This month I went back to my old school. Exactly twenty years after I left, I was invited to talk to my six-year-old niece and her classmates about the joys and miseries of being a journalist and, of course, about Europe.
As Europe is nearing the end of an extremely turbulent mandate, the bloc is starting to realise just how much ground has been lost in preparing for a brave new economic world.
The celebrated attempt to set up a EU digital tax died today at the Council’s table. Killed by the questionable unanimity rule required on taxation, Europe lost another opportunity to become a global rule maker.
The Venezuelan crisis is the latest example of how the unanimity rule continues to hamper European leadership on issues like foreign affairs and taxation. Is it time to smash national vetoes to make Europe greater… again?
Killer robots, sex robots, huge video ad panels and flying cars. The world may well be closer to looking like the dark melting pot Blade Runner imagined for this 2019, aside from intergalactic battles and constant rain. But this year we won’t be worried about robots going rogue, at least for now, but who will become their almighty master.
Angela Merkel’s unexpected announcement about the end of her political career, at least in Germany, was followed by ‘end of era’ reflections about the troubling future facing Europe without the continent’s ‘anchor of stability’. But for your Brief’s author, an altogether different picture came to mind.
Economic matters matter again, as the Italian government wants to showcase its battle against the European Commission over its spending plan as a renewed European crusade against austerity. But who are the real enemies of Europe?
Ten years after the Great Recession, the social scars of the crisis are slowly starting to heal. But the youngest generation is entering the labour market in troubling conditions while Europe remains unprepared for the future of work.
Europe woke up on Monday after another crucial election testing the rise of populism across the bloc. The preliminary results in Sweden produced no clear winner and mixed results for left-wing parties, the welfare state and Europe.
In the midst of a new revolution, innovation is no longer a minor issue for policymakers. At stake is not only what national ‘champions’ will control in cutting-edge sectors but what countries will become the new empires in a digital world where it really is winner-takes-all.
The lack of a European ‘demos’ is seen as one of the obstacles for the EU project’s road to progress. But a pan-European discourse has finally taken hold on the continent, paradoxically not to take the European dream forward but to dismantle it once and for all.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte recently compared the EU to a giraffe. But for the author of this Brief, our Union rather looks like an old lady (or man if you wish) with heart problems, who ignores her doctor’s recommendations and instead focuses on her fictional back pain.
More than a year after Emmanuel Macron won the presidential elections in France, and following three months of arduous negotiations between Paris and Berlin, the French president finally got his trophy: a specific budget for the eurozone.
As the tenth anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers approaches, politicians can finally sigh with relief - Europe is out of the woods. For the first time in more than a decade, a majority of Europeans have a positive opinion on the situation of their national economy (49% versus 47%), according to a Eurobarometer published on Thursday (14 June).
Horizon Europe, the EU’s research programme, has been one of the biggest winners of the EU’s long-term budget after 2021. But it’s not all about money (even if we're talking about €100 billion here). Science needs a mission, Commissioner Carlos Moedas told reporters on Thursday.
Killer robots may not speak Spanish as well as Terminator. But they could be as destructive as that famous killing machine with an Austrian accent in the not too distant future.
