About: The Brief
The Brief – Sun, sand, sea … staycation
The Brief takes its own summer holiday from today. In practice, few will be jetting off to somewhere warm. COVID-19 case rates are still stubbornly high, travel restrictions are still tight and most of us will be staying at home, again.
The Brief – Waiting for the next wave
There is news you want to hear, and news you will ignore. These days, Europeans are packing for their summer vacations. The news we don’t want to hear is that by the time we return from well-deserved holidays, the next wave of COVID-19 will have gathered force.
The Brief – There is no medicine for regret
As Germany settles in for the summer and a heavy heat blanket slows political activity in Berlin down to a near standstill, many die-hard Green voters eyeing September's election are heading to their vacation destinations - by train, of course - in a sombre mood.
The Brief – Don’t ignore your neighbours
It is a truism that Europe is unstable if its North African neighbours are unstable. That being so, it should be of some concern to EU leaders that, on the bloc’s south Mediterranean border, Tunisia’s ten-year-old democracy appears to be on life support.
The Brief – Go home Erdogan
Cyprus is an excellent destination for holidays, but it is also a geopolitical volcano. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who doesn’t miss an opportunity to annoy the EU and infuriate Greece, is very active during this holiday season. Among other...
The Brief – It takes EU to tango
As EU officials prepare for their holidays, they have an extra reason to pack their bags faster than usual; to avoid the siren call of British politicians haranguing them to reopen parts of the Brexit settlement. It would be easy,...
The Brief – Too many cooks in the foreign policy kitchen?
In the Georgian Black Sea resort Batumi, taxi drivers, who usually talk about the likes of football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, are currently talking about European Council President Charles Michel. In Georgia’s political crisis following the last parliamentary election in October...
The Brief – Big brother is watching you (again)
The Pegasus Project's revelations remind us that journalists, officials and activists all over the world are still closely being watched by national and foreign intelligence services.
The Brief – Flattery by imitation
There’s no flattery like imitation, at least when it comes to migration control. Taking their lead from aggressive migration control measures in Denmark and the UK, Lithuania’s parliament last week approved the mass detention of migrants, in a move meant to deter high numbers crossing into the EU from Belarus.
The Brief, powered by Greens/EFA – Return to the Dark Ages
Thousands of demonstrators gathered across Greece this week to protest against the government’s push to effectively make immunisation against COVID-19 mandatory in order to lead a normal life.
The Brief, powered by Greens/EFA – It’s the youth, stupid
It’s summertime and the livin’ is easier. Fish are jumping and although COVID is high, and a nasty variant too, it's not yet at everyone's doors, at least for the time being.
The Brief, powered by Greens/EFA – The guts to put pineapple on pizza
Italy's latest proud moments in Europe were prepared with an unconventional recipe that would tease purists of Italian culture.
The Brief, powered by Greens/EFA – James Bond movie script
What are the main ingredients for a James Bond movie? A handsome actor to impersonate the main hero, and a script involving a villain plotting a novel scheme to blackmail and subjugate the world.
The Brief, powered by Greens/EFA – Notti Magiche
After the grand finale, came the mourning after; if you are an England fan, that is.
The Brief, powered by UNESDA – Dreams of summer
After four weeks of a European Championship that started with the horror and near tragedy of Danish star Christian Eriksen’s collapse on the pitch, football’s coming home. Or to Rome.
The Brief, powered by UNESDA – Three Seas riddle
Sofia hosts a summit of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) on Thursday and Friday (8-9 July) at a very inconvenient time – just before the snap general elections to be held in Bulgaria on Sunday. It’s not great when geopolitics interferes with politics.
The Brief, powered by UNESDA – Everything but content
Two and a half months before the German parliamentary election, the campaign is stuck in a maze of political misgivings, ranging between bad taste and mud-fight, abounding in everything but content, it seems.
The Brief, powered by UNESDA – Choosing freedom with courtesy
The idea of wearing face masks on public transport used to be anathema. The small number of people who did wear masks on the metro, at least in the UK, got odd looks, as though they were being insulting by refusing to share the same air as us.
The Brief, powered by ESA – The Merkelian pragmatism
The paradox of Angela Merkel is that while it is hard to imagine the last twenty years of European politics without her, it is equally tough to think of her legacy as anything other than a manager.
The Brief, powered by ESA – Black Sea sabre rattling
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (30 June) that Russia could have sunk a British warship that, according to Moscow, had illegally entered its territorial waters.
The Brief, powered by ESA – Plugging Italy’s digital shortfall
When the pandemic forced most people to work from home, Italy suddenly found itself facing a conundrum: the employed struggled to adjust to remote work, whereas an epidemic of youth unemployment meant that those who had digital skills mostly did not have a job.
The Brief, powered by ESA – Contracting out asylum
With the EU’s latest plans for a pact on migration and asylum making little more progress than their predecessors, member states are taking matters into their own hands and not just the usual suspects.
The Brief, powered by ESA – In the ghetto
A glance at a map of Europe shows that the European Union is strangely absent in one corner, known as the Western Balkans. And though the region's six countries have been promised they will one day join the bloc, they appear to be growing steadily further away from the EU, rather than closer, with each passing year.