Olivier Beys

The bottom line? Europe should stay out of the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran “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 att...

Hawks and doves should stop arguing with one another. After all, it's in our interest to defend international law as @meyer-resende.bsky.social says. "Right without might is weak, but might without right is not tenable either." euobserver.com/205285/the-b...

Global economy must stop pandering to ‘frivolous desires of ultra-rich’, says UN expert Olivier De Schutter says new economic agenda needed to tackle crises of rising inequality and ecological collapse

Growth based capitalism, which pretends to prioritize 'efficiency', is in fact super inefficient. It creates inequality by design.

Great to see @deschuttero.bsky.social with a roadmap for a redistributive and sustainable economy by design, instead. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Sanchez, as Europe's conscience, reminds us we do have leverage Merz, as Europe's capitulator, sat in silent acquiescence while Trump threatened Spain with embargo. Spain's expulsion of the US military shows the power Germany has but refuses to wield.

A scathing and accurate rundown of the humiliating performance by Merz on Iran, showing that conservatives (and nationalists btw) prefer being Trump’s lapdogs rather than defend European solidarity, decency and international law. We live in a time of disgrace davekeating.substack.com/p/sanchez-as...

C’mon, people. Look at your Kremlin style guide. The phrase is “special military operation.” Not all of you are getting this right.

Rubio: “Let me tell you, Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.”

Excellent metaphor why growth for growth’s sake is an erroneous pursuit

things every single republican president of your lifetime has done

- started a war in the middle east
- completely destroyed the economy

This! The entire point of contemporary urban planning is to allocate more public space to other uses besides cars and car parking. Hence all that infrastructure to slow down speed and reduce car dependency

Allowing autonomous vehicles in Europe would reverse that trend because form follows function

♻️ Is recycling batteries really cleaner than mining new raw materials? Absolutely.

NEW T&E research compares the carbon footprint of recycled nickel from waste batteries with primary mined and processed nickel – and found that recovering nickel has a much lower impact.
🧵⤵️

Think @aimenhorch.bsky.social is going for that as candidate for the leadership in the (Dutch speaking) green party in Belgium.

Je zou verwachten dat de journos Francien hierop zouden aanpakken. Maar nee, hij mocht uitpakken met zijn promoreisje rond kritieke grondstoffen, een thema dat hij kennelijk recent heeft ontdekt maar weinig kaas van heeft gegeten, getuige de platitudes die hij daarover ten berde gaf.

Alright! Ruim anderhalf jaar trekken en sleuren aan dit dossier met @saramatthieu.bsky.social in het EU Parlement. Enkel nog een plenaire stemming in april. Het kan altijd beter, maar in deze moeilijke tijden zetten we toch stappen vooruit op vlak van milieubescherming, circulariteit en autonomie 🙏

Where should our money go? Should we patch up our aging fossil industries, or should we modernize and green EU manufacturing?

Carbon capture boosters want the former, but electrification, circularity and efficiency simply deliver more bang for our buck, as @saramatthieu.bsky.social rightly says.

And to think those techbros and their boosters want to build nuclear to fuel all those data centers we don’t need 😒 it’s just not going to happen

Trump illegally overstepped executive power with global tariffs, supreme court rules Ruling is blow to Trump’s bold assertions of authority and topples key pillar of aggressive economic agenda

Oh yeah 😊 Is this the moment when the house of cards comes tumbling down? If the Trump regime is to return the billions in tariff revenues, that's going to eat into his increased defense budget. The orange manchild may not want to push that Iran button after all. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

If all EU officials announced that they will only communicate on bsky from now on then journos and professionals (who are the only ones following them), would switch too. Can’t understand what’s keeping them on that platform.

What Trump really wants with AI Trump's AI agenda is often described as a push for deregulation; an effort to cut red tape so AI companies can innovate. In truth, it's a big government project with designs toward domination.

Interesting analysis by @bcmerchant.bsky.social explaining how the US regime is not quite giving American AI companies free rein, but is regulating it to increase the power of the state, in this case, worryingly, a far right one. ttps://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/what-trump-really-wants-with-ai

Zoals wel vaker een stukje om duimen en vingers bij af te likken. Je kan lang proberen om een 'redelijk' debat te voeren, maar als je tegenstanders feitenvrije nonsens verkopen om hun eigen contradicties te verbergen, is de tijd aangebroken om man en paard te noemen.

This is who Chancellor Merz is allying Germany with.

Ineos eist compensatie van Vlaamse overheid voor vernietiging vergunning kraker Ineos, de groep rond de Britse miljardair Jim Ratcliffe, eist een vergoeding van de Vlaamse regering voor de vernietiging in 2023 van de vergunning voor Project One, de ethaankraker van het chemiebedr...

Met 'bondgenoten' zoals Jim Ratcliffe van #Ineos heeft de Vlaamse regering, die nochtans dolgraag fossiele krakers in Antwerpen wil en er veel geld, tijd en middelen voor over heeft, geen vijanden nodig. www.tijd.be/ondernemen/c...

It’s rather BASF that has become obsolete due to the billions of dividends and share buybacks over the past years. Choosing capital destruction over investment in modernisation and greening has contributed to this predicament (in addition to lax defense of the EU market and laissez faire policy)

Morgen komen de Europese leiders samen in Alden Biesen. Context: de benarde situatie van de Europese industrie. De Wever en co misbruiken die situatie om te snijden in ons klimaatbeleid en Europa te versnipperen. Dat zal niks opleveren. Uiteraard bepleit de groene visie precies het omgekeerde 👇

Excellent piece, as always. I'm afraid the answer to your opening question is that some leaders have simply been captured by particular business interests, and who have been given massive airplay in the media. Like Bart De Wever 2 wees ago in an event bij De Tijd for 1000+ CEOs + media coverage.

Greening industry makes Europe strong and independent Ahead of the industry summit in Antwerp and the informal European summit at Alden Biesen, Sara Matthieu, member of the Industry Committee in the European Parliament, warns against the course that De W...

This Thursday, European leaders gather at Alden Biesen on the future of our industry.

De Wever, Merz and Meloni want to dismantle European rules and hand more power to member states. But that weakens Europe precisely when we need to stand strong. 1/4 👇
groen.be/greening_industry_makes_europe_strong

"Profits of pitchfork and hammer manufacturers expected to soar in coming years"

Germany’s “China Shock” Revisited Over the past year, German political leaders, central bankers, business associations and unions have begun talking openly about the risks of a “China shock.” The rhetoric, however, has not been matche...

Deze analyse van @noahbarkin.bsky.social legt de diepere context van onze industrie goed uit. De Duitse (en bij uitbreiding Europese) industrie kijkt aan tegen de zgn 'China shock'. De export droogt op, het marktaandeel keldert. Gerommel in de marge kan niet meer. rhg.com/research/ger...

We staan voor een tweesprong: we kunnen kiezen voor de oude, gefaalde recepten van nationalistisch rechts met meer deregulering en 'flexibiliteit' voor lidstaten, of voor een gecoördineerd Europees en strategisch beleid gericht op investeringen in modernisering en vergroening 1/2

EU urged not to roll back green agenda in effort to revive faltering economy Campaigners say industrial issues cannot be solved by watering down climate and environmental policies

High energy prices, ageing assets, global overcapacity & delayed investments. Europe’s industry is under real pressure.

These challenges are real & must be addressed.

However, weakening rules protecting our health, climate & nature won't solve them.

✍️ @jenniferrankin.bsky.social @theguardian.com

I'm pretty sure we know the answer to that, unfortunately 😒