France’s schools are burning, police officers are being injured, barricades are appearing outside classrooms and teenagers are being drawn into confrontations that have travelled a very considerable distance from complaints about absent teachers and dilapidated buildings.

Hovering over this combustible mixture is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) insists that his movement neither controls nor directs France’s extraordinary wave of student protest. He has now explicitly advocated non-violent methods. That defence deserves to be recorded.

But it does not dispose of an uncomfortable political question: who benefits when legitimate teenage frustration is transformed into a wider revolt against the French state?

For Mélenchon, the answer is potentially obvious. The disturbances began with genuine grievances. Pupils complained about teacher shortages, overcrowding, poor facilities and the pressures of the French education system. The original protests in Créteil appear to have been spontaneous rather than the creation of a political party. That distinction matters. France’s teenagers should not collectively be caricatured as revolutionaries simply because some demonstrations subsequently descended into violence.

But what followed was something quite different. Schools were attacked and fires started. Cars were torched. Explosive fireworks and other projectiles were directed at police. By October 1st, Reuters reported hundreds of arrests and incidents of arson in several French cities. French intelligence agencies, according to a source close to the prime minister cited by Reuters, told a government crisis meeting that hard-left politicians had played a role in initiating the spreading protests. LFI emphatically denied the allegation.

That dispute should not obscure what is visible. LFI politicians have been remarkably eager to place themselves alongside the protesters. MPs Clémence Guetté and Louis Boyard appeared at the original Créteil mobilisation; Boyard turned his intervention into a TikTok video reportedly watched 1.5 million times. Other LFI representatives have similarly appeared around demonstrations. Le Monde describes the party as closely following protests and notes that this proximity simultaneously strengthens LFI’s relationship with young voters and leaves it associated with the movement when violence erupts.

Where Mélenchon’s political opportunism deserves scrutiny.

France is heading towards the 2027 presidential election. Younger voters are potentially one of Mélenchon’s greatest political assets, but also one of his greatest organisational problems: sympathy does not automatically become votes when younger citizens disproportionately abstain.

Recent polling reported by Le Monde put Mélenchon above 40 per cent among 18-to-24-year-olds in some presidential scenarios. LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard has openly acknowledged the opportunity, saying the movement has enormous room for growth among young people.

One hardly requires Machiavelli to understand the calculation. A generation of teenagers that believes itself ignored by government is politically interesting. A generation persuaded that it is being oppressed by government is considerably more useful.

The transformation is crucial. The original argument concerned teachers, classrooms and school buildings. The developing political narrative encompasses police violence, racism, inequality, Palestine, the far right and hostility towards the political establishment.

Mélenchon did not invent all these causes, nor is there evidence that he commands the young protesters like troops. But LFI understands political insurgency extremely well. Its political vocabulary depends upon conflict between ordinary citizens and an allegedly discredited establishment.

A spontaneous youth rebellion therefore offers almost perfect terrain. Mélenchon initially called upon supporters to “interpose” themselves against what he described as police savagery. Only as images of burning schools, vandalism and violent confrontation became increasingly politically toxic did he place greater emphasis upon non-violence, telling supporters that setting things on fire undermined their cause.

Perhaps that was sincere. But it also illustrates the danger of playing political games with youthful anger. It is relatively easy to tell teenagers that authority is their enemy, the far-left have sung this tune since the 1960’s. It is considerably harder, however, to regain control when confrontation develops its own momentum.

For years, public discussion of “political violence” has often been dominated by the threat from the extreme right. That threat is real and should never be minimised. Indeed, British Prevent statistics for the year ending September 2025 provide an important corrective to anyone claiming that extremism as a whole is overwhelmingly left-wing: 2,103 referrals concerned extreme-right ideology, compared with only 32 categorised as left-wing extremism.

But terrorism statistics and street politics are not the same thing. Europe also has a long-established tradition of violence emerging from anarchist, autonomist and revolutionary-left protest cultures: black-bloc tactics, attacks on police, destruction of property, arson and attempts to turn demonstrations into confrontations with the state. The current French disturbances make it legitimate to ask whether this form of political violence receives the same sustained political scrutiny as violence associated with the extreme right.

In Britain, too, claims of ideological double standards should be examined rather than assumed. Violence and intimidation occurring around demonstrations should be judged according to conduct, not according to whether those responsible march beneath banners fashionable on the Left or Right.

The correct principle is remarkably uncomplicated: political violence is political violence.

Throwing an explosive firework at a policeman does not become morally superior because the person throwing it considers himself anti-fascist. Burning a school does not become progressive because the person holding the match claims to oppose inequality. Intimidation does not become activism merely because its perpetrator believes his politics virtuous.

Nor, conversely, should peaceful demonstrators be branded extremists because violent individuals attach themselves to their cause.

This is a particularly important point in France because there is evidence that radical groups have attached themselves to genuine student grievances. Education Minister Édouard Geffray has distinguished protesting pupils from violent “ultra-left” elements. Former environment minister Delphine Batho, herself once a school-student union leader, has warned of the movement being taken over by the far left and urged pupils to preserve their independence.

Those pupils would do well to heed the warning. Their complaints may be legitimate. They have every democratic right to demonstrate. And allegations of disproportionate police violence must themselves be investigated: teenagers have suffered serious injuries and France has opened internal investigations into police actions.

Young people should ask themselves who is standing behind them — and why?

Mélenchon wants political change. He wants young voters mobilised. LFI wants to convert social discontent into an electoral force capable of reshaping France.

There is nothing inherently illegitimate about that ambition. Every political party attempts to convert public dissatisfaction into votes. The troubling point comes when politicians discover that confrontation itself is electorally useful.

The French government undoubtedly has incentives of its own to emphasise LFI involvement. By presenting the crisis primarily as an extremist public-order problem, ministers can divert attention from the failings in schools that produced the original demonstrations.

But that does not absolve Mélenchon. A responsible politician confronted by angry teenagers should attempt to reduce the temperature while addressing their grievances. An opportunist sees an emerging political constituency.

The danger for France is that its young people cease being participants in a legitimate argument about education and become raw material in somebody else’s struggle for power.

Once that happens, the classroom has ceased to be the issue, and barricades become the political objective.

Paris Attack: Europe Must Not Allow Ideological Violence to Become the New Normal

The European Commission has proposed new safeguards allowing voting rights and funding to be restricted if future EU members breach fundamental European rules after accession, as Brussels prepares for possible membership of Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and Montenegro.

The European Commission has set out a new framework for enlargement that would allow the European Union to impose restrictions on recently admitted countries for up to 15 years after accession if they retreat from commitments on democracy, the rule of law or other fundamental EU principles.

The measures form part of the Commission’s new pre-enlargement policy review, published on Tuesday, which examines how the EU’s institutions, budget and policies would have to change before another round of expansion. Brussels says the Union could accommodate additional members without rewriting its treaties, but would need stronger safeguards to prevent enlargement from making decision-making more difficult.

