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“I will do all I can to protect little Indi’s life,” Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni tweeted, along with a picture of the eight-month-old Indi Gregory, an English baby girl with an incurable mitochondrial condition. Doctors and UK judges repeatedly said there was no way to save the baby, but the family had been fighting to keep the girl’s life-support machine running.
As part of her pro-life narrative, Meloni jumped on the story: she offered Italian citizenship to the baby, and to bring her to Italy before her life support was removed. British judges described Italy’s intervention as “wholly misconceived”. The baby died in mid-November, a week after this tweet.

After Indi’s death, Meloni has kept on posting her support for pro-life organisations. Even before taking over the government, Meloni’s far-right party limited the right to abortion in the Marche region, which is run by her party, Brothers of Italy.

Euthanasia, or a ‘good death’, is a heated topic in the Netherlands, which is known for its liberal views. The Dutch approach reflects a strong belief in freedom and personal choice. The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia in 2002, and has one of the most progressive euthanasia laws in the world.

Euthanasia is allowed under strict conditions: the patient must endure unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement, the request must be voluntary and well-considered, and the patient must be fully informed. The decision must be supported by at least two doctors to ensure a thorough and ethical process. The same criteria apply to euthanasia for patients who suffer unbearably from dementia or for psychiatric reasons, such as major depression or personality disorders, which are rare and subject to strict safeguards.

However, the debate doesn’t stop there. A social and political discussion is currently underway about extending the right of euthanasia to the elderly who feel their lives are complete, even in the absence of severe illness. This is groundbreaking, even for the Netherlands.

Critics worry this could put pressure on older people, who feel they are a burden, to choose euthanasia. Supporters argue that it’s all about personal freedom: a person’s sense of a fulfilled life, devoid of suffering, should be respected and the right to a dignified end is a fundamental aspect of personal freedom. Research commissioned by the government found that over 10,000 Dutch people aged 55 and over (out of 21,000 participants in the study) would consider euthanasia when they feel their lives are completed.

This debate shows how the Netherlands continues to push the boundaries when it comes to personal freedom. It’s a complex issue, as it highlights the delicate balance between safeguarding vulnerable individuals and honouring the deeply-held Dutch value of self-determination. As this debate continues, the Netherlands remains at the forefront, navigating the complex interplay of ethical, moral and personal freedoms.

Dr. Paul Tammert thought he had found a loophole in Estonian law, allowing him to perform assisted suicide. He even presented a gas-based device on an evening TV show that provided this service.

Two of his patients ended their lives using it, but a third attempt stalled as the machine ran out of gas. While he drove to another town to procure more lethal gas, the police arrested him. He is now on trial for illegal business activities.

While Tammert will be punished for his amateurish stunt, three quarters of Estonian doctors think there should be legislation for the currently unregulated ‘right to die’.

“I have no idea. This is a party you can only attend once,” 46-year-old constitutional lawyer Dániel Karsai answered journalists, when they asked him about his future. A future that, in his case, will last no more than a few years, leading to total paralysis and loss of speech, while leaving his mental faculties intact, and inevitable death.

In 2022, Karsai was diagnosed with ALS, a rare genetic disease brought to the world’s attention by legendary physicist Stephen Hawking. While he may not live to Hawking’s age of 76, he is using the time he has left to fight for the right to die, or, in his own words, “To die like the trees, standing”.

Hungarian law allows terminally ill patients to refuse life-saving treatment, but this does not apply to people suffering from ALS, as there is no treatment to refuse. If he wanted to travel to Switzerland, where euthanasia is legal, to end his life, even family members driving him there could be imprisoned on their return to Hungary.

Besides, Karsai does not wish to die in a room overlooking the Swiss Alps.

“If they teach us in school: ‘here you must live and die’ [in a poem by Vörösmarty Mihály], at least let me do it with dignity”.

As one of the most successful human rights lawyers in Hungary, he has represented hundreds of clients before the European Court of Human Rights. It is a dark twist of fate that he has launched a case for his own end-of-life decision in Strasbourg.

