Thu Nguyen

We’re heading into quite the electoral period for the EU: 15 national parliamentary elections (🇸🇮🇭🇺🇨🇾🇸🇪🇱🇻🇩🇰🇧🇬🇪🇪🇬🇷🇲🇹🇫🇮🇪🇸🇸🇰🇵🇱🇮🇹) and a few presidential elections (most notably 🇫🇷) in 2026 & 2027

Especially elections in Hungary, Slovakia (veto players) and France, Italy, Spain, Poland (big MS) will be ones to watch

"The other iron law of reactionary centrism – beyond the asymmetry that is hiding behind the seeming evenhandedness – is that only the left and liberals really have agency. The right just reacts – everything is always backlash, never a self-generated political project."

This is really worth a read:

Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win | Jan-Werner Müller So-called ‘reactionary centrist’ pundits proclaimed that there was a global ‘vibe shift’ in favor of the right. They were wrong

Great intervention by @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on reactionary centrism, anti-wokeness, and the tendency to interpret the success of the right as backlash instead of as its own political project

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Migration: Warum Spanien bei der Einwanderung auf neue Wege setzt – und was der Rest Europas daraus lernen kann Statt auf Abschreckung und Abschottung zu setzen, ermöglicht Spanien die Regularisierung von Einwanderern. Das Land hat im Gegensatz zu seinen europäischen Nachbarländern die Vorteile von Immigration ...

Unsere Affiliate Policy Fellow @judithkohlenberger.bsky.social heute Morgen im Europe.Table über Spaniens Migrationspolitik und was der Rest von Europa daraus lernen kann: table.media/europe/table...

Europe’s five stages of grief for the transatlantic alliance From denial to bargaining to acceptance that the world has changed

"Perhaps most dispiriting for many Europeans was realising the French had been right all along."
www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Agreed. One problem in the debate is also that everyone understands something different under coalition of the willing. For some it’s intergovernmental action outside EU, for others its enhanced cooperation etc using EU institutions. So everyone is advocating for it but with different things in mind

Max is right. The strategy has to be about creating momentum that brings everyone along.

On capital market integration in particular, this means strengthening existing EU initiatives - not running a six-member-state sideshow.

From what I understand, that’s the direction for now.

YouTube video by DIE ZEIT Live: Friedrich Merz' Regierungserklärung

Friedrich Merz just now:

“In recent weeks, we’ve felt some of the happiness that comes with self-respect. Let us make something of this newly stirring self-confidence among Europeans.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvQQ...

Bundeskanzler: Regierungserklärung von Merz zur Außenpolitik Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz gibt im Bundestag eine Regierungserklärung zur außenpolitischen Lage ab. Verfolgen Sie die Rede und die Aussprache im Anschluss hier live.

Full speech here: www.zdfheute.de/video/regier...

Merz on EU in Bundestag today: „In last weeks, we have felt the joy of self-respect. Let’s build on this new developing self-confidence.“

Emphasizes European unity, which he clearly sees as European concept, not just EU. Explicitly refers to European states at CoW meeting in Paris as show of 🇪🇺unity

Six EU countries hold call in push for 'two‑speed' Europe Ministers from six leading European economies, including Germany and France, will discuss on Wednesday plans to push ahead with joint projects without the rest of the EU, to facilitate agile decision-...

A real change in how Germany approaches the EU is happening. Berlin used to prioritise the unity of the 27 and now seems much more open towards coalitions of the willing.

Next step is initiative by Finance minister Klingenbeil to build an avant-garde with 🇫🇷🇵🇱🇮🇹🇳🇱🇪🇸:

I find it so disheartening to listen to politicians - minister and similar levels - who keep saying things like “we should, one might, it would be good…” AS IF IT IS NOT THEM WHO SHOULD MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Who are you talking to, this is YOUR JOB.

Please. This is absurd. Europe can certainly deter Russia and defend itself if its focused and determined. Perpetuating a sense of European helplessness may help Rutte bureaucratically but its 1. wrong 2. prevents action. 3. willfully blind: the US ain't coming to defend Europe.

The European Parliament is keeping the EU–US trade deal on ice - at least for now.

Seems sensible to me. Until it’s clear what the Greenland framework actually entails, and whether it credibly takes coercive US tariffs off the table, Europe would be unwise to put that leverage away.

