berlin Wall fell. That’s it. The rest of the decade can stay in the bin.

How it started. How it’s going (with two missed connections and two hours late).

Look at the lovely thing my youngest made for me! #FeteDesMeres #Moederdag #SealOfApproval

What is the long German word for late DB train and a missed connection leading to getting on a train that apparently I'm not allowed to use even in the event of disruption thanks to franchising rules even though the DB website suggested it and that train now being stuck in the middle of nowhere?

On 7 May 2026, Britain ran a PR experiment: Scottish Parliament: a Mixed-Member Proportional system Welsh Senedd: a (new) Low-Magnitude Party List system Same day, same political context, different outcomes. Which version of PR would be better for Westminster? 🧵

Een ambitieus project van de KU Leuven moet de hele hoek met de Pachecolaan een nieuw élan geven. De universiteit is er gestart met de bouw van zijn nieuwe Brusselse campus, die moet opengaan in de zomer van 2030. #brussel #passage44 #KUL www.bruzz.be/actua/steden...

Reading a draft paper on the train, not one by my excellent colleagues of course, and huffing and swearing under my breath at the schoolboy errors and hand-wavy assertions to such an extent that I suspect my fellow passengers are concerned.

This is why Rutte is so totally off the mark

A long day on the rails ahead, destination Budapest-Keleti for a week of work.

The EU Ambassador to Georgia is embraced by the people and have fun and dance with them. Just imagine the same with the Georgian Dream. Right, you cannot imagine that, because that couldn't happen. @euingeorgia.bsky.social Original post by True Georgian

Some more rigorous analysis from @patrick-pme.bsky.social confirming this earlier mid-results hot take: bsky.app/profile/robf...

I worry a little that sharing the disgusting racist statements that are (too rarely) leading to Reform councillors insta-resigning will have a boomerang effect of level-resetting acceptable political discourse.

🗳️ ConstituencyClick 530/650 — Secretary of State 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟥🟨🟨 play.jmoxley.co.uk This is fun - Thanks @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk

Tearing up a bit at this, not just for Europe but for all the people I know in Hungary who fought so hard through so much disappointment to make it happen. Heros and heroines every one. Although Magyar will do less than we hope (doesn’t everyone?) Hungary is back as a full member of Europe.

Your May 9th celebration v my May 9th celebration.

this really does make me despair. this is a woman who has just got elected as a Reform councillor. she works for the NHS and wants to know “where the money is going”. it’s going on social care, babe

Indeed. To clarify: I *do* think rules matter. They protect our democracy from abuse and it's important that they're upheld. But that's not the case that will sway voters. And in broader terms, parties need to be more willing to say "this is wrong", not just "it's a technical breach of the rules".

Listening to @reckless.bsky.social talk about the new Familiar robot pet as a “lamb but make it ominous” and just imagining it looks like this.

🇭🇺 Péter Magyar will be elected Prime Minister of Hungary today at ~2:30pm, after MPs take their oath and the new parliament convenes. 👋 Viktor Orbán is no longer PM or MP. 🇪🇺 For the first time in over a decade, the EU flag will fly on the Parliament building in Budapest.

This is fun game but my god there are some jump scares. One guy appears to have told his agent “I don’t have any photos of me but can I use recent CCTV footage?” guesstheparty.co.uk

Happy Europe Day everyone! A quick blast of the anthem to start your day off right. youtu.be/THXzF60V-6U?...

"Is there a risk that our failure to remember the past — and our failure to imagine a future different from the present — lies at the heart of our problems today?" Bin ja so ein Fan von Ivan Krastev. www.iwm.at/news/all-eur...

The current councillor count for Birmingham City Council, one of the largest local authorities in Europe by population. As @anthonyzach.be was commenting more widely about UK polling, these are very European results, and very representative even with first past the post in place.

UK jedna z ostoi silnej wzorcowej demokracji po Brexicie pograza sie w chaosie Jeszcze pamietam kiedy w 2004 przyjechalem na stypendium do Sheffield i dla mnie to byl absolutnie nieosiagalny standard cywilizacji Dzis jak sie przyjezdza to kraj pod wieloma wzgledami funkcjonuje slabiej od Polski

This is so much a continental European election result it’s almost funny. True Britain Democrats (PfE) 26% Ecology/Planet Action (G-EFA) 18% Christian Democrat Union (EPP) 17% Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party (S&D) 17% Europe Liberalism! (Renew) 16% Others 6%

🚨 | ALL Welsh Senedd Seats Declared! No overall majority - Plaid Cymru largest party Final results: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 PC: 43 (+20) ➡️ Reform: 34 (+34) 🌹 Labour: 9 (-35) 🌳 Conservative: 7 (-22) 🌍 Green: 2 (+2) 🔶 Lib Dem: 1 (+1)

At Bozar for “Bellezza e Bruttezza”. Top marks for the beauty of an Italian manuscript on painting, maybe not quite so top marks for Bartolomeo Veneto’s “Four Figures Laughing around a Cat”.

European Commission has updated its follow buttons. ✅ Mastodon and Bluesky are in; ⛔ X, Facebook, YouTube are out. (Only when you scroll all the way down, FB and YT are still there, but no longer X.) commission.europa.eu/index_en

Evergreen headline.

What's happening is we're moving to a European party system but without PR.