I have issues with this headline and subtitle. Progressive ≠ anti-war. Support for NATO ≠ pro-war. Conflating these issues is unhelpful given the state of the world. I worry this kind of binary thinking will only get worse as the public discourse about security takes off.

Bardella wants the ECB (read: Banque de France and other Eurosystem banks) to buy an unlimited amount of French debt. Other eurozone countries will be delighted at the opportunity to co-finance one of the most generous pension systems in Europe. www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

An update of progress on EU-UK negotiations of the Strategic Partnership/Common Understanding agenda from May's summit tl;dr barring SAFE, not much to see PDF: bit.ly/UshGraphic141

A 🇩🇪🇬🇧 Business Forum will facilitate dialogue between our governments and businesses from next year – a direct result of the #KensingtonTreaty. Good to speak about the close ties between our economies with the German-British Chamber of Industry & Commerce and members.

Fascinating paper from IFRI, and the framing itself is a sign of the times - a Europe-Russia power balance. The intro sets the scene in stark words: "European countries can no longer avoid the “Russian Question” as Russia has chosen war."

A reflection of the (party) politicisation of the EU - in previous budget fights, when the Parliament pushed against the Commission and/or Council, it was seen as an inter-instititional fight. Now, @politico.eu portrays it as "EPP vs EPP", "centre-right civil war", focusing squarely on the parties.

Liftoff for Ariane 6 on flight #VA265 carrying the @CopernicusEU Sentinel-1D satellite to space.

Babišs Erklärung: was uns verbindet, war der Wunsch, die bisherige Regierung zu stürzen. Für den Rest werden wir uns einigen. Enthusiasmus pur. 4

Der Sammelband zur #EP2024 ist jetzt auch in deutscher Sprache erschienen. Mein Beitrag analysiert mithilfe der FPS-Methode, wie sich die Kräfteverhältnisse im Europäischen Parlament in einer vollständig erweiterten EU verändern könnten. 👉 doi.org/10.1007/978-... #EUEnlargement #EUErweiterung

Awful... European leaders including Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen will skip the EU’s summit with Latin American and Caribbean states due in part to concerns over angering Donald Trump.

Here the Italian and Dutch examples are a useful precedent for UK politics where parties might rise and fall but ideological blocs they belong too can only gain or lose support gradually. In that context such a differential would be a huge signal

Good vibes image of the day. I'd also be happy to get such a pyramid :)

📢 I am happy to share our new article "The EU’s recovery playbook: solidarity, conditionality, and resilience in #EuropeanParliament debates on the Recovery and Resilience Facility" co-authored with @lucykinski.bsky.social and Ermela Gianna! 👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #EUsky #Eursky

Looking forward chairing INTA today&tomorrow. I will present my report(s) on 🇪🇺🇺🇸 legal proposal(s)& tomorrow morning we will vote on joint INTA AFET report on implementation 🇪🇺🇬🇧 TCA Today ExV about #Mercosur safeguard Join us live from 15.00 onwards👇 multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstream...

Musk's Grok was asked to verify if a tweet featuring a graphic image of the attack on the LNER train was real. I'm not sharing the whole image but here is part of it and the text. 1/3

In his latest #EUanalytics, NICOLAI VON ONDARZA reviews the votes in the EP and Council in October 2025. He finds the von der Leyen majority resisting two motions of censure, but the EPP overplaying its hand in the first major "omnibus" vote. And also in the Council, consensus has been in decline.

🚨 Aggregate of national #aras25 tallies (albeit only partial in some constituencies): Catherine Connolly 63% Heather Humphreys 30% Jim Gavin 7% Roughly 13% of votes nationwide are spoiled/invalid @virginmedianews.bsky.social

#Kroatien kehrt zur #Wehrpflicht zurück. Demnach sind volljährige und ärztlich für tauglich befundene Männer bis zum Alter von 29 Jahren ab Januar 2026 – mit einigen Ausnahmen – verpflichtet, eine zweimonatige Grundausbildung zu absolvieren. orf.at/stories/3409...

That said this was a very low turnout election- only 16% of eligible voters (including trade unionists etc). Shows indifference to the contest within Labour movement.

NEW: Lucy Powell wins the Deputy Leadership race, albeit by a closer margin than anticipated. Another fresh blow for Keir Starmer- who now has as his deputy someone he dismissed from his cabinet, only weeks ago.

It’s all long over and done with in the first 25 minutes of counting. A very comprehensive win for Catherine Connolly on the cards. Questions now are quite how big the margin, the time of the count and how high the number of spoiled votes turns out to be. #Aras25

Looks like all the complicated counting might not be necessary with @catherinegalway.bsky.social potentially winning on the first count.

CNN reports the Trump Administration is considering bombing Venezuela.

Viktor Orbán says he's in touch with MOL, Hungary's oil and gas company, to bypass the US sanctions. "We are working on how to circumvent this sanction," Orbán said in an interview, per @reuters.com.

»Die russische Wirtschaft war berauscht von den Militärausgaben, und jetzt kommt der Kater«, sagt @jakluge.de im Interview mit @faznet.bsky.social (Paywall). 👇 www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt...

Elite-Medien wie FINANCIAL TIMES, POLITICO PRO oder ECONOMIST haben ein Geschäftsmodell, weil ihren Nutzer·innen de facto egal ist, was sie kosten. Und noch gehen ZEIT und SPIEGEL, weil der deutsche Markt 10x so groß ist wie Ö. Aber Tageszeitungen haben auch in D. kein Geschäftsmodell mehr. /5

Wow - German foreign minister's trip to China on Sunday is off, with the spokesperson saying it had been "impossible to garner enough meetings in China to justify the trip", per Reuters Won't say who cancelled it...

Got a smart meter installed today by @octopusenergyde.bsky.social and fiber earlier this year. Just normal technologies, but compared to the rollout of each in Germany feels like we are living on the cutting edge.

After Plaid's stunning result, re-posting my blog from Tuesday on UK/Scottish politics & how unprepared we are for the likely speed/ instability of change: "A fracturing, destabilised UK will not, in this environment, become a polite, cooperative confederation." open.substack.com/pub/kirstyhu...

One point I've not seen flagged in the discussion around Apple not including chargers in the box for the EU is that it's very useful for the company to ship different SKUs to the US and EU given Trump's tariffs, if you need to quietly raise prices for Americans

Watching from afar, it is also a symptom in how much of the UK, London based media ignores parties not (yet) relevant for Westminster. UK polls hardly ever show the strength of the SNP or PC, let alone Northern Ireland's parties.

Metsola seems to suggest that, because the European Council has said so, Parliament will have no choice but to push through the omnibus with votes from the far right after Wednesday’s failed vote. This is a worrying stance and a puzzling view of the EP’s relationship with EU leaders

Exclusive: Two of Nathan Gill's fellow Ukip/Brexit Party MEPs used the same pro-Russia talking points in European Parliament, after joining him on a paid-for trip to Kyiv observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Really well done explainer of the election system for the Irish Presidential elections using... smarties. Bonus points for showing why Irish election counting takes so long:

From an @euractiv.com analysis on EU-Japan relations - note the UK ranks fourth in terms of EU Commissioner visits this year. Shows to me that the EU treats the relationship currently as largely 'settled'. It is working, but not a very high priority amongst the many challenges facing the Union.

Very good example I hope more European media will follow. A next useful step to get the media ecosystem away from X would be to quote bsky/threads/Mastodon whatever post instead of X from politicians where they are available.

To say this is a problem is a gigantic understatement. We live in the golden age of AI slop. Hopefully we will soon gain the right control the algorithms that control our online life in order to filter out AI slop to a large degree.

Neat #Caerphilly graphic from the @financialtimes.com (Source: www.ft.com/content/d997...)

Europe is finally firing back at Elon Musk. Aerospace companies Airbus, Leonardo and Thales said today they had reached a preliminary agreement to combine their space activities to create the kind of European champion that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has envisaged.

In case anyone is looking for a textbook on EU politics with all the updates, look no further! Coming soon: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/governmen... #EUsky #Eursky

Aides are now working on the language of the conclusions to convince Belgium to endorse the Reparations Loan.

After all these years years…the German Federal Constitutional Court's Egenberger case is out - and it's a big 81-page peace whistle from Karlsruhe for Europe: www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/P... 1/n

“The likelihood that Trump will weaponise the US cloud services may not be huge, but the costs if he does are potentially catastrophic. If the EU wants to Trump-proof its economy and become a strategic power, it needs to act more like one.” on.ft.com/4o56MU9

Große 81-Seiten-Friedenspfeife aus Karlsruhe für Europa. Seit 2013 klagt Vera Egenberger dagegen dass für eine reichlich weltliche Stelle (Bericht zur Umsetzung der UN Antirassismuskonvention in DE) Kirchenzugehörigkeit erforderlich war auf Entschädigung. Wird weitergehen: Das BVerfG schickt ...

Interesting analysis of bilateral security and defence partnerships in Europe since 2024 from @boelleu.bsky.social This tracks over 160 new agreements, most of them since 2024/25. Amongst EU members, France (as nuclear power) and then Germany are the most sought for partner.

The car crisis tops today’s EU summit but leaders keep staring at the wrong problem The issue isn’t the 2035 engine ban - it’s demand falling off a cliff today With @sandertordoir.bsky.social and @lucasguttenberg.bsky.social, we show why flipping regs won’t help - and what the EU can do instead.

Germany’s best-known media brand – @spiegel.de – is now publishing more stories in English. On our new Substack channel, we share reporting, analysis and perspectives you won’t find anywhere else – from politics to society. 👇 Subscribe or start your free trial today

Doubts over transatlantic intelligence sharing is bringing European intelligence agencies closer together. 🔗 www.politico.eu/article/euro...

Great piece on how the EU is a changin. It’s constantly said the EU is a “peace project“ or an ”economic project” the reality is the EU is whatever Europeans want/need it to be. The impetus for the project (Coal+Steel and Euro Defense community) was the Cold War and need to rebuild/rearm Germany.

Sadly, there's a lot to be said for Marina Hyde's analysis here. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...