About: The Brief
The Brief – No time for a honeymoon period this summer
Est. 6minAfter seven rollercoaster months, European politicians mostly resemble beat-up-birds these days. And they might not have much time to enjoy their ice-cold poolside drinks this summer.
The Brief – Brace for EU’s Perestroika
Est. 7minEvery five years, the EU revamps its institutions. Faced with enormous global challenges, this time, the EU needs to reinvent itself, but instead, we are witnessing a timid Perestroika.
The Brief – Curtain lifts on EU fight on multi-billion regional funds
Est. 6minIn a rare occasion of open and far-reaching political conflict in Brussels, a German fiscal hawk and a Portuguese Socialist, both in high positions, clashed this week over the EU’s biggest pot of cash: its "cohesion" policy.
The Brief – Will the UK lose its marbles?
Est. 7minThere are whispers that the recent change of government in the UK may result in gains in terms of closer ties with Brussels, not only a softer approach to migration but also in losses - particularly of its marbles.
The Brief – The Guy Fawkes conspiracy revisited
Est. 7minAs the news of shots fired at former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to reverberate across the globe, a few tidbits from the not-so-distant past come to mind.
The Brief – One for the money, two for the show
Est. 6minBlame and reprimands followed Viktor Orbán's “Ukraine peace tour” to Moscow and Beijing, which he started as soon as Hungary took over the Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July.
The Brief – For whom the bell tolls in EU’s digital competition policy
Est. 6minThe European Commission has been very busy handing out requests for information and preliminary views on what it sees as Big Tech's anticompetitive practices under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the EU's landmark digital antitrust law.
The Brief – German government tricks itself out of a budget crisis, again
Est. 8minOnce again, the German government has used accounting tricks to reconcile its spending wishes with the rules of its constitutional ‘debt brake’ – but unlike the tricks faulted by the country’s Constitutional Court last year, this time experts say it's waterproof.
The Brief – ¡No pasarán!
Est. 7min“¡No pasarán!” or "They shall not pass" is an iconic slogan used in the context of leftist forces fighting fascism. During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibárruri Gómez ("Pasionaria"), a member of the Communist Party of Spain, pronounced her famous "No pasarán" speech on 18 July 1936.
The Brief – At NATO, names matter (a little)
Est. 5minThe Western military alliance has a lot on its plate: Its members have to figure out how to secure defence aid to Ukraine, deal with the impact of China’s relations with Russia, when to use their mutual defence assistance clause Article 5… and how to name new things.
The Brief – Message from the three Italian tenors
Est. 6minThe United States is such an important country: Whatever they decide affects us so much that it's almost like the whole world should be allowed to vote in US elections. With these provocative words, I started an opinion piece written exactly twenty years ago.
The Brief – Things can only get better, or why the UK is turning left
Est. 6minAs the United Kingdom and France go to the polls in the next few days, we look at why the British public is turning left, towards Labour, at a time when Europe is turning towards far-right parties.
The Brief – Cordon sanitaire, uncordoned
Est. 7minThe cordon sanitaire was once a non-negotiable electoral strategy that parties across the French political aisles implemented to block the far right from getting to power, but it is now shattered almost to the point of irrelevance.
The Brief – No light at the end of the tunnel?
Est. 5minFrench far right lurches toward power. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary to lead the EU for the next six months. AfD states aim to govern Germany. Pro-Russian patriarch elected in Bulgaria. In the US, Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance augurs his election route in November.
The Brief – When politicians don’t want the top jobs
Est. 5minIn Brussels, politicians haggled over top jobs this week. In Dublin, nobody will take them.
The Brief – Hardline EU trio to confront Putin
Est. 6minWe can only second-guess what Vladimir Putin’s goals were when he started the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We can see that in the meantime, NATO has become bigger and stronger, and today, the EU may agree a lineup of new leaders considered “hawks” towards the Kremlin.
The Brief – Emmanuel Macron, the lonely man
Est. 5minSome empires take centuries to die. Others fall in a matter of days, like overripe fruit. President Emmanuel Macron is neither a tsar nor a sultan, but he has ruled France unchallenged since 2017 and his time is now running out.
The Brief – Ursula von der Leyen’s green 420
Est. 6minOn the hunt for lawmakers to bolster her chances at a second term at the helm of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen may end up taking the Greens to the ball – because, in their own words, they offer stability. It is a story of Germans working with Germans.
The Brief – Single-handed manmade disasters
Est. 7minClimate change is a manmade disaster caused by mankind as a whole. But history remembers disasters of dramatic proportions caused by a single man. We are currently paying the price of at least two such disasters.
The Brief – Who cares about competitiveness?
Est. 7minSometime next month, former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi—“the guy who saved the euro”—will publish his much-anticipated report on the competitiveness of the European economy.
The Brief – Did Ursula stab Macron in the back?
Est. 6minIt looks like she did. The European Commission announced it intends to open the first excessive deficit procedure against France—coming at the worst time ever—11 days before the first round of the snap legislative elections that may become a nightmare for the French president.
The Brief – Farage’s UK election tactics means a far-right that is all talk but no trousers
Est. 6minNigel Farage has the British electorate's attention, but his latest moves against the Labour party could doom an otherwise popular British far-right to political irrelevance.
The Brief – What lessons Europe’s progressives can learn from India’s elections
Est. 6minAs the results of the European elections continue causing political turmoil across the EU and progressive parties are trying to figure out how to win back votes, maybe they should look to their counterparts in India. Against the odds, they made gains against Narendra Modi and his right-wing party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Brief – The dinner of frustration
Est. 6minIn psychology, frustration is an emotion arising from perceived obstacles to fulfilling one’s will or goal. In EU politics, frustration is today’s special.