Nicolai von Ondarza
Political scientist with a passion for EU affairs, Geek with a passion for technology. Head of Europe Division at @SWP-Berlin.org. Associate Fellow @chathamhouse.bsky.social Europe Programme. All views are personal. Journey before Destination.
- Starting to wonder about the EU dimension of this. Mandelson was EU trade commissioner - one of the most important EU portfolio - in 2004 to 2008 after all.
- EU angle is starting to come in. This is Mandelson informing Epstein about the €500bn rescue fund negotiated for Greece in May 2010. If I understand the timing correctly, this is while the emergency EU Council was still going on.
- For those not remembering, the decision to set up the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM, precursor to the ESM) needed to be decided on Sunday late into early Monday morning, before the markets would open. Prior knowledge would have been extremely valuable.
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View full threadBut it is not just Nigel Farage, here from an Irish MEP:
- Was travelling all day, and it looks like another day full of revolts in UK politics, where Starmer has backed down vis-a-vis parliament - and seems further weakened.
- Starmer backs down, and accepts parliament's ISC will play role in pre-release Mandelson files vetting - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
- EU member states have found the agreement on the Ukraine loan facility, of which €60bn will be earmarked for defence. Outside of important support for Ukraine, this will also have an EU-UK dimension, as this money should be spent on weapons from the EU, EEA or Ukraine.
- However, the new agreement includes two derogations - first, for countries with an agreement to participate in SAFE, but here the EU-UK negotiations famously failed. This would exclude the UK, but the argument was that this is ofc EU tax payers money spent on EU defence industry.
- There is now, however, a second derogation for countries with an EU security and defence partnership (which the UK), militarily support Ukraine (as the UK does) and that participate in the funding of the loan:
- My understanding is that this is basically an offer to the UK - your defence industry can benefit if you chip into the borrowing costs of the loan. A difficult but fair offer that opens another dimension in EU-UK negotiations.
- Splits at the national level often also lead to split offs at the EU level - here with Noe former League MEP being thrown out of the self styled 'Patriots for Europe'.
- Brexit, in my view, remains a lose-lose exercise, where the best both sides can do is damage limitation and rework the relationship. Not sure it is wise politically for Labour to try to own it by claiming they are doing a "proper Brexit".
- This poll really shows how different security perceptions in the EU can be - where defence is the lowest priority in Ireland, with the threat from Russia still (marginally) below Israel/Gaza:
- Remember that in 2018, Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party were still part of the centre-right EPP and continued to be so until 2021:
- Might be my personal bias, but the call for a 'Team Canada' approach, linked to external trade agreements and the aim for reducing internal trade barriers, sounds eerily similar tovon der Leyen's rhetoric of 'Team Europe', the EU's extension of free trade agreements and completing the single market.
- European governments are trying to step up their meme. This was posted by German foreign minister @aussenminister.diplo.de on Tiktok and Instagram. Though not sure mixing E3 (with Keir Starmer) and lots of EU symbolism was entirely thought through. For sure 🇪🇺
- I seem to have missed the memo about European diplomatic services embracing the meme-fication of international diplomacy. Here we have an official French Foreign Policy account reposting their German meme-counterparts, evoking social media mutual defence (from both EU and NATO). Brave new world.
- Note that von der Leyen uses the same language for Ukraine and the countries of th Western Balkans - being part of the European family. [I cannot recall her using that language in regards to the UK, though]