Under the proposals, accession treaties could contain an institutional safeguard allowing action against a new member that seriously breaches the values contained in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union or the principle of sincere cooperation. In the most serious cases, Council voting rights could be suspended.

The Commission’s public summary describes those arrangements as temporary, targeted and reversible. Reporting on the underlying proposal indicates that the enhanced safeguard could remain available during the first 15 years of membership.

The proposal addresses a problem that has moved steadily up the enlargement agenda: how to ensure that a country continues to meet membership conditions after it has entered the EU.

Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had already raised the issue earlier this year. As EU Today reported in June, the five governments called for mechanisms capable of restricting some rights of new members if democratic standards deteriorated after accession.

The Commission has now turned that political argument into a wider institutional proposal.

The change is particularly relevant to Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and Albania, which Brussels identifies as the four candidates currently furthest advanced. The Commission says it will prepare indicative roadmaps for each country provided reform momentum continues.

Ukraine and Moldova may also make further progress within days. EU Today reported earlier on Tuesday that two more negotiating clusters could potentially be opened next week if Ukraine’s parliament passes legislation dealing with minority-language education.

Alongside stronger rule-of-law safeguards, the Commission wants candidate states to be integrated gradually into parts of the EU before full membership. Energy, transport, digital policy and defence are among the sectors identified for deeper participation.

Brussels is also proposing greater use of qualified-majority voting during the accession process, including for decisions to open negotiating clusters. At present, individual governments can delay progress at several stages because unanimity is required.

Another proposed safeguard would require a newly admitted state, for a limited period, not to block subsequent enlargements because of bilateral disputes. The measure reflects long-standing difficulties in the Western Balkans, where disputes between neighbouring states have repeatedly entered accession negotiations.

Ukraine’s agricultural sector presents a separate challenge. The Commission says transitional arrangements could be used for agriculture, sensitive products, EU funding, the movement of workers and participation in common systems. Reporting on the package indicates that unrestricted access by Ukraine to existing Common Agricultural Policy support is unlikely immediately upon accession because of the scale of Ukrainian farming.

That question is politically important for existing agricultural beneficiaries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where Ukrainian grain and food imports have already caused disputes.

The institutional proposals do not guarantee membership for any candidate. Accession remains dependent on meeting the EU acquis, completing negotiations and obtaining the agreement of existing member states.

Nor has the 15-year safeguard yet become EU law. The Commission has asked the European Council and European Parliament to take forward discussions, and the eventual provisions would have to be reflected in future accession arrangements.

What has changed is the shape of the enlargement debate. Brussels is no longer concentrating solely on what candidate countries must do before joining. It is also designing mechanisms governing what happens after they enter.

For Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, that could produce a more credible path towards membership, but one accompanied by conditions extending well beyond accession itself.

This article is paid for by Council of the Notariats of the European Union (CNUE).

An address rented in a European capital, an electronic signature obtained online, a 48-hour waiting period.

Under the proposed regulation establishing a 28th company law regime, known as ‘EU Inc.’, this could be enough to establish a company with legal personality throughout the European Union.

No share capital would be required. The founder could complete the entire process without appearing, even digitally, before a public authority or another person entrusted with preventive legal control.

There would be no personal verification of their legal capacity, of whether they understand what they are signing, or of whether they are acting on behalf of someone who wishes to remain invisible.

The company could then open bank accounts, enter into contracts, own assets and employ people across the European Union. If the company later fails to meet its obligations, creditors and employees may find that there are no assets to recover and that the person formally responsible for it was acting merely as a front man. 

This scenario illustrates the serious concerns raised by the proposal for a Regulation on ‘EU Inc.’ put forward by the European Commission and currently being examined by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

The preventive checks set out in Article 14 of the commission’s proposal are largely limited to formal requirements.

There is no independent and impartial scrutiny of the founders’ legal capacity, of the lawfulness of the articles of association, or of whether the transaction complies with substantive legal requirements. Transfers of shares and capital transactions are also not subject to substantive control. Liquidation is treated primarily as an administrative formality, even though it can directly affect creditors and employees.

The consequences may extend far beyond company law.

Companies own real estate and are entered in land registers. If it is no longer possible to establish reliably who owns a company, it also becomes more difficult to establish who ultimately owns the real estate held by that company. Reliable company information therefore matters for the transparency of property ownership.

‘Not reliably verified’?

If the information in a register has not been reliably verified, others have to verify it themselves. Banks, business partners and investors may need additional legal opinions, audits and insurance. Costs that a preventive check avoids at the outset may therefore arise repeatedly at a later stage.

This would represent a shift from the European tradition of public preventive legal control towards a model that relies more heavily on resolving disputes after they arise.

Delaware is a prominent example of such an approach, supported by specialised courts and a correspondingly prominent role for litigation. Transplanting it to Europe would place additional demands on national judicial systems that lack the necessary resources.

The proposal also raises questions with regard to the recent European efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The creation of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is the latest milestone in this process. To create, at the very same time, a legal form with significantly reduced checks risks severely undermining these efforts.

The same applies to sanctions: their enforcement depends on knowing who is really behind a company – especially when shares are transferred. Without reliable legality control of share transfers, corporate ownership can change unnoticed and become a vehicle for sanctions circumvention.

The amendments required are straightforward. The acquis of European company law, as established by Directive (EU) 2017/1132 and recently reinforced by Directive (EU) 2025/25, should also apply to EU Inc. companies.

This means reliable identification of founders and directors, public oversight of legal compliance at the time of formation and at subsequent stages, and reliable business registers. 

Public protection

These safeguards exist for a reason.

They protect not only the parties to a transaction, but the public at large. Because they serve a public purpose, they must remain a public responsibility. Private service providers cannot replace independent preventive control carried out under public responsibility. 

How these checks are organised differs between member states. In some member states, public authorities carry them out directly. In others, the state entrusts notaries with this public function.

Notarial involvement therefore does not add another layer of control: the same public function is simply carried out by different public authorities. In many member states, a company can already be formed digitally within 48 hours, with full legal verification carried out by a public official.

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will decide their positions in the coming weeks.

There is still time to improve the legislative framework of EU Inc. significantly and to make it a success.

This requires digital and efficient procedures without compromising legal certainty. The rule of law is one of the European Union’s strengths. EU Inc. should build on that strength, not weaken it.

The Commission is “going a bit too fast” in unlocking €4.2bn and restarting the Erasmus+ student exchange programme in Hungary, according to budget committee MEPs.

The EU froze its financial assistance to Hungary in 2022 due to concerns about rule of law breaches and misappropriation of funds by Viktor Orbán’s government.

Green MEP from Germany, Daniel Freund, told EUobserver he “would have taken a more staged approach to not release everything in one go,” admitting that the reform agenda of Péter Magyar’s new government still has some way to go.

The commission’s proposal to unlock part of the €16.4bn in funds available to Hungary requires the green-light from the EU council, representing member states, one month after its announcement on 23 September.

Freund said that he was “happy about the changes we have seen” following his visit to Hungary on 1 October.

