In 2003, Chinese president Hu Jintao worried about what became known among the country’s leadership as the ‘Malacca dilemma.’
Some 80 percent of China’s imported crude passed through the Malacca strait which Beijing’s naval forces could not control.
This gave rise to a wider security doctrine of supply-chain resilience which became the basis for China’s transformation into the clean tech powerhouse it is today.
When the US–Iran war disrupted Middle Eastern oil flows this year, Xi Jinping called China’s early bet on wind and solar “forward-looking” – as recounted in a new paper from the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute published on Monday (26 October).
The paper identifies green growth as “the answer” to geopolitical uncertainty. Clean tech isn’t just clean, it’s also secure and not dependent on imports. Plus, it delivers a “more durable pathway” to “economic resilience.”
Some governments want to expand fossil-fuel imports, or drill more oil or gas wells, arguing that a more diversified supply chain improves resilience. But the paper dismissed that.
Oil and gas are priced on global markets, so even producers are exposed to price shocks. More North Sea drilling would save UK households between £16 and £82 (€19 to €98) a year, the paper finds, citing Oxford University research, compared with £105 to £441 on a renewables and electrification pathway.
It’s interesting comparing how the two political systems respond to (hypothetical) supply shocks. In China, the mere threat of losing control of one strait was enough to transform energy politics gradually over many years.
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A historically-high number of voters have chosen parties classified as authoritarian or populist, according to new research looking at 31 countries across Europe, not just the EU.
Germany saw the starkest rise, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) getting over 20 percent of the last national parliamentary vote, while in contrast parties classified as radical left split the 13.8 percent of votes between them.
The Authoritarian Populism Index, published by two European think tanks, EPICenter and the Nordics-based Timbro late last week (22 October), analyses parliamentary election results for 260 parties in 31 countries since 1946, or since the year free elections were first held.
The high support for populists is a result of mainstream parties not being able to “adequately address the concerns of our time,” Emelie Franzén, EPICenter’s research coordinator, told EUobserver.
The populists’ success is a “result of a lack of trust towards the elites,” Mateusz Michnik, economic analyst for EPICenter, told EUobserver. He also added that populists are more effective communicators than mainstream parties, especially in crisis situations, such as the Covid pandemic, the migration wave of 2015, or Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine.
The Index has been classifying populist parties since 2016, defining them as groups where representing the people above the elite is “a central organising principle of their political worldview,” the author says.
Reinhard Heinish, political science professor in Salzburg, told EUobserver that the report “combines different hard-to-measure concepts, and needs to interpreted with some caution.”
Despite this overarching characteristic, their profile is far from uniform, the report’s author, Andreas Johansson Heinö, Timbro’s director, warned.
“Most are culturally conservative, while economically they are almost evenly divided between left and right.” The populist parties included in the study tend to be eurosceptic, but only a minority supports leaving the EU, he added.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, about 10 percent of Europeans chose authoritarian or populist leaders. Since 2000, the number started to increase, reaching just under 30 percent in 2019.
Now, parties outside of the political mainstream have seats in 11 out of 31 European governments.
“Populists can ‘infect’ other political parties with populism,” Michnik said, which he thinks explains a surge of anti-migration policies across the continent.
Contrary to Germany, Bulgaria, and Norway, which recorded the largest increases in the past years, Hungary’s score radically decreased with the April elections that brought an end to Viktor Orbán’s rule.
In a historic turn of electoral tides, Brazil’s incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated far-right opponent Flávio Bolsonaro on Sunday (25 October,) alleviating fears that a Bolsonaro-dynasty comeback would topple the world’s fourth-largest democracy.
Following a disastrous first-round election for Lula on 4 October, in which he narrowly lost a majority in Brazil’s national congress, the Workers’ party leader overturned predictions to become the first president to win the second round of voting after losing the first one.
First-round voting gave 47 percent for former president Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, and his rightwing Liberal Party, whose voters mainly represent wealthy and emerging middle classes in the south of Brazil, as well as evangelical Christians, one of the largest religious groups in the country.
Lula’s northeastern, working class, multi-racial support base only made up 45 percent of all primary votes, but climted to 51.8 percent in Sunday’s second-round of the presidential election.
Despite setting a record in being the first Brazilian president to win four non-consecutive terms, Lula’s triumph still leaves room for possible conflict.
Bolsonaro, whose campaign capitalised on continuing the work of his divisive father, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, refused to concede defeat – leaving an open window for history to repeat itself.
“We’ll request the annulment of these elections,” Bolsonaro told the press after votes had been counted, accusing Brazil’s Supreme Court of having “changed the rules of the game in the middle of the game,” by ordering polls to stay open for two more hours on Sunday.
What Brazil’s nationalist candidate declared as “unacceptable” was an idea initially intended to facilitate all Brazilians’ attendance at the polls, since multiple areas were reported to have been affected by public transport problems.
Bolsonaro’s issue with the courts is another link in the chain of power-hungry promises he had made during his campaign to “re-democratise this country”.
