Last week, the European Commission published the KIDS Act, the most ambitious piece of child safety regulation the EU has produced to date. It introduces a minimum age of 15 for most social media accounts and bans “addictive design” features that keep young users scrolling. But while this “social media ban” has grabbed many a headline, the KIDS Act sets out a political vision for a childproofed digital world – in which […]
Elections for three state parliaments will be held across AfD heartlands – Keeping the AfD out of government will require difficult coalitions Three state elections will take place in September: Saxony-Anhalt on the 6th, followed by Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the 20th. Apart from Berlin, the AfD is leading the polls by a wide […]
There is much to like in the European Commission’s ambitions for the Digital Networks Act (DNA). The EU needs more investment in connectivity, a deeper Single Market and simpler, more predictable rules. But the EU’s regulators have offered a clear warning: simplification on paper does not necessarily mean simpler, or indeed better, regulation in practice. […]
After years of discussion about the need for deeper capital markets and a stronger Single Market in financial services, the debate in Brussels is beginning to shift from why reform is needed to how quickly it can be delivered. Geopolitical tensions, weaker growth and intensifying global competition have transformed financial services into a strategic policy priority. The […]
Climate policy becomes industrial policy The Commission's publications are framed less as conventional climate measures than as a response to competitiveness, energy security, and the political cost of Europe's continued dependence on imported fossil fuels. The Middle East conflict earlier this year added more than €50 billion to the EU's fossil fuel import bill. Energy prices remain a structural drag […]
A decade on from the Brexit referendum, after years of recrimination and hard negotiation, the politics around the UK-EU relationship are shifting. The UK Labour government is increasingly framing closer cooperation with the EU as in the UK’s economic and strategic interest, softening some of the political red lines around reintegration - including the recent reported proposal for much deeper alignment on goods trade. The issue has also become more prominent […]
What changed on 30 April 2026? The draft merger guidelines consolidate the 2004 horizontal and 2008 non-horizontal guidelines into a single text and reframe EU merger control as a tool that should contribute to the EU’s wider competitiveness agenda. They are not new legislation – they explain how the Commission interprets and applies the existing […]
Control over AI becomes existential for European leaders European tech sovereignty agendas are moving rapidly from political rhetoric to concrete policy, with AI at its centre. Governments increasingly view AI not only as a driver of productivity and economic growth, but also as a strategic capability linked to national security. This, in turn, drives their concerns about Europe’s reliance on foreign providers across the AI stack – from advanced semiconductors and compute capacity to frontier […]
A government under pressure to deliver reforms One year after taking office, the German government - once called “Doomed to succeed” - faces a markedly more difficult domestic and international environment than anticipated. Economic conditions have worsened, political fragmentation has intensified, and current polling suggests that the coalition would no longer command a majority if elections were held today. The federal government has fallen […]
The EU’s new payments framework is edging closer to the finish line, at least at the level of primary legislation (Level 1), with the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD3) and the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR). With the latest confirmation of the compromise texts on both proposals, policymakers are signalling that the long legislative marathon […]
Six policy trends shaping Europe’s quantum industry For decades, the quantum sector has been the preserve of physicists and research laboratories. Today, quantum is squarely on the European political agenda. In his influential report on the future of European competitiveness, Mario Draghi noted that the quantum sector could contribute up to €850 billion to the […]
The EU has spent decades building and trying to complete a Single Market, yet fragmentation persists. Confronted with a patchwork of national legislation and varying administrative processes, European startups are at a systemic competitive disadvantage. The absence of a single, recognisable EU-wide company form has long been one of the missing foundations in Europe’s ability […]