“Hungary needs this money, I also want Hungarians to have this money, since for years it was just going to Orbán and his cronies,” he said on Tuesday (6 October).

However, Freund and other MEPs on the fact-finding mission found that “the same risks of corruption exist,” and “there are new laws that are still fragile in their implementation,” French socialist and democrat Jean-Marc Germain told reporters in Strasbourg on Monday. 

The Parliament can serve as a pressure point, although the decision on funds is largely in the hands of the commission and the council.

“There is no real political pluralism in Hungary, which may in the long run be a reason for worrying,” he said, adding that most companies are still owned by the same few people as during Orbán’s rule.

The tone is different on the other side of the political spectrum.

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Who asked, and who decided

There are phrases which, on their own, say more about a state than a Defence White Paper. One such phrase appeared in the Corriere della Sera on 4 October, in an interview with the Chief of the Army General Staff, Lieutenant General Carmine Masiello: “On the eastern flank, we were asked to deploy units capable of providing a real deterrent: we are leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria and are present in Latvia and Hungary. War does not ask for permission, and the contingent must be ready to respond.”

A few lines earlier, the same general had opened the interview as follows: “We are at war. A hybrid war, but war nonetheless.” The attentive reader will pause to consider three words. We have been asked. By whom? Real deterrence. Compared to what deterrence, until now, has been unreal? We are at war. Who has declared it? These are questions that the Italian public debate should ask itself seriously, without indulging either in the caricature of the warmongering military or in the conditioned reflex that treats every doubt as enemy propaganda. The argument put forward in these pages is simple: the idea of direct involvement by Italy and European countries in an armed conflict with Russia is strategic folly, and the bellicose rhetoric that is making it seem conceivable protects no one. It makes the situation worse.

It is best to start with the facts, because the controversy surrounding the interview has misrepresented some of them. The contingents mentioned by Masiello are not a development from the past week. Italy has been participating in NATO’s forward presence in Latvia since 2017 and, since 2022, has been leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria – established following Russia’s conflict with Ukraine alongside those from Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The Madrid Summit in June 2022 then committed the allies to strengthening these groups to brigade level ‘where and when required’. The general’s statement that ‘we were asked’ therefore has a clear source: the Alliance’s planning, approved by the North Atlantic Council, to which the Italian government has given its consent.

Parliament, too, has formally expressed its view. Law 145 of 2016 stipulates that the government must approve international missions annually and that Parliament must authorise them. For 2026, the Council of Ministers’ resolution is dated 14 May; the Chamber of Deputies approved the authorisation resolution on 28 July, for missions valid from 1 January to 31 December. On closer inspection, this situation is more serious than the mere omission denounced by many commentators. Parliament was not bypassed: it was called upon at the end of July to ratify what had been in progress for seven months, as part of a single package bringing together dozens of different missions, from Lebanon to the Horn of Africa. Voting against the eastern flank means, in this context, voting against the whole package. It is a procedure that produces consensus without generating debate.

The problem, then, is not strictly legal. It is political, and concerns the quality of the decision. It is one thing to maintain a contingent in an allied country for reassurance purposes. It is quite another to publicly declare that that contingent must provide ‘real deterrence’ and be ‘ready to respond’ to a war that ‘does not ask for permission’. This shift in function – from a symbolic presence to combat readiness – has not been the subject of any specific parliamentary debate. Italians learnt of it from an interview published at the weekend, in a tone one might use to describe the modernisation of barracks.

A war that no one has authorised

Article 78 of the Constitution is so clear that it sounds almost embarrassing today: ‘The Chambers shall declare a state of war and confer upon the Government the necessary powers.’ Article 11 adds that Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression and as a means of resolving international disputes. In this context, the phrase ‘we are at war’, uttered by the head of the Armed Forces, is not merely a lexical detail. Neither House has declared a state of war. No government has been granted extraordinary powers. If words have any meaning, that phrase describes a condition that is not recognised by the legal system.

The contrast with Masiello’s own words from two and a half years ago is striking. In May 2024, in another interview, the general had been unequivocal in the opposite sense: ‘Let’s be clear: we are not at war,’ he had said, referring to a ‘sub-threshold’ conflict. The material reality described then and now is essentially the same: cyber-attacks, sabotage, disinformation, airspace violations. What has changed is the verbal framework. And in international politics, the framework is never neutral. Those who repeat every day that we are already at war accustom public opinion to the idea that actual war is merely the next step on a path that has already begun. This is precisely the process that the literature on threat construction describes as securitisation: a problem is shifted from the ordinary political sphere to that of emergency, where the usual rules – including debate – appear to be a luxury.

It is no coincidence that, in that very interview, the priority highlighted is the distribution to military personnel of a ‘cognitive self-defence manual’ against disinformation. The stated aim is to protect personnel. The side effect is to delimit the scope of what is conceivable: if every voice that questions the necessity of conflict can be interpreted as an emotional lever wielded by the enemy, dissent becomes a security issue. A democracy that fears manipulation should respond with more debate, not less.

Deterrence that produces what it fears

The strategic crux of the matter is the very concept of deterrence. Deterrence works when the adversary perceives our stance as both defensive and credible. It ceases to work – and indeed becomes counterproductive – when the measures a state adopts to feel secure are interpreted by the other as offensive preparations. This is the security dilemma: in a system without a higher authority, many of the means by which a state increases its own security reduce that of others, triggering a spiral that neither actor had intended.

The eastern flank is where this spiral is most visible. From Moscow’s perspective, allied brigades permanently deployed a few hundred kilometres from St Petersburg and the Belarusian border, exercises in the Baltic and attempts to stop Russian ships in transit are signs of encirclement. Putin stated this explicitly at the Valdai Forum in early October, describing the Western manoeuvres in the Baltic as an escalation. One might regard that interpretation as self-serving, and in part it is. But deterrence is not measured by our intentions: it is measured by the perceptions of those who are to be deterred. Ignoring them does not make them go away.

There is also one factor that should be of the greatest concern, and it is Masiello himself who articulates it. In hybrid warfare, the general explains, the risk is ‘not only to suffer, but to slip, by mistake, into an open confrontation’. This is a valuable admission. It means that the Italian military leadership considers the possibility of an unintended war – arising from an accident, a misinterpretation or a chain of automatic responses – to be very real. Thomas Schelling referred to this mechanism as ‘the threat that leaves something to chance’: the more forces are in contact and ready to react, the more control over the crisis slips from the hands of political decision-makers. If the main risk is error, the rational response is to reduce friction and increase the number of communication channels. Yet whilst the readiness of troops near the border is being stepped up, the tone of rhetoric is moving in the opposite direction.

In Moscow, Putin spoke clearly

At the Valdai Forum, Putin reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone ‘neither in 2029, nor in 2030, nor in 2050’, adding that in the event of an attack, Moscow would respond with all means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons. A few days earlier, in St Petersburg, he had said that Russia is in no way preparing to go to war with Europe. The usual response in the Italian press is that these reassurances are worthless: Formiche pointed out, for example, that even the 1994 Budapest Memorandum contained written commitments that were subsequently breached.

