The vice-president of the European People’s Party and one of the leading rapporteurs on the Multiannual Financial Framework in the European Parliament opposes the European Commission’s proposal for "weakening the Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion Policy". In conversation with Agenda Pública’s editor and director in Strasbourg, Mureșan draws attention to alternative mechanisms to increase funding —such as common debt— and to the need to address the challenge posed by digital giants.

Javi López, Vice-President of the European Parliament, examines the modernization of the Global Agreement between the European Union and Mexico – a pact that "isn’t only a trade agreement." In a scenario where "the borders between economics and geopolitics have vanished," he argues that Europe needs to strengthen ties with "reliable partners" and that Mexico meets key conditions for building more resilient supply chains and a long-range political alliance.

Professor Frank Decker, from the University of Bonn, talks to Jorge de Diego, staff writer at 'Agenda Pública', about how Germany is trapped between an unpopular grand coalition, the rise of the AfD and an economy that urgently needs reform. The academic describes this as "a real dilemma", warns that "in Germany, there is no alternative in the party system to this coalition" and calls for a change of perspective in German politics: "We need visions", he says.

The Andalusian elections pave the way for the general election and invite a reading that goes beyond the number of seats: the PP maintains its territorial strength, but it has not shown that it has expanded the conservative bloc compared with 2023. At the same time, the PSOE avoids an image of collapse and confirms that its electoral floor still depends on mobilization.

The rules-based international order is faltering, but it is also "being repriced." Juan Luis Manfredi, professor of International Studies, argues that, for banks, funds and financial institutions, geopolitics has become "a structural input into credit origination." From this perspective, he sets out three complementary scenarios — from midterms that rebalance Trumpism to energy disruption driven by Iran — that point to the same conclusion: "the immediate priority is correcting what markets are systematically mispricing."

Europe’s economic engine is seizing up, its political system wracked by paralysis and by the unstoppable rise of the AfD. Has the German model entered a phase of structural demolition? In his weekly column, 'Agenda Pública' editor and director Marc López Plana examines some current developments, from the exhaustion of Merz’s grand coalition to the industrial standoff with Spain over green funds. He finds an institutional crisis that is threatening to fracture the single market.

Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, talks to Marc López Plana, Director and Editor of 'Agenda Pública', about Spain, Trump, China, European defence and the future of the European Union. "It would be unwise to rely on Trump to defend Europe," she says, whilst calling on the continent to step up and "defend its industries."

"The European social model is an asset for our economic model," argues Roxana Mînzatu, executive vice-president of the European Commission, who calls for poverty to be understood beyond income: "Someone may have a salary and still not have enough to live on," she says. In conversation with Jorge de Diego, editor at Agenda Pública, she discusses the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, housing, child poverty and the role of member states.

From the American Enterprise Institute to the Eurasia Group, analyst J.P. Carroll has compiled the views of seven experts - including alumni of the Trump and Obama administrations - ahead of the major summit between the United States and China. Although most observers agree that they expect little progress, they highlight trade and Taiwan’s security as the key issues at the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

Labour strategist John McTernan warns that Keir Starmer has lost authority after "the worst election results the Labour Party has had in more than a century." The former director of political operations for Prime Minister Blair argues that the party will only be able to stop Nigel Farage if it rebuilds a progressive coalition with recognisable policies on housing, climate, Europe, defence and immigration.

The Brussels bubble has burst, integrating itself into day-to-day partisan disputes. In his weekly column, Marc López Plana, editor and director of 'Agenda Pública', examines how today’s politics circulates freely across borders, so that an audit report issued in Madrid can end up fueling the budget debate in Berlin. No longer a distant arbiter, the EU has become a transnational arena for permanent electoral battle.

Erik Jones, PhD in International Relations and professor at the European University Institute, talks with 'Agenda Pública' staff writer Jorge de Diego in Florence. The academic, who speaks of a "post-Atlantic Europe," is optimistic about Ukraine's EU accession process, but acknowledges that many challenges remain. For example, in the new European budget, where he believes that "we also have to find a way to cushion the blow for all those rural societies that will be affected."

The transition to electric vehicles is disrupting the European automotive hierarchy. Spain – endowed with renewable energy, competitive electricity prices, fully operational plants, and a more pragmatic relationship with China – has begun to occupy a place that previously seemed reserved for Germany. In a Europe that fears losing industry as well as autonomy, the motor sector is wondering who designs the best electric cars, but above all who can manufacture them at affordable prices.

The 'Plan Anual Normativo' (or Annual Regulatory Plan) began as a technical requirement of the OECD, meant to improve legislative quality; but Moncloa has since transformed it into a sophisticated manual of political survival. In his weekly column, Marc López Plana dissects how Spain’s government is protecting its 2026 agenda in the face of a fragmented parliament and the suspension of European funds.

For Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute, the bond between the U.S. and Europe "still has a values component", but today "a geopolitical rationale" and an economic logic prevail. In this interview with international affairs analyst Clara Esteban García, the speaker at Foro La Toja - Vínculo Atlántico in Lisbon warns that Europe "falls short" when it comes to decision-making and that competition with China forces both blocs to look beyond the framework of democracies versus autocracies.

Bruno Maçães analyzes Spain’s role in the new global order, Europe’s relationship with China and the United States, the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of the far right. In conversation with the director and editor of 'Agenda Pública', the Portuguese writer and analyst argues that "our democracies are less democratic than before", points to the challenges posed by China and the far right, and presents Spain as one of the few European countries to have understood that the world has changed.

Spain is discovering that being the star pupil in economic growth comes at a price in Brussels. Whilst Madrid celebrates its GDP figures, a first draft budget has been drawn up in the corridors of the Berlaymont that prioritises tanks in Poland over motorways in Andalusia. The era of the 'disciplined recipient' is over. The editor and director of 'Agenda Pública', Marc López Plana, argues that Spain’s various economic sectors must learn to compete for funds on a playing field designed according to a different philosophy.

In their conversation during CIDOB’s international conference War and Peace in the 21st Century, Daniel Fiott and Max Bergmann, experts on defence and security, understand the present as a critical moment for the stability of the continent. Fiott, from the Brussels School of Governance, speaks of a "structural shift underway" in the transatlantic relationship. Bergmann, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, regrets that, at this moment, there is no "real foreign-policy mechanism" capable of unifying the continent’s voices to address this challenge.

Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new Prime Minister, has already visited Brussels aiming to launch a new era of relations with the European institutions. But according to Ruth Ferrero-Turrión, professor of Political Science at the Complutense University, "reducing the European problem" to the blockade by former PM Viktor Orbán would be "a diagnostic error." In her analysis of current political balances at the center of the continent, she highlights that the internal dynamics at play in Bucharest, Budapest, and Sofia could mean collateral damage for the EU’s foreign agenda.

Spain is staring into the abyss of the German CDU/CSU’s ‘Agenda 2026’, a clash between competitiveness and Europe’s social soul. In this column, Marc López, editor and director of ‘Agenda Pública’, analyses Madrid’s complex dilemma: Is it possible to alleviate the suffocation of our SMEs without dismantling the rights and climate protections that define us? The battle for the DNA of the European Union has begun.

In his weekly column, Marc López Plana, editor and director of 'Agenda Pública,' warns of the risk of institutional dumping under the European Commission’s Industrial Accelerator Act. The EU’s industrial policy runs the risk of funding a forced migration of factories to the highest-bidding state. When incentives outweigh efficiency, he warns, internal relocation becomes a symptom of a fractured bloc.

During the latest edition of the international conference War and Peace in the 21st Century, organised by CIDOB, the think tank’s senior researcher and former Member of the European Parliament, Domènec Ruiz Devesa, spoke with the director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), Tara Varma, and the director of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), Kristi Raik. The two engaged in a discussion on European defence and, in particular, on the role of the US in this context.

In this week’s column, Marc López Plana, director and editor of 'Agenda Pública', admonishes Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her "mistaken rejection of a meeting with President Sánchez during her visit to Madrid." Lamentably, Machado instead "used her cause like a projectile weapon within Spain’s domestic politics." López Plana also considers how Machado’s choice may have weakened her own prospects, especially from a European perspective.

Spain and Italy are each trying, using different methods, to find the same solution to their demographic and labour market challenges. Whilst Brussels insists on a harmonisation policy that lacks widespread support, Member States retain decisive powers to admit, regularise or integrate migrant populations. The result is a European Union divided into three distinct camps and a pact that highlights the absence of a common plan across the EU-27.

Europe’s heads of government are set to meet in Cyprus to focus on energy prices, compelled by a sense of urgency on many fronts. Nacho Alarcón, correspondent in Brussels, reports on the energy outlook as well as the debates around EU Article 42.7, Hungary’s veto of credit for Ukraine, and the start of budget negotiations in a European Union that appears to be entering ‘emergency mode’.

Europe is recalibrating its approach to tech giants. Sandra Marco Colino, a professor at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on competition law, analyzes how, in her view, with the arrival of Anthony Whelan at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, the EU is seeking a balance between strict regulation and industrial growth.

The Popular Party and Vox have signed the first governing agreement of this new political cycle in Extremadura. With the "national priority" as the core of the pact, for Anna López Ortega, PhD in Political Science, "it breaks with a fundamental pillar of the liberal state: equality before the law." In her analysis of the right-wing agreement, she highlights that "Iberian chauvinism" also extends to housing and energy and questions the ideological centrality of Génova.

In this edition of his weekly column, 'Agenda Pública' editor and director Marc López Plana dissects the raw realism of the CIDOB’s recent ‘War and Peace’ seminar. Following the end of the U.S. protectorate and Berlin’s nuclear turn, Europe finds itself faced with a choice: abandon its strategic innocence, or languish in irrelevance.

In Barcelona, Camille Grand, who served as one of NATO’s top officials for defence investment, speaks with Marc López Plana, director and editor of 'Agenda Pública'. During CIDOB’s international conference War and Peace in the 21st century, Grand, who is secretary general of the European trade association for the aerospace, security and defence industries (ASD), highlights the turbulent moment the sector is going through, but qualifies part of the political narrative: "Nobody wants NATO to go away, or the alliance with the United States to disappear," he says.

While Europe still functions as an identity anchor for many of its citizens, that link seems not to translate into personal optimism for the future. Country-comparison data provided at the 'European Pulse Forum' suggests that one can defend and believe in the European way of life, but at the same time view the near future with pessimism. This political tension is among the most significant for Europe and will remain so for the short term. Here we examine a survey being closely read at the Commission, indicating a certain schism between EU citizens and institutions.