L’autorité espagnole de surveillance du Trésor affirme que l’agence publique du numérique, Red.es, a indûment favorisé un entrepreneur lié à l’épouse du Premier ministre Pedro Sánchez dans le cadre de deux appels d’offres publics pour un montant total de 8,4 millions d’euros, suscitant des inquiétudes sur un possible détournement de fonds européens.
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This policy brief is authored by Dr. Isabelle Ioannides (Senior Research Fellow, South-East Europe Programme – ELIAMEP) and published in the context of the project EMBRACing changE – Overcoming Obstacles and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood (EMBRACE). EMBRACE is a multi-country research initiative (2022–2025) that seeks to strengthen the capacity of EU policymakers and pro-democracy actors to develop effective strategies for democracy promotion across five regions: the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Southern Caucasus, the Middle East, and North Africa. It combines comparative analysis, stakeholder engagement, and new data collection to identify the obstacles and enablers of democratisation and to design practical policy tools for European democracy promotion.
Focusing on Work Package 7 – The Geopolitics of EUDP, this policy brief addresses the turbulent geopolitical landscape in which EU democracy promotion must operate. Russia’s and China’s assertive roles, including disinformation campaigns, combine with heightened regional instability, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the spread of polarisation and populism within and beyond Europe. These developments create a volatile environment that constrains democratic progress in the EU’s neighbourhood and, in some cases, drives democratic backsliding. The brief stresses that the EU’s democracy promotion cannot be viewed in isolation from these broader geopolitical dynamics.
Against this backdrop, the EMBRACE project organised scenario-building workshops in North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia, and conducted stakeholder interviews in Algeria. These consultations had a twofold aim: to assess the democratic trajectories and risks facing each country by 2030, and to evaluate how the EU can mitigate challenges while reinforcing democratic enablers. The locally led approach ensured that country-specific insights and informal power dynamics were captured, helping to refine projections for how external and internal pressures may shape democracy in the coming years.
The brief concludes by offering recommendations for the EU to recalibrate its democracy promotion strategies under conditions of geopolitical competition and uncertainty. It underlines that effectiveness depends on tailoring approaches to local realities, anticipating risks through foresight and scenario planning, and reinforcing the EU’s credibility as a consistent and strategic actor. By integrating evidence-based insights and locally grounded perspectives, the policy brief contributes to EMBRACE’s broader mission of equipping the EU with more adaptive and resilient tools for advancing democracy in its neighbourhood.
Read the paper here in pdf.
L’UE et ses États membres ont accueilli favorablement la proposition en 20 points dévoilée par Donald Trump pour mettre fin à la guerre à Gaza, soutenant la perspective d’un cessez-le-feu et réitérant leur soutien à une solution à deux États, tout en se résignant à jouer un rôle secondaire, essentiellement financier.
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