Without guidance on what that could mean beyond his publicised desire to extend the duration of presidential terms, many voters fearfully associated his remarks with a potential coup, or with Jair Bolsonaro’s infamous liking for authoritarian rulers – including Brazil’s own 1964-1985 dictatorship.
‘Lula’s army’
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Some Belgian spies have questioned EUobserver’s report of a cover-up in favour of an allegedly corrupt Belgian ex-EU commissioner, while international commentary focused on his possible Russia ties.
EUobserver revealed on Friday (23 October) that Hugues Brulin, a director in the Belgian intelligence service (VSSE), had exchanged WhatsApp messages with ex-EU commissioner Didier Reynders, which may have been part of a criminal conspiracy to block VSSE reports into Reynders’ alleged wrongdoing.
But according to “several” VSSE sources who spoke to Belgian daily Le Soir, Brulin, who had been the number three in the VSSE hierarchy, had been in charge of logistics, Human Resources, and IT, but did “not have the power to block enquiries or put his nose into dossiers”.
Brulin did have access to secret dossiers only in case the number one and two directors in the VSSE were absent, and he had to sign off on special operations, called “BIMs” in VSSE jargon, which included measures such as phone wiretaps or home intrusions to place bugs, but this situation occurred just once during his tenure, Le Soir said.
But even if that was all true, Brulin still used to have the power to end the careers of VSSE officers who had looked into Reynders, on grounds of flimsy infractions, as happened in at least three cases, according to EUobserver’s sources.
“This article feels like a liberation. I don’t know if it really is one, but it feels like one … Thanks again in the name of all the normal, honest, taxpaying Belgians,” one ex-VSSE contact told EUobserver, commenting on last Friday’s revelations.
And besides which, there are allegations that Reynders had other VSSE insiders who might have been better placed to act.
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Ukrainian pressure towards Velyka Novosilka has slowed, but not stopped.
The Russian offensive near Orikhiv has stalled, as elsewhere, and Z-channels are again looking for reasons why reality does not match their maps.
The weekend was marked by Storm Shadow missiles, which destroyed factories producing Iskander components.
Russians are attacking bridges in Zaporizhzhia.
Two people died on a train in Voronezh after a Ukrainian drone fell on it; according to the Russians, it was debris from a downed aircraft.
Russians destroyed a Czech Dita howitzer.
Maps of the day – Velyka Novosilka direction; Orikhiv
Videos of the day– destruction of the Czech Dita howitzer; Storm Shadow missiles; a tank destroyed a position on the frontline with direct fire; a MiG-29 shot down a drone.
Ukrainian pressure towards Velyka Novosilka has slowed, but not stopped. The battle for Dobropillia continues, but without any major developments. Today, therefore, attention turns to the section of the front that was the main focus in spring, when the Ukrainian army managed to clear hundreds of square kilometres and push the Russians out of 26 villages.
This is where the borders of three regions meet: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. It has received less attention in recent months because there have been more active areas of the front, but the creeping Ukrainian counteroffensive has not stopped and the Russians must now seriously consider the risk it poses to their forces in the direction of Velyka Novosilka.
This town was one of the launching points for the unsuccessful Ukrainian offensive in summer 2023. The Russians captured it in early 2025 and have since moved slowly westwards and north-westwards. They have not got far at all. Following the events of spring, the front is now less than 15 km from Velyka Novosilka.
Now, under ideal circumstances, the Russian army risks losing some of the gains it has made in this sector during nearly two years of heavy fighting.
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“Tonight we celebrate victory, tomorrow we build the future,” said Radomir Sajčić, professor at Belgrade University, speaking on behalf of the students at their headquarters on Sunday’s evening (25 October). “The voice of the people is being heard”.
The student-backed list won Serbia’s parliamentary election at the weekend, in a vote that amounts to the biggest challenge so far to president Aleksandar Vučić’s long-standing grip on power.
And that night, Vučić (unexpectedly) acknowledged defeat. “Vox populi, vox dei,” [The voice of the people is the voice of God], he said, marking a significant moment in the Serbian political landscape that Vučić has dominated for more than a decade.
The 56-year-old politician served as prime minister from 2014 to 2017, then won the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. Critics accuse him of authoritarianism, control over the media, and manoeuvring between the European Union, Russia, and China.
However, this years historic turnout (nearly 70 percent ), the highest since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992, has overturned his SNS party (Serbian Progressive Party).
In the 250-seat parliament, the Student’s List will have the majority – 140 seats, and second comes Vučić’s SNS with 104 seats. The remaining seats will be shared mainly between ethnic national-minority parties.
“It was effectively a referendum on president Aleksandar Vučić,” the Serbian pro-democracy group Kreni-Promeni, who backed the Students’ List, told EUobserver.
From student protests to electoral change
The opposition was unable to seriously challenge Vučić in the previous parliamentary elections, partly because of its fragmentation. However, a significant turning point in Serbian politics came in November 2024, when 16 people died after a canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad.
