CEPS in focus

The Italy v ICC row exposes deep-rooted hypocrisy in EU migration policy By Davide Colombi The Italian government’s recent refusal to comply with an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant exposes deep-rooted hypocrisy in EU migration policy. While claiming to fight ‘human trafficking’, the Italian government has shielded a high-ranking Libyan official accused of crimes against humanity...

Europe’s hidden AI champions are vital in its quest to becoming a global tech leader By Robert Praas and Pierre-Alexandre Balland Zooming out from the buzz around DeepSeek, it’s clear the AI game is rapidly changing. The usual big tech players no longer have the playing field to themselves. During the last few weeks, a wave of impressive, mostly open-source AI models have hit the scene, many creat...

Europe is taking a pragmatic approach to Syria. Its origins lie in Kabul By Loqman Radpey Europe’s engagement with the new Syrian leadership has been notably swift, yet it still refuses to recognise the Taliban. On 19 December 2024, the European Council issued guidelines for recognising Syria’s transitional government, tying it to respect for ‘human rights, including women’s rights, non-sectarian...

Get over the DeepSeek Panic – it might actually be a good thing By Robert Praas and Pierre-Alexandre Balland The release of the freely available and surprisingly capable language model DeepSeek R-1 shocked the world, made it question the growing demand for computer chips and led the mighty NASDAQ to dive on Monday. Here’s a Chinese open-source project matching OpenAI’s capabilities – something we...

The EU must stay on course and be much more assertive, both at home and abroad By Karel Lannoo The EU should stick to its course, pursue the Green Deal and complete the single market. It needs to demonstrate its resolve and act united as a new – potentially hostile – US administration rolls in and shakes up the foundations of transatlantic cooperation and the world order. But it must also stand fi...

Stargate and the fight for AI supremacy – this is Europe’s wake-up call By Andrea Renda and Pierre-Alexandre Balland The announcement of the USD 500 billion US Stargate Project marks a bold leap into the future for AI. Announced with great fanfare at the White House by President Trump, flanked by the CEOs of OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle, the initiative aims to build the most advanced AI infrastruct...

These are the necessary conditions to get European boots on the ground in Ukraine By Steven Blockmans Since the US Presidential election there’s been a debate in Europe over a possible ceasefire agreement and the security guarantees Ukraine needs to deter Russia from resuming hostilities. A European ground operation in Ukraine is a welcome idea but only if it can be backed up by the US. This means...

Why AI World is providing the key insights that are shaping the AI revolution By Andrea Renda and Pierre-Alexandre Balland We live in a complex world, rich with data and insights, where finding our way is becoming increasingly challenging. As Herbert Simon wrote back in the 1950s, ‘a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention’. And when there’s a dearth of attention, knowing where to loo...

Yes, COP29 was too little, too late. But it’s a reality we must accept – at least for now By Irina Kustova, Christian Dietz and Renske van Hoof COP29 left many disappointed, seen by many as a choice between failure and disaster. Fair criticism but the Paris Agreement is still delivering as it was designed to do – namely a bottom-up, consensus-driven framework. While COP29 was mainly seen as a step...

All chill, no grill – and other key takeaways from the 2024 Commission confirmation hearings By Sophia Russack The European Parliament (EP) hearings for the new Commissioners are now over. After some last-minute drama and a little delay, the EP has greenlit all candidates – for the first time in 20 years. In theory, the confirmation hearings are a great instrument for scrutinising the incoming Com...

Trump’s back – now the EU must step up its game By J. Scott Marcus The Free World that we knew has been transformed overnight and now we in the EU must deal with the world as it is. That the United States has decisively chosen to be led by a man who is a convicted felon, who lies far more often than he tells the truth and who tried to steal the 2020 election by violent means – these might be issue...

From a Capital Markets Union towards a robust Savings and Investment Union By Karel Lannoo, Jesper Berg and Apostolos Thomadakis Sustaining the current progress towards a Capital Markets Union (CMU) requires both strong political commitment and high prioritisation. While integration is often cited as a key objective, the more fundamental issue for EU capital markets is their limited depth rather t...

