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Pascal 🇪🇺🇬🇧 Profile picture
Pascal 🇪🇺🇬🇧
@PascalLTH
Blogger; Political analyst; EU 🇪🇺 UK 🇬🇧 France 🇫🇷 climate 🌍 On substack: https://t.co/Lt6QLdMcFb
3 subscribers
Dec 22, 2022 • 32 tweets • 7 min read
Back in July I wrote this thread on Europe, Russia and the geopolitical struggle over energy security

It was received pretty well so it's time to write an update

This is going to be long 🧵 The first thing to address is why I've waited until now in order to produce this update

The short answer is that the EU has just kept on producing more and more intiatives to boost energy security, find new supplies and cut dependence on Russia /1
Aug 30, 2022 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
This was the most important story in EU and energy politics yesterday

Having followed this debate as part of my work, a few thoughts 🧵

ft.com/content/02f848… First, this debate has been going on for a months

Initially governments managed the increases in energy prices simply within their own national territories (with tax cuts and subsidies mainly)

But this quickly became untenable for some
Jul 10, 2022 • 26 tweets • 6 min read
Tomorrow Russia will take Nord Stream 1 offline

There will be a major potential for escalation of the geopolitical and energy crisis

So here's a thread on why not to panic now, when you might want to, and just what on earth is EU Regulation 2017/1938 🧵 Let's start with the easy bit

NS1 is going offline. This is normal.

The gas pipeline, which handles a substantial amount of Russian gas exports to Europe, is due to undergo maintenance

In theory this will last for around 10 days - at which point the gas should flow again/1
May 28, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
I've seen a few examples of this kind of story lately - that Western unity on confronting Russia is fraying

But looking at the bigger picture, there's a few reasons why this seems off the mark 🧵 First, too much is being made of inevitable debates and disagreements

These are major decisions with big impacts, why should we be surprised that they're not unanimously signed off in an afternoon?
May 8, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Most UK media has gone directly from the local elections to Beergate - but the elections for the NI Assembly is still the most important story There are two things that should be dispelled immediately:

First, Sinn Fein taking the most seats is historic simply in its own right but it hasn't come from a surge in support - their vote percentage is only slightly up and the number of seats hasn't changed
May 5, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I was wondering if En Marche would change name, go for a refresh ahead of the legislative elections to make up for the lack of local connection over the last 5 years

And indeed they have - the party now becomes 'Renaissance'
lesechos.fr/elections/pres… It's a theme that Macron likes to come back to - identifying with a political movement that is a direct inheritor of the original renaissance and casting the far-left and far-right parties that dominate the rest of French politics as the forces of obscurantism
Mar 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Yes of course it's the first visa scheme - because the rest of Europe waived the need to apply for a visa in the first place

Put differently - we're the only country in Europe making these kinds of bureaucratic and costly demands on people fleeing a conflict in our own continent And we've only issued 300 visas??

Estonia's economy is 1/87th the size of ours and they've taken in 1400 people already

Mar 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It's also a reminder of how the EU is entirely compatible with national self-determination.

Not only is it voluntary for any nation to join or leave, the EU is an important protection against large states that would seek to dominate their neighbours. The argument that 'nationalism is cool again' only works if you refuse to see the difference between a voluntary union of nations pooling their sovereignty to enhance their collective strength and wellbeing, versus a big country invading a smaller one
Mar 6, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Isn't it eye-opening how the notion of a Global Britain, facing outwards to the 'blue sea', ready to explore the riches of the Indo-Pacific has come crashing down?

Reality asserts itself and we are reminded that, yes, Europe is an inescapable part of our country We are, in the end, bound into Europe - its wealth, its stability, its freedom, its security

All of these things are existential for us and cannot ever be ignored
Oct 31, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The key problem here is: 'by imposing penalties on the UK'

Precisely zero penalties have been suggested or called for simply in response to the UK leaving the EU

The only penalties France is calling for are in response to their view that the UK is breaching the TCA So to be very clear - based on everything that has been said and done we know that:

1. Showing the public Brexit has more costs than benefits

and

2. Imposing penalties on the UK for an alleged breach of the TCA

are two different things
Oct 30, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Some people seem to think France is trying to gain new fishing access beyond the terms of the TCA

They aren't.

It's a dispute about how individual ships claim the rights given to them by the TCA and what level of proof is needed Ships that previously fished in the waters around Jersey and Guernsey have the right to keep doing so

France says this is not being respected as only about half of the applications for licences have been accepted
Oct 29, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How much are we betting that this is not in fact what was said? Even just from what I can make out in the article, it's the very old and standard position that being outside the EU must mean a worse deal than being inside

That's not punishment
Oct 29, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
The problem with media reporting on international relations is that they treat disputes like this as individual, one off events rather than a part of a long series of engagements between two countries Countries don't actually operate on the basis of single moments, their interactions with each other are developed over time and through repetition
Oct 2, 2021 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
'Making Brexit work'

Or why Labour's search for a middle ground will be in vain

🧵 More specifically, the problem for Labour is that they are trying to make a hard Brexit 'work'

So no Single Market, no Customs Union, no Freedom of Movement /1
Sep 18, 2021 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
AUKUS has been a huge blunder for Western efforts to push back on China. There are a few different threads to untangle:
1) FR's feeling of betrayal
2) US inconsistency
3) Global Britain as image not practice

Long thread: First, why France feels so betrayed.
In any scenario, this is a big loss for FR in terms of its defence industry. The AUS deal was important and there is a feeling they invested a lot to suit AUS's preferences. So AUS's switching partner was always going to be tough. /1
Jun 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Impossible to parody this telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/… The serious point to be made though is that this again exposes the myth of 'good' and 'bad' immigrants. They love to talk up the narrative of global talent but we don't only need the top 1% - we need ordinary workers too
Dec 31, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
In principle agreement between 🇪🇸 and 🇬🇧 to incorporate Gibraltar into the Schengen Area, with EU border guards to control entry from outside of Schengen elpais.com/espana/2020-12… This would mean that the 'Fence' which separates Gibraltar from Spain will in due course be demolished
Dec 30, 2020 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Hopefully not the usual piece on Brexit and the future of the union

A European Tomorrow: Won't someone call a doctor? europeantomorrow.blogspot.com/2020/12/wont-s… @chrisgreybrexit @jonworth
Dec 29, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
All the main parties of Northern Ireland and Scotland will vote against the EU-UK deal

Brexit is ripping up our union There are at least three political zones in the UK today - Northern Ireland, Scotland and England & Wales

And I don't know how much longer the third will hold together
Nov 15, 2020 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
Recently talk of the conditions for joining the EU has been cropping up on my timeline. This has relevance for both the UK and possibly an independent Scotland so let's go through what we know for sure in this thread. /1 The Treaty on European Union, Article 49.

This is the mirror to Article 50, which we've all heard plenty about. Article 49 says a few brief things about a state seeking to join the EU. /2
Nov 13, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Well that was sudden Cummings has been a larger than life figure in British politics. He's praised by his admirers as a genius. Now we'll see whether him being out of the decision room makes all that much difference