"free speech warriors"

The Axis of Late Trains.

For anyone considering the new Sarkozy book, let me give you one tip. For the past few years I have kept a log of books I read, and the mark I give them (out of 5). You can actually *see* the Sarko memoirs in the graph below—it is by some margin the worst book I have read in years. Just dire.

My last Charlemagne of 2025 is on gastronationalism — the last acceptable form of nationalism in Europe. Even after decades of EU integration, a continent united by treaties remains divided by recipes. (includes lots of jokes at the expense of Dutch "cuisine") www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

My take on the EU's through-the-night summit to help Ukraine. The main thing is €90bn will find its way to Kyiv—though not funded by Russia's frozen assets. It was a messy deal, from which recriminations will ensue. But Europe got there (mostly) in the end. www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Macron: it will become useful to speak to Vladimir Putin. Other people are doing so. Europeans will have to re-engage with Russia [paraphrase]

My last Charlemagne of 2025 is on gastronationalism — the last acceptable form of nationalism in Europe. Even after decades of EU integration, a continent united by treaties remains divided by recipes. (includes lots of jokes at the expense of Dutch "cuisine") www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

We forget just how amazingly grim life used to be in 19th-century Europe. Kids aged 7 starting to work before dawn, working late into the night. Just unimaginable. (From Das Kapital, as relayed by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies)

It's going to be a long, hard EU summit today (and maybe for a few days). My take based on conversations in last 24 hours - Ukraine loan I think has a good chance of getting done. Nothing final but there is room for a deal. Good news - Mercosur also looking better than yesterday.

And so with a wimper, the EU scraps the ban on internal-combustion engines from 2035. The new rules are an incomprehensible fudge that only lobbyists will understand. Saying "the climate matters, here is something tangible we are doing about it" was a big deal. Whatever this is, it's a little sad.

This long-term thread will collect stories about Germany's absurd, over-lawyered and court-heavy bureaucracy following my Free Exchange column this week. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Germany's plan to use Russian assets to fund Ukraine is still not agreed. Berlin could threaten to use its contributions to the EU budget instead. Every year it pays €15-20bn more into the EU budget than it receives. Put that into a pot and you get the €200bn Ukraine needs. Would focus minds!

Nobody has ever had a decade like Rob Reiner from 1984 to 1992. A truly astounding output. How we went from one director doing A Few Good Men and When Harry Met Sally to being served up Iron Man 8 then Iron Man 9 is truly worth pondering.

One for fans of Brussels. The city has among the highest density of social connections per distance. People in Brussels don't know a lot more people than others, but they live a lot closer to them. I suspect the effect of the EU bubble cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Trump’s ambassador to the EU is accidentally—and unwittingly—saying the US economy is losing ground to the EU, even if he doesn’t seem to realise it. By comparing the wrong GDP metrics, Andrew Puzder is arguing the EU is currently trouncing the US. And it’s all because of Trump! Let me explain🧵

Trump’s ambassador to the EU is accidentally—and unwittingly—saying the US economy is losing ground to the EU, even if he doesn’t seem to realise it. By comparing the wrong GDP metrics, Andrew Puzder is arguing the EU is currently trouncing the US. And it’s all because of Trump! Let me explain🧵

Not often I agree with Gabriel Zucman, but he is right the "euro-sclerosis" thing is overdone. Europe has a long-term productivity issue it needs to handle, yes. It also has an industrial-heartlands/China problem. But the idea it is getting vastly poorer than the US is economically illiterate.

Remember that just a few months after JD Vance's Munich speech, Trump was flattering EU leaders in the White House and there was talk of Tomahawks being sent to Ukraine. The trans-atlantic relationship looks dire just now. But Trump's volatile nature means that might not be the case for long.

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

Literally a week ago Musk said that falsely labeling people as Nazis "should be treated as incitement to murder." And here he is (falsely) labeling the EU as Nazis.

Jaw-dropping quote from Federica Mogherini, once the EU foreign-policy head “Just imagine taking the entire EEAS [EU diplomatic service] away from the world for 24 hours... Probably most of the places in the world would collapse before the 24 hours.” 😂 www.euractiv.com/news/rapport...

You don't say. Rain in Brussels??

Nordic and Baltic countries all* call for a reparations loan. One notable thing: these are among the most pro-Atlanticist countries in the whole EU, and they are demanding the EU does something Washington has specifically warned againt. (*not DK, because it holds the EU Council presidency)

Elon Musk openly compares the EU to Nazi Germany and yet tomorrow the EU institutions will happily post to X as if nothing had happened.

I’m confused — does this repost mean he secretly likes the EU?

There is trolling, and there is whatever grandious name we should give to this:

If FIFA gives Barack Obama the FIFA Peace Prize, I'm nominating Gianni Infantino for the (actual) Nobel Peace Prize.

US national security strategy. Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

@economist.com his the nail on the head this week. Europe can easily afford to support Ukraine -- and it is not even that costly, as long as all members participate. Joint debt will rope in even the recalcitrant ones.

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Holy hell Zuck was still spending money on the metaverse and nobody noticed??

North Korean-style. A Potemkin village of fake journalists.

Macron's popularity rating is now scraping the ocean floor

Every upcoming summit of EU leaders is meant to be about "competitiveness". Then stuff happens. And thus: No summit of EU leaders ends up actually being about "competitiveness".

Nearly four years of fighting on its doorstep have given Europe, often a fractious continent, the closest thing to national unity it has ever known. That is unlikely to last in peacetime

had the intrusive thought that 30 years from now we’re going to have VC funds and military startups named after harry potter stuff and it’s going to be even more annoying than hobbit stuff

Perfect Tom Stoppard story from DTel obituary: His response to a letter from Harold Pinter canvassing support for a proposal to have the Comedy Theatre in London rechristened the Pinter Theatre, “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?”

RIP Tom Stoppard – a dazzlingly original voice in theatre. I got to meet him at a couple of Czech functions in London in the 2000s (he was born in the same Moravian town as my grandfather) and he was an absolute gentleman to boot.

Jeremy Corbyn's party now had more factions than members. Not even Monty Python dared go that far.

Muscular Christianity. “Wear some headphones, kid. And put your shoes back on”

My Charlemagne column this week on the unintended consequences of peace (one day, hopefully soon!) in Ukraine. War on its doorstep brought the EU together. Can this hard-won unity endure after the fighting ends?

COME ON THIS HAS TO BE A SPOOF

My Charlemagne column this week on the unintended consequences of peace (one day, hopefully soon!) in Ukraine. War on its doorstep brought the EU together. Can this hard-won unity endure after the fighting ends?

Journalists often complain about audiences not understanding the difference between news reporting and opinion. But sometimes we really don't make it easy for them. Guardian pieces out this morning (left) and then at lunchtime (right)

The entire Instagram "influencer" model is basically dead. Why bother posing in a hipster coffee shop when the AI can gin up the image for free in two minutes?

At a time when everyone is plagiarising off ChatGPT, it's refreshing to have Witkoff copy Russian talking points word-for-word in "his" "peace" "plan" instead.

Great map of European soil -- so many different things to pick up on.

Tired: I read vintage Playboy for the articles Wired: I read vintage Playboy for the ads

From iPhone "holiday boom" to "disappointing early sales" in three weeks.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the American Prigozhin: a distasteful outgrowth of the establishment, whose brief insurrection offers hope to the regime's opponents until it becomes clear they've overplayed their hand.