Friendly reminder that the European Parliament lifted restrictions on MEPs, allowing them to meet Chinese officials again (the restrictions were introduced two years ago over human rights abuses in East Turkistan, a region which is referred to as Xinjiang by the Chinese regime). Maybe it’s time to correct this?

Donald should not mess up with Denmark. They may not have the cards, but they have the eggs. Think of the eggs …

Vance’s cousin fought in Ukraine, and he is openly criticizing the VP and the U.S. administration for its Ukraine stance. This is highly relevant for Ukraine and Europe.

Meanwhile, as Russian attacks on Ukraine killed dozens over the weekend and destroyed Ukrainian energy infrastructure after the U.S. pulled much of its support from Kyiv, Trump defended Putin’s ramped-up attacks on Friday, as per Democracy Now:

President Donald Trump: “I actually think he [Putin] is doing what anybody else would do. I think he’s — I think he wants to get it stopped and settled, and I think he’s hitting them harder than — than he’s been hitting them. And I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.

I intended to find a petition on this topic

Maybe this is close to what you are looking for?

Petition No 0729/2024 by N. W. (Austrian) on the implementation of an EU-Linux operating system in public administrations across all EU countries

You may be interested in the EU OS for the public sector, Proof-of-Concept for the deployment of a Fedora-based Linux operating system with a KDE Plasma desktop environment.

There is also the Open Source Strategy of Schleswig-Holstein, a northern German state, that has unveiled an ambitious plan to break free from proprietary software dependencies by ditching Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice.

I would say that it is absolutely irrelevant whether or not Putin agrees to anything, because he won’t stick to his word anyway.

I feel somehow this ‘news’ is more an opener to promote the petition at the end of the article than anything else. Not that I oppose a new tax regime for the ultra-rich individuals, but there is no sophisticated content here imho.

I am not a military expert, so that’s certainly a reason why I can’t follow everything in this article. The Bruegel analysis the Economist mentions, however, says:

From a macroeconomic perspective, the numbers are small enough for Europe to replace the US fully. Since February 2022, US military support to Ukraine has amounted to €64 billion, while Europe, including the United Kingdom, sent €62 billion. In 2024, US military support amounted to €20 billion out of a total of €42 billion. To replace the US, the EU would thus have to spend only another 0.12 percent of its GDP – a feasible amount […]

A significantly more challenging scenario for Europe would be an unlikely peace deal accepted by Ukraine. In such a scenario, Russia is likely to continue its military build-up, creating a formidable military challenge to all of the EU in a very short period, given current Russian production. The EU and allies including the UK and Norway would need to accelerate their military build-ups immediately and massively […]

It also says:

A Russian attack on a European Union country is thus conceivable. Assessments by NATO, Germany, Poland, Denmark and the Baltic states put Russia as ready to attack within three to ten years 4 . It could be sooner […]

Europe’s first priority is to continue supporting Ukraine – Ukraine’s experienced military is currently the most effective deterrent against a Russian attack on the EU. If Ukraine decides that a US-Russian deal to end the war is unacceptable – because Putin’s peace guarantees are not credible, for example – Europe is capable of providing additional weapons to Ukraine to ensure its fighting capacities remain as they are currently. Ukraine and the EU rely on some critical US strategic enablers, including intelligence and satellite communications. These are difficult to replace in the short term but there are substitutes if necessary […]

Rapidly generating such increases [in military equipment and production] requires an extraordinary effort, though experience [in Eruope] shows market economies can do it […]

Bruegel says -unsurprisingly- that Europe must significantly increase its defense spending, and also makes suggestions how this could be done best (amongst others, by replacing the US military-industrial base). Overall it provides a different picture than the Economist imho.