And JD Vance 🙈

Have become quite critical of Macron lately. But for the EU's sole nuclear power this is an important response.

Going into hibernation mode until early next year. Enjoy Christmas and have a great start into 2026 everybody!

How do you call something that is super smart and evil at the same time? Do you remember when Elon signed the FLI letter to pause, for 6 months, the training of models more powerful than GPT-4... And 3 months later he launched Grok? 🤣

My letter in the Economist pushes back on its take on Europe and the second China shock. The Economist lays out the profound pressure China is putting on EU manufacturing, but then proceeds to advocate the EU give up and switch to services à la the UK. That feels thin. Pleased they published it.

The EU never gets praise even when it acts. There is so much constant EU negging that commentators struggle to praise when it delivers. The EU did what it needed to do. Take the win. Last night was a big step for Ukraine and the European project. First, the EU got the money for Ukraine 1/

A Christmas break might do EU doomers some good too.

Presumably there will be some sort of link by means of cross-reference or political synching up. In any event the decision triggering enhanced cooperation has to come before the vote on the legislation implementing it (ie the Art 212 law on the loan). Indeed enhanced cooperation trigger needs QMV.

It is very interesting to look at European integration in terms of jointly generated debt. This is what this recently published book is about. academic.oup.com/book/61738/c...

One more point actually, about Belgium. The Belgian authorities have indicated that they were vulnerable to Russian bullying. PM Bart De Wever has been commendably transparent that Putin's direct threats were among his motivations to oppose the Commission's proposal for a Reparations Loan. (1/2)

The time between christmas and new year is usually a time of little political activity. But not this year in Kosovo, where a general election will take place on 28 December. Kosovo becomes the 12th European country since 1945 to hold more than 1 election in a calendar year.

In 2022, financial support to Ukraine was led by the US with Europeans as followers. Now the EU is leading it, while the US has withdrawn from the financial front. As recently as a year ago, the dominant expectation was that the EU would have no choice but to follow a US financial withdrawal. (2/N)

Great analysis by my colleague @julianasuess.bsky.social on EU space policy - both for the challenges and opportunities in the area itself, and as a case study on what is needed on the path to reduce dependencies on the US for core strategic capabilities:

I think everyone, even the most cynical & informed among us, is going to fall for at least one AI-faked story, photo, or post this coming year & likely many more. (You will also likely believe a real thing was AI) This has bad implications (but wouldn’t blame those taken in, evaluation is hard)

📘New book out with a contribution by @bettinarudloff.bsky.social: In the "Elgar Companion to the G7" @elgarpublishing.bsky.social, she writes on agriculture and food security at the G7 - part of a broader academic assessment of the forum’s role in global governance. 🔗

Russia is losing billions of dollars each month because of oil sanctions... Discounts on Russian oil have risen to 30% and in some cases over 50% (!) relative to Brent. Source: www.hellenicshippingnews.com/sanctions-dr...

EU planned bond issuance in 2026: €160 B (~Spain). With a €90 B loan to Ukraine 2026-27, total could reach €200 B

A joint venture between Rheinmetall and Finnish SAR satellite company ICEYE has received a provider contract supplying Bundeswehr with SAR reconnaissance imagery. IOC for the relevant constellation is 10/2026, FOC 04/2028. Contract expires end of 2030. esut.de/2025/12/meld...

Interesting thread on the legal implementation of the 90bn loan. My understanding is that Enhanced Cooperation can be adopted by majority, so does not need Orbán & co, but if the MFF regulation needs changing as Lucas argues, this implies everyone has to actively vote in favour of this approach.

The key is that we have cut them. The EU works on consensus. Once outside that consensus, that consensus works without you, and very often against you. That has a real and rising cost for you. Ask the UK how Osborne and Cameron playing silly buggers in the Eurocrisis worked for them long-term.

. @vkreilinger.bsky.social: "Is the #EU24 the new EU?" I have mixed feelings about the "solution" used yesterday to provide the 90 bn loan to Ukraine On the one hand, this is the way that the European Council should have handled the Hungary-problem for long; much better than "bribing" them ...

In a way, this seems to me a form of 'constructive abstention' - of Hungary (plus Slovakia and Czechia) being comfortable with the use of the EU budget via Enhanced Cooperation, as long as they were exempt:

Two days before the summit, Hungary had signalled to the European Commission that while it was opposed to joint debt for Ukraine, it could agree to borrowing against the budget if Budapest was exempt from repaying it, two officials told the FT

Big deal: Ukraine gets the financing it needs to resist Russia's war of extermination Big deal: EU does foreign policy* through joint borrowing Big deal: EU sidesteps national vetoes to act decisively But thanks to Merz and VDL and their stubbornness it looks like a failure

Much to be critical on how last night's EU decision on a loan to Ukraine came about. But together with the use of Art. 122 on the Russian loans the way via Enhanced Cooperation shows that on foreign policy, the EU is willing to move from Unity to Action as its guiding principle.

