Katja Bego
@katjabego
Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House | Europe, geoeconomics of tech, European security | Currently ✍️ a book on subsea cables (Polity '26) | Amsterdammer in London 🇪🇺
Several of these also remind me of (and may have been inspired by?) the old Dutch Gulden bills. Those had a great design!
I guess the list of possible Great Europeans not somehow responsible for the massacre of one of the neighbours is rather short. Leaving us with Curie, children in a library, birds and Commission buildings...
Distinct school books from the 1990s flair these ones - "Élodie et Samuel écoutent leurs cassettes."
I hope the European vox populi exhibits some good taste, because some of the possible designs for the Euro bills are really rather bad (all a ruse to expedite the move to a cash-free society?). But some are quite nice! www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknot...
Andy Burnham’s wife is Dutch. Nick Clegg’s wife is also Dutch. The Dutch royal family is still in the line of succession for the English throne. The Dutch queen is Argentinian. The Dutch First Gentleman is also Argentinian. Buenos Aires playing the long game.
Wow. With Lindsey Graham dying, and Mitch McConnell at minimum no longer returning to Washington - it does feel like the end of an era in GOP politics. Both men had an opportunity to put a (partial) stop to the monster they'd helped create - but failed to. History could have been very different.
A glimpse of Istanbul and the Bosporus on my way back from the NATO summit earlier this week.
You know when in medieval paintings cats don’t quite look like cats? I found the taxidermy version!
RIP FCAS: “Berlin pulls plug on Franco-German fighter jet” On European defence integration and collaboration, it’s two steps forward, one step back (or sometimes three). giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Schloss Neuhardenberg, on the outskirts of Berlin. The site where most of the planning for the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler took place. A school during most of the DDR years, it was given back to the Hardenberg family after the fall of the wall.
More of less this. The key question for Europe for the decade ahead is whether it can find new political leadership, which not only makes the right decisions for Europe’s future, but also proves able to get the ageing boomer generation to vote (and make sacrifices) for it.
We finally have this bubble’s Pets dot com 🥳 “Shoe company Allbirds just announced that it plans to - Sell all of its brands and footwear assets - Rebrand the company to Newbird AI - Use a $50M convertible financing facility to "acquire high-performance GPU assets”
So against expectations, Orban has apparently conceded. Democracy has won out tonight (some lessons there for other countries).
It's been Schrödinger's Article 5 for at least a year now. Its deterrent effect has already significantly eroded, regardless of whether he walks this back. Europe needs to act accordingly. It's time the EU strengthens its own mutual defence clause - and brings the UK, Norway and Iceland along too.
Location of the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Europe desperately needs to rekindle that spirit again.
Posters from early in the Ukraine war (spring 2022) - let's take the sentiment to heart this time around.
Alexander Stubb at @chathamhouse.org: The threat from Russia and the changing role of the US provides an opportunity for Europe. Europe needs to grow its outside-facing geopolitical heft, but should also improve its internal capacity for decision-making (on two-speed Europe and enlargement)