Europemaxxing

🔥 The Magyar-government is formed. Hungary's new foreign minister is Anita Orbán. ➡️ The new government will back NATO & EU, regional ties & Hungarians abroad while defending national sovereignty & seeking less confrontational EU relations. 🔗 My overview for @ecfr.eu: ecfr.eu/article/tisz...

Not trying to bore on about this but nuclear power is VERY expensive. It was a good idea in the 1970s when the French did it very well. Absent a technological breakthrough it won’t help growth, it’ll give us high electricity prices instead.

Great piece by @fromtga.bsky.social: Germany’s defence surge is transformational but the big question is whether it’s done narrowly and nationally or as part of a wider European rearmament.

Quite aside from the Starmer drama, it is remarkable how utterly absent the realities of today's EU are from current UK debates about reset/rejoin etc. Both neo-remainers and neo-leavers are peddling a "back to 2016" button that doesn't exist.

Can Europe avoid the next energy crisis? As the EU accelerates its green transition, this question becomes urgent. The EU is right to raise ambitions on electrification but the target is stretching. Only a more aggressive approach will suffice. - @noahjgordon.bsky.social https://bit.ly/4tQsein

Two level game in the EP by Weber - just as Trump is escalating vs the EU again, Weber is threatening to push Turnberry deal to the EP plenary and adopt it with an EPP + far-right majority, with less conditions than the S&D are pushing for.

Berlin's @tagesspiegel.de newspaper asked me to revisit the reflections on the city I gave them in 2018 and discuss how it has changed in the intervening 8 years. In short: Berlin can be bloody annoying, but I love it more with each passing year ⬇️ www.tagesspiegel.de/checkpoint/d...

This reflects well on Rachel Reeves.

Germany’s rearmament is Europe’s best hope of achieving real strategic autonomy. So it doesn’t bode well that its media has spent the past few days *obsessing* about whether or not Merz maybe did or didn’t offend Trump with a throwaway comment. The mentality of a vassal state.

Washington has warned European allies, including the UK, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, to expect long delivery delays for US weapons — including Nasms and Himars — as it scrambles to replenish stockpiles depleted by the Iran war. Deliveries to Ukriane have already been delayed. w/ FT colleagues

There are two ways Germany could take the news US is pulling 5k of its DE-based troops: a) Panic, flee back to the old protector, flatter Trump in hope of reprieve b) Accept & advance: Europeanise 🇩🇪's huge defence investment package, embrace strategic autonomy www.reuters.com/world/us-wit...

Oil prices are making the headlines, but for @ecfr.eu I argue that for Europe the bigger, long-term story doesn't lie in crude: it has to do with gas, as damage to Qatari infrastructure could derail Europe's LNG bet - handing Washington & Moscow fresh leverage over Brussels ecfr.eu/article/chil...

Is Europe prepared for a radiological attack? Jacek Siewiera argues Europeans should urgently build a monitoring network to identify radiological threats before they strike. 🔗 Read the full article: https://bit.ly/3Qy5Yv0

“Merger policy alone cannot solve Europe’s competitiveness problem,” writes Teresa Ribera. “Europe will not create globally competitive firms solely by changing the way it reviews corporate deals”

This is a critical point: *today*, even in countries that don’t introduce policies & measures to support it, consumers can unilaterally enact electrification and demand destruction

The liberal world order isn't wounded. It's dead. And every foreign policy establishment in London, Paris, Brussels, and Berlin is still performing CPR on a corpse. 🧵 Thread: Why the cleverest people in geopolitics are solving the wrong problem—and what actually comes next.

Good @chassnews.bsky.social & Leila Abboud piece on Germany's €779bn defence build-up. Key question is whether this proceeds as a "Germany First" or a "European Germany" rearmament - in procurement, financing, military & political coordination, industrial strategy... www.ft.com/content/4b7c...

The EU’s new Industrial Accelerator Act is missing the key ingredient needed for acceleration: a reliable supply of processed minerals. For this, Europeans should turn to African countries and offer them industrial investments tied to offtake commitments. https://bit.ly/3QmVTB7

Meloni isn't just a talented politician, but also a lucky one who presided over a convergent Italian right (2022 election: 12.3m votes). The Italian liberal-populist-left has long been divided (2022: 7.3m centre-left, 4.3m 5 Star, 2.2m liberal = 13.8m). Salis is an ideal figure to unite that camp.

💥Orbán heads to the US in June, where family members already live, while loyalists seek MAGA think-tank jobs and visas after the election defeat. Meanwhile, oligarchs & cronies are shifting wealth abroad, largely to the Middle East. @floragaramvolgyi.bsky.social's story quoting @vsquare.bsky.social

One for Italy-watchers, this: if the country has a better post-Meloni future, it may well be called Silvia Salis.

Happy publication day to @markhleonard.bsky.social whose book Surviving Chaos is out today and could hardly be more timely... or clarifying as global rules collapse. It will change how you think about the "unorder" of our times, and what to do about it. ⬇️ www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

"Following Trump’s win, Europe’s conventional Atlanticist conservatives (optimistic about their ability to constrain and even co-opt a deal-hungry president) and its radical right (which saw his win as...legitimising) sought to embrace him. Both sentiments are now fading."

1/ "This is the pivot point in the energy transition folks. Fossil chaos drives people to electrotech, as this is the first oil shock with a superior alternative. " says @ember-energy.org @kingsmillbond.bsky.social We argued similarly last week at Wesleyan (slides here) tinyurl.com/PolycrisisWe...