This argument deserves a serious response, not a slogan. No one is obliged to take the statements of a head of state – be they Russian or American – at face value. But mistrust of others’ words does not justify abandoning diplomacy: it makes it all the more necessary. Public statements serve precisely this purpose: to establish commitments that can be verified, negotiated, translated into measures of mutual trust, limits on troop deployments, notifications of military exercises, and direct military lines of communication. This is precisely what Europe did during the decades of the Cold War, with the Helsinki Final Act and the subsequent Vienna documents, when mistrust of Moscow was at least as great as it is today. Responding to every overture by increasing military readiness amounts to choosing not to verify. And those who fail to verify their adversary’s intentions end up planning for the worst-case scenario, which, by dint of being planned for, becomes the most likely outcome.

The reverse is also true. If it is genuinely believed that Russia is preparing an act of aggression against an EU member state, then the matter is of such gravity as to demand a public and parliamentary debate commensurate with its importance, based on the available evidence, intelligence assessments and the alternatives under consideration. Not an interview. The two things are mutually exclusive: either the threat is existential, in which case the nation must be mobilised; or it is not, in which case the language of imminence is a mistake.

To die for whom and for what?

The question currently circulating on social media – whether Italians are prepared to die for the Baltic states or for Zelensky – is phrased brutally, but it hits upon a real issue. European public opinion, and Italian public opinion in particular, has never given an explicit mandate for direct military confrontation with Russia. Surveys in recent years have consistently ranked Italy amongst the European countries most opposed to sending troops and most in favour of a negotiated solution. A democratic system that prepares for war against the prevailing will of its citizens, without even consulting them, accumulates a debt of legitimacy that would be called in at the worst possible moment: precisely when national cohesion is most needed.

Nor is there any need to demonise the Baltic states to recognise the problem. Their perception of the threat has historical roots that a Western European struggles to fully comprehend. The point is another: in a thirty-two-member alliance, the most hardline positions tend to set the tone for the whole, because no government wants to appear the least supportive. Italy has different geopolitical interests, focused on the Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans and its energy ties with the East. A country in that position has everything to lose from a conflict in the Baltic and nothing to gain. Its historical role, from Andreotti to Prodi, has been that of a mediator, not an outpost. To abandon this role in order to align with the hardline stance is a choice that someone should openly advocate, rather than letting it seep out through an interview.

Finally, there is the practical reality, which the general himself does not hide. Masiello speaks of the return of the ‘importance of mass’: forces are quickly worn down, and without the capacity to replenish them, a prolonged conflict cannot be sustained. In short: a conventional war with Russia would be a war of attrition, fought with ammunition stocks that Europe does not possess and with an industrial base that would take years to reconvert. Against a nuclear power that has just reiterated that it regards nuclear weapons as part of its defence. There is no rational interpretation of Italy’s national interest in which this scenario is acceptable.

Alternatives do exist and do not require naivety. The first is institutional: to separate missions on the eastern flank from the annual budget and subject them to a specific vote, preceded by a public hearing of military and government leaders on the nature of the mandate. If Italian soldiers are asked to be ‘ready to respond’, Parliament has the right and the duty to know to what, under what rules of engagement, and within what limits.

The second concerns language. The military leadership has a responsibility to prepare the forces, not to influence public opinion on the underlying political judgement – namely, whether or not Italy is at war. That assessment is the remit of the constitutional bodies. A return to verbal restraint is not a concession: it is the condition for deterrence to remain defensive even in the eyes of those observing it from Moscow.

The third is diplomatic. Any Russian declaration of non-aggression should be taken at face value in the technical sense of the term: put to the test with concrete proposals for risk reduction, starting with the Baltic, where the density of ships, aircraft and units in close proximity makes an incident more likely than elsewhere. Rome has the credibility and the history to champion such an initiative at European level. The fact that it is not doing so, and that the issue emerges only from the words of a general, is the real cause for alarm in this affair.

The enemy to be feared is not a country a thousand kilometres from our borders. It is the habit – which is taking root here – of deciding on the most serious matters without discussing them, and of presenting them as if they were inevitable; a psychopathology that is dramatically eroding the last remnants of common sense.

Moscow has again told foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv before further Russian strikes. The embassies have stayed. The episode exposes a broader Russian objective: turning military pressure on Ukraine’s capital into political and diplomatic retreat by its Western partners.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry renewed its warning to foreign diplomats and other foreign nationals on 3 October, urging them to leave Kyiv and saying Russian forces would continue large-scale strikes against targets in the Ukrainian capital and elsewhere. The warning said those who remained were exposing themselves to “mortal danger”, while Moscow sought to place responsibility for any consequences on the individuals and governments choosing to remain.

The military threat behind that warning is not theoretical. Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv have intensified, striking transport infrastructure, energy facilities and residential districts. EU Today has documented a succession of such attacks, including a September missile and drone barrage that killed three people and damaged residential and public buildings and a later jet-powered drone strike on the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv. Air alerts and attacks on the capital are now a routine part of the security environment in which foreign missions operate.

The significance of Moscow’s latest statement, however, goes beyond the question of physical safety. By telling foreign governments that their diplomats should leave and suggesting that those who stay must accept the consequences, Russia is attempting to change the political calculation surrounding Kyiv. If Western states began moving their embassies to Lviv or across the border into Poland, Moscow would have achieved something that continued military pressure has so far failed to deliver: a visible reduction in the international diplomatic presence in the Ukrainian capital.

That has not happened. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says it has received no request or notification from a foreign diplomatic mission indicating that it intends to relocate. Reports that some Western governments have considered contingency arrangements appear to concern emergency planning rather than decisions to withdraw, which is hardly surprising for embassies operating in a capital subjected to repeated missile and drone attacks. The distinction is important because preparing evacuation options is standard risk management; implementing them would be a political signal.

The European Union has gone further than simply denying evacuation plans. EU Ambassador Katarína Mathernová said that the EU Delegation, the EU Advisory Mission and all 25 EU member states maintaining embassies in Kyiv would remain in the capital. Her response was deliberately public, making clear that the Russian warning would not alter the diplomatic footprint of the EU or its member states in Ukraine.

Moscow has tried this before. In May, Russia issued a similar warning to diplomats and foreign nationals, prompting Brussels to summon the Russian chargé d’affaires. EU Today reported at the time that European officials viewed the warning as a threat against the foreign diplomatic community in Kyiv. Mathernová subsequently said that the EU would remain in Kyiv despite Russia’s renewed warnings, describing the pressure as an attempt to generate fear and isolate Ukraine.

The October warning has produced much the same result. One day later, Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled to Kyiv, accompanied by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a German business delegation. His arrival was particularly difficult to reconcile with suggestions that European governments were preparing to abandon the capital. EU Today reported that the visit brought more than €1.3 billion in new German defence and energy commitments, while the German government presented the trip as a demonstration of continuing support for Ukraine.

