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Commenting on her absence, Meloni said she "could not attend under any circumstances" as she had a pre-scheduled diplomatic visit to the Middle East, including a stop in Lebanon.

Meloni’s no-show at Berlin summit raises concerns over Italy’s global role

By: EBR | Friday, October 18, 2024

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will miss Friday’s high-level meeting in Berlin

In the past, European interventions may not have always been an unmitigated success, but Europe was there at least to be accounted for. With geopolitical storms gathering speed, the EU seems to have lost its foreign policy.

The EU Needs an Interagency Process for Foreign Policy

By: EBR | Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Is European diplomacy still relevant ?

In Italy, Meloni’s ECR heads a coalition government with Matteo Salvini’s Lega (Patriots for Europe) and Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia (EPP) - an alliance she seems eager to replicate at the EU level.

Meloni keen to form conservative front with EPP, Patriots

By: EBR | Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Italian Prime Minister and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) leader Giorgia Meloni appears to be looking to unite the right-wing European People’s Party (EPP) group and the new far-right Orban-led Patriots for Europe group

The new commission looks set to push this trend further in many respects. External funding will increasingly be channelled through the Global Gateway, the EU’s initiative for infrastructure investment designed to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The New European Commission’s Distorted Democracy Agenda

By: EBR | Tuesday, October 8, 2024

With the clear primacy of security issues in the new European Commission’s priorities, the place of democracy support in the EU’s geopolitical toolbox looks increasingly uncertain

This is the broad view of Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank and its Senior Vice President for Development Economics.

A decade of slow growth? The World Bank’s chief economist on the global economic outlook

By: EBR | Wednesday, October 2, 2024

“The global economy is doing better than we expected just six months ago, but it’s doing much worse than it was six years ago”

Much of the speculation has centred on the trade dimension of the relationship, understandably so, given the hand the UK dealt itself with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) - one of the two core agreements, alongside the Withdrawal Agreement, that now govern the EU-UK relationship.

Starmer’s EU-UK ‘reset’ faces reality check after botched divorce

By: EBR | Wednesday, October 2, 2024

As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s first official meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen takes place in Brussels on Wednesday, an unfamiliar optimism is in the air

By choosing Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president, Kaja Kallas as EU high representative, and Antonio Costa as its own president, the European Council came up with a leadership team that—unlike the present one—might actually be capable of working together.

The EU’s Crisis of Confidence

By: EBR | Tuesday, October 1, 2024

On the face of it, the EU’s institutional transition of 2024 has been going well

In her email, Karystianou, a paediatrician who has also spoken two times in Parliament – calls on EU leaders to think twice about the candidate proposed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Email from Athens set to cause von der Leyen, Metsola headaches

By: EBR | Monday, September 30, 2024

An email sent to the European Commission and Parliament chiefs is expected to stir the waters ahead of the upcoming hearing of Greece’s commissioner candidate for the transport portfolio

Meanwhile, several, mostly small countries, called for the EU to return to the much more strict rules that existed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and energy crisis

Twenty EU countries to call for single market push after Letta, Draghi ‘sidelined’ integration goals

By: EBR | Thursday, September 26, 2024

EU industry ministers are meeting to discuss Europe’s competitiveness

The 2020 ‘Farm to Fork’ package aimed to contain their rival interests within the EU’s ambitious ‘Green Deal’ strategy on climate change, but remains beset by deadlocks.

Farm policy is a dangerous hot spot that’s also an EU blind spot

By: EBR | Wednesday, September 25, 2024

In all the brouhaha over Ursula von der Leyen’s ‘gender balanced’ EU Commission, scant attention has been paid to the next Agriculture Commissioner

After a polarizing election, Woidke will have a hard time building a coalition with the CDU, who came in fourth. Together, they will have forty-four seats in the state parliament, one seat short of a majority. Either Woidke opts for a minority coalition or brings in the BSW.

Germany’s Fragmentation Weakens Europe

By: EBR | Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Chancellor Scholz’s party secured a narrow win in the state of Brandenburg. But the victory cannot disguise Germany’s political and economic woes that also affect the EU

The FDP failed to win a single seat in this month’s elections in the three eastern German states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony.

Liberal FDP mulls leaving German government after crushing election defeat

By: EBR | Tuesday, September 24, 2024

FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner suggested on Monday after a string of disastrous regional elections for his party

The Greens are on the brim of the 5% threshold to stay in power in the parliament.

Germany’s social democrats prevail in east German stronghold

By: EBR | Monday, September 23, 2024

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) narrowly beat the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)

Meloni criticised European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s flagship project at the Confindustria conference.

Italy’s Meloni vows to revise ‘disastrous’ EU Green Deal

By: EBR | Thursday, September 19, 2024

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pledged to push for the review of the European Green Deal, criticising its “ideological approach”

The EU’s challenge isn’t just having to renegotiate the terms of the transatlantic relationship to empower Europeans while keeping the United States engaged, or to “Trump-proof” the alliance.

Europe’s Choice: Adapt or Atrophy

By: EBR | Wednesday, September 18, 2024

The world is heading into a period where foundational rules once taken for granted no longer apply

“You asked France to withdraw my name – for personal reasons that in no instance you have discussed directly with me – and offered, as a political trade-off, an allegedly more influential portfolio for France in the future College,” Breton wrote in a letter addressed to von der Leyen published on social media X.

French Commissioner Thierry Breton resigns over row with von der Leyen

By: EBR | Monday, September 16, 2024

Thierry Breton, Internal Market Commissioner also in charge of tech and defence announced his resignation from the European Commission

Emmanuel Macron’s move to dissolve the French Parliament after the European elections in June, can only be understood in this context.

Macron, the Underrated and the Misunderstood

By: EBR | Monday, September 16, 2024

For most of political Europe, Emmanuel Macron calling parliamentary elections earlier this year reflected his penchant for high-risk action

Finding a way to block the signature is “a priority” for Barnier, who is “very attached to the mirror clauses”, Lecamp said about France’s long-standing red line to ensure South American countries are bound to similar trade-burdening rules, such as those related to agriculture or the environment.

New French PM dashes hopes of a EU-Mercosur deal by Brazil G20 summit

By: EBR | Monday, September 16, 2024

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier reiterated France’s opposition to the EU-Mercosur free trade deal and confirmed his desire to seek a ‘blocking minority’