The problem of the veto in the European Union’s foreign and security policy is not a technical inconvenience, nor a mere procedural anomaly, but a structural and constitutional dilemma that goes to the heart of the Union’s capacity to act. What was originally conceived as a protective safeguard, intended to ensure that no Member State would be forced into decisions touching
Continue reading The blackmail of the veto: when EU decision-making is traded for EU resources

The report by Professor Rory Cormac and Dr Dan Lomas (Evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, February 2025) argues that disinformation has become a central tool of modern statecraft aimed less at persuading audiences of a coherent alternative worldview and more at corroding trust, amplifying doubt, and paralysing democratic decision-making.  The authors frame disinformation as
Continue reading Disinformation as modern statecraft: how democracies can Resist the politics of doubt

The European Union has taken a significant step toward a more coherent and security-focused approach to foreign direct investment. The Council presidency and the European Parliament have reached a provisional political agreement to revise the EU’s FDI screening regulation, updating the framework first introduced in 2020. The goal is simple but strategically crucial: to identify, assess and mitigate
Continue reading Strengthening Europe’s FDI screening: why the new political agreement matters

Deterrence is a concept that refers to the ability to prevent an action through the threat of negative consequences. This mechanism appears in several contexts, including international politics, psychology, economics, and social behavior, to influence the choices of individuals or groups. The main goal of deterrence is to encourage a different decision from the one that might be taken in the
Continue reading On deterrence

Generative AI is not only a new tool in the digital toolbox. Generative AI is a turning point in how societies think, create, and organise knowledge. This technology opens an extraordinary opportunity to amplify human potential, to free time and attention for higher-order thinking, and to explore creative territories that were previously out of reach
Continue reading Generative AI is not just about technology

The European Union’s economic debate has been dominated for years by concerns over productivity gaps, the incomplete Single Market, and the pace of innovation. Yet a new hierarchy of priorities is emerging. According to the European Parliament’s recent study Strategic Autonomy and European Competitiveness: Security Now Comes First (EGOV, European Parliament, December 2025), the EU can no
Continue reading Security before competitiveness: why the EU’s strategic autonomy agenda has entered a new phase

According to a recent briefing from the European Parliamentary Research Service, the European Commission is preparing a major new legislative initiative: the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA). This upcoming act is expected to become a central pillar of the EU’s broader strategy to strengthen its technological sovereignty and close the growing gap with other global
Continue reading The EU prepares a Cloud and AI Development Act: strengthening digital sovereignty

U.S. national security planning rests on a layered ecosystem of strategic documents. Each plays a distinct role, yet all interact to guide decisions on defense, diplomacy, intelligence, and technological power. The structure resembles a cascading hierarchy: the White House defines the overarching worldview; the Pentagon translates it into military posture; and specialized reviews refine doctrine
Continue reading The Architecture of American Strategy: a tight comparative snapshot

The European Commission’s €120 million fine against X on December 5, 2025 is best read as a design-and-transparency case, not as a content-removal or “censorship” crusade. The Commission framed this as the first non-compliance decision under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and grounded it in three technical breaches: a deceptive “blue checkmark” architecture, an inadequate ads repository, and obstacles
Continue reading The EU’s €120 Million DSA fine against X isn’t about censorship it’s about deceptive design and transparency

Recent statements by the Trump administration on NATO and collective defense function less as a direct assault on Europe and more as a strategic “wake-up call” exposing the continent’s deep unpreparedness and structural vulnerabilities. These remarks can be interpreted in two ways: as an expression of outright hostility toward a Europe viewed as a rival,
Continue reading The Trump Administration’s statements and their implications for European defense

The European Union has just released an important new blueprint for safeguarding its economic future. The document, Strengthening EU Economic Security, marks a decisive shift in how Brussels thinks about global competition, geopolitical pressure, and the vulnerabilities that come with deep economic interdependence. It builds on the 2023 European Economic Security Strategy but pushes the Union
Continue reading What the EU’s “Strengthening EU Economic Security” really means

The European Commission proposed to provide a €140 billion loan to Ukraine, backed by frozen Russian-state assets held in Europe (mostly with Euroclear). The idea was that those frozen assets, already immobilized since Russia’s 2022 invasion, could serve as collateral, enabling the EU to channel much-needed financial support to Kyiv without forcing EU taxpayers alone
Continue reading Why the ECB rejected the €140 billion “reparations loan” for Ukraine and why it matters

The war in Ukraine has forced Europe to face a blunt fact: European security still rests heavily on the United States. For decades, the American umbrella allowed European governments to postpone tough decisions on defense. Now, with war on its borders and a harsher geopolitical environment, Europe must ask whether it can act on its
Continue reading European Strategic Autonomy: between dependence and long-term emancipation

On November 19, 2025, the Dutch government decided to suspend its emergency control over Nexperia, stepping back from the company seizure it had ordered on September 30. The decision was framed as a gesture of de-escalation following “constructive talks” with China and the gradual easing of Chinese export controls on Nexperia’s chips. However, this suspension
Continue reading From seizure to stalemate: What the Dutch “climb-down” on Nexperia really tells us

Dark academia: The corporate university Is dying Peter Fleming’s book, Dark Academia: How Universities Die, offers a devastating exposé of the assault waged by neoliberalism on higher education, transforming universities from a crucial public good into an “adjunct of sordid market forces”. The argument posits that modern universities were already “gravely ill” long before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading Why Neoliberalism is turning our universities into “anxiety machines” (drawing on Peter Fleming’s dark academia).