The cordon sanitaire is quietly fraying in the European Parliament By Sophia Russack While in some EU Member States, there is still a firewall against the far right, at the European level, cooperation between conservatives and the far right is taking place without much fuss. This is already apparent in the way the hearings of the designated Commissioners are being organised in the European Parliam...

Did we just witness Georgia go from dream to nightmare? By Tinatin Akhvlediani On 26 October, Georgians went to the polls in a critical parliamentary election that President Salome Zourabichvili described as a referendum on the country’s European future. It is a future that Georgians have fervently supported through countless rallies and protests in recent years against the pro-Kremlin drift of th...

The new European Commission must deliver for Europe’s future – but excessively emphasising ‘competitiveness’ could hinder this By Karel Lannoo Tackling Europe’s economic decline, preparing and adapting for a new wave of enlargement and defending Europe’s geopolitical position… the new European Commission will definitely need to deliver. The past five years have shown that it can prepare and react...

Following July’s CrowdStrike outage, this is how we can avoid the next ‘Blue Friday’ By Lorenzo Pupillo On 19 July, the world experienced ‘Blue Friday’ when 8.5 million PC screens worldwide were hit by the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), a critical error message displayed by Microsoft Windows when the system encounters a serious issue that it cannot recover from. This unprecedented outage wa...

A war without end – must the EU remain a bystander in the Middle East? By James Moran With Israel on the warpath around the region, despite international efforts to shift the conflicts from the battlefield to the negotiation table, there are growing fears about the consequences for the wider world, including in the EU. Whether the US can rein in Israel’s military machine is an open question. The r...

A ‘nearly’ gender-balanced Commission isn’t good enough. It’s actually an ominous omen for advancing gender equality in the EU By Marta Dell’Aquila During these frantic days at the beginning of a new mandate, at a time when the new College of Commissioners is being formed, Ursula von der Leyen’s commitment to achieve full gender balance – shown as being important to her since the very beginning of...

Why we need to rewire Europe’s financial sector – to end fragmentation and bolster integration By Apostolos Thomadakis If Europe wants to stay ahead of the curve and be able to follow – and eventually lead – its international counterparts, the new European Commission should have a focused agenda that balances regulatory simplicity with forward-looking strategies. This is particularly the case in c...

The EU according to Draghi – as competitive as needed, as sustainable as possible By Andrea Renda Landing on Ursula von der Leyen’s desk just as she’s putting together the new College of Commissioners, the long-awaited report by Mario Draghi on ‘the future of European competitiveness’ totals almost 400 pages collaboratively drafted by two (invisible) teams in Brussels and Rome. Draghi‘s opus magnu...

Why it’s businesses (and not the European Commission) that need to ensure sustainable supply chains By Katharina Weber It’s the same old story – when push comes to shove, no one wants to pay, especially for sustainability. We want more sustainable practices, production and supply chains but there are few who are willing to actually open their wallets for such a cause. In the last few weeks several...

With the Harris-Trump battle in full swing, the EU must take the future of the transatlantic relationship into its own hands By Camille Ford and Dylan Macchiarini Crosson After last week’s Democratic National Convention (DNC), Europeans may start studying the polling data coming out of rural Pennsylvania or Michigan to gauge their fate. While recent polling suggests President Biden’s decision to p...

Venezuela’s election shows that technology can be democracy’s ally – and not only an enemy By Andrea Renda Digital technology is often accused of enabling surveillance and abuse. From China’s Big Brother social credit system to Silicon Valley’s surveillance capitalism, experts have warned of the enormous power that governments and large platforms can gain by controlling online content. Yet it woul...

How to future-proof NATO’s defence innovation and EDT strategy By Raluca Csernatoni Developing disruptive ways of warfare and advanced technological capabilities is a critical function for any military organisation, including NATO. Yet relying exclusively on technological superiority and novel technologies to sustain outdated ways of fighting has significant drawbacks. That is why understanding al...

Labour has moved first to reset the EU-UK relationship – Brussels needs to sit up and listen By Daniel Cassidy-Deketelaere Labour’s stonking general election victory on 4 July could raise hopes on both sides of the Channel that the UK may now seek to reverse at least some aspects of Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit. Alas, new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer won’t be clambering for closer (re)integratio...