A quick explanation of how this borrowing to assist Ukraine will work. "Enhanced cooperation" means EU law is being used, but some Member States opt out. The process has been applied a few times before, but never before re the EU budget. 1/

Most important is that Ukraine gets the money. Huge deal for EU: 1) if you want to do EU foreign policy, you need EU resources and debt. #EUCO delivered 2) First time this EU debt was decided without unanimity as far as I can remember www.consilium.europa.eu/media/wqmkno...

Update from the EU summit in Brussels. Based on nothing but "vibes" -- the Ukraine/frozen assets financing deal looks likely to get done. Mercosur will be delayed, probably to January. Screws up the signing ceremony EU/Mercosur had planned at the weekend, but won't derail it. Again - stay tuned!

Bluesky folks came up with a fundamentally new and privacy-protecting method of doing this unlike every other service. Almost every negative response is based on how people assume Bluesky is doing this based on how bad everyone else does it. Bad actors have so poisoned the entire market...

Russian defense minister Belousov says that 5.1% of GDP (from the Russian MOD's budget) is spent directly on the war against Ukraine, while other expenditure has been cut to 2.2% of GDP. The total budget of the MOD is 7.3% in 2025. Source: kremlin.ru/events/presi...

A signal of the change of political power in Europe - the self styled 'Patriots for Europe' now have enough representation at the European Council to hold a pre-EUCO leaders summit, bringing together Orbán, Babiš, Le Pen but also EU Commissioner Várhelyi (via @szabolcspanyi.bsky.social)

The contradictions of European liberal parties in two posts: here we have ALDE first celebrating their pre European Council meeting with Macron at the centre, and then claiming to lead on EU policy including Mercosur - which Macron is doing everything to block.

⚡️ Russian border guards briefly crossed into Estonia, Tallinn says. Igor Taro, the interior minister of the Baltic nation, said it remains unclear whether the incident was intentional but emphasized that there is no threat to Estonia's security.

We’ve pushed out the Pareto frontier of efficiency vs. intelligence again. With Gemini 3 Flash ⚡️, we are seeing reasoning capabilities previously reserved for our largest models. This opens up entirely new categories of near real-time applications that require complex thought. More in thread ⬇️

The red line is what Russia views as its own border (from today's presentation of the defense minister Belousov). I think negotiations are hopeless at this point. First, the frontline needs to be stabilized.

According to Russia's defense minister, the Russian army recruited 409,611 men in 2025, as of December 17, and expects a total of 420,000 this year. This is down from last year (449,243) but above plan (403,000). Source: kremlin.ru/events/presi...

Belgium has received “assurances” from other member states and the EU institutions that the country won’t be outvoted on the reparations loan.

Quite an admission, basically saying: I have offered my country's vote to a foreign power that sees itself at war with the European Union and am aiding them in dividing us.

💥On his flight to the EU summit, Viktor Orbán revealed what appears to be direct coordination with Vladimir Putin: Hungary would be spared Russian countermeasures if Orbán votes against the EU’s confiscation of frozen Russian assets: "So we Hungarians have protected ourselves."

Original post that Keir Starmer is coming to EUCO was deleted and @davekeating.substack.com later posted it is not yet fully confirmed, so treat this more as a rumour for now.

EUCO shaping up to be a very decisive moment for European security. Although Zelensky is of course more important, as an EU-UK watcher Starmer's visit is also important. This would be the first participation of a UK Prime Minister at a formal European Council since Brexit.

Good piece by @constelz.bsky.social. I'd add that there is also (probably correct) apprehension among the CDU/CSU that MAGA and maybe the whole republicans will shift their main cooperation partners in Europe from centre-right to far-right parties.

"R" wie "Rat der EU"! Im neuen "Europa von A bis Z" erklärt @nvondarza.bsky.social wie der Ministerrat aufgebaut ist und wie er funktioniert.

Spot the irony of the anti-globalist Left oweing the achievement of their goal - killing the EU-Mercosur trade agreement - to their sworn political enemy.

Let's go through the Eramus statement together 1/ ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Announcing eurosky.social accounts - launching January 2026. ✅ Managed by Eurosky, a European non-profit initiative ✅ Hosted on European cloud ✅ Governed by European law www.eurosky.social/register

Official confirmation of the UK rejoining Erasmus+ in 2027. As someone who studied in the UK (though not via Erasmus) very pleased to see this particuarly severing of connection at least partially rebuild:

In 2021, Labour and the Conservatives had a joint vote share of >60% in the Welsh Senedd elections, and are now polling at just about 20% between themselves.

Surprisingly rapid & high Ai adoption by doctors: 67% use it daily, 84% says it makes them better doctors, 42% says it makes them want to stay in medicine more (10% said less). A lot of the use cases appear to be administrative and research assistance. 2025-physicians-ai-report.offcall.com

Meanwhile, in UK-US relations...