The tragedy then sparked massive demonstrations across Serbia, led primarily by students. Hundreds of thousands of people took part. They blamed the disaster largely on the government and its corruption.
The student protests gave rise to Vučić’s main challenger in this year’s elections: the Student List (SL). The 250 candidates running for parliament included individuals selected by students, primarily academics.
“The students have selected prominent citizens – experts in their own fields,” Miloje Savić, a volunteering poll observer, told EUobserver. “They know which values they are supposed to protect and represent,” he added.
The student electoral list was led by Ilija Srdanović, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad.
The weekend result thus represent a major political breakthrough for a movement that emerged less than two years ago from protests against the government’s long-standing corruption.
For the SNS, this defeat is “a huge blow to him [Vučić]”, senior research associate at the University of Belgrade, Jelena Vasiljević told EUobserver.
But, as the poll winner and Vučić’s most successful opponent, the SL is not out of the woods yet.
Students smeared as ‘blockaders‘
Even as he acknowledged defeat, Vučić continued to use the same online rhetoric, referring to winners as the “students’ blockade list”. Vučić also warned of investor uncertainty and damage these results might have on the gas trade.
Serbia's Vučić after conceding defeat in election:
What brought us down is this verified revolution, which they carried out with direct support from various European countries, and the deep American state, the one against President Trump.
Taken together – the language and the economic warnings – offer an insight into how the SNS and Vučić will depict the incoming government.
“They would be framing the student movement as not as a legitimate political power, but as an extension of the protest movement and as a risk to economic stability,” Vanesa Valcheva, head of research at Balkan Free Media Initiative (BFMI), told EUobserver.
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The lower house of Czech parliament became a nighttime battleground for the future of the country’s public service media at the weekend, when MPs pushed through the abolition of public service media licence fees in the bill’s first reading in the chamber on Saturday (24 October).
Czech MPs voted to pass a bill that lays the groundwork to abolish TV and radio licence fees and move public media under the state budget.
The weekend vote was not yet a vote on the law’s final approval: the government coalition only needed to prevent the bill’s rejection which the opposition had sought.
The controversial vote was scheduled for 4.36am on Saturday – by no means a typical time for such a vote. Opposition parties had failed to postpone the vote, and also did not have enough numbers to reject the bill.
Out of 177 lawmakers present, 96 MPs voted in favour of the bill, while 81 opposition MPs voted to reject it. Prime minister Andrej Babiš did not take part in the vote.
MPs from the Czech Republic’s five opposition parties also failed to pass a proposal to return the bill for redrafting to the coalition formed by ANO (led by the PM) and the far-right parties Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and Motorists to Themselves.
The bill will now go to the parliament’s media and culture committee. This will be followed by lengthy debate at the law’s second reading, where amendments may be submitted. The proceedings will likely last several days.
4.36am vote planned at last-minute
Babiš’s governing majority only added the agenda item for ending licence fees on the Chamber of Deputies’ (lower house of parliament’s) agenda on Friday morning. It even took by surprise the MPs of ANO, SPD and Motorists.
The coalition leadership formed by Babiš and foreign minister Petr Macinka (Motorists) had kept the plan secret all week, so that it would not become public and opposition parties could not prepare obstruction tactics.
Protesters had gathered outside the parliament through the night in the early hours of Saturday morning. Demonstrations carried on throughout the Czech Republic over the weekend.
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Israel’s election on Tuesday (27 October) could bring a new government without changing the country’s course. Having worked as a parliamentary adviser in the Knesset and later as executive director of Peace Now, I know how that can happen.
Many of the parties seeking to replace Benjamin Netanyahu are avoiding clear positions on the Israeli-Palestinian question, but some of their candidates may end up overseeing annexation they never campaigned for.
Israel’s previous coalition, led by Naftali Bennett in 2021, offers a warning.
Called the “government of change” because it ended Netanyahu’s 12-year run in office, it brought together a variety of parties, from Bennett’s rightwing party to Labor and Meretz, leftwing parties.
Its answer to profound ideological disagreements, particularly over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was to preserve the status quo. The coalition lasted roughly 18 months, and although it changed the tone of government, it left much of the policy towards the West Bank intact.
For example, Merav Michaeli, then Labor leader and transport minister, opposed settlement expansion.
Yet her ministry continued to implement previously approved infrastructure commitments, including substantial budgets for roads facilitating that expansion.
Through my work at Peace Now, I saw how the coalition’s status-quo agreement constrained her ability to challenge projects inherited from the previous government. A minister could thus find herself implementing a vision she opposed.
Today, the stakes are higher.
Another slice of the West Bank
Consider E1, between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, where construction would threaten Palestinian territorial contiguity and the viability of a future Palestinian state.
The government has advanced tenders for all 3,401 planned housing units, with crucial stages of the tender process set to be completed before a new government takes office.
E1 exemplifies wider efforts to establish difficult-to-reverse facts: new settlement outposts, including in areas under Palestinian civil administration, expanding settlements and administrative changes that entrench Israeli control.
