@patrickholden.bsky.social
Irish academic at the University of Plymouth, IR/ Political Economy/EU Policy.
This is the march the Polish president chose to grace with his presence today.
11.11.2025 18:45 — 👍 187 🔁 107 💬 19 📌 12Well with the far-sighted leadership and solidarity coming from Washington that should be easy.
02.11.2025 19:37 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A curious approach from people who don't like the concept of immigration
22.10.2025 11:02 — 👍 2764 🔁 446 💬 244 📌 56🇪🇺🤑The mother of all EU fund misuses from Hungary: a treetop/canopy walkway without trees in Nyírmártonfalva, led by a Fidesz (Orbán’s ruling party) mayor who said trees weren’t required. €160K of EU taxpayers’ money wasted. Story uncovered by @atlatszo.hu in 2023: english.atlatszo.hu/2023/03/28/t...
19.10.2025 10:55 — 👍 116 🔁 54 💬 6 📌 10In private sector, Bessent made his money by betting that Central Banks would not be able to control their currencies. In government, he is betting that Argentina’s, of all countries, will manage to do so.
17.10.2025 17:20 — 👍 102 🔁 38 💬 6 📌 6Oh yes well I'm sure your instincts are right then. I wouldn't do it for the sake of it.
17.10.2025 17:07 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Well it's kind of silly but as it has no restraint and access to wide info you can have an unconstrained dialogue with it. you can literally ask it anything, say to make up a dialogue between Trump and Hayek or write a speech - or more specifically bounce ideas off it -you'll get something back...
17.10.2025 16:15 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0It's useful for large scale policy analysis and basic thematic coding of texts. Counter-intuitively it is quite good for helping to generate ideas. (You can also create agents where you have inputted the sources -say some reliable official sources - and then it should be reliable).
17.10.2025 15:27 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0J. D. VANCE: We need to end DEI.
MONKEY’S PAW: (raises one finger)
Mega test of EU approach to industrial policy coming up. 3 big French telcos are jointly bidding to buy the 4th. EU has historically blocked 4-to-3 consolidation as it raises prices. But the mood has shifted of late, eg Draghi saying mergers could be OK. One to watch.
www.lemonde.fr/economie/art...
👇🎯 I remain astounded by how hard so many folks in the media are working to try & make a 🇫🇷 debt crisis happen. This is the correct take.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Israel’s far-right government is restructuring the occupation of the West Bank. Outside actors should squarely face the reality of annexation, and impose meaningful costs on the country. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...
09.10.2025 12:23 — 👍 8 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 3
“Now more than ever we must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.”
Wendell Willkie
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
08.10.2025 10:29 — 👍 26941 🔁 10242 💬 428 📌 186what if I told you that taking accountability for your actions was traditionally considered a load-bearing feature of masculinity?
06.10.2025 20:35 — 👍 8392 🔁 1672 💬 170 📌 49Jesus Christ
06.10.2025 17:06 — 👍 602 🔁 97 💬 73 📌 6It's a hard life
04.10.2025 14:06 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0'his body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.'
02.10.2025 18:52 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Tell me about Europe's problems again, please.
24.09.2025 15:06 — 👍 100 🔁 37 💬 4 📌 2
Kirk is not a modern day St. Paul, despite what Cardinal Dolan says. The only thing that such myth-making achieves is fomenting resentment, curtailing dialogue, and stifling action to otherwise prevent this tragedy from happening again, says John Grosso.
19.09.2025 20:26 — 👍 1686 🔁 458 💬 315 📌 105
New series from @EmpirePodUK
THE HISTORY OF GAZA
291. Ancient Gaza: The Philistines
Empire – Apple Podcasts share.google/7fne19kFfVLw...
Glad to see the Vietnamese school of foreign policy is acquiring ever more students.
17.09.2025 13:49 — 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0This is both not enough and a historic step.
17.09.2025 12:04 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The European Commission has formally proposed to suspend the trade-related aspects of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which could cost €227 million in extra duties.
The proposal needs a qualified majority among member states, which isn't guaranteed.
Well he ate a sandwich poorly so there was no choice.
15.09.2025 20:19 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Update: Civil War cancelled due to shooter being demographically uncooperative
12.09.2025 16:23 — 👍 31332 🔁 7844 💬 286 📌 209
Bertoldi and Buti rightly say EU should use its anti-economic coercion instrument against US. If not against Trump's coercion, then for what? But best to deploy investment/IP measures not just punitively but as part of project to enhance EU capabilities. www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/e...
08.09.2025 13:40 — 👍 52 🔁 18 💬 2 📌 3
Interesting lecture by Belgian PM Bart de Wever
"In the eyes of the US, Europe is the annoying loser that walks around everywhere with its finger raised.
In the eyes of China, Europe is increasingly becoming an irrelevant toddler."
via @remkorteweg.bsky.social
www.ewmagazine.nl/blog/2025/09...
In USTR Greer's NatCon speech he once again cited VDL Turnberry remarks as validation for Trump's trade policy
"We made history at Turnberry... where EU acknowledged the legitimacy of our concerns, and we joined together to lay the foundation for a new trade order based on fair and balanced trade"
