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Europe's short-lived gaullist moment already appears to be waning. I get the need to placate the US - at least rhetorically - to buy time as Europe gets its house in order. But we can't be locking ourselves into new dependencies and perpetuate the EU's vassal status. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

Policymakers now slowly walking back commitments earlier this year and falling back into old patterns are also misreading public sentiment across the continent. Europeans increasingly wants a stronger, more autonomous Europe - and are increasingly willing to make financial sacrifices for it.

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

Europe's short-lived gaullist moment already appears to be waning. I get the need to placate the US - at least rhetorically - to buy time as Europe gets its house in order. But we can't be locking ourselves into new dependencies and perpetuate the EU's vassal status. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

Politico's Playbook calls the Commission's ambitions to internationalise the euro "deliriously lofty" this morning. Bit tired of the same voices which are calling out Europe's geopolitical weakness immediately disparaging all efforts to remedy it.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Today Dutch people must hope that not everyone realizes Rutte is Dutch. In his meek defense: our elites simply don't speak English all that well (remember Jeroen Dijsselbloem's use of the word 'template' during the eurozone crisis). Also, the Dutch can be bafflingly informal and coarse.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Anyone using the word “daddy” near me will be blocked. Thank you for your attention. (Let’s just leave it at that we took one for the team yesterday and today 🇳🇱)

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Morning of the NATO summit: two key train lines in the Netherlands are down (Amsterdam-Schiphol; The Hague- Rotterdam) due to power cuts caused by “unidentified” fires along the tracks. Accidents? Maybe. But we see similar “incidents” all over Europe, and no clue of scale. nos.nl/artikel/2572...

submitted 6 days ago • 6 comments

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine visited Chatham House today and was welcomed to the institute by Orysia Lutsevych, the head of our Ukraine Forum. The event was held at the institute in London under the Chatham House Rule. Find out more: bit.ly/3T2Aco3

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

Joint Macron Merz op-ed, on the eve of The Hague: "We will live for the foreseeable future in a deeply destabilised environment ... We will have to rise to these challenges. Not because someone asks us to, but because we are clear-eyed and owe it to our citizens to do so." www.ft.com/content/c1bf...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Everything else aside, an interesting litmus test of what Chinese hegemony might actually look like. China is far more reliant on the Strait of Hormuz remaining open than the US is. Yet, similar to its approach to the Houthis and the Red Sea, it's been very hands-off. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Good for European tech sovereignty, but telling that it takes a government capital injection to make happen: "Satellite operator Eutelsat is set to raise more than $1.5 billion to fuel its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) ambitions, led by the French government." www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/sate...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Ukrainian Institute in London, which is doing so much for promoting Ukrainian culture, is hosting a fundraising evening on June 25, featuring @oliahercules.bsky.social, Felicity Spector and many others, including me! Please come join us, tickets here www.tickettailor.com/events/ukrai...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

“Nato has cut back an upcoming leaders’ summit [from three days] to just one working session in a bid to avoid US President Donald Trump walking out early as he did recently at a G7 meeting.” “The decision was taken to ensure Trump did not get bored and leave early.” on.ft.com/461NmZS

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

Elites across the two chief spheres of American power are (again) fusing. I wrote about Silicon Valley’s defence tech turn last year: www.chathamhouse.org/2024/11/sili...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Elites across the two chief spheres of American power are (again) fusing. I wrote about Silicon Valley’s defence tech turn last year: www.chathamhouse.org/2024/11/sili...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

This would be a very interesting (and overdue) development: “The Commission is considering ditching Microsoft Azure for France’s OVHcloud over digital sovereignty fears.” www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Great to be in beautiful Gdańsk to talk European tech sovereignty and how to actually get there (and where more appropriate than at the European Solidarity Centre).

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Breaking news: Brian Wilson, the founder of the Beach Boys, whose catalogue of hits includes “I Get Around,” “Don’t Worry Baby” and “California Girls," has died at 82.

submitted 18 days ago • 180 comments

For the summer issue of The World Today, I wrote about the risks of involving AI in nuclear decision-making. It's a really timely issue featuring a range of nuclear stories, as well as lots of content ahead of the NATO summit. www.chathamhouse.org/publications...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

On increasing the NATO spending norm to 5%: “Spending more is not about pleasing an audience of one, it is about protection a billion people.” Mark Rutte at @chathamhouse.org

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web will enter the history books as one of the most remarkable and best-executed covert operations of the war, writes @katjabego.bsky.social.

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

How things change! It used to be case that their expropriated meddlesome billionaires came our way. www.newsweek.com/russia-offer...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Amid fresh sanctions by the EU and the UK, some of my comments on Russia's shadow fleet in the Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

I went to visit the Stolpersteine of Stefan Zweig, his first wife Friderike and her two daughters in Salzburg.

submitted 46 days ago • 1 comment

The U.S. and China agree to temporarily slash tariffs from 145% to 30%. Feels a bit like a prisoner seeing their triple life sentence reduced to a single one. Sure, it's a nominal improvement - but a 30% tariff is still going to cause a lot of pain. www.ft.com/content/9288...

submitted 49 days ago • 1 comment

Almost everything coming out of Silicon Valley nowadays has such a profoundly weird and uncanny flavour to it. This is an actual NYT story:

submitted 50 days ago • 4 comments

Interesting development: The captain of the NewNew Polar Bear -the HK-flagged ship behind the Baltic cable damage back in 2023- has been arrested in Hong Kong. A charm offensive no doubt, but also again suggests that Beijing was quite embarrassed about the incident. therecord.media/ship-captain...

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

Happy Europe Day!

submitted 52 days ago • 2 comments

The whole of Europe looked to Berlin today in the hope that Germany would reassert itself as an anchor of stability and a pro-European powerhouse. That hope has been dashed. With consequences way beyond our borders.

submitted 55 days ago • 8 comments

Hence, also probably no trips to Paris and Warsaw tomorrow. What a start.

submitted 55 days ago • 5 comments