So, how did PIS screw up the election in #Poland?

PIS did everything in the playbook to tilt the playing field in their own favour - yet seemingly not enough. What happened? Peer learning sessions among "illiberals" will be intense. 1/10🧵 According to scholars Levitsky+Way, in competitive authoritarianism, democratic institutions remain the means by which authority is exercised. But "although elections are regularly held and are generally free of massive fraud, incumbents routinely abuse state resources... 2/10

Kudos to @SZ : the inside story of "Operation Megalomania" - how the Governor of the small state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania tried to rescue and finish #NordStream2 when🇺🇸threatened secondary sanctions. The history of a colossal misjudgement, a🧵 1/

sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artik… Multiple participants very interviewed, many documents reviewed, but there is still no clear answer how all of this could have happened. @SZ offers two theories: did the state government just "brazenly act on economic self interest?" Or did it "act on behalf of the Kremlin?" /2

Unnoticed by the public+just in time for the🇪🇺🇺🇦 summit, big progress was made last week on🇺🇦reconstruction planning. White smoke: G7 have agreed on governance of donor coordination platform, first meeting was held. Progress report🧵: structure, finances, challenges, agenda 1/ In Dec. 22, the G7 had taken charge of recovery planning after conferences without decisions in Lugano (July 22) and Berlin (Oct. 22). After months of negotiations, agreement on governance was reached earlier in January. First (video) meeting took place on January 26th. 2/

🇬🇪TV founder and opposition-leaning journalist Nika Gvaramia has been sentenced to 3yrs+6mths in jail for using a company car for private purposes. The dubious case, the visit of his wife in🇩🇪,🇬🇪's struggle with media freedom+rule of law while seeking🇪🇺integration: all in a🧵 Sofia Liuashvili, Gvaramia’s wife (see picture), visited @gmfus in Berlin last week to inform us about what is widely seen as a wildly disproportionate sentence in trumped up charges of a blatantly political case. Sofia seeks help from the🇪🇺public to free her husband. 2/

About the🇩🇪🐆wars,🇺🇦FM @DmytroKuleba says this: "First they say no, then they fiercely defend their decision, only to say 'yes' in the end. We're still trying to understand why the🇩🇪government is doing this to itself." Let me try an explanation on grounds of political culture. 🧵 In many countries, governing politicians need to appear strong when it comes to their willingness to defend against a perceived foreign threat. 2/

Important speech by President #Steinmeier about Putin’s war. He prepares Germans for hard times and an age of confrontation. But the speech is as remarkable for what it mentions as for what it omits. The good, the bad and the ugly - a 13 piece🪵here:
bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Dow… 2/ Steinmeier does what🇩🇪 leading politicians (exception: Robert Habeck) have avoided doing so far: saying out loud that the tailwinds which🇩🇪has felt since 1990 have been replaced by headwinds. The times of the peace dividend are over. Every citizen will feel it.

“The world’s best and brightest” (@bundeskanzler) came to Berlin for the #RecoveryOfUkraine “expert conference” to engage in “prudent preparation” (@bundeskanzler) for🇺🇦reconstruction. @bundeskanzler and co-host @vonderleyen wanted to listen. What did they hear? A 12-part🧵 2/ The brand-new, never-yet-heard message was:🇺🇦 needs much more help, and fast. It needs action, not promises. Help to survive to even get to reconstruction. So why did @bundeskanzler need “the world’s best and brightest” to educate him about what he can read in the paper daily?

Today @bundeskanzler 🇩🇪 and @vonderleyen 🇪🇺 host an expert conference on #UkraineRecovery in Berlin. A 🧵 on how we got here, what to expect and what 🇺🇦 needs. [1/12] How we got here: In July, 🇨🇭 hosted the first recovery conference. 🇺🇦 presented its #NationalRecoveryPlan, its Western allies didn't respond with a joint plan. The official #LuganoDeclaration only contains 7 broad principles (partnership, sustainability, ...). [2/12]

2 days of mtgs in Kyiv: the mood in 🇺🇦, victory, 🇷🇺’s options, the nuclear danger, the economy, postwar recovery and the development of 🇺🇦 society - impressions from a @GMF exploratory study tour with @baranowski, @mprochwicz, @IgnatiusPost in this 🧵 1./ Some Ukrainians believe that Stalin’s dictum according to which quantity has a quality of its own is not true in the 🇷🇺 case: no quantity can ever turn into quality.