By sitting in a wheelchair in front of the panel of judges, he did much more than plead his case: he united a country torn apart by politics. Dying – he admits – “sucks”, but nobody can avoid it. To his surprise, Hungarians rallied behind him. From doctors to priests to philosophers, many have understood that Karsai is fighting for them all.

Should his case succeed in Strasbourg, the government will be obliged to change the law, making his struggle for human rights immortal.

“Go to Berlin!” shouted Law and Justice (PiS) MPs when Donald Tusk, the future prime minister of Poland, appeared in the Polish parliament this summer. The narrative that the opposition leader was “in the pocket of Brussels” and pursuing anti-Polish interests permeated the election campaign in October 2023.

The PiS propaganda suggested that the opposition’s win would result in Poland losing its sovereignty. The Poles, strongly in favour of EU membership, didn’t buy it. Moreover, the European Commission has already announced it will unblock billions for Poland from its Recovery and Resilience Funds this year.

This money had been frozen because the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government would not withdraw its widely criticised justice reform. In Tusk’s case, his visit to Brussels and announcement that he would shelve this reform were enough. Tusk, while not yet prime minister, already has a major success to his credit, that neither the PiS nor the outgoing government of Mateusz Morawiecki can boast about.

The PiS government’s anti-EU policy was primarily intended to dampen criticism of Brussels at home because of the government’s authoritarian inclinations. Over the past years, Morawiecki’s government took a drastic turn to the right and Poland became a Trojan horse of extremist ideas in the EU. Neither Warsaw nor the Poles have benefited in any tangible way from this.

However, by stirring up conflict between the European Union and Poland, the Morawiecki government was fostering the interests of the Russians, who were seeking to weaken the bloc. Signs are multiplying among opposition figures and journalists that some PiS politicians were aware of this, and may have openly favoured Russia. These links should be investigated by the politicians who are about to take power very soon.

Sovereignty is the new buzzword of the Hungarian government. Not only did they submit a so-called sovereignty protection bill to parliament, but they also launched a national consultation and a poster campaign.

The bill would establish an authority to detect and monitor any risks of political interference. It would also punish foreign funding of parties or groups standing for election with up to three years in prison.

The poster campaign gives the impression that foreign interference in Hungary partly comes from the European institutions, and shows Alex Soros, son of Hungarian-born billionaire, George Soros, behind European decisions. Similar billboards against George Soros and former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker have appeared before. What’s ironic is that the Hungarian government has praised Juncker’s successor, Ursula von der Leyen.

Times have changed, believes the populist Fidesz leadership, and the EU has become a target. The message of Zoltán Kovács, international spokesman of the government is: Hungary does not dance to their tune.

“We have to, you know, live even before joining the European Union, and we have to think about our country, our children and our future,” Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic told media in Beijing in mid-October prior to his ministers signing a free trade agreement between the two countries.

Vucic’s statement was a reaction to EU Commission spokesperson Peter Stano, who said Serbia would have to withdraw from all bilateral agreements with third parties on the day it joins the EU.

According to data published by Serbia’s Statistical Office, China was Serbia’s second-largest import partner between January and September 2023. The report, however, also notes that Serbia’s corresponding exports are not high, and the country’s biggest trade deficit is with China.

This agreement is a step forward in deepening the economic relations between the two countries.

China has been financially present in Serbia since before Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party came to power, but this relationship deepened in the last couple of years. It helped Serbian authorities to “keep jobs”, such as in the Smederevo Ironworks, which was bought by China’s Hesteel Group (HBIS) in 2016, and to build kilometers of highways, which leaders have declared is a great success and a sign of progress.

At the same time, these projects did not conform to the country’s legal system, and were a direct deal between the state and its Chinese partners. In practice, this meant that Serbia did not consider other offers. The subcontractors on these projects are domestic companies, but, in some cases, those were close to the ruling elite.

Serbian institutions never reacted to serious allegations of violation of workers’ rights in Chinese companies and problems with pollution.