The German Ministry of Defence released a number of planning and guidance documents today, including Germany's first-ever Military Strategy. An unclassified summary can be found here (in German): www.bmvg.de/resource/blo...

@jeremycliffe.bsky.social on the emergence of the neo-Gaullist right in Europe www.ft.com/content/cba2...

Thanks indeed to @financialtimes.com for publishing me on the anti-US turn of the European right. From moderate conservatives to nationalist radicals, it is nimbly shifting towards a politics of autonomy. The centre and left must move fast - or risk being outflanked. www.ft.com/content/cba2...

The European right is pivoting away from America ft.trib.al/5b9MJsg | opinion

One of the most fascinating shifts in European politics recently (not making the far right less problematic).

Thanks indeed to @financialtimes.com for publishing me on the anti-US turn of the European right. From moderate conservatives to nationalist radicals, it is nimbly shifting towards a politics of autonomy. The centre and left must move fast - or risk being outflanked. www.ft.com/content/cba2...

Who does this description of Kaiser Wilhelm II remind you of? (Written by Christopher Clark in 2015).

How could a real reset between the #EU and #Hungary be achieved? The EU has a rare opportunity to recalibrate a difficult relationship after #Orbán's Hungary. @jeremycliffe.bsky.social#EU#Hungary#Orbántlines four principles for a smarter, more strategic approach: https://bit.ly/481Aaof

The Global Progressive Mobilisation just concluded here in Barcelona. An impressively global gathering - with representatives from Europe & US but also across Latin America, Africa, Asia. My observations:

How could a real reset between the #EU and #Hungary be achieved? The EU has a rare opportunity to recalibrate a difficult relationship after #Orbán's Hungary. @jeremycliffe.bsky.social#EU#Hungary#Orbántlines four principles for a smarter, more strategic approach: https://bit.ly/481Aaof

Tomorrow (Friday), Commission officials arrive in Budapest for talks with Peter Magyar on the EU-Hungary reset. What line should they take? My take for @ecfr.eu: the EU needs to combine a warm embrace of the new government with a steely sense of its own leverage. ecfr.eu/article/four...

Tomorrow (Friday), Commission officials arrive in Budapest for talks with Peter Magyar on the EU-Hungary reset. What line should they take? My take for @ecfr.eu: the EU needs to combine a warm embrace of the new government with a steely sense of its own leverage. ecfr.eu/article/four...

Tisza (EPP) is a conservative party. Yet, the new parliament only has Fidesz-KDNP (PfE) and MHM (ESN) beside it, both in the authoritarian left space. In this way, Tisza still it represents the liberal-right pole of the current CEE pattern of authoritarian-left vs libertarian-right. Per CHES.

Policy Alert! Peter Magyar’s victory in Sunday’s parliamentary election has ended 16 years of Viktor Orban’s rule. His campaign promised to reverse Hungary’s entrenched illiberal system and anti-EU direction under Orban, but this is far easier said than done. - Piotr Buras https://bit.ly/41vsg2H

Join @veghzsuzsanna.bsky.social, @pawelzerka.bsky.social, Piotr Buras and me at 14:00 CET today for an online discussion of the Hungarian election result. Registration ⬇️

Hungarian election result another datapoint of an interesting and important emergent trend: the growth of the US-sceptic European right. www.politico.eu/article/vikt...

Magyar calls on the figurehead head of state Tamás Sulyok, as well as all high justice officials and other high officials appointed by Fidesz to resign immediately or they will be removed by the new government. He also announces a constitutional reform and that Hungary is joining EPPO.

Our polling of Hungarian voters (conducted between March 26 and April 1) shows significant differences of outlook between Tisza's and Fidesz's voters - with the former strongly favouring closer European alignment. ecfr.eu/article/why-...

Tisza looks on track to lead the next Hungarian government. But what are the European and foreign policy positions of its supporters? Our @ecfr.eu pre-election poll tells a nuanced story: ecfr.eu/article/why-...

💥🇭🇺🗳️ BREAKING: Péter Magyar says Viktor Orbán called to concede and congratulate him. Magyar will be Hungary’s next prime minister and, as it stands, is set to secure a 2/3 supermajority – enough to fully dismantle Orbán’s system. A 16-year chapter is over.

What becomes of the Budapest hub of nationalist thinkers and institutions after Orbán’s downfall? Does it stay put and seek to incubate a Fidesz comeback? Decamp to Bratislava / Belgrade / Prague / Washington DC? Or disperse across the continent ahead of the major election years of 2027 and 2029?

Tisza looks on track to lead the next Hungarian government. But what are the European and foreign policy positions of its supporters? Our @ecfr.eu pre-election poll tells a nuanced story: ecfr.eu/article/why-...

💥Polls closed in Hungary. No exit poll, but 21 Research Institute’s Apr 8–11 exclusive survey for @telexhu.bsky.social shows the opposition Tisza party leading Orbán's Fidesz 55–38, with the far-right Our Homeland around the 5% threshold. Tisza is on the verge of a parliamentary supermajority.

There will also be extensive @ecfr.eu New Politics Project coverage of the outcome. Join us on Monday afternoon for a webinar making sense of the election result: ecfr.eu/event/ecfr-e...

Meanwhile our Council member Tibor Dessewffy writes: “if resources like Orban’s do not reliably convert into political power, if deeply entrenched systems can suddenly begin to shake, and if external backing does not necessarily stabilise them, then these are not exceptions” ecfr.eu/article/hung...