Threads
Threads
Stories unfolding over time
Track the most important long-running topics: current state, chronicle of events, history of framing.
Recently updated
The war in Ukraine and its limits
The war in Ukraine remains a protracted conflict defined by positional warfare, but it is increasingly framed by Western leaders as the initial stage of a longer-term strategic confrontation with Russia, necessitating accelerated military preparedness and institutionalized, multi-year support for Kyiv.
Updated 26m ago
The ageing Union's economy
Europe's economic competitiveness is under pressure from low productivity, weak investment, demographic decline, and the cost of the green transition, with the Draghi and Letta reports framing the debate on whether the EU can keep pace with the US and China.
Updated 1h ago
China and the West: decoupling
The strategic de-risking of Western economies from China has escalated into a reciprocal regulatory conflict, where China's new legal countermeasures directly target corporate compliance with Western policies, forcing a more complex and adversarial reassessment of economic dependencies.
Updated 4h ago
Brussels vs capitals: EU integration
Sovereignty within the European Union is not static; it is continuously contested and renegotiated through legal rulings, treaty interpretations, and political crises, with competences shifting between Brussels and national capitals.
Updated 4h ago
The US under Trump: second term
US foreign policy under the Trump administration is shifting decisively from multilateralism toward a doctrine of transactional bilateral bargaining, placing significant pressure on established alliances, trade relationships, and global institutions.
Updated 5h ago·Update
AI: capabilities, regulation, labour
Models are learning faster than the institutions behind them can adapt. The thread tracks frontier-model capability jumps, the AI Act and its enforcement, labour-market impact, and infrastructure (chips, energy, water).
Updated 5h ago
European Union
The EU faces simultaneous battles over its constitutional future, climate implementation costs, and economic competitiveness, while populist parties gain governing influence in national parliaments.
Brussels vs capitals: EU integration
Sovereignty within the European Union is not static; it is continuously contested and renegotiated through legal rulings, treaty interpretations, and political crises, with competences shifting between Brussels and national capitals.
Updated 4h ago
The Green Deal under revision
The EU's climate agenda has formally pivoted from legislative expansion to a phase of implementation, simplification, and competitiveness-driven recalibration, marking a strategic retreat from new regulatory ambition.
Updated 10h ago
The ageing Union's economy
Europe's economic competitiveness is under pressure from low productivity, weak investment, demographic decline, and the cost of the green transition, with the Draghi and Letta reports framing the debate on whether the EU can keep pace with the US and China.
Updated 1h ago
European democracies and populism
Populist and anti-liberal political forces are gaining institutional ground within the European Union, testing and at times reshaping the boundaries of liberal democracy through electoral victories, legal challenges, and conflicts with EU frameworks.
Updated 10h ago·Update
World
The OECD ties global finance to Hormuz stability, EU and China create a corporate compliance trap, Washington's bilateral doctrine enters legal structures, and Western capitals institutionalize support for Kyiv against Russia's attrition.
China and the West: decoupling
The strategic de-risking of Western economies from China has escalated into a reciprocal regulatory conflict, where China's new legal countermeasures directly target corporate compliance with Western policies, forcing a more complex and adversarial reassessment of economic dependencies.
Updated 4h ago
The war in Ukraine and its limits
The war in Ukraine remains a protracted conflict defined by positional warfare, but it is increasingly framed by Western leaders as the initial stage of a longer-term strategic confrontation with Russia, necessitating accelerated military preparedness and institutionalized, multi-year support for Kyiv.
Updated 26m ago
The Middle East after Gaza
The Gaza war has accelerated a fundamental realignment of Middle Eastern power, shifting influence from traditional centers like Egypt and Syria towards the Gulf states, while simultaneously forcing regional and European powers to negotiate a new, post-conflict security architecture for critical chokepoints and alliances.
Updated 9h ago
The US under Trump: second term
US foreign policy under the Trump administration is shifting decisively from multilateralism toward a doctrine of transactional bilateral bargaining, placing significant pressure on established alliances, trade relationships, and global institutions.
Updated 5h ago·Update
Other
The EU's new regulatory frameworks for AI, migration, and climate adaptation face immediate stress tests from accelerating technological capabilities, national political resistance, and escalating environmental crises.
Demography and migration
An ageing Europe faces a structural need for labour immigration to sustain its economy and welfare systems, yet political sentiment across member states remains deeply sceptical, creating a persistent and widening policy gap.
Updated 14h ago
AI: capabilities, regulation, labour
Models are learning faster than the institutions behind them can adapt. The thread tracks frontier-model capability jumps, the AI Act and its enforcement, labour-market impact, and infrastructure (chips, energy, water).
Updated 5h ago
Climate: from mitigation to adaptation
The world has crossed the 1.5°C warming threshold, forcing a pivotal narrative shift from solely preventing climate change to urgently adapting to its irreversible impacts, with the EU grappling to implement coherent policies amid escalating crises.
Updated 6h ago·Update
Culture, media and the new divides
The European information ecosystem is under strain from collapsing traditional media business models, algorithmic-driven polarisation, and the unchecked rise of AI-generated content, while regulators scramble to impose order and courts grapple with defining new boundaries for speech and accountability.
Updated 5h ago
