antonspisak.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

An extraordinary moment. America has publicly resigned its leadership of the free world

submitted 4 days ago • 47 comments

A key observation from the German elections: young people shifting to the political extremes. I find support for the far-left much less surprising than the surge of first-time males towards the far-right. Esp concerning given that the median right voter has already shifted in recent years.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

NEW: updated long-run gap in voting between young men and women in Germany: Gender divide continues to widen, but contrary to what is often assumed, young men continue to vote roughly in line with the overall population, while young women have swung sharply left. www.ft.com/content/29fd...

submitted 4 days ago • 203 comments

AfD overwhelmingly won votes from non-voters and the centre-right. This is a standard pattern. It is a myth that the radical right are mainly winning disaffected centre-left voters.

submitted 4 days ago • 23 comments

Two additional remarks on risks ahead: 1) CDU/SPD only viable coalition. If coalition talks fail or SPD members vote against agreement, there is no alternative 2) CDU/SPD/Greens are 6 seats short of 2/3 maj. for debt brake reform or special fund to ramp up defence spending. Might become major issue

submitted 4 days ago • 4 comments

Mainstream Western parties have to find new ways of talking to young people, and first-time male voters in particular. They’re a major source of popular discontent, not only in Germany but also in the US, the UK, and elsewhere.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

How has the UK been doing on goods exports over the last six years? Aside from crude materials, all categories have declined. Overall, between 2019 and 2024, goods exports fell by 16.2%, while goods imports dropped by 4.7% in volume terms ⤵️

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

“White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

submitted 7 days ago • 36 comments

If Trump is trying to pressure Zelensky into making concessions before he even has a seat at the table, then it is tactically stupid. If this is a genuine grievance, then the sitting US President has become a threat to, rather than a guarantor of, European security.

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

Does Congress still exist?

submitted 9 days ago • 19 comments

Just watched the Trump press conference in which US president said that Zelensky "should have never started the war" if he wanted a seat at the table in Riyadh. Unbelievable stuff.

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

Some of the most shameful comments uttered by a president in my lifetime. Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim. In the Kremlin they must be jumping for joy. I’d like to hope Republicans, who used to believe in resisting tyranny, would disavow the things Trump is saying & doing.

submitted 9 days ago • 44 comments

A good op-ed by Draghi in which proves he’s the most serious EU policy thinker of today. An external environment on which the EU built its economic model is rapidly changing, and EU leaders risk wasting a good crisis to take necessary steps they’ve been avoiding for a while. on.ft.com/4jVU4Fx

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Italy's Corriere della Sera with key observations and data, picking up on Brad and my work. The newspaper highlights how China's aggressive export-led growth model, which is hammering the German economy, is having serious knock-on effects for Italy. The German crisis is a European crisis. 1/x

submitted 13 days ago • 4 comments

General views from Munich - No indication that Trump team has a plan - Broad concern over US posture in Europe becoming part of a Ukraine deal - Fear that Trump might visit Moscow on Victory Day - Scepticism about feasibility of European troops in Ukr, esp impact on NATO defences

submitted 13 days ago • 24 comments

Trump appears to be seeking a deal over the head of Ukraine & Europe. This is the moment for Europeans to seize the frozen Russian assets and use them to give Ukraine leverage; leverage to shape a deal & to walk away from a rotten one if necessary. www.hoover.org/research/fre...

submitted 15 days ago • 34 comments

If there’s a silver lining about Vance’s speech, it’s some people showing their true allegiances. Lord Frost, a defender of free speech, once in the running to be a UK national security advisor.

submitted 13 days ago • 4 comments

Ok folks, deep breaths. There is very real reason to worry about the dynamic emerging between Washington and Moscow when it comes to Ukraine. But there is also very real reason to believe that Ukraine and Europe can create a better outcome. (A rather long 🧵, obviously) /1

submitted 14 days ago • 72 comments

There’s such a clearcut pattern in all of Musk/Cummings’ thinking: cause the chaos; break “the system”; carry out a “regime change”. Press them on what the “regime change” is about or what it is for, and all you find is, at best, a few boring technocratic ideas on improving bureaucracy.

submitted 14 days ago • 9 comments

Reciprocal tariffs –– another way of saying 'the end of the multilateral trading system as we've known it since 1947'. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

It's not just trade barriers. IMO the single market is an eco-system that ensures predictability and trust in product quality/safety. Cutting our ties makes the UK a worse place to do business and to deal with. Very hard to substantiate this from data of course.

submitted 15 days ago • 2 comments

Looking at the latest ONS trade data released this morning, I'd be hugely concerned if I were the UK's Chancellor. At the end of 2024, the UK's goods trade fell 8% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Goods exports were down 20% (!), dipping to levels last seen during the first wave of Covid.

submitted 15 days ago • 6 comments

The only chart you need to see about the state of the UK economy today. Something needs to change quickly, or the UK will experience the worst decade since the 1920s.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

A few thoughts on where we stand after the opening night of Trump does Ukraine. The first glimpse of substance from Hegseth suggests huge concessions will be demanded from Kyiv with no sign of similar pressure on Moscow - rather the reverse, with Trump running hard after Putin. My conclusion? 1/7

submitted 15 days ago • 7 comments

2024 FULL YEAR UK TRADE DATA from ONS is out today Goods exports fell 5.1% 2023-2024, while imports declined 0.5%, reflecting weakness in manufacturing In contrast, services exports rose 3.4% Y-o-Y & services imports grew 3.3%, reflecting robust services output A thread...

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

This is a really good point. Putin didn’t invade Ukraine bc he wanted some territory in Donbas; he invaded to break Article 5 and show that NATO was a paper tiger. And that’s what Trump now appears to be giving him.

submitted 15 days ago • 10 comments

A new security architecture of Europe in which Nato is irrelevant is what Putin wanted from invading Ukraine. It’s clear today that Putin will get exactly that. His reward for invading a neighbouring country, and our price for acting too naively, too late.

submitted 16 days ago • 5 comments

If it becomes acceptable to grab territory via military force, something that hasn’t been true since 1945, then tariffs will eventually come to seem very second order in terms of the implications for globalization.

submitted 16 days ago • 12 comments

'It's 2029, and the UK and China stand together as last defenders of the neoliberal global economic order.' Discuss.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

One of the most important stories you have probably missed. Showing the German and EU economies can be restructured from export surpluses to production needed at home. www.ft.com/content/e990...

submitted 23 days ago • 3 comments

Something for the UK govt to ponder: would the recently concluded EU-Swiss agreement fit into the UK’s red lines on not rejoining the single market? It would, in my view — and it could be a game-changer. But it requires a real strategic vision for EU relationship at the top of UK govt.

submitted 23 days ago • 3 comments

Another excellent expert panel on the UK-EU relationship and its future, with the European Affairs Committee hearing from Philip Rycroft, Shanker Singham and @antonspisak.bsky.social Session available online; transcript to follow soon committees.parliament.uk/event/23078/...

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Looking forward to appearing before the House of Lords' European Affairs Committee this afternoon at 4pm to discuss the UK-EU reset –

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment