Written by Saša Butorac.
CONTEXTTimely, cost-efficient expansion and modernisation of the European energy infrastructure is one of the key challenges in the EU’s ongoing energy transition. Grid development is needed to ensure energy supply security, increase the resilience of Europe’s energy system and integrate the rapid roll-out of renewable energy sources. Cross border infrastructure plays a vital role in connecting national energy networks..
Meeting the 2030 interconnection targets is particularly important for completing the energy union and reaching European Union energy and climate goals. Given the scale of investment required, the persistent governance challenges around cross‑border projects and the need to enhance the robustness of the scenarios on which they are based, the European Commission has put forward a proposal to revise the TEN‑E regulation, as part of the European grids package published on 10 December 2025. The proposal is one of two legislative initiatives forming the core of the package (the other is on accelerating permit‑granting procedures).
Legislative proposal2025/0399(COD) – Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure, amending Regulations (EU) 2019/942, (EU) 2019/943 and (EU) 2024/1789 and repealing Regulation (EU) 2022/869 – COM(2025) 1006, 10 December 2025.
NEXT STEPS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTFor the latest developments in this legislative procedure, see the Legislative Train Schedule:
Read the complete briefing on ‘Guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure Revision of the TEN E Regulation‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.
A U.S. THAAD battery deployed in Seongju, South Korea. Credibly deterring Chinese coercion would require additional THAAD batteries integrated into a regional missile defense network. (Source: BBC)
On February 5, 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction (New START) Treaty will expire, ending the last legally binding limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces. With it goes a framework that capped deployed warheads at 1,550 and delivery vehicles at 700—and, more importantly, the verification regime that anchored strategic stability for over a decade. Russia’s 2022 suspension, followed by repeated violations ranging from INF-style prohibited systems to novel delivery vehicles like the nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile, made renewal politically and strategically untenable. China, never a party to New START, has exploited this vacuum, accelerating a nuclear buildup from roughly 500 warheads in 2025 toward an estimated 1,500 by 2035.
The United States now confronts, for the first time, two near-peer nuclear competitors simultaneously; thus Washington’s response—preparing for nuclear “uploads” and reinforcing the credibility of the strategic triad—is necessary yet insufficient. Without ceilings on strategic arsenals, stability will increasingly hinge on whether escalation can be managed below the nuclear threshold, thereby making conventional deterrence in the Indo-Pacific—especially land-based missile defense and forward-deployed resilience—decisive. Yet this task cannot be carried by the United States alone. Allied burden‑sharing—particularly through alliance modernization that builds interoperable Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) networks atop ground‑based air and missile defense systems—is no longer optional; it is a prerequisite for credible integrated deterrence in the post–New START era, and a pathway toward a Pacific architecture deliberately designed to blunt Chinese coercion—modular, mobile, and resilient enough to deny Beijing the ability to localize risk or exploit allied hesitation, while pairing denial with calibrated punishment across cyber, space, and information domains to impose costs for grey‑zone aggression without crossing nuclear thresholds.
Strategic Unraveling: A Triangular Arms Race Begins
With New START gone, an unconstrained triangular arms race is already underway. Russia has modernized roughly 90 percent of its nuclear triad and can sustain a deployed arsenal near former treaty limits while diversifying delivery systems. China, meanwhile, represents the more destabilizing variable. It is constructing hundreds of new missile silos, deploying DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, expanding dual-capable DF-26 systems, and fielding hypersonic glide vehicles designed to compress U.S. decision time and overwhelm regional defenses.
According to an Atlantic Council expert, U.S. strategy must adapt to this new reality: in the short term, Washington should upload additional warheads onto Ohio-class SSBNs, reintroduce multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on portions of the Minuteman III force, and deploy the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon aboard B-52 bombers to restore counterforce leverage against two near-peer competitors simultaneously; in the medium term, rely on the Columbia-class SSBN, B-21 Raider bomber, and nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) to ensure the strategic triad’s survivability and credibility through the 2040s; and diplomatically, keep trilateral arms-control talks viable while investing in NC3 resilience and missile-defense architectures, including exploratory concepts like a continental “Golden Dome.”
The costs of adapting to the post–New START environment, however, are staggering. Congressional Budget Office estimates place U.S. nuclear modernization at roughly $946 billion by the mid‑2030s. Yet nuclear spending alone cannot manage escalation. INDOPACOM still faces an estimated $27 billion shortfall in conventional capabilities—especially missile defense, strike, and sustainment—leaving U.S. forces exposed in the opening phases of a crisis. Without resilient conventional forces, nuclear investments risk becoming instruments of last resort rather than tools of stability.
U.S. Typhon MRC (ground-launched SM-6/Tomahawk system for 1,500km precision strikes) launcher and C2 vehicle at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni, Sept. 15, 2025 (Source: Asahi Shimbun).
The Indo-Pacific Front: Why Alliance Modernization—Especially Conventional Forces—Anchors Stability
Indo-Pacific allies routinely affirm their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” yet capability gaps remain stark. Japan’s planned increase to 2 percent of GDP by 2027 masks persistent delays in force integration and C4ISR interoperability—revealing structural gaps that hardware spending alone cannot bridge. South Korea spends roughly 2.7 percent of GDP on defense, but much of that investment remains concentrated on peninsula-specific contingencies rather than scalable regional stabilization.
In the post–New START environment, burden-sharing defined merely as cost-sharing is no longer sufficient. What deterrence now requires is shared risk and shared resolve: allied decisions that visibly place national territory, forces, and political capital inside the same escalation ladder faced by the United States. Ground-based deployments, forward rotations, and interoperable data fabrics that turn disparate sensors into unified battle management matter precisely—converting alliances from siloed hardware buyers into networked deterrence partners.
This logic aligns with a growing body of strategic scholarship, most notably the work of James Fearon and Andrew Lim. They argue that the erosion of U.S. conventional superiority—driven by China’s A2/AD architectures and Russia’s precision-strike capabilities—has produced a destabilizing overreliance on nuclear deterrence. Their core claim, however, is not that nuclear forces have become obsolete, but rather that strategic stability increasingly depends on restoring a software-orchestrated conventional triad in which penetrating strike platforms, precision fires, and mobile retaliation function as intelligent nodes within JADC2-enabled data ecosystems. Within this framework, missile defense should not be understood as a standalone pillar of deterrence but as a survivability enabler—a means of preserving offensive forces long enough to execute credible second-strike conventional operations.
Building on this strategic imperative to reinforce the conventional triad, alliance modernization in Northeast Asia could acquire tangible form. Enhanced trilateral coordination among the United States, South Korea, and Japan would allow THAAD and SPY-7 sensors to feed advanced data-fusion layers into Typhon and HIMARS effectors, thereby transforming missile defense from a purely protective measure into the foundation of software-defined second-strike precision.
In December 2025, U.S. M270A2 MLRS units stationed at Camp Casey demonstrated rapid counterfire against DPRK artillery, while HIMARS rotations from Okinawa maintained continuous availability. Yet such precision fires are credible only insofar as their survivability is assured by layered defenses, since DPRK missiles or Chinese DF-26 strikes could saturate critical hubs—such as Pyeongtaek—thereby degrading the very conventional triad Fearon and Lim prescribe. To function as a true survivability enabler against high-altitude threats, therefore, South Korea’s single THAAD battery—deployed in 2017—must be augmented through PAC-3 integration, ensuring that HIMARS forces remain preserved for follow-on strikes.
Such augmentation, however, cannot occur in isolation. Effective trilateral cooperation requires orchestration through federated C4ISR networks, complemented by Japanese contributions. In this regard, Typhon basing on Japanese territory completes the Fearon–Lim precision‑strike leg. Despite the withdrawal from Iwakuni and persistent political opposition in Okinawa, the system remains central to the trilateral alliance’s mid‑range strike capability, particularly when reinforced by Tokyo’s mobile SPY‑7 radars paired with SM‑3 Block IIA interceptors—introduced after Japan’s 2020 pivot from the canceled Aegis Ashore program—which add agile command‑and‑control enablers to the overall architecture.
The resulting theater sequence is coherent and continuous: SPY-7 tracks Chinese launches, Korean THAAD defends critical bases, HIMARS suppresses transporter-erector-launchers, Type-12 missiles secure the littorals, and Typhon targets Shanghai–Beijing command-and-control nodes—all unified through software-defined battle management.
Written by Victoria Martin de la Torre.
Commemoration of the liberation of AuschwitzOn 27 January 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated, after some 1.1 million people – mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities – were murdered there. This year, survivor Tatiana Bucci, who was six years old when she was deported to Auschwitz with her family, will address MEPs, recalling that around 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust.
Role of the European ParliamentIn 1995, Parliament called for a Holocaust Remembrance Day in all Member States, and in January 2005 proposed 27 January as the EU’s Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust. In November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated 27 January as an international day of commemoration to honour Holocaust victims. Since 2005, Parliament has marked this date every year.
Parliament’s Vice-President responsible for Holocaust Remembrance Day and the fight against antisemitism is Pina Picierno (S&D, Italy). The House of European History, established at Parliament’s initiative in Brussels, features a permanent exhibition on the Holocaust and offers the Hidden Children – Survivors of the Holocaust in Brussels, a guided educational and commemorative walk for young people.
In October 2017, Parliament called on the Member States to mark 2 August as the date to remember the victims of the Roma Holocaust and to include this community in Holocaust Remembrance Day. In June that year, Parliament called on the Member States to adopt and apply the working definition of antisemitism employed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, so as to identify and prosecute antisemitic attacks more efficiently and effectively. In October 2018, in relation to the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe, Parliament drew attention to growing violence against Jews, and called on the Member States to counter Holocaust denial and trivialisation, and to mainstream Holocaust remembrance in education.
Parliament regularly adopts resolutions on fundamental rights in the EU, addressing a wide range of issues such as human dignity, freedom, minority rights and antisemitism. Its September 2022 resolution on the situation of fundamental rights in the EU (2020-2021), for instance, provided an overview of antisemitism, racism, discrimination against LGBTIQ persons, anti-gypsyism and xenophobia.
In 2023, Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) began work on a report supporting the extension of the list of EU crimes in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to include hate speech and hate crime, in response to a 2021 Commission communication. If the list is extended, Parliament and the Council may then establish minimum rules on the definition of criminal offences and sanctions across the EU. Parliament endorsed the report in plenary on 18 January 2024.
The European Parliament’s Working Group against Antisemitism, bringing together more than 80 Members from across the political groups, cooperates with all EU institutions.
This is an update of an ‘At a glance’ note from January 2025 drafted by Alina-Alexandra Georgescu.
Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026: Through the eyes of a child‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.
Since 2004, the European Union (EU) and India have fostered a strategic partnership, with Summits held over the years to strengthen their relations. Despite periodic inconsistencies and obstacles that have hindered the partnership’s growth, their collaboration appears to have gained renewed momentum in 2025. Attention has been growing for the upcoming 2026 Summit, which has the potential to serve as a crucial opportunity to deepen their ties. This policy brief reviews their bilateral interactions, addresses current challenges in the EU-India relations, and explores expectations for the upcoming Summit. It also underscores Greece’s role in identifying new opportunities to deepen EU-India cooperation and suggests measures to further enhance their strategic partnership.
Read here in pdf the Policy paper by George Dikaios, Marie Curie Fellow, Leiden University; Senior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP and Marianna Terezaki, Junior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP.
Der Wirtschaftsflügel der CDU hat vorgeschlagen, das Recht auf Teilzeitarbeit abzuschaffen, um dem Fachkräftemangel entgegenzuwirken. Dies kommentiert Katharina Wrohlich, Leiterin der Forschungsgruppe Gender Economics im DIW Berlin, wie folgt:
Die Abschaffung des Rechtsanspruchs auf Teilzeit würde den Fachkräftemangel in Deutschland nicht lösen. Besser wäre es, an anderer Stelle anzusetzen: Zum einen müssten das Angebot und die Qualität der Kinderbetreuung deutlich verbessert werden, denn nicht alle Frauen arbeiten freiwillig in Teilzeit – manche würden gerne ihre Arbeitszeit erhöhen, können dies aber aufgrund mangelnder Kinderbetreuung nicht.
Zum anderen müssten die finanziellen Anreize zur Mehrarbeit speziell für die Gruppe erhöht werden, die derzeit besonders häufig in Teilzeit ist: verheiratete Frauen. Eine Reform des Ehegattensplittings könnte eine höhere Wochenarbeitszeit für Frauen finanziell deutlich attraktiver machen. Das jetzige Steuersystem belohnt vor allem die Aufteilung, dass einer Vollzeit arbeitet und (meist) eine im Minijob. Dementsprechend sollte auch die Minijob-Regelung reformiert und auf Schüler*innen, Studierende und Rentner*innen begrenzt werden. Durch eine solche Reform wäre eine gleichmäßigere Aufteilung der Erwerbs- und Sorgearbeit für Paare attraktiver. Dies wäre nicht nur aus arbeitsmarktpolitischer, sondern auch aus gleichstellungspolitischer Perspektive wichtig: Es würde die ökonomische Eigenständigkeit von Frauen erhöhen und hätte nicht zuletzt auch einen positiven Einfluss auf deren Alterseinkünfte."
With the entry into force of the United Nations treaty for the protection of the high seas on 17 January, an important step has been taken towards the protection of “biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction” (BBNJ). The so-called BBNJ Agreement aims to promote the transparent and diverse exchange of knowledge about the high seas in order to strengthen environmental standards. However, against the backdrop of a geopolitical environment in which knowledge itself is increasingly politicised, the question arises as to how this knowledge diversity can be secured over the long term.
The Clearing-House Mechanism: Technical Tool or Political Lever?At the centre of this debate lies an instrument with an unassuming name: the so-called BBNJ Clearing-House Mechanism (CHM). It is intended to become a freely accessible platform on which information about activities on the high seas is collected, analysed, and shared. Its objectives include enhancing transparency among State Parties and relevant stakeholders, as well as facilitating international cooperation, particularly in scientific matters. Although the goals and basic structure of the CHM are defined in the treaty text, its concrete design remains the subject of ongoing negotiation – and it is precisely this element that makes the mechanism politically contested.
The treaty text explicitly opens the possibility of incorporating different forms of knowledge into decision-making processes through the CHM. In particular, diverse knowledge systems could be systematically integrated within the framework put forward for mandatory environmental impact assessments. States would be required not only to assess potential environmental impacts, but also to consider the economic, social, cultural, health-related, and cumulative effects of planned activities that take place in or affect the high seas. Such a comprehensive assessment of impacts necessitates contributions from a range of scientific disciplines as well as the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
A further opportunity for the practical implementation of knowledge pluralism is found in the provisions concerning the composition of the Scientific and Technical Body (STB). The relevant wording in the agreement suggests that this body should go beyond purely natural scientific expertise and incorporate a broader spectrum of local, traditional, and Indigenous knowledge related to the marine environment. Since the STB can issue recommendations about activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction on the basis of information provided through the CHM, this represents a key lever for translating the knowledge diversity promised in the treaty text into practice. This depends, however, on whether the STB is in fact constituted in a way that ensures adequate representation of different knowledge systems.
Political Conflicts Delay the Implementation of the AgreementDespite the treaty’s promising language, the concrete design of the CHM remains politically contentious. Within the Preparatory Commission (PrepCom), which is tasked with operationalising the agreement, this issue has emerged as one of the central points of conflict. At a PrepCom meeting in August 2025, Parties were unable to reach agreement on the composition of an informal expert group intended to develop the technical aspects of the CHM. The selection process for this informal group is of strategic importance, as it could set a precedent for the composition of other BBNJ bodies. Whereas some states are advocating for the broad inclusion of a range of knowledge holders, others seek to reduce the CHM to a purely natural scientific and technical function guided exclusively by academic expertise. Critics warn that such an approach could privilege natural scientific knowledge from the Global North and marginalise social scientific, local, or traditional forms of knowledge.
Against the background of recent attempts by individual states, including the United States, to restrict access to marine data, it becomes clear that knowledge about the oceans is itself increasingly becoming an object of political contestation. Germany and the EU have repeatedly spoken out during international forums in favour of the freedom and diversity of science. In the context of the ongoing negotiations on the operationalisation of the BBNJ Agreement, they should therefore make targeted efforts to ensure that knowledge diversity within the agreement is not merely recognised normatively, but institutionally safeguarded as well. This is primarily about preventing the privileging of certain forms of knowledge within BBNJ bodies, such as the Scientific and Technical Body. At the same time, the CHM platform itself must be designed in such a way that different knowledge types can be made equally accessible.
Accusations de répression, tensions avec le pouvoir, pressions sur les médias et le monde académique : en déplacement du 21 au 24 janvier, une délégation du Parlement européen a exprimé de vives préoccupations concernant les libertés publiques et les pressions sur la société civile en Serbie, ravivant les doutes sur l'avenir du processus d'adhésion.
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