According to an analysis by BIRN, in 2021 there were at least 61 projects in various stages of completion in Serbia that had been or were being implemented by or in cooperation with Chinese entities over a decade, with a value of at least 18.7 billion euros.

A party needs to surpass five percent of the popular vote to be elected to the Estonian parliament, but a threshold of two percent is enough to qualify for state funding. This is the proportion the pro-Russian Left Party achieved in elections this year, after a campaign by their candidate Aivo Peterson.

The political figure became known for his trips to the Russian-occupied Donbass region and his blatantly pro-Kremlin rhetoric. It didn’t take long for Estonian authorities to discover that he has received instructions from Russia. 

Peterson is now in jail awaiting trial, accused of treason. Despite this, the Left Party will continue to receive money from Estonian taxpayers.

Nicolas Quénel is a specialist in the intelligence services and disinformation wars. He has recently written Allo Paris? Ici Moscou, Plongée au cœur de la guerre de l’information (Hello, Paris? This is Moscow. A dive into the heart of the information war). 

Is France particularly targeted by Russian influence operations? 

Along with Germany, France is one of the EU member states most affected [by Russian influence ops], and has been for a long time. French authorities have been confoundingly naive in their dealings with Moscow. In 2006, President Jacques Chirac decorated Putin with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor [France’s highest distinction], and in 2011 President Nicolas Sarkozy signed a contract to deliver helicopter carriers to Russia while the Russian army was occupying northern Georgia. In 2017, the first thing Macron did once he was elected was to receive Putin at Versailles. Two years later, in a speech in France alongside the Russian president, he said that Russia was “profoundly European” and a “great Enlightenment power”. The obsession was to normalise relations with Moscow. 

How do you explain the extent of Russian influence in France?

There are several historical reasons. The anti-Americanism of the French elite played a role, as did the presence of a long-standing and powerful French Communist party and the existence of a press that emphasised opinion articles and was therefore more permeable to Russian discourse.

But just recently, France was the subject of an interference operation probably directed by Russia… 

That’s right, a Moldovan couple were paid to paint Stars of David on the walls of Paris to stir up trouble in French society, and Russian bot networks relayed the images. It was a low-cost operation, but it worked. The media covered it extensively before it became clear that it was a remote-controlled operation from abroad. Intelligence services are noticing a return to these modes of operation, reminiscent of those used during the Cold War. In 1960, the KGB did exactly the same thing in West Germany, painting swastikas on walls to suggest that Nazism was returning to Germany and to undermine Western confidence in their partner.

The cost of living crisis, years of austerity under Tory governments since 2010, growing inflation, and a fall in real wages have provided a new space for trade unions in Britain, exemplified by a wave of strikes in 2022.

In addition to the ongoing strikes in different sectors, there has also been a growth in union membership, also driven by a large increase of women joining up between 2017 and 2020.

Historically, trade unions in the UK have secured workplace rights, including the minimum wage, maternity and paternity rights, pensions, holidays, and sick leave, and helped draw up the social agenda of the Labour Party, which was founded by unions and socialist societies in 1900.

While unions were central to these developments, they reached their peak in 1979, with 13.2 million members. Consequently, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, as part of the Trans-Atlantic neoliberal consensus, antagonised unions front and centre in the 1980s.

Thatcher’s mantra was “There is no such thing as society”, which was key to how her governments (and those of her successor John Major) implemented legislation to reduce unions’ power and influence, through restrictions to the right of picketing, ballots for strike actions and preventing members from supporting other unions.

This setting also contributed to a progressive decline in union membership, which fell from its 1979 peak to below six million in the early 2010s.

While the miners’ strike of 1984-85 challenged Thatcher’s policies against unions’ actions, its outcome saw a victory of a neoliberal consensus that outlasted the conservative governments.

The return of the unions to the British stage after decades in the wings are a sign of hope and defiance for workers’ organisations in Europe. However, this contrasts with the British political scenery. The country faces a choice at the general election next year, between Tory PM Rishi Sunak’s anti-union legal position and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s centrist neo-Blairite stance.