Rethinking EU Sin Taxes: The Need for an Evidence-Based Debate
By Jack Berry
Across the EU, governmental bodies and European Union institutions are increasingly implementing taxes and regulations to influence individual behaviour. Excise policy has...
Germany Is No Longer Willing to Follow the Brussels Consensus
By former Dutch diplomat Johannes Vervloed
Germany is increasingly charting its own course in defence, energy and the economy: rearmament, a weakened climate policy and growing...
The Digital Euro Reveals the Foundations of a Surveillance Society
By Dutch MEP Auke Zijlstra
According to the Commission and the Council, the digital euro is a payment system with both an offline and an online...
A Celtic Tiger agenda for Ireland’s EU presidency
By Adam Bartha, Director of EPICENTER, the network of leading European free-market think tanks.
On 1st July, Ireland took over the rotating presidency of the Council of...
Did Iceland Close a Secret Deal with the Brussels Bureaucrats?
By Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson. Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland
Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur K. Gunnarsdóttir is seeking a referendum on Iceland’s membership of...
EU Joins US-Led Pax Silica Initiative
The European Union, along with the Netherlands, Germany, and Greece, has joined the US-initiated “Pax Silica” pact, an alliance aimed at strengthening secure supply...
Don’t Count Uncle Sam Out
By Belgian MEP Johan Van Overtveldt (Belgian Finance Minister between 2014 and 2018, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Budget Committee). He is the author of...
The Digital Euro Risks Undermining Europe’s Payment Ecosystem
By Dutch MEP Auke Zijlstra
Today, the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee approved the digital euro.
The European Parliament had a unique opportunity to...
Is lawfare threatening transatlantic ties?
For a long time, left-leaning NGOs have been using the courts to advance their causes. In particular when it comes to migration and environmental...
The Memorandum of Misunderstanding
By former Dutch MP and MEP Derk Jan Eppink
The US and Iran are engaged in a ‘peace process’ that resembles a game of cat and...
EU fails to Find Common Ground on Tobacco Taxation
The revision of the directive on tobacco taxation (TED) saw mixed progress this month. The Committee of Economic Affairs of the European Parliament approved...
The Case for Abolishing the EU Emissions Trading System
By Professor Em. Samuel Furfari. Between 1982 and 2018, he was a senior official at the Energy Directorate-General of the European Commission, where he...
Why the EU Migration Pact Won’t Stop Europe’s Asylum Crisis
By Arnout Jaspers, a Dutch physicist and science journalist
Tomorrow, the EU Migration Pact enters into force – the new asylum and migration system which,...
Ten Years After Brexit: Will Europe’s Oldest Democracies Become Dependents of...
By Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Carl Baudenbacher, former President of the EFTA Court (2003-2017), Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, Baudenbacher Law AG
I.
Brexit,...
The EU’s NGO Lobby Machine Under Scrutiny
On 13 May, a right-wing majority in the European Parliament decided to extend by another six months a scrutiny committee investigating NGOs that receive...
The ETS: Climate Policy at Any Cost?
By Alessandro Petryshyn, policy analyst at the Warsaw Enterprise Institute
On 2 June 2026, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety organised...
The India–EU FTA: A New Framework for Strategic Trade Cooperation
By Dyuti Pandya and Vanika Sharma, analyst and economist at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)
India’s premier, Narendra Modi, has just finished a...
The Berlin Conference Must Not Empower Sudan’s Islamists
By Adam Starzynski, a journalist and foreign policy analyst specializing in military affairs and security issues
After three years of Sudan’s civil war, NGOs and the...
Associate Membership for Ukraine as an Admission of Deadlock
By Michael Thoma, a freelance journalist covering global political affairs, with a particular focus on European politics and international security
Friedrich Merz’s proposal for “associate...
While the WHO Spreads Misinformation, Consumers Fight Back
By Michael Landl, Director at the World Vapers’ Alliance.
Every year on 31 May, the WHO marks World No Tobacco Day. This year, the campaign targets nicotine...
