Poland’s own accession path in 2004, and its unique relationship with Kyiv, provides lessons and strategy on Ukraine’s EU membership process. No other EU member has been so intertwined with Ukraine and understands the specific post-Soviet structural hurdles it now faces
Unable to defend European interests, unwilling to hold Washington and Tel Aviv accountable, and therefore impotent in the face of great-power predation. This failure is not merely moral — it is strategic.
Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine shows how the continent has not yet solved the problem of what order comes after imperial collapse
A stable but flatlining economy, social tensions with Roma, welfare payments and emigrating medics, and a fragmented Left are all shaping the Slovenian electoral campaign, ahead of the parliamentary elections on 22 March.
Like much recent EU migration legislation, the proposal was presented without a comprehensive fundamental rights impact assessment. Sixteen UN experts have already raised concerns about its compatibility with international law. Yet EU institutions are rushing the file through the legislative process.
“Law is stronger than force”, said Ursula von der Leyen on Greenland. Last week, the EU rightly stressed once more the illegality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Four days later the US and Israel attacked Iran and the EU forgot about international law.
A decade after the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe launched its journalist safety platform, threats have surged: over 2,300 alerts in more than 40 countries, yet fewer than one-in-three receive government responses. Impunity persists, journalists face violence, and democracy pays the price. Responding to alerts, resolving cases and addressing systemic problems should be the rule, not the exception.
The European Union must decide whether it will confine itself to the comfortable position of simply saying ‘no to war’, or whether it will actively support a democratic transition. A reactive anti-war posture may appear principled in Brussels. For Iranians who have already paid for regime change with massacres, mass imprisonment, executions, and now open war, it is inconsequential.
Friedrich Merz has pledged to transform the German armed forces into the strongest conventional land force among European Nato members. Will that be enough for Donald Trump?
Today, with Iran’s supreme leader dead and the son of the CIA-installed shah coordinating with Washington on what comes next, Europe faces the question it has avoided for seven decades.
Under Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s new migration law revives largely symbolic deterrence measures like the “naval blockade” and the Albania model that are unlikely to boost returns or reduce arrivals, while pragmatic labour regularisations proceed quietly in the background. However, voters are exposed primarily to the spectacle of deterrence.
Since World War II, no other country has had as large a proportion of its population serve on the frontlines as Ukraine. Could psychedelic-assisted therapy help in their return to civilian life?
Brussels’ drive to cut digital “burdens” is spilling into labour law. A recent paper by lobby group BusinessEurope calls for a sweeping “labour market omnibus” to reduce obligations under EU social law, raising fears that competitiveness rhetoric could undermine workers’ rights and weaken Europe’s social model.
At the start of last year, all 27 EU member states were signed up to the Ottawa Convention, banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines. Now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finalnd have withdrawn — with silence from Brussels.
Usually, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Facebook posts earn him an endless stream of insults, cynical comments and worse. But this time it was different.
A new legislative package — the Defence Readiness Omnibus — threatens to overhaul how weapons are produced and sold, creating a dangerous precedent for global security. By doing so, the EU is effectively proposing to treat lethal technology no differently than bananas or chocolate.
Why do some centre-right European People’s Party MEPs, supported by the far-right, continue to centre the debate on funding for NGOs? The real end goal here is discrediting and defunding NGOs in order to sideline them even further in political decision-making.
With Friday’s Supreme Court verdict Donald Trump is off balance and on the defensive. The moment is opportune to stand up to his bullying tactics. He has not looked this vulnerable since he was reeling from the market reactions to his initial Liberation Day tariffs.
Viktor Orbán has also pledged, in his annual address earlier this month, to “clear out” after the April elections media and civil society organisations deemed to threaten “sovereignty.” Fidesz already directly or indirectly control 80 percent of Hungary’s media.
The Swiss-based International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation (FIDE) rejects allegations that its president, Arkady Dvorkovich, backed Russia’s invasion or organised events in occupied Ukraine, arguing claims misrepresent his honorary CFR role and federation decisions.