Der Mechanismus ist bekannt: Gewalt & Militarisierung werden an den Grenzen eingeübt und normalisiert, die Bevölkerung an brutales Vorgehen & eine "harte Hand" gewöhnt, bis diese auch ins Innere der Gesellschaft und auf privilegierte Gruppen (weiße Protestant:innen, Staatsbürger:innen) ausgreifen.

Commission investigates Grok and X\'s recommender systems under the Digital Services Act The European Commission has launched a new formal investigation against X under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

X's AI tool Grok reportedly produced 3 million sexual deepfakes in 11 days - today the Commission reacted and opened another formal investigation into X under the Digital Services Act.

Here is what the investigation is about ⬇️🧵

ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

📢 Announcement | We’re delighted to welcome Ulrike Sapiro as Managing Director of the Jacques Delors Friends of Europe Foundation.

Her leadership will guide the integration of the foundations’ strengths, boosting our collective impact across Europe.
#DelorsFoEFoundation

Ich war gestern Abend zu Gast bei Anke Plättner in der phoenix Runde zum Thema “Trump gegen Europa - Bietet Brüssel ihm die Stirn?“.

Die ganze Diskussion mit Christoph Heugen (ehem. MSC), Julian Heissler (WiWo) und Paul Ronzheimer (Bild) gibt’s hier: www.phoenix.de/sendungen/ge...

You may have missed it amidst the chaos of the last few days, but there is a new high-level EU report in town: A Franco-German task force led by Jörg Kukies and Christian Noyer presented recommendations to tackle the scale-up financing gap.

Here is what it says and why you should care about it.

Trump gegen Europa – bietet Brüssel ihm die Stirn?

Gestern war @onethuthree.bsky.social zu Gast in der #phoenixrunde. Zusammen Paul Ronzheimer, Christoph Heusgen und Julian Heißler diskutierte sie über Europas Handlungsfähigkeit gegenüber Trump.

Zum Nachschauen: www.phoenix.de/sendungen/ge...

Heute Abend 🙋🏻‍♀️

Both in traditional and social media I see three competing narratives what made Trump change course on Greenland:

- threat of EU action (Pressure strategy)
- successful Rutte & Co diplomacy (Daddy strategy)
- Markets & internal pushback (Work with Congress & markets strategy)

As great powers abandon rules and values for their own interests, middle powers like Canada have a choice: compete with each other for favour or act together with impact.

Unlike Omnibus, where MEPs were split clearly along party lines to deliver on deregulation pushed especially by EPP leaders, on Mercosur, MEPs are acting more as a corrective mechanism for their own member state being outvoted in Council.

An unpredictable force either way

In a way, the European Parliament has killed or at least suspended two major trade deals today - for good reasons, with the US, and (in my view), for bad reasons, with Mercosur.

If anything, at least shows the relevance of the European Parliament in EU trade policy.

Call for submissions: Henrik Enderlein Prize The fifth Franco-German research prize will be given to exceptional scholars under 40 whose work contributes to solving the future challenges of Europe.

📢 Call for nominations for the Henrik #EnderleinPrize!

We are looking to honour an excellent early-or mid-career 🇪🇺 researcher in the social sciences.

🗓️ Deadline: 20 March

bit.ly/4hafVqI

@delorsberlin.bsky.social

9️⃣ What should the EU do now?

If Trump doubles down and imposes tariffs on 1 Feb in response to troops stationed in Greenland, the EU should invoke the ACI. The instrument does not mandate escalation but it anchors future responses in a framework that allows for flexibility as the conflict evolves

🧵 Trump’s Greenland brinkmanship puts the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument back on the table. Few cases fit economic coercion more cleanly.

But the ACI is often misunderstood. It’s not a bazooka, but a slow-loading cannon, able to fire anything from heavy shells to hot air. Here’s how it works ⬇️

1/ So, should the EU retaliate against Trump's Greenland tariff threats? There are roughly three schools of thought, each progressively more interesting than the last. A brief tour through the logic of escalation and deterrence: 🧵

Feels like something cracked today in the transatlantic alliance. Europeans have been swallowing their pride, bitting their tongues, and bending the knee. That strategy may have bought them time but it has now clearly failed. It also had a major cost - it has made the WH think Europe will cave. 1/