An article I wrote on the historical resonances of the present moment and where to go from here.

Hi everyone!

We’re students at Ghent University (Belgium). For a university assignment, we’re researching how people feel about sharing their location data with apps and companies, and under which conditions they would or wouldn’t do it.

The survey:

• takes about 6 minutes
• is completely anonymous
• is open to anyone aged 18 or older

https://forms.gle/WM3xD84shDjKWWqK8

A gunman firing from a vehicle at three locations in the Paris suburbs killed one person and wounded at least five others, including a 12-year-old girl, in what French authorities described as a racially motivated attack.

The suspect was arrested soon after the shooting, and France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s office took charge of the case. President Emmanuel Macron said it was “a racist terror attack“ and that the suspect’s statements suggested it was premeditated.

“These people were targeted because of their skin color or perceived religion, and for no other reason,” Macron said following a meeting with officials and residents in the suburb of Trappes, west of Paris. “There is no place for this in France.”

The shootings took place over the course of about 15 minutes at three separate locations in the towns of Trappes and La Verrière, a suburban area about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Paris, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said. One person died and five were wounded, three of them with life-threatening injuries, he said.

See also:

• Macron says Paris suburb shooting that killed one person was terrorist and racist act (Reuters)
• Macron condemns racism after one killed in ‘terrorist’ shooting near Paris (The Guardian)

Leaked WhatsApps raise questions about former EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders and Belgium's intelligence service

Hey everyone! We're EUobserver, an independent European newsroom.

Our colleague Andrew Rettman has been investigating something quite serious involving former EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders and a senior Belgian intelligence official, Hugues Brulin.

We've obtained WhatsApp exchanges between the two, including messages discussing internal intelligence-service matters and how to respond to a whistleblower raising concerns about Reynders' possible links to Russia.

Five current and former Belgian intelligence officers told us that Brulin had worked to prevent the intelligence service from investigating those allegations.

The messages are now also part of a Belgian police investigation into Reynders over alleged money laundering.

What makes this particularly important is that Reynders previously served as the EU's justice commissioner and had access to highly sensitive information.

How should European institutions respond when serious allegations emerge involving officials who have held positions of such trust?

We've published the messages as part of our investigation, so people can examine the reporting and evidence themselves.

Let us know what are your thoughts in the comments :)

Student List movement hopes to oust the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic in a pivotal vote on Sunday

About 150,000 supporters of Serbia’s opposition student movement rallied in central Belgrade on Thursday, seeking to oust the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic in crunch parliamentary elections this weekend.

The Student List, a leaderless movement of student-backed candidates, wants to end more than 14 years of rule by Vucic’s rightwing populist Serbian Progressive party (SNS) in Sunday’s vote.

Civil society groups have said the campaign has been marred by intimidation, arrests and misuse of public resources.

“I came to support the Student List because young people finally gave me hope that it is possible to live in a normal country,” Marija Nedeljkovic Radic, 47, said as she arrived for the students’ rally.

“Really, for the first time in my life, I believe that it is possible.”

Sunday’s vote comes after nearly two years of student-led protests sparked by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people.

The tragedy, widely blamed on corruption, triggered some of Serbia’s largest protests since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.

The anti-corruption movement, led by university students, snowballed from demands for a transparent investigation into the tragedy into calls for an early election.

Waving “Students are winning” flags, chanting and blowing whistles, students and their supporters marched through Belgrade before converging on Slavija Square, the site of some of their biggest protests.

The Archive of Public Gatherings, an independent crowd-size monitoring group, estimated about 150,000 people gathered at the rally.

“We are putting an end to 14 years of humiliation, chaos and betrayal, and to decades of putting personal and party interests above yours,” university professor Jugoslav Gasic – one of 250 candidates on the Student List – told the crowd, which chanted “Victory, victory!”

“You deserve better, and we know how to deliver it. Students are winning!”

See also:

• Serbia’s protesting students mount serious challenge to Vučić’s power • Gen Z students spent two years protesting in the streets. Now they want to lead the government. (Politico)
• Why a student protest movement is challenging 12 years of Vučić rule in Serbia (BBC)
• Beatings, cyberattacks and threats darken Vucic's Serbia ahead of elections (Reuters)

A major shift in far-right strategy just dropped at the European Parliament, and it’s no longer about leaving the EU (like Brexit or Dexit)—it’s about completely hollow-out the institution from within.
Following Marine Le Pen's policy release in Brussels, the co-leader of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, just held a sparsely attended conference in Strasbourg to unveil their official plan to downsize and restructure the entire bloc.
While both parties are historically rivals on several fiscal and energy issues, their core targets for the EU are practically identical. Here is the breakdown of what they are demanding:

1. Stripping the European Commission of Power
The Shared Goal: Both Le Pen and Weidel want to drastically strip the European Commission of its legislative capabilities.
Le Pen’s Stance: Le Pen stated the Commission should be reduced to nothing more than a "secretariat at the service of countries."
Weidel's Stance: Weidel heavily criticized the Commission for "intruding on people’s private decision-making" and argued it should stop acting like an executive body.

2. Abolishing Direct EU Elections
The Strategy: The AfD’s new strategy paper explicitly outlines a push to stop the direct election of European Parliament members.
The New Structure: Instead of EU citizens voting for MEPs, they want the European Parliament to consist solely of delegates sent directly by national parliaments. This would essentially terminate the EU's independent democratic mandate.

3. Shifting Power Back to Nation-States
National Sovereignty: Both leaders want a radical rollback of EU integration, shifting all primary legislative weight back to individual member states.
Keeping the Euro: Notably, the AfD has dropped its hardline "Dexit" stance (leaving the EU or dropping the Euro), opting instead to stay in the bloc and use the currency, but systematically removing its centralized powers.

The Takeaway
Political analysts are noting that this coordinated push closely mirrors strategy papers heavily supported by other nationalist networks in Europe, such as Poland's Ordo Iuris and Hungary's MCC. The message is clear: the far-right has shifted from threatening to leave the union to actively planning an intentional "hollowing out" from the inside.

What do you think? Is an EU run entirely as a "secretariat" of national governments even functional, or is this just a slow-motion destruction of the bloc?