A successor government would have to intervene actively to reverse them.
These developments are backed by an explicit political vision. The current government’s guidelines and coalition agreements assert exclusive Jewish rights throughout the land of Israel and commit to advancing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.
Under Bezalel Smotrich, serving as a minister within the defence ministry, a new settlement administration and civilian positions have been established, shifting significant aspects of West Bank governance from military administration to civilian political control.
These structures will not disappear when their architects leave office. The far-right has equipped the state with both a vision and the machinery to advance it.
Inertia is not neutral when the machinery is already moving in one direction.
Parties seeking to replace Netanyahu need not necessarily agree on a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, but they must find enough common ground to commit to halting annexation and reversing the structures that enable it.
Those understandings belong in coalition negotiations, when parties still have leverage, rather than in battles left for individual ministers once they are in office.
Nor is this a distant constitutional question. Palestinians in the West Bank already face systematic violations of their basic rights and freedoms, from restrictions on movement and access to land to violence and forced displacement. Each new settlement and outpost deepens this injustice and makes the prospect of a political settlement more remote.
Facts on ground
The entrenchment of permanent Israeli control is creating a reality that is increasingly difficult to reverse, making political intervention more urgent with every passing year.
The current government’s response to growing international pressure illustrates the danger.
After the UK announced measures targeting settlements, foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar ordered the closure of its consulate in East Jerusalem. Britain considered expelling Israeli diplomats in response, and a compromise left a much smaller British mission operating.
The episode illustrates Netanyahu’s vision of a ‘Super Sparta’: an Israel preparing itself for international isolation rather than addressing the policies contributing to it.
A future government seeking to change that trajectory should start with two tasks.
‘Messianic minority’
First, it must take seriously the reasons behind international sanctions and address the policies driving them, including settlement expansion and settler violence. A messianic minority must not be allowed to drag Israel into international isolation and economic decline.
Second, the government should help European partners distinguish between Israel and the settlements, including through transparent supply chains and clear proof of origin, so that restrictions aimed at settlements do not spill over into the broader Israeli economy.
Both tasks require urgent and concrete policy changes, beyond a more moderate diplomatic tone.
European governments should not expect a new coalition, or even international sanctions themselves, to bring about these changes automatically. They need to make their expectations explicit, press prospective coalition partners to incorporate concrete commitments into their agreements, and judge the resulting government by its actions.
Without that pressure, politicians who never endorsed annexation may become useful idiots for a project they do not support, helping to consolidate a single undemocratic state in which millions of Palestinians are permanently denied equal rights and freedoms.
Preventing that outcome requires urgent political action, while a different future is still possible. Neither Israelis seeking change nor their European partners can afford to assume it will happen on its own.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
In Germany, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won two state elections in September. Now, talks are underway to build coalitions. How close is the AfD to governing in these States?
In both Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD won the elections a few weeks ago. But it does not have an absolute majority in either regional parliament.
As for the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AFD has no prospect of forming alliances to secure a majority, and negotiations are well under way between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party to reach an agreement. Together, they hold an absolute majority.
But the situation is quite different in Saxony-Anhalt. What will most likely happen, is an alliance with the BSW, the party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht.
The BSW describes itself as radical left, fighting for social justice. But in practice, it takes a very hard line on migration. And it is also notably lenient towards Russia.
In the end, the BSW and the AFD share similar views on a number of things, so they have been talking to build a coalition. They haven’t announced any deal whatsoever for now.
But there are two things we should look at. First, the election of the AfD candidate as president of the regional parliament in Saxony-Anhalt. Tobias Rausch is the first AfD member to be landtag president.
He won thanks to votes from the AfD and the BSW. This would have been enough. But he even got 4 more votes.
Together, BSW and AFD have 44 votes, while Rausch received 48. That means at least four votes came from other parties, which are not supposed to cooperate with the far right. Some suspect they came from the CDU. But as Friedrich Merz pointed out, the ballot is secret, so there is no way to verify that.
Now, president of the regional parliament is not a particularly powerful position. But still, it is the first time the AfD has won it, and it came as a shock in Germany earlier this month.
So does this mean the same thing will happen when the regional prime minister is chosen? Well, not necessarily. The vote could take place in December. No date has been set yet. So there is plenty of time to negotiate a deal.
But the fact that the AfD and the BSW managed to agree on the parliament’s president shows that an agreement is conceivable.
There is something else worth noting. The two parties have just voted together on a non binding resolution on the war in Ukraine. In it, they call on Ukraine to capitulate to Russia, and demand an end to financial support for Kyiv. So again, this shows they share several positions.
And in the end, even if the AfD doesn’t manage to get its candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, elected as head of the state, the AfD and the BSW could still form a majority on many votes, just as they did on the resolution about Ukraine. Which would mean a change of policy for the region.
Before we wrap up, you might be wondering: what powers do German states actually have? Quite a lot, in fact. Education and culture, police and public security, media as well, since regional public broadcasters, for example, are governed by the states.
