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Hot, close and unpredictable: Spain braces for chaotic election

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

MADRID — When Maripaz Pérez thinks about Spain’s upcoming national election she gets nervous.Pérez, a resident of the city of Seville, isn’t worried about the tightness of the race or the policies the country’s next government may put in place: The source of her anxiety is the actual date of the vote.“Who on Earth thinks of holding a national election on July 23, a Sunday in the middle of summer, when nearly everyone is out of town?” she complained. “How can they ask people to interrupt their holidays and stand in line in blistering heat just to do their duty as a citizen?”From the moment Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez dissolved parliament in May, there’s been all sorts of speculation over how Spain’s summer election might play out.“We’ve never voted so late in the summer, when at least 10 million of Spain’s 37 million electors are on vacation,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III Univer...

One for the whips! Fifty Shades of Grey author donates to Labour frontbencher

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

LONDON — Labour frontbencher Rosena Allin-Khan has found herself with a very different whipping arrangement after securing financial backing from Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James.The British novelist — whose erotic thrillers have sold millions — provided the £5,000 fund to Allin-Khan in May under her real name, Erika Martin.The cash from James, known for storming the literary world with her tales of a BDSM-obsessed billionaire, will be used to help the shadow mental health minister fund a political adviser in her office. The donation appears in the latest register of MP’s financial interests, and POLITICO has confirmed it is the same Erika Martin.The Fifty Shades trilogy, which was turned into a series of blockbuster films, helped make James a multimillionaire, despite being mocked at times for its eye-watering sexual escapades — including peeled ginger root being inserted into various orifices — and tortured metaphors.“I feel the colour in my cheeks rising again. ...

Repatriate British families from Al-Hol

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Rob Williams is the CEO of War Child.Four years on from the military defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS), young women and children continue to be punished for the group’s monstrous crimes.The Al-Hol detention camp in northeast Syria is home to around 50,000 women and children who come from over 40 countries and were once associated with ISIS. Many of the camp’s detainees arrived as young girls. Some went voluntarily, some were groomed, others were compelled to join husbands or were brought to ISIS by their parents. But today, most of the camp’s current residents are young children born into the horror of war, exposed daily to violence and squalid conditions.Faced with this reality, countries with citizens in Al-Hol, whether from America, Europe or Asia, have been gradually allowing them to be repatriated, mostly to recover their lives and, where relevant, to face justice — with few exceptions. And among the most notable countries refusing to undertake the humane repatriation of famil...

Martin Dermine

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Dermine is forcing a major rethink for farmers after his NGO, PAN Europe, won a lawsuit at the Court of Justice of the EU earlier this year, overturning EU emergency authorization allowing the use of banned pesticides. The case successfully challenged capitals’ practice of granting exceptions to the ban on neonicotinoids — which are known to harm bees — for treating seeds. While so-called neonics make up some half of exemptions under the EU’s pesticide regulations, PAN Europe argues that the Luxembourg court’s ruling effectively closes a major loophole that keeps banned pesticides on the market — a view recently backed by the Commission.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Kai Zenner

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

A digital policy adviser to a key center-right MEP, Zenner essentially wrote large chunks of the Parliament’s amendments to the AI Act, inserting language to ensure that machine learning is overseen by humans; and that the EU’s early efforts at regulation will also apply to future technologies that we haven’t even dreamed of yet. Unlike most parliamentary assistants who put their boss in front, Zenner is a vocal part of the digital debate, posting regularly about the legislative process on his website, which promotes “pragmatism against populism and stagnation.”Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Alessandro Gropelli

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

How do you go up against Big Tech when you represent boring old telephone utilities? It’s all in the framing, of course — and that’s where Gropelli is proving his mettle. Members of his telco association, ETNO, are worried about shrinking margins even as demand for better bandwidth grows — and they want the Googles and Netflixes of the world, who are using that bandwidth, to help foot the bill. Or, as ETNO would put it, they should pay their “fair share.” And that phrase has taken over the debate even as Big Tech tries to label any contribution a tax or a network fee. The “fair share” concept has forced Silicon Valley players onto the defensive, arguing that demand for their services is the only thing keeping the telcos relevant.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Victoria Main

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Although Main left the news business more than a dozen years ago, she lobbies like a dogged reporter: shameless in her approach — often to the point of being annoying — and seemingly everywhere. That’s helped her attract sleepy business tech clients who want to get on the radar as well as controversial players who’d rather stay off it — including Twitter and Uber. And while Main’s native New Zealand hasn’t historically offered many connections in Brussels, the exclusive club of Kiwi journalists has in recent times become an incomparable power network.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Connor Allen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Allen’s Japanese employer may be a bit player on a policy scene dominated by Das Auto, but he keeps a high public profile — by design. With less than a decade in the Brussels bubble, he’s pulling back the curtain on everything he’s learned, whether it’s attempting (with mixed success) to distill the EU legislative process into 60-second TikTok clips or interviewing fellow lobbyists as co-host of the Pluxcast podcast. On Twitter, he sometimes plays the part of a typical Gen-Zer, with public displays of compassion and plenty of personal disclosure. But then he mixes that up with good-natured jabs at left-leaning Brussels “bike Twitter” and mockery of the green elite — his public sparring partners are often personal friends — offering an experiment in how the pro-European center right could hold its own in the under-35 space.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Matthew Tabone

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Few politicians in Brussels are more ambitious than European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, with her make-or-break year lying ahead. And she’s trusting Tabone with the issues most crucial to her political image. Task No. 1: Take advantage of opportunity in the Qatargate crisis by burnishing her chops as a parliamentary reformer. A push for more transparency involves overcoming both her native Malta’s culture of political corruption, as well as her own center-right political group’s resistance to any overhaul that could compromise MEPs’ freedom of mandate. And for Metsola, Tabone is more than a confidant; he’s also family, married to her sister.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.

Robert Kopitsch

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:39 GMT

Kopitsch isn’t your mere crypto bro — he’s nothing less than Brussels’ crypto godfather, always ready with a sermon on how digital currencies can change the world. Well into his tenure at APCO in 2018, Kopitsch founded Blockchain for Europe, recruiting big players like Coinbase and Ripple. And even if digital money might be impermanent, his influence is concrete: Well-connected in the Commission, Kopitsch recently engineered a powwow with EU officials and the European fintech industry, bringing key U.S. lawmaking advisers to a February fact-finding mission in Brussels.Check out the full Power 40 — Brussels class of 2023 list, and read the Letter from the Editors for an explanation of the thinking behind the ranking.