Modern diplomacy no longer lives exclusively in the realm of treaties, communiqués, or quiet negotiations behind closed doors. It unfolds in the open spaces of public discourse, where states fight for attention, legitimacy, and narrative dominance. In this environment, the interview has become a battleground as much as a bridge: a space of encounter that
Continue reading When diplomacy meets journalism: the quiet struggle over narrative control

Overview The Documento Programmatico Pluriennale 2025?2027 (DPP) of the Ministero della Difesa of Italy presents a multiyear programme that goes beyond mere budgetary forecast or procurement plan: it signals a broad strategic posture for Italy’s defence and security apparatus. The document appears to pivot on a set of conceptual shifts: heightened awareness of persistent instability,
Continue reading A Long-Form Analysis of the” Documento Programmatico Pluriennale 2025?2027 (DPP)” of the Ministero della Difesa of Italy Objectives, Priorities, and Strategic Threads

The Financial Times recently reported that the European Commission has begun setting up a new intelligence coordination unit under President Ursula von der Leyen, in what could become one of the most politically sensitive moves of her second term. The new body—hosted within the Commission’s Secretariat-General—aims to improve how Brussels gathers and uses intelligence collected by national spy agencies (“The European
Continue reading Europe’s intelligence ambitions: Von der Leyen’s new unit and the quest for strategic autonomy

There is a need for policies that redefine the social covenant, and they are needed at multiple levels: national and international. Some concrete ideas. 1. Understand the type of shock: it is not only that “jobs are missing”, but that tasks are changing Recent economic research shows that AI tends to: Evidence from the ILO
Continue reading In the scenario of a “significant increase” in unemployment due to AI, it is not enough to tweak a couple of training courses and a few tax incentives.

How Russia learned from failure When Russian troops crossed into Ukraine in February 2022, many expected a swift victory—a demonstration of Moscow’s power and a humiliation for Kyiv. Within weeks, that illusion collapsed. The invasion turned into a series of humiliations for the Kremlin: broken logistics, mass desertions, and a military doctrine unprepared for modern,
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Japan is now pledging that part of its US bound $550 billion trade investment package could help finance a Taiwanese chipmaker, most likely TSMC, to build fabs in America. Why Japan is doing this • Hedging geopolitical risk With TSMC’s fabs concentrated in Taiwan and China’s increasing coercion in the Taiwan Strait, the US wants TSMC onshore. Japan wants
Continue reading Japan Funds TSMC’s U.S. Semiconductor Expansion

In the increasingly complex landscape of international law, strategic litigation has emerged as both a tool for individual justice and a catalyst for systemic change. The workshop “Strategic Litigation in International Law”, hosted by the University of Trento’s Faculty of Law on 27–28 November 2025, offers a unique opportunity to explore this practice through three central dimensions: concepts,
Continue reading Workshop “Strategic Litigation in International Law: Concepts, Actors, and Impact” – 27–28 November 2025 – Faculty of Law, University of Trento

The question sounds provocative, but it cuts straight into a real tension: international law presents itself as the law of a community of states, yet the system clearly bends around a handful of powerful players. If international law simply mirrored what those powers want, it would stop looking like law and start looking like a diplomatic
Continue reading Can international law really depend on just one state – the United States – or on a small triangle of great powers like the US, Russia and China?

In the traditional world of machine learning, data has always been the raw fuel. Corporations, research organisations and governments collect it, centralise it and feed it into models that learn to recognise patterns, predict outcomes and make decisions. But what if the data could stay where it is—on your phone, in a hospital, on a
Continue reading Federated Learning: the quiet revolution in machine intelligence

1.0 Introduction: the business and regulatory imperative for geolocation The enforcement of region-specific regulations and content policies is a primary operational challenge for global online services. These services must reliably determine a user’s geographical location to tailor content and ensure compliance, but must do so without resorting to intrusive methods like GPS or Wi-Fi scanning,
Continue reading IP address geolocation: mechanisms, applications, and limitations

1. Context and relevance The ferry MS Estonia sank on 28 September 1994 in the Baltic Sea, with approximately 852 casualties.  The States of Estonia, Finland and Sweden signed on 23 February 1995 the “Agreement regarding the MS Estonia” which designates the wreck as a “final place of rest” and prohibits diving or salvage activities that
Continue reading Safeguarding maritime graves in the Baltic sea: legal challenges and state duties regarding the MS Estonia wreck under international law

On 23 October 2025, the European Commission announced the adoption of the EU’s 19th sanctions package against Russia, significantly intensifying pressure on its war economy. European Commission Key measures include: This package marks a major escalation in the EU’s sanctions regime, expanding the scope far beyond previous energy and finance-measures, and aiming to close existing loopholes and tighten
Continue reading The adoption of the EU’s 19th sanctions package against Russia, significantly intensifying pressure on its war economy. 

The Declaration of the Semicon Coalition marks a decisive moment in Europe’s ongoing effort to consolidate technological sovereignty within the global semiconductor ecosystem. Signed in Brussels on 29 September 2025 by ministers from twenty-seven Member States, the document calls for a “revised and forward-looking EU Chips Act”—a legal and strategic recalibration of the Union’s approach to a sector
Continue reading The Semicon coalition and the legal imperative for a reinforced EU Chips Act