Each state has its own government. And the regional prime minister leads it, much like a prime minister would, at national level. The states are also represented in the Bundesrat, a kind of senate, which takes part in drafting national laws.
So yes, and AFD led regional government would mean a shift in local policies.
The Ukraine battlefield is the hottest part of Russia’s war on the West, but not the only one. The Kremlin is betting that sabotage, intimidation and other sub-threshold attacks will make Ukraine’s allies so distracted, scared and tired that they cut their support to Kyiv. Meanwhile Russia’s political warfare is reaping rewards in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Berlin-based, Oxbridge-educated Russia expert unpicks Kremlin influence operations in a dozen-plus countries. Her reporting is meticulous, the descriptions vivid, and the conclusion bleak: Russia is using the West’s own weakness to beat us.
One paradox is globalisation: the West’s main project since the collapse of communism, but which now undermines its sanctions efforts.
‘Eurasian roundabout’
China, North Korea, Iran and other countries in what Notte calls the “Eurasian roundabout” help Russia export and import what it needs to keep its war machine running.
Hard-headed shipping magnates in Dubai will not stop dealing with the “shadow fleet”, any more than Indian energy tycoons will shun cheap oil. It’s just business, they tell her.
But not only that.
Many in the mis-named “Global South” instinctively despise Ukraine as an American proxy. The irony is head-spinning: Ukraine is treated as a pariah for its ties to a supposed patron that has now all but abandoned it.
As well as exploiting anti-Americanism (whatever that means these days) Russia also draws on deep historical sympathies that are all but incomprehensible seen from the former captive nations of Europe.
Many influential Africans, for example, have bitter first-hand or inherited memories of US treatment of their continent in the Cold War, including support for apartheid-era South Africa.
They also have a rose-tinted view of the Soviet Union, which supported their liberation struggle. Some studied there. That Ukraine is the victim of a revanchist imperialist Russia makes no sense to them; interviewed by Notte, they struggle to see it as a real country.
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The US and Israeli-led war with Iran, launched in late February, and other military campaigns in the region have disrupted flights, leaving around 5,500 deportations that would normally receive support from the EU’s border agency Frontex unexecuted.
The disruption comes despite the Warsaw-based agency’s recent announcement that returns rose in the first half of 2026, with Syrians and Iraqis among the 10 nationalities most frequently deported.
Internally, however, Frontex appears concerned.
In July, it highlighted return problems because of the Middle East crisis, a broad swathe of conflicts that has seen various airspace closures over Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Israel, Qatar, Syria, and the UAE.
It said roughly 4,000 returns had not been carried out because of direct cancellations or broader operational standstills, with member states halting the organisation or scheduling of Frontex-supported returns due to the Middle East conflicts.
By 30 September, that figure had climbed to 5,500.
Frontex document WK 9599/2026 INIT, made partially public on 2 July. Cites disruptions due to Middle East conflicts and returns to Syria and Afghanistan (Source: Frontex)
Although now open (as of publication), airspace restrictions, route availability and operational measures may be introduced, amended or lifted rapidly, sometimes with little notice.
European deportation setbacks typically involve everything from fragmented national systems, to people absconding, and to foreign states refusing to accept their own nationals. But war and conflict are now adding another layer of complications.
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An EU-Canada summit in Montréal will be the main event this week with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council counterpart António Costa represent the bloc at a two-day summit starting on Thursday (29 October), hosted by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney.
Carney, who has repeatedly spoken about the need for so-called ‘middle powers’ to step up their economic and security cooperation to avoid being squeezed by the United States and China, has emerged as one of the EU’s closest allies since the start of US president Donald Trump’s trade tariff wars last year.
Canada already has one of the most ambitious bilateral trade agreements with the EU and has secured access to defence procurement contracts as part of the EU’s new multi-billion euro defence fund.
And in September at her State of the Union address, von der Leyen offered the prospect of ‘associate membership’ of the bloc to Canada. Talks in Montréal are likely to cover trade, energy, critical minerals, defence, digital technologies and economic security.
In particular, the draft summit communique proposes a feasibility study on long-term Canadian LNG exports to Europe.
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The peaceful departure of Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić could open a positive new chapter in Western Balkans history, even as France drifts in the opposite direction.
Vučić acknowledged defeat shortly after 9.30PM on Sunday (25 October), when exit polls put his SNS party on 105 seats in parliament out of 250, behind the reformist Student List movement, led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović, on 135 to 140, even though the final results were far from clear.
“Serbia is free! People, BRAVO!,” the Student List posted on X.
It had been a tense night in Belgrade, with a heavy police presence in front of government buildings, scuffles at polling stations, and with student and other citizens’ patrol groups monitoring voting, as well as over 300 formal international observers.
MEPs and US senators had also warned Vučić (who had once worked at the top levels of the brutal dictatorship of Slobodan Milošević) on X not to resort to violence to try to steal the vote.
But it seems that the landslide was so huge and the turnout so massive (over 69 percent) that there was nothing to be done.