Washington has taken a similar position. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would make its own assessment of whether it was safe for American diplomats to remain in Kyiv and noted that Russia had been issuing such warnings for months. The US embassy has continued operating, while the State Department has maintained its highest-level travel warning for American citizens because of the continuing war. That distinction — between advising private citizens not to travel and maintaining an official diplomatic presence — reflects the different responsibilities involved.

There is also a legal dimension to Moscow’s attempt to shift responsibility. Russian statements create the impression that once diplomats have been warned, the consequences of any subsequent attack fall on those who chose to stay. International law does not support such an interpretation. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes the inviolability of diplomatic premises and personnel, although the immediate obligation to protect foreign missions rests principally with Ukraine as the receiving state.

Russia’s conduct of military operations is governed primarily by international humanitarian law. Diplomats remain civilians, while diplomatic buildings remain civilian objects unless they are being used in circumstances that would make them military objectives. Warnings can form part of an attacker’s obligation to take precautions, but they do not transfer legal responsibility to civilians who remain in place. The International Committee of the Red Cross makes clear that civilians who stay after an advance warning continue to enjoy protection, and an attacking force must still comply with the rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions.

That legal point is relevant because the wording used by Moscow appears designed to establish a different political narrative. Russia can warn foreign governments that further strikes are coming, but such warnings cannot provide advance immunity for the way those attacks are conducted. Nor do they relieve Russia of responsibility if attacks unlawfully damage civilian or diplomatic property.

The continued presence of embassies in Kyiv also has practical significance for Ukraine. Foreign missions give governments direct access to Ukrainian institutions and their own assessment of political, military and economic conditions on the ground. Their diplomats meet ministers, military officials, civil society representatives and businesses, reducing governments’ dependence on second-hand reporting and allowing them to judge developments for themselves.

Relocating those missions would therefore have consequences beyond symbolism. Diplomatic relations could continue from Lviv, Warsaw or elsewhere, but Moscow would inevitably portray any large-scale withdrawal from Kyiv as evidence that foreign governments no longer regarded the Ukrainian capital as sustainable as a diplomatic centre. That helps explain why European governments have answered the latest warning so publicly and why maintaining a visible presence has itself become part of the political response.

Russia has increasingly sought to combine physical attacks with wider political effects. Its missile and drone campaign places pressure on Ukraine’s electricity system, transport network, air defences and civilian population. The warnings to foreign missions extend the same logic to Ukraine’s international relationships: increase the perceived cost of remaining in Kyiv and encourage foreign governments to reduce their presence.

So far, that strategy has not produced the intended result. The EU says all of its embassies are staying, Germany’s Chancellor travelled to Kyiv immediately after the warning and Washington has made clear that it will take its own decisions about the security of its mission. Russia can make the Ukrainian capital more dangerous, but it has not persuaded Ukraine’s principal partners to treat Kyiv as a city they must leave.

Since October 2023, no nation’s military has killed nearly as many journalists as Israel, a fact that often opens them up to considerable criticism. The IDF aims to quell those concerns with a new round of official narrative

Ukraine’s record on reform during Russia’s war is stronger than much recent criticism suggests. By September, Kyiv had completed 84 of 95 milestones due under the Ukraine Plan. Yet progress on a smaller group of rule-of-law commitments has been strikingly weaker. The difference between the two tells Brussels much about where Ukraine’s European transformation is encountering resistance.

Ukraine’s reform record currently produces two figures that appear difficult to reconcile.

Under the Ukraine Plan, Kyiv had completed 84 of the 95 milestones due by late September — around 88 per cent. The result was strong enough for EU governments to approve another payment of almost €3 billion under the Ukraine Facility.

Three months earlier, however, a coalition of Ukrainian organisations monitoring ten rule-of-law and anti-corruption commitments agreed with Brussels had awarded progress just 15 points out of 100.

Neither figure is wrong. They measure different programmes.

The first covers a broad reform and investment agenda extending from the judiciary and financial markets to energy, agriculture, transport, human capital and the business environment. The second examines a deliberately narrow collection of reforms concerning prosecutors, criminal investigations, anti-corruption agencies and judicial governance.

Put together, they raise a more useful question than whether Ukraine is “reforming” or “not reforming”.

Why has a country capable of delivering most of a demanding EU programme during a major war found this particular group of reforms so much harder to complete?

Russia’s aggression provides part of the answer. Ukraine has been attempting an institutional transformation while mobilising its population, financing its armed forces, repairing infrastructure and keeping a functioning state under repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. No previous EU candidate has operated under comparable conditions.

But the ten reforms where progress has been weakest have something else in common. Most concern institutions that can investigate senior officials, prosecute corruption, scrutinise appointments or otherwise place limits on the exercise of political authority.

That is what makes the comparison important.

A strong overall record

The wider reform record should not be understated.

When the European Commission released €2.9 billion to Ukraine on 2 October, it specifically credited Kyiv with implementing reforms covering the judiciary, financial markets, human capital, the business environment, energy, transport, agriculture and the green transition.

Total EU support provided under the Ukraine Plan has now exceeded €32 billion. More than €17 billion in further budget support remains potentially available during 2026, provided Ukraine fulfils the corresponding conditions.

The money is particularly important because the Ukrainian state is directing such a large share of its own resources towards defence. European financing helps keep the civilian state operating while Ukraine fights Russia.

The Ukraine Facility has therefore become more than an aid mechanism. It gives Brussels a means of measuring reform against specific commitments and releasing money when they are met.

That system has generally worked.

It also makes the areas where progress is weaker much easier to identify.

The 15/100 assessment published in June concerned ten priorities agreed in December 2025 between Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and then deputy prime minister Taras Kachka. The score came from Ukrainian civil society, not the European Commission, and cannot legitimately be presented as Ukraine’s overall EU reform score.

It had nevertheless risen only six points from an assessment of nine out of 100 in April.

Among the unfinished commitments were changes to criminal procedure affecting high-level corruption cases, stronger guarantees for the independence and effectiveness of NABU and SAPO, reform of the State Bureau of Investigation, new arrangements surrounding the Prosecutor General, competitive recruitment within the prosecution service and further changes to judicial governance.

These are among the most difficult reforms Ukraine has undertaken since 2014 because they concern who has the authority to investigate whom.

The July 2025 episode changed the argument

The events surrounding NABU and SAPO in July 2025 remain central to understanding why Brussels is paying such close attention.

Ukraine had spent years building a specialised anti-corruption system intended to make investigations of senior political figures less vulnerable to interference from the conventional prosecutorial hierarchy.

NABU conducts investigations. SAPO provides specialised prosecution. The High Anti-Corruption Court hears the cases.

The system has never been free from political controversy, nor has its performance been beyond criticism. But its independence became an important part of Ukraine’s relationship with the EU and other international partners.

Then, in July 2025, parliament passed legislation placing NABU and SAPO under substantially greater authority of the politically appointed Prosecutor General. Zelenskyy signed it.

The decision produced an unusually sharp reaction inside Ukraine. Demonstrators took to the streets despite martial law, while European partners made clear that the legislation threatened reforms regarded as fundamental to the country’s European integration.

As EU Today reported during the crisis, the dispute went far beyond the technical division of powers between prosecutors and investigators.

Kyiv reversed course within days. Parliament restored the independence of the two bodies.

The reversal demonstrated that Ukraine’s political system still contained powerful corrective forces. Civil society mobilised, public opposition was visible and international pressure had an effect.

Yet the episode also established that the independence of institutions created specifically to investigate high-level corruption could still become the subject of direct political intervention.

That changed the context in which subsequent reform commitments are being judged.

The European Commission’s 2025 report on Ukraine recorded both sides of the episode. It acknowledged the restoration of NABU and SAPO independence, while warning that undue pressure on anti-corruption agencies remained a concern.

The Commission also identified practical weaknesses. NABU still required better access to timely and impartial forensic examinations, while SAPO needed stronger powers in cases involving members of parliament.

This is why simply retaining NABU and SAPO is no longer sufficient evidence that this part of the reform process is secure. Brussels is looking at whether they can operate when investigations become politically difficult.

Follow the institutions

The same issue appears elsewhere.

Ukraine agreed to review the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General, drawing on European standards and the Venice Commission. It also committed itself to transparent and competitive recruitment for senior positions throughout the prosecution service.

The significance is obvious. The Prosecutor General occupies a pivotal position in the Ukrainian criminal-justice system. The method by which that office is filled — and the circumstances in which its occupant can be removed — affect the credibility of every politically sensitive prosecution beneath it.

Progress has been slow.

There is a similar problem with the State Bureau of Investigation, which handles cases involving senior officials and law-enforcement personnel. Kyiv agreed to an independent assessment of the bureau followed by reform of its legal and institutional framework.

Again, the issue is not administrative tidiness. An agency responsible for investigating state officials has little value as a check on government if its own leadership or investigative decisions are susceptible to political influence.

Criminal procedure provides another example.

Ukraine committed itself to changing provisions under which corruption proceedings can eventually be closed because deadlines for pre-trial investigations have expired, as well as addressing limitation periods for corruption offences.

Draft legislation has appeared. Bills No. 15333 and 15334 were registered in parliament, and NABU and the Ministry of Justice have worked on amendments.

But the process has taken months.

For a simple criminal case, procedural deadlines may appear an obscure legal question. Top-level corruption investigations are different. They can involve offshore structures, large quantities of financial evidence, foreign jurisdictions and prolonged litigation. If the clock eventually disposes of a case that investigators and prosecutors cannot bring to judgment quickly enough, the anti-corruption architecture fails at the point where it is supposed to produce results.

The same pattern is visible in judicial reform and the new Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030. Work is taking place, legislation is being prepared and institutions are consulting one another. Some changes have been completed.

Others remain somewhere between agreement and implementation.

This is precisely the stage of accession at which that distinction begins to count.

When Ukraine and Moldova moved further into the EU accession process, the significance of the Fundamentals cluster was that progress would increasingly depend on the functioning of institutions rather than declarations of political intent.

Ukraine has no shortage of declarations of European intent. What the Commission needs to establish is whether the machinery beneath them works.

The limits of the wartime argument

Any assessment that ignores Russia’s war would be unserious.

Full-scale aggression has inevitably changed the Ukrainian state. Decisions that might take months in peacetime sometimes have to be taken within days. Military information cannot be handled according to ordinary transparency rules. Elections cannot proceed under normal conditions. The executive carries responsibilities that no Ukrainian government faced before 2022.

Reform is also competing for administrative capacity with mobilisation, defence procurement, reconstruction, energy emergencies and the daily consequences of Russian attacks.

This has to be taken into account when Brussels sets timetables and assesses progress.

It is less convincing when applied indiscriminately.

Competitive recruitment of prosecutors does not interfere with the defence of Ukraine. Neither does an independent procedure for selecting the Prosecutor General. NABU’s ability to investigate senior officials does not prevent the armed forces from conducting operations, while closing procedural loopholes in corruption cases has no obvious adverse effect on wartime decision-making.

There is therefore a boundary between powers required to fight Russia and powers that are simply easier for government to retain during wartime.

Finding that boundary is becoming one of the more difficult questions in Ukraine’s relationship with the EU.

This does not support the sweeping claim that every important Ukrainian institution has been placed under political control. The evidence does not justify it.

It does show why Brussels is concentrating increasingly on institutional independence.

The problem with wartime centralisation is rarely that it begins without justification. Governments fighting wars need authority. The longer an emergency lasts, however, the more important it becomes to distinguish measures required by national security from arrangements that have become politically convenient.

Ukraine has now lived under full-scale war for more than four years. Institutions created for the post-war European state are being shaped while the wartime state still exists.

That makes the current reform period unusually consequential.

Conditionality becomes Brussels’ leverage

The EU has one powerful instrument with which to influence the outcome: money.

The Commission is already using it.

The almost €3 billion approved in September followed the completion of agreed Ukraine Plan milestones. The next payments depend on further commitments being met.

As EU Today reported when the Ukraine Plan was amended, additional financing has come with additional rule-of-law and anti-corruption requirements.

There is a limit to how far Brussels can push this. Ukraine is fighting a Russian war of aggression that also poses a direct security threat to Europe. Destabilising the Ukrainian budget in order to demonstrate the rigour of EU conditionality would make little strategic sense.

Kyiv is well aware of that.

But Brussels cannot simply waive the conditions either. Doing so would weaken reformers inside Ukraine, reduce EU influence over the accession process and make it more difficult to explain enormous long-term transfers to European taxpayers.

The result is already visible: continued financial support accompanied by increasingly detailed scrutiny of how reforms are implemented.

That approach is likely to become tougher as accession advances.

There is another reason for it.

Ukraine will eventually have to manage reconstruction on a scale Europe has not seen for decades. European governments, international financial institutions and private investors will be asked to commit hundreds of billions of euros. Confidence in prosecutors, courts, public procurement and anti-corruption agencies will affect how much money arrives and on what terms.

Strong institutions are therefore not a concession Ukraine makes to Brussels in exchange for membership.

They are part of the infrastructure required for Ukraine’s recovery.

The same applies to the war itself. Corruption in defence procurement, reconstruction or public administration gives Russia opportunities to damage confidence in the Ukrainian state and strain relations between Kyiv and its partners. Moscow has every interest in amplifying genuine scandals alongside fabricated ones.

The most effective answer is not tighter political management of damaging information. It is institutions capable of investigating misconduct credibly.

That is also why the role of Ukrainian civil society deserves attention.

The organisations producing critical assessments of Kyiv’s reforms are operating in a country under attack. Many have supported Ukraine’s European integration for years. Their reports can be disputed and their scoring methodologies examined, but criticism of government performance is not evidence of disloyalty.

The ability to produce such criticism is itself one of the features separating the Ukrainian political system from the authoritarian model Russia represents.

