Happy Merger Treaty Day (to those few who celebrate)!

When you think you've heard it all. German courts have ruled that a family who entered Germany on German passports in 2020 had never been German citizens, because a 1908 marriage between a German colonial official and a Togolese woman was not legally valid under colonial law.

So are we all prepared to the contingency that if Iran wins against Egypt by at least as much difference as Belgium against New Zealand, then wins against some random third-placed in the round of 32, and the US wins against Bosnia-Herzegovina, there'll be a US–Iran match in the round of 16?

@nvondarza.bsky.social on how #Brexit has affected bilateral relations between the UK and Germany 👇

Was macht es mit einem Land, wenn eine Rechtsaußenpartei mitregiert? Und wie unterscheiden sich die Perussuomalaiset in #Finnland von der deutschen AfD? Meine Einschätzungen dazu im Beitrag von @juhopitk.bsky.social in der @taz.de:

Was macht es mit einem Land, wenn eine Rechtsaußenpartei mitregiert? Und wie unterscheiden sich die Perussuomalaiset in #Finnland von der deutschen AfD? Meine Einschätzungen dazu im Beitrag von @juhopitk.bsky.social in der @taz.de:

Maybe it came a tad too late, but the pivot from "Trump whisperer" (when Trump was seen as a difficult but powerful NATO partner to keep on board) to "defender of Italian dignity" (when Trump is seen as an unreliable loser and association with him as an electoral risk) has been masterful.

Was ist denn das für eine peinliche nationale Trotzreaktion? Es gab eine faire Wahl in der Generalversammlung, eine Mehrheit hat Portugal und Österreich unterstützt. Und als Antwort darauf droht Deutschland jetzt, seine Beiträge zu den (notorisch unterfinanzierten) Vereinten Nationen zu kürzen?

Die neue #EPsitzprojektion ist da!

The new #EPseatprojection is out!

Two-tier criminal law. This is really bad.

Deutschland schließt sich Sanktionen - von 🇨🇦, 🇫🇷, 🇳🇴 und 🇬🇧- gegen jene radikalen Siedler nicht an, die jegliche palästinensische Autonomie zerstören wollen. Die Bundesregierung sollte ehrlich sein und sagen, dass sie das Ziel eines Palästinenserstaats aufgegeben hat. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/09/w...

One more reason why we should get rid of national vetoes - not only in foreign policy, but also on the budget and in all other areas. (For the EU, it is easier to ban things through market regulations than to put a tax on them. That's an absurd incentive structure.)

The EU in a nutshell. Tiny central budget (~1% GDP). Huge needs, hence proposal to raise modest additional "own resources" (EU taxes). But: Poland blocks ETS Sweden holds up tobacco levy Italy, Malta reject a gambling levy. And almost all MS block taxing large companies share.google/dO9Pts55aJU7...

I don’t think the world is divided into bigots and not bigots. Making your empathy bigger than your anxiety takes some effort. You become a bigot when you stop bothering

Am 23. Juni stimmt das Europäische Parlament über einen Verordnungsentwurf ab, der den Digitalen Euro einführen will. CEDERIC MEIER erklärt, wozu es einen Digitalen Euro überhaupt braucht – und warum der Unionsgesetzgeber mutig sein muss. verfassungsblog.de/digitaler-eu...

If you like a good nail-biting electoral vote count, don't miss what's going on in #Peru right now:

He has a point here. Not because the EU's policies are always good for humanity; they aren't. But because the idea of European integration—uniting people of different countries as equal citizens of a joint supranational democracy—is more humanist than the opposing principle of national sovereignty.

He has a point here. Not because the EU's policies are always good for humanity; they aren't. But because the idea of European integration—uniting people of different countries as equal citizens of a joint supranational democracy—is more humanist than the opposing principle of national sovereignty.

If you're keen on destroying social cohesion and creating mistrust between different parts of the population (in this case, long-standing residents vs. new arrivals), creating separate welfare systems is certainly a great approach!

So @theguardian.com has this entirely serious piece complaining that there are no Greek actors in Nolan's Odyssey, and now I'm wondering (a) how can you dare to make a film about events supposed to have taken place in 1000BC and all the actors have been born in the 20th or 21st century?, and (b) ...

This is a key problem of many Western countries today. And no: better representation of racist attitudes will not make our political systems more democratic, because racism itself contradicts the idea of human equality and is therefore anti-democratic. (Popper's tolerance paradox, anyone?)

Indeed. In the 1960s many more people held racist attitudes but both the government and opposition were consistent in condemning open racism. We now have am emboldened and tolerated minority by both government and opposition.

Für die Plattform AlleSeiten habe ich ein paar Fragen über die großen Grundsatzthemen der europäischen Integration beantwortet. Hier ist das Video mit dem Interview 👇

Torille.

🇫🇮

Thema Jobben: Vor einigen Monaten haben studentische Beschäftigte an Unis für einen Tarifvertrag gekämpft. In den Verhandlungen erklärten die Politiker*innen, die Studis sollten doch BAföG beantragen, um finanziell abgesichert zu sein. Praktisch, dass die Verantwortung immer weitergeben werden kann.

Finanzielle Abstiegsängste der Mittelschicht zu fördern war schon immer ein hervorragendes Mittel, um dem Aufstieg rechtsextremer Parteien entgegenzutreten. 🙄 (Warum nicht solidarisch die Versicherungssätze für Gutverdienende erhöhen statt Pflegefälle in der Familie zum finanziellen Risiko machen?)

Finanzielle Abstiegsängste der Mittelschicht zu fördern war schon immer ein hervorragendes Mittel, um dem Aufstieg rechtsextremer Parteien entgegenzutreten. 🙄 (Warum nicht solidarisch die Versicherungssätze für Gutverdienende erhöhen statt Pflegefälle in der Familie zum finanziellen Risiko machen?)

Vom Party-Patriotismus zum Nationalismus#Fußball#WM2006#Sommermärchen

Schon 2028 soll #Montenegro der EU beitreten – und damit dem EU-Erweiterungsversprechen auch in anderen Kandidatenländern neue Glaubwürdigkeit verleihen. Warum das ohne interne EU-Reformen nicht funktionieren wird, erkläre ich in meiner neuen Kolumne für @table.media. 🧵

#Montenegro is set to join the EU as early as 2028 – an achievement that is suppost to lend new credibility to the EU’s enlargement promise also in other candidate countries. In my new column for @table.media, I explain why this won’t work without internal EU reforms. 🧵

#Montenegro is set to join the EU as early as 2028 – an achievement that is suppost to lend new credibility to the EU’s enlargement promise also in other candidate countries. In my new column for @table.media, I explain why this won’t work without internal EU reforms. 🧵

Schon 2028 soll #Montenegro der EU beitreten – und damit dem EU-Erweiterungsversprechen auch in anderen Kandidatenländern neue Glaubwürdigkeit verleihen. Warum das ohne interne EU-Reformen nicht funktionieren wird, erkläre ich in meiner neuen Kolumne für @table.media. 🧵

I well recall the online debates where the majority of debaters opined that zero traffic deaths is an utopian goal and would require methods that would kill Helsinki, if not bring about totalitarian communism

This is really quite funny. It has happened to me many times that I woke up to a timeline full of excited comments that I didn't understand and that turned out to be about some US spoet event, or of people being angry with a politician I had to look up to find out if it was a US senator or a UK MP.

This.

Okay. Makes sense. Now press Germany/Nordics/Visegrad/Balts on treaty reform. The current problem with the enlargement discussion is that it is all about what Ukraine needs to do… and not what Europe needs to do. But the EU ain’t enlarging unless there is treaty reform - and an end to unanimity.

Fun fact: To enter into force (which happened OTD in 1949), the German Basic Law required ratification by only 2/3 of the then 11 Länder parliaments. Reforms of the much less sovereignty-invasive EU Treaty still require unanimity by all 27 member states.

I actually found this hard to believe. So I checked Hansard. Bloody hell. Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson James MacCleary. "Europe is stronger when Britain leads." Some arrogance. #Exceptionalism 1 H/t F Jackson

A study by the University of Turku found that Finland's immigrants were two-and-a-half times more likely to develop mental health disorders compared to the general population.

"Especially when it mentions, and this one really got me, include at least one specific detail or quote that the listener will find memorable or surprising." 😂

For years, many of us working in independent media defined our role in opposition to a political force we experienced as dominant & hostile. But what happens when that force (Fidesz) is no longer in power, & the old clarity of “us versus them” starts to blur? Many 🇭🇺 journos face this dilemma now 🧵

It isn't so many presidents really - most of them are actually PMs. 😉

What could possibly go wrong?

This is pretty devastating for basically every single country. But congrats to the Nordics. At least the clichés associated with us are positive ones.

Transnational party politics fun fact: Bavaria's CSU (the party of EPP leader Manfred Weber) is a member of the Union of Latin American Parties, where it cooperates, among others, with Keiko Fujimori's Forza Popular from Peru.

The new European Policy Quartet is out! Among other things, we discuss - whether Viktor Orbán’s defeat is also down to the EU, - what comes next for Hungary, - when the EU's far-right surge will end, - who still cares about the rule of law, and - how prepared the EU is for Jordan Bardella. 👇

Das neue europapolitische Quartett ist da! Unter anderem diskutieren wir, ob Viktor Orbáns Abwahl auch der EU zu verdanken ist, wie es mit Ungarn jetzt weitergeht, wann die Rechtsaußen-Welle endet, wer sich noch für den Rechtsstaat interessiert und wie die EU auf Jordan Bardella vorbereitet ist. 👇