Serbian nationalism, Western Balkan corruption, and Russian interference will not disappear from the region overnight, but with the nationalist-populist Vučić gone there is more chance of normalisation of Kosovo relations and less risk of a Bosnia break up.
And there is every chance that a positive reform momentum, rewarded by the EU, could spread from Serbia into neighbouring states and help bring more Western Balkan countries into Europe, after Montenegro is due to join in 2027.
It is the fourth defeat in national elections for pro-Russian and/or far-right parties in Europe this year, after Hungary, but also Sweden and Latvia.
And that is a good trend for progressives, in the run-up to the election super-cycle of late 2026/2027, which will see similar battles unfold in Spain, France, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, and Italy in the next 12 months.
“If we have peace, whatever the outcome, it will be beneficial and blessed. If we have unrest, anger, and hatred, whatever the outcome, it will be disastrous for everyone,” said Serb Orthodox Church patriarch Porfirije earlier on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the spectacle of a peaceful, democratic transition of power in Serbia will not be welcomed by Moscow’s authoritarian rulers.
But if it is an example to Russian people, then it is also a powerful, alternative model for any students, leftwing activists, or ethnic minorities in France, Italy, or further afield in Europe, who spent a second weekend rioting in multiple towns in protest at social inequality.
If the far-right was to take power in France in April, spurred on by racial tension and civil unrest, it would quickly wipe out any gains made on Sunday in Serbia, in terms of EU stability, Western Balkans’ enlargement prospects, and Russian influence in Europe.
But if young people in the EU want fairer societies, then the students of Serbia, who began today’s tectonic shift in small protests two years ago in the provincial town of Novi Sad, have shown them that the path to victory lies in non-violent resistance and patience.
Israel’s 27 October election might disappoint everyone. To start, there may be no next-day resolution. Polls show the Netanyahu-allied and opposition blocs nearly tied, both short of a majority.
If that holds, expect weeks of furtive factional negotiations that diminish the reputations of all involved. If those fail, back to the ballot box.
If a new government forms quickly, it will likely be led by Benjamin Netanyahu or the opposition’s Gadi Eisenkot. Most observers outside Israel are hoping for Gadi. In truth, either result will confront Brussels and Washington with tough choices that both have put off too long.
Last week’s grudging and partial White House endorsement notwithstanding, Netanyahu is near-friendless on the international scene.
If he grinds out another win, many European leaders and US presidential contenders will find themselves managing bilateral relationships of mutual contempt.
Unwilling to face hard facts at home, Bibi seemed to think he could gamble them away with Gulf money and American missile interceptors. He marketed himself as the founding entrepreneur of a new-model Middle East powered by Saudi normalisation and Iranian regime change.
Instead, Houthi drones and Saudi budget deficits are vaporising the mirage of glass cities and data centres in the desert.
Trump’s war now
Iran is Trump’s war now, not Israel’s: He will fight or end it as he pleases. What’s left on the IDF’s regional briefing map are small places with complicated pasts and unclear futures, lands that Israel wishes the rest of the world would forget but is itself unwilling to leave.
The old Middle East is back. In truth, it never left.
It has been the beggar at the door of every air-conditioned Gulf investment conference. But the poor relations — Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen — have refused to go quietly.
Israel’s old politics are back, too.
The median Israeli is 29-years old. Netanyahu, whose hair and makeup bills are the subject of a considerable body of investigative journalism, just turned 77. His leading rival Eisenkot, who lost a son and two nephews in Gaza, launched his career as a platoon commander in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Israel, like America, is due generational change.
Instead, Israelis (or at least undecided centre-right voters) got a choice of character: the embarrassing, but reassuringly indestructible Bibi, or the earnest but untested Eisenkot.
It’s not just the faces that are familiar. The candidates are still fighting Israel’s culture wars. The debates that dominated the election — ultra-orthodox military enlistment, judicial reform, and the role of religion in the state — are serious. But they’re also stalemated.
Despite deafening recriminations about who is to blame for exposing Israel to Hamas’s 7 October attacks, the debate about security in Gaza and Israel’s north is equally stuck.
Indiscriminate destruction and deliberate destabilisation
Netanyahu promised “total victory”; that turned out to mean indiscriminate destruction and deliberate destabilisation. His opponents claim Netanyahu has squandered the IDF’s achievements. They promise to do what Netanyahu could not, by using the same crude tools to achieve the same poorly defined objectives — but this time, with greater skill.
The question of what that means for ordinary Palestinian civilians, and what future they can expect for their children, has barely been discussed.
Many Israeli voters, desensitised to the situation of Palestinians who are routinely dehumanised by Israel’s domestic press, don’t ask. Most Israeli candidates carefully avoid answering.
Both blocs pledge they’ll refuse to partner with the Arab-Israeli parties that could hold the key to a Knesset majority — even as prominent Arab candidates downplay their support for Palestinian statehood and campaign on more palatable topics like under-policing in Arab communities.
It’s comforting to imagine an Israeli government formed by anyone left of Netanyahu will steer instinctively towards international expectations. But a more centrist Israeli government, like any elected government anywhere, will operate within the political space created by the policy priorities and the empathetic capacity of its voters.
There isn’t much room for Palestinians.
If an opposition-bloc government forms, it will surely ask for time, assuring foreign capitals that the appearance of pressure makes meaningful change harder back home.
European leaders and US Democrats poised to win at least one house of Congress in November may be tempted to pause efforts to compel Israel towards rapid implementation of the international road map in Gaza, an end to ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and full IDF withdrawal from Lebanon and Syria.
That would be a mistake.
There will be no place in Israeli politics for a realistic discussion of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria until the foreign partners necessary to Israel’s security and economy insist, soberly and relentlessly, on creating one.
That will require tough new sanctions, not just wordplay. The things that have to be admitted are too hard, and the promises that must be broken are too many, for any Israeli leader to act alone.
Amanda Pilz served for 22 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. She is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
The UN food agency helping Palestinians and others in need across the world has come under scrutiny for its contract with Palantir – the controversial US tech and AI company used by various international border police and militaries to sort data and better identify targets.
The UN’s food agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), prolonged its contract with Palantir in July, prompting civil organisations to urge the end of these agreements in a letter published on Friday (23 October).
Some 3,000 European citizens have written to the WFP’s leadership, calling for the agency to end its Palantir partnership.
The WFP holds one of the biggest biometric databases in the world, with millions of its records containing information about vulnerable populations.
WFP is effectively supporting a company that undermines its own operations in Palestine by helping kill civilians for another client, which is “a very strong contradiction,” Giulio Carini, head of campaigns at an NGO WeMove Europe told EUobserver.
“On one hand, you’re feeding people of Gaza, but then, but on the other, you’re using software from a company whose technology is allegedly also being used to kill them” he added.
As many as 1.1 million people are reached by the WFP in Gaza each month, out of the 1.4 million facing acute food insecurity. The organisation is complaining that it had to scale down its food assistance in Gaza and the West Bank due to a lack of funding.
The WFP has argued that its use of Palantir’s software to compile its datasets and make better decisions has saved them $50m [€45m] that would otherwise be spent on inefficient management of its resources.
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Incumbent president Iliana Yotova is leading Bulgaria’s 2026 presidential election race, alongside her running mate, Kiril Vulchev, securing 47.3 percent support among likely voters, according to a poll released on Wednesday (21 October).
Andrei Gyurov, a former caretaker prime minister, and his running mate, Georgi Kandev, rank second with around 30 percent. Leaving the pro-Russian Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin is in third place on just over ten percent.
Bulgaria is voting on Sunday (25 October) and the vote can be seen as “a test of the government’s stability”, according to Ivaylo Iliev, a political scientist, with whom we analyse Bulgarian presidential elections in three points.
1. A test of the government’s stability
The election could consolidate political influence around prime minister Rumen Radev, or expose the limits of his camp’s support.
The PM’s Progressive Bulgaria, which secured a parliamentary majority in April 2026, is facing criticism over its budget plans and handling of security threats. Recent attacks on merchant vessels in the Black Sea have raised questions about Bulgaria’s ability to protect its interests and reassure its allies.
Iotova, who served as Radev’s vice-president for nine years, is closely associated with the prime minister. And her victory could be interpreted as an endorsement of the governing camp.
“Radev has his candidate in these elections and he is obviously the favourite to win a second round,” Iliev says.
However, the Black Sea attacks have “definitely negatively affected both” Iotova’s campaign and public confidence in the government’s security response, he adds.
The government’s response, alongside its nuanced position on Russia’s war against Ukraine, may appeal to voters sceptical of confrontation with Moscow. At the same time, it also risks complicating Bulgaria’s relations with its European and Nato partners.
“Radev demonstrates two different types of behaviour”, says Iliev.
On the domestic front, he is “balanced”, “vague” or even “without specifics”, Iliev says. For Radev does not want “to cause discontent among his pro-Russian voters”.
On the foreign policy however, Radev is more seeking to get as close as possible to the European consensus, but “with a minimal effort.”
2. Taking the government to account?
The second question is whether the presidency can act as a counterweight to the executive or will reinforce the same centre of political influence.
Gyurov’s campaign has warned against putting “all the eggs in one basket”. Concentrating power around Radev and Iotova could weaken independent scrutiny he says.
A Gyurov victory could give the presidency a more “independent voice”, says Iliev.
However, institutional checks and balances do not necessarily translate into electoral support.
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Even if Israelis vote out the current government, an ideological shift will endure, says Beth Oppenheim, a policy fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The London-based analyst explains how once-fringe ideas have crept into the political mainstream and the limitations of liberalism.
In this interview:
Why Netanyahu’s departure would not bring about fundamental change.
How 7 October has put diplomacy permanently off the table.
What to expect if a new government was elected in Knesset (Israeli parliament) elections.
The lessons Europe can draw from all this.
You say Israel’s illiberal and ethnonationalist turn represents a transformation beyond Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; these ideologies would not disappear even with him gone. In your analysis of Israeli politics, you avoid the traditional left–right political spectrum – why?
Beth Oppenheim: In the Ideas of Israel project for ECFR, I wanted to unpack this binary we often see on the question of Netanyahu’s leadership. He dominates Israeli politics, but the debate about the prime minister often obscures more interesting trends like the rightward shift of Israeli politics. Often, the opposition is referred to as the liberal bloc, whom the right wing label as leftists – but this is inaccurate.
The pro-Netanyahus form a government coalition, while the opposition bloc is actually rather ideologically diverse. So in my research I wanted to go beyond the reductive question of Netanyahu to understand how parties behave in elections; I wanted to see where all these different parties’ ideologies and visions fit in.
And this led you to categorise Israeli parties into four groups: the liberal Zionists, the nationalists, the ultra-Orthodox camp, and the religious nationalists. Could you describe each group? Let’s start with the liberal Zionists, who are considered the most left-wing of the Jewish Israeli camps…
Of course. The liberal Zionists include figures such as Yair Golan, Yair Lapid and Gadi Eisenkot.
Eisenkot (Yashar party) is a former general in the military. Despite this, many on the right brand him as a leftist.
A billboard featuring Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot reading ‘This time, Eisenkot’ in Tel Aviv. (Source: EPA/ABIR SULTAN)
Lapid (Yesh Atid party) comes from a liberal centrist tradition in the mould of his father. Like Eisenkot, he is very secular. A secular vision for Israel and an emphasis on liberal democratic institutions unite the camp of liberal Zionists.
Golan (The Democrats party) is the left flank of this camp. In Europe, he wouldn’t be seen as far left, but within the Israeli spectrum, he is seen as radical. He has security credentials, too, but he’s the only liberal Zionist who talks about a political settlement with the Palestinians.
The two-state solution is not really on the menu in the Jewish Israeli political mainstream – that’s now the preserve of the far-left fringe; it’s not a mainstream discussion anymore.
“The two-state solution is not really on the menu in the Jewish Israeli political mainstream”
The liberal Zionists are united around their secularism and their commitment to the liberal democratic institutions, but there’s one big caveat: when it comes to the Palestinian issue, their liberalism is more circumscribed.
They are not talking about the ongoing occupation and the effect that that has on Israel’s democratic standing. But of course, they’re very united in their opposition to Netanyahu.
The liberal Zionist camp lacks a coherent platform other than this; they basically advocate for good governance, but don’t offer a robust vision.
Election billboards featuring The Democrats Party leader Yair Golan and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Source: EPA/ABIR SULTAN)
And that cannot be said about the nationalists, whose vision is quite clear, right?
Traditionally, the nationalist camp was the mainstream right wing. Today’s main contenders are prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Naftali Bennett is running on a joint list with Lapid’s Yesh Atid, called Beyachad (‘Together’). Bennett and Lapid joined forces despite coming from different ideological traditions. They have very different ideas about the country, but they’re coming together to present a more technocratic agenda, get Netanyahu out and normalise Israeli politics.
The nationalist camp descends from the Revisionist Zionist tradition based on Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s vision: a liberal democratic outlook fused with ultra-nationalist convictions. So to take a Revisionist Zionist view is to take a hawkish and hardline approach towards Arabs, while keeping a commitment to liberal democratic values. But affinity for liberalism and democratic values has really withered away over recent decades, not only under Netanyahu.
And then there is the ultra-Orthodox camp, without which the current government would never have completed a full term.
The ultra-Orthodox group does not fit easily on the left-to-right political spectrum, which in the Israeli understanding is defined by hawkishness on Palestinians and security.
They are made up of two Ashkenazi parties – Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael – and Sephardic party Shas. What unites them is strict religious observance of Jewish law and their commitment to separation from secular society or modernity.
“The ultra-Orthodox camp is predominantly non-Zionist, but not necessarily anti-Zionist”
Interestingly, the ultra-Orthodox camp is predominantly non-Zionist, but not necessarily anti-Zionist since they didn’t endorse the creation of Israel in its secular form. They engage with the state, but in a limited way – they’re very transactional and pragmatic.
And the ultra-orthodox camp work within state apparatus to advance sectoral interests, yeshiva education, the military service exemption, and subsidies to maintain a somewhat introverted separation from the rest of society.
They are mostly passive when it comes to issues of foreign policy and security policy, but they do not support loss of Jewish life for nationalist ends – they don’t believe that the state in its current form is sacred. And so they don’t, for instance, endorse the loss of Jewish life for territorial expansion.
That leaves us with the last category: the religious nationalist camp.
Religious nationalists draw together ultra-orthodox religious observance, but with ultra-nationalism.
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Russian journalists reveal what the Kremlin and US are discussing.
Starshield was supposedly fixed, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Russians advance in Rai-Oleksandrivka towards Sloviansk.
Russia loses two combat Sukhoi aircