The Twenty-Seven have overcome the first hours of their summit on the European border with Lebanon, aware that the situation in the Middle East may end up overshadowing the debates on community competitiveness that await them on the table today. With navigation still interrupted in the Strait of Hormuz, the...
In tennis, after moving agilely, stopping, measuring and executing the impact, one must return “to the center”. It is the most efficient position to defend the next play and deploy strategy. A continuous plan that develops by managing each point. If we change the court for the Schuman roundabout, the European...
The European Union is taking increasingly more steps in its fight to protect minors in digital environments, an area that has become one of the main regulatory concerns of the community bloc. This very week, the European Commission announced that its new application designed to ensure age verification is already...
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, set during her speech on the State of the Union in September the protection of minors in digital environments as one of the priorities of her second mandate. Thus, on this path, one of the solutions she is preparing to...
The board on the table. As many players as parliamentary groups. There are those capable of reading several moves ahead, while others assume they will have to sacrifice a piece and others fight not to be left without a king. In the background, the referee who hopes the board will...
After negotiations between the diplomatic teams of the United States and Iran failed in their attempt to find a solution to the conflict this week, the European Commission begins to unveil some of the details of the energy plan it is working on to address the crisis. “The measures must...
The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera, has a new right hand in her cabinet. The Irishman Anthony Whelan has been chosen to occupy one of the most relevant technical positions within the community executive. Specifically, he will be at the head of the Directorate-General for Competition. Whelan is...
In the European Union, the news of the ceasefire between the United States and Iran was received with some optimism. But this Wednesday's attacks by Israel on Lebanon have ended up dynamiting that nervous calm. The European Commission has branded the situation a “very serious” escalation, because it considers it...
The new diplomatic turn by the US president, Donald Trump, and the agreement for a ceasefire in Iran have given new breathing room to oil markets. Crude prices have plummeted amid expectations that the new scenario opens the possibility that the Strait of Hormuz begins to operate with some normality. Far...
For years there was an expression that in Brussels was pronounced with care, almost with the discomfort of someone who fears saying something inappropriate: strategic autonomy. It was not forbidden, but it was not welcome either. It sounded too ambitious, too Gaullist, perhaps even too European. The dominant logic was different....
So much did the European Union want its new strategy to strengthen the single market that it took time to learn to forget it 19 days of war and practically five hundred hours of crossed speeches on the defense of international law. In order not to overwhelm “with flowers” the most skeptical,...
After comings and goings. After "realistic" speeches. And faced with a scenario of conflict in Iran that does not seem to be approaching a cessation of hostilities, the European leaders seem to converge towards a common point. The open war is not that of the Europeans, so they should not...
Intentions are one thing. Real conclusions, another. In Brussels, the former abound more. Something seemed to change until the start of the war in Iran, when the twenty-seven European leaders returned to their capitals after an informal meeting in February with a shared idea: to find the recipe for the...
For years, in Brussels, a mantra was repeated: “renewables, renewables, renewables”. And yes: renewables are essential. But this week the president of the European Commission herself, Ursula von der Leyen, has verbalized something that many citizens, technicians, and companies have been warning about for a long time: turning its back...
The Twenty-Seven had committed themselves to finding their own "economic miracle" during a summit scheduled for Saint Joseph's Day. A meeting intended to debate the bloc's economic strategy and try to regain leadership and competitiveness in those industrial sectors in which the European Union is starting to fall behind compared...
Brussels is making a 360-degree turn in its energy agenda. In a letter sent this Monday to the twenty-seven heads of Government of the European Union, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has advocated avoiding the “premature closure of assets such as existing nuclear power plants...
When Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, spoke of the “kick in the ass” that the United States would have given to Europe, in Brussels many experienced an uncomfortable mix of relief and recognition. Finally someone was saying aloud what for years had been whispered in carpeted hallways:...
The Chinese company ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, is building one of the world's most powerful artificial intelligence infrastructures outside its country of origin -and outside U.S. export controls-. As reported this Thursday by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the project, the company is working with the...
“We are preparing different options. The possibility of subsidizing or limiting the price of gas”, acknowledged this Tuesday the leader of the community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, when analyzing the measures that Brussels is studying to avoid an energy shock due to the war in the Middle East. Far...
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, now assures that the European Union maintains firm its commitments to the “search for peace, with the principles of the UN Charter and with international law”. The top leader says that these principles are as central as they were during...
A maximum limiting factor that applies to the community policy, and that day by day is deployed by the European Commission. When there are differences between departments, it translates into delays in the processing of legislative files or in the cancellation of commissioners' press conferences. However, in the last 24...
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has urged to open a deep debate on possible reforms in the way the European Union responds to international conflicts. She did so during the annual meeting of the community diplomatic corps, a key gathering to define the strategic priorities...