Ukraine’s reform record consequently looks neither like the failure portrayed by some critics nor the uninterrupted success sometimes presented by its defenders.

The broader record is impressive. Completing 84 of 95 Ukraine Plan milestones while fighting a major war is not a trivial achievement, and the EU would not have continued releasing billions of euros if the reform programme existed only on paper.

The difficulty appears further down, where institutional reform begins to affect the ability of political authorities to influence prosecutors, investigators and judicial appointments.

The NABU-SAPO confrontation made that problem impossible to ignore. The subsequent reversal showed that Ukraine also possesses the political and civic capacity to correct course.

What happens next will matter more than either episode.

Bills that have remained in parliament will have to become law. Reviews of the SBI and prosecution service will have to produce institutional changes. Competitive appointment procedures will have to work when the preferred candidate of those in power does not win. Anti-corruption bodies will have to be allowed to pursue cases when their targets are politically connected.

These are less visible achievements than opening accession negotiations or announcing another EU funding package.

They are also much closer to what EU membership ultimately requires.

Russia has forced Ukraine to build an exceptionally powerful wartime state. European integration requires Kyiv to ensure that some of that power can eventually be constrained by institutions that do not depend on whoever occupies the presidential administration.

The figures that currently look contradictory — 84 out of 95 and 15 out of 100 — are therefore telling different parts of the same story.

Ukraine has shown that it can reform during the war.

The harder test is whether it can complete reforms precisely where doing so reduces political discretion.

In a harsh UN General Assembly speech, he said this Israeli government's expansionist appetite is a regional threat

Mashhour Shaher Yassin, 51, died Thursday evening after Israeli paramilitary colonizers shot him in the abdomen while attacking his home in Yasuf in the central occupied West Bank

When we broke the story about police raids in the EU’s deportation bill last December, comparisons to Donald Trump’s paramilitary ICE anti-migrant forces were soon being made.

EU interior ministers on Thursday (1 October) in Luxembourg are now set to formally adopt the return regulation, which sets the legal framework for police to carry out raids and seize people’s “belongings, electronic devices, and other items of relevance.”

The logic is part of a maximalist effort to deport people, such as failed asylum seekers, back to their home countries or possibly even in yet-to-be defined transit centres in Rwanda or elsewhere.

The regulation targets anyone “for the purpose of preparing or ensuring an effective return” with raids being allowed in a “place of residence or other relevant premises.”

Although the item is but a mere footnote in Thursday’s agenda, the potential consequences of the law have roused alarm among civil rights organisations who continue to draw parallels with ICE.

The comparison is not alarmist.

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

The fact that the IDF needed a Supreme Court order to secure the Tubasi family's return to their home, after settlers seized it in plain sight, shows just how inept and beholden to settler whims the army really is, according to Israeli media reports.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

James Jatras, a veteran U.S. foreign policy analyst, discusses how the recent security deal between Trump and Denmark over Greenland is really about easing tensions within NATO.

And keeping the Western military bloc hard-focused on Russia.

The signing of a new security agreement with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on September 22 looked odd. Frederiksen was photographed smiling with Trump, yet only a few months ago, the Danish leader and other European governments were in uproar over Trump’s threats to annex Greenland.

The Arctic island has an abundance of untapped mineral and rare-earth metals. Trump has framed the annexation as a benign move by the U.S. for protection against Russia and China. He previously ridiculed Denmark’s defenses as amounting to “two dogsleds.”

Recall that earlier this year Trump was threatening to withdraw from NATO if the U.S. was not given full control over Greenland. The Europeans then sprang to Copenhagen’s support and pledged to send troops to Greenland to defend Danish sovereignty.

But with the new security deal, all the recriminations seem to have disappeared. Danish PM Federiksen is smiling like a “Cheshire Cat,” and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the renewed strengthening of the NATO bloc.

Jatras contends that Trump does not acquire any significant access to Greenland’s vast natural resources after this new deal. Denmark still retains sovereignty over the Arctic island, albeit describing it as a self-ruling territory under Greenlander administration.

What Trump gets is more U.S. militarization of the Arctic territory, which is actually what the European NATO members want.

Washington is planning to increase American military bases in Greenland and install an anti-missile defense shield called Golden Dome. This militarization will exacerbate already fraught tensions with Moscow because it potentially makes Russia more vulnerable to a nuclear attack from a new front in the Arctic.

The European NATO leaders don’t like Trump, notes Jatras, but they are worried that his maverick behavior is undermining the unity of the transatlantic alliance, which is, in turn, weakening the anti-Russia agenda.

By giving Trump the appearance of increased security control over Greenland, Denmark and the other European NATO hawks gain a more unified alliance whose top priority is to ramp up the anti-Russia agenda, as seen primarily with the proxy war in Ukraine.

In this interview, we discuss other issues: the dearth of diplomacy in Washington since the end of the Cold War, the duplicity in the Trump administration claiming it wants peace with Moscow yet doing nothing to pursue that, indeed doing the opposite, like ending arms control treaties and militarizing the Arctic.

Jatras is pessimistic about the prospects of the political class in the U.S. and Europe finding a breakthrough out of increasingly dangerous relations with Russia. He sees the only way forward as the total internal collapse in the West, leading to a new political leadership. The current dynamic and lack of diplomacy in the West are leading to war.

Trump’s plan for militarizing the Arctic at the cajoling of Europeans is another ominous sign among many.

The United States is deporting parents without their children, creating a whole new family-separation crisis. Caitlin Dickerson, whose coverage of family separation during the first Trump administration won her a Pulitzer Prize, spends time with parents desperate to be reunited with their kids, ad hoc caretakers stretched to the breaking point, and lawyers working non-stop to mitigate the trauma Trump 2.0 is inflicting on families. And then there are the children themselves:

A father named Edwin said that after three years of meticulously following the government’s requests to further his family’s asylum case, his wife, Sarah, was thinking about going into hiding; she didn’t want to be picked up by ICE and have to leave her children alone.

When I went to visit Sarah in May, in a Dallas suburb, her 4-year-old son, Johnny, answered the door and asked me: “Do you know when my dad is coming home?”

Before I could answer, Johnny continued: “Do you know what happened to him?” He repeated versions of these questions over the two days of my visit. “Do you know where my dad is? Do you know if he’s okay?”

When the questions would start, Johnny’s 12-year-old sister, Katie, tried to distract him with coloring books and screens. Recently, he’d had an hours-long meltdown when Sarah tried to donate some of Edwin’s work clothes that were crowding the closet. Every afternoon he sits at the front window waiting for his dad’s truck to pull up outside.

Former French MEP Rachida Dati is facing intense scrutiny following allegations she took lobbying money from French energy giant GDF Suez/Engie during her time at the European Parliament, on top of a separate investigation into her ties with French car maker Nissan-Renault.

The 60-year-old, who was born to Arab parents and started out as a maid, is also a former French culture and justice minister, and now mayor of the affluent 7th arrondissement in Paris.

But she also risks wearing a police ankle-bracelet and faces four years in prison in ongoing trials into her ties with the French companies, which first hit the headlines in 2025.

And back in 2014, when she sat in the European Parliament on the benches of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group, she threatened to sue EUobserver because we asked her about GDF Suez, which later changed its name to Engie, while deriding the corruption allegations against her as racist slurs.

EUobserver has published below some of the related email correspondence for the sake of transparency:

“Rachida Dati will not hesitate to sue any media which will report such a defamatory statement,” her office also said in an email in 2015, after a German Green MEP, who was spearheading an ethics committee, said she was likely pocketing GDF Suez money.

The allegedly “defamatory statement” had been made by Gerald Häfner, a former German MEP, who had chaired the parliament’s advisory committee on its Code of Conduct.

Häfner’s supposedly offensive words were:

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

The latest report by the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq contains detailed testimonies by the victims of violent, grotesque attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank.

In this edition: the cuckoo’s nest, fruitful work, keys and locks, commander in fief; perfect sound forever, and more.

This story moves chronologically through a marriage that begins to unravel—with fatal consequences. The victim is Dan Markel, the ex-husband of Wendi Adelson, but it’s the involvement of Wendi’s domineering mother, Donna, and her brother, Charlie, that leads to his tragic end. Katherine Laidlaw shows how there were far more than two people in this marriage—and far more than two lives destroyed when it fell apart.

Harvey was nominally the breadwinner, but Donna ruled the family. She had strict ideas about how her children should live, pushing them to earn advanced degrees and build prestigious careers. Rob became a doctor, and Charlie became a periodontist, eventually buying his father’s dental practice. Donna obsessed, too, about her children’s love lives, scrolling through online dating profiles and sending them lists of promising candidates. When Rob started seeing a woman who wasn’t Jewish, Donna interfered so aggressively that he eventually broke it off and briefly married someone else. (He has since married his original non-Jewish girlfriend.) At first, Donna was thrilled that her daughter was seeing Dan, then a lawyer at a boutique firm. She was less thrilled when he left to pursue academia, a path that she felt paid poorly and lacked cachet.

The 18th BRICS summit concluded in New Delhi on Sunday, September 13, with the unanimous adoption of the New Delhi declaration condemning wars in West Asia and reiterating calls for a more democratic and multilateral world order. 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of the grouping with the core objective of democratizing global governance and promoting multilateralism and cooperation among the countries of the Global South.

This years’ summit was held around the theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

The summit, hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto among others.

Several heads of international organizations, including the secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres also attended the summit.

In the context of ongoing US attempts to outright control the region in complete disregard to the independence of the countries and the international law, the BRICS joint declaration underlined that “the character of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, built on mutual respect, peaceful settlement of disputes, and non-intervention” must be respected.

It particularly expressed “deep concern on the situation relating to Cuba due to the tightening of unilateral [US] blockade measures against the country, their adverse effects on the Cuban economy, energy supplies and the worrying humanitarian impact on the Cuban people,” and demanded the immediate end of all such political and economic measures in accordance with UN General Assembly resolutions.

The 11 members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Iran, Indonesia, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, UAE, and South Africa with Saudi Arabia yet to formally join) represent over 30% of the global economy and nearly half of the world’s total population. 

Israel and US must respect international law  

Though the joint declaration did not explicitly name the US and mentioned Israel once, it expressed great concern over the wars in Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, demanding the aggressors respect international law and resolve all standing conflicts through the multilateral forums and diplomacy.

It also expressed serious concerns over “deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities under full safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)” in Iran, calling them a violation of international law. 

The joint US-Israeli aggression, both in June 2025 and since February this year, targeted several civilian infrastructure, assassinated political figures and bombed civilian nuclear facilities in Iran in complete violations of existing laws and norms endangering massive human destruction.

The joint declaration also underlined the need to ensure the smooth flow of “global trade, supply chain and energy” in accordance with international law.

Both Iran and the UAE, which hosts US bases used for attacks on Iran, are full members of BRICS. The UAE has condemned the Iranian retaliation to US bases in the country and recently announced the suspension of all trade and economic relations with Iran. 

The Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Khalid Bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, representing his country at the summit in New Delhi, had a brief conversation with Pezeshkian on the sidelines.

Read more: Iran reverses the asymmetry

The BRICS nations also criticized the continued violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, declared in October last year, by the Israeli forces. It demanded a halt of the plan for “forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza” and asked Israel to fully respect the human rights of Palestinians. 

It reiterated its support for a two-state solution within the 1967 borders and full membership for the Palestinian state in the UN.

BRICS nations also condemned the continued violations of the ceasefire and sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon by Israel, demanding the withdrawal of all its forces from occupied Lebanese territories.

Against unilateralism and attempts to undermine multilateral institutions

BRICS nations reiterated their joint commitment to “reforming and improving global governance” including the UN and global financial and trade institutions by promoting a more just and equitable, representative and accountable international and “multilateral system in the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.”

BRICS also condemned the attempts to “unilaterally undermine the work of global multilateral institutions and impair the implementation of their respective mandates” in a likely indication to the recent US attacks on the UN and International Criminal Court (ICC). 

In the context of US attempts to “economically isolate” Iran and threats of secondary sanctions on countries who do not comply with its measures, its sanctions on Cuba and various other countries, the BRICS joint declaration condemned the repeated invocations of all forms of “unilateral coercive measures,” calling them contradictory to international law.

Such measures “have far reaching negative implications for human rights, including the rights to development, health and food security” with disproportionate effects on poor and vulnerable sections of the society, the declaration noted. 

Several leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, called for greater unity and cooperation among the BRICS members and the countries of the Global South to pave the way for the democratization of the international order and greater mutual economic development. 

Xi called the Global South the key driver of world multipolarity, asking them to jointly defend the rule of law in international politics.

The BRICS joint declaration also called for a greater collective push for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and named the global eradication of poverty as one of its central objectives.

What do privilege and accountability look like for an AI agent on the wrong side of the law? Evan Ratliff rounds up a collection of challenging cases in which AI agents have functioned as co-conspirators in criminal acts, offered courtroom statements on behalf of deceased victims, and perpetrated deeds that, for humans, are considered to be illegal. Legal teams have already sought to seal their clients’ chats with AI agents, likening the exchanges to conversations with an attorney. Ratliff’s feature is an omnibus, and you’ve likely encountered one or two of his stories via other outlets. Here, the concerns he gathers together reveal the breadth of challenges facing the American legal system.

AI chatbots are already serving as confidants and co-conspirators, assisting and even encouraging humans acting on their darkest impulses. They’re occupying ersatz roles as therapists and lawyers, relationships our legal system typically shields with confidential privilege. They’re producing new kinds of criminal evidence and offering up the beguiling possibility of preventing crime before it happens. And as they’re given more autonomy across our digital and physical systems, they’re even gaining the ability to commit crimes themselves, absent specific human instruction — and, perhaps, in defiance of it.