Antoaneta Dimitrova

'Georgië zijn we kwijt' klinkt het in de EU, maar Georgiërs houden hoop Al een jaar lang demonstreren Georgiërs uit onvrede over de opschorting van de toetredingsgesprekken. EU-lidmaatschap lijkt echter verder weg dan ooit.

"𝑬𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒕 𝑬𝑼-𝒗𝒍𝒂𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒏 𝒛𝒘𝒂𝒂𝒊𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒓𝒖𝒌𝒕"🇪🇺🇬🇪

Is de #EU #Georgië kwijt? Ondanks protest wordt de democratie verder ingeperkt.

@antoanetadl.bsky.social (@unileiden.bsky.social) legt de situatie uit op @nieuws.nos.nl ⤵️

@platformraam.nl @clingendael.bsky.social

The hearing of the 4 shortlisted candidates to succeed Laura Kövesi as European Chief Prosecutor is about to begin soon at a joint hearing of the #LIBE and #CONT committees. The candidates are 3 men and 1 woman: an Italian, a Spaniard, an Austrian, and a German #EPPO

Council and European Parliament reach deal on new EU law to step up fight against corruption The Council and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new anti-corruption law.

🚨🚨 For #EUcriminallaw nerds, major news; @consilium.europa.eu and @europarl.europa.eu has reached a deal for a seminal legislative act on minimum standards for how Member States define and sanction #corruption offences in their criminal code. 🧵
www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/pre...

‘The budget was withdrawn halfway through the parliamentary approval process after nationwide demonstrations against planned tax rises. Protesters argued the government was too corrupt to be entrusted with imposing higher taxes’ 2/8

‘The turmoil adds to concerns that, despite its impending entry into the Eurozone, Bulgaria’s government lacks the political authority to maintain tight fiscal policies, which are usually a requirement of euro area members’ 3/8

Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said his coalition was willing to compromise. ‘‘…without a budget a few weeks before Bulgaria’s entry into the Eurozone, we have no right to abdicate,’’ he said in a press conference on Tuesday. “We will cancel as a proposal all the topics that arouse concern.” 4/8

Bulgaria was given approval to join the Eurozone in June after repeated delays due to political instability and failures to meet required inflation targets. It also faced a populist backlash against the shared currency. 5/8

‘In this state, private business is pressured, young people stop dreaming, and everyone is equally poor, equally unfree,” former centrist premier Nikolay Denkov said before the protests.’ 7/8

In an emergency session, the government asked parliament to release the budget for reconsideration.
The prime minister’s fragile coalition relies on tycoon Delyan Peevski’s DPS-New Beginning party to maintain a majority in parliament. Bulgarian opposition has called for this structure to end 8/8

‘On Monday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Sofia and across the country to protest against the budget plans, with some protesters turning over waste bins and destroying police vehicles.ier Nikolai Denkov said 6/8

Having unsuccessfully tried to explain a complex political situation in Bulgaria on Dutch radio, here a summary from @financialtimes.com. ‘Bulgaria’s government scrapped its draft budget after huge anti-corruption protests, risking Sofia enters 2026 without a budget as adopting the euro.1/8

SAFE | Security Action for Europe Adopted by the Council of the European Union on the 27th of May 2025, Security Action for Europe (SAFE) is the EU’s new financial instrument designed to support Member States in joint investments in d...

Majority of the 🇪🇺 Member States will put the projects under 4 flagship domains, proposed by the 🇪🇺: Drone Defence Initiative, Eastern Flank Watch, Air Shield and Space Shield.

#EUDefence

More info on #SAFE 🔗 ⬇️ defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-i...

The Prime Ministers of Slovenia and Germany see leverage in frozen Russian assets for peace in Ukraine - EUROPE SAYS Berlin – Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized the importance of frozen Russian assets as a lever to end the

The Prime Ministers of Slovenia and Germany see leverage in frozen Russian assets for peace in Ukraine

https://www.europesays.com/2599347/

Berlin – Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized the importance of frozen Russian…

🗣️ Debates Section:

🗨️ @leuffen.bsky.social, @antoanetadl.bsky.social , Ulrich Sedelmeier, Sandra Lavenex, Thomas Risse & Frank Schimmelfennig: Rhetorical action in a liberal international order in crisis: theorising EU and NATO enlargements post-2022 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thousands protest in Bulgaria ahead of final parliamentary vote on controversial new budget plan Thousands of protesters staged a major demonstration outside the parliament building in the capital, Sofia, to denounce the steep taxes announced in next year’s budget draft. Protesters formed a human chain around the building to prevent MPs from exiting.

Thousands protest in Bulgaria ahead of final parliamentary vote on controversial new budget plan

Thousands of protesters staged a major demonstration outside the parliament building in the capital, Sofia, to denounce the steep taxes announced in next year’s budget draft. Protesters formed a human…

This!

Top Stanford economists:
By 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%"
Read the Stanford report: siepr.stanford.edu/publications...

🇪🇺🤝🇺🇦

To those who say defence investment isn’t what our workers need: 
Do you want to be occupied without resistance? Is it the future you want for workers? 

To those who do not want to support Ukraine:
Are you for a Europe where the big have the right to occupy the smaller?

BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.

This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺

Keep in mind that these talks now in Geneva do not include russia and therefore are quite meaningless. The moment something reasonable emerges out of them, Ru will cry out that it opposes it vehemently. They've been largely silent the past few days for a reason.

1) Start the worst European war since 1945 and commit every imaginable war crime
2) Decide how you want to be rewarded for your aggression
3) Leak the list of your desiderata to the US press
4) Wait for the US president to enforce your wish list on your victim.
Russian policy 2025

🇺🇦 Zelensky: The crux of the entire diplomatic situation is that it was Russia, and only Russia, that started this war, and it is Russia, and only Russia, that has been refusing to end it throughout the full-scale invasion.

A few experts going right now: "hear me out, Budapest Memorandum, keeping Ukraine out of NATO, telling it to accept loss of Crimea, and pretending the Minsk Accords meant to save Ukraine's sovereignty were all mistakes, but if we now combine all this idiocy into a 28-point plan, it might work!"

🇺🇸🇺🇦‼️Washington's pressure on Kyiv is now at a record high and much tougher than during all previous attempts to negotiate peace, — The Sun

Brexit Hit to UK Economy Double Official Estimate, Study Finds Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist.

Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist

Bulgaria Seizes Thousands of Looted Artifacts in Balkan Antiquities Bust A multi-country investigation led to arrests and the recovery of priceless cultural treasures from across the Balkans, including masks, jewelry, and ceremonial items dating back to 2000 B.C., worth hundreds...

A multi-country investigation led to arrests and the recovery of priceless cultural treasures from across the Balkans, including masks, jewelry, and ceremonial items dating back to 2000 B.C., worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

www.occrp.org/en/news/bulg...

The Pig Is in the White House This is what consequence-free misogyny looks like.

Bless @sophiegilbert.bsky.social @theatlantic.com: "The past decade has been a gloomy lesson in how limited a proportion of men actually see women as equal human beings...The fish rots from the head. The pig is in the Oval Office." www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

👀❗️Every fourth Russian company is no longer paying on loans. In total, there are 714 thousand businesses in Russia with loans, of which 24% have defaulted. This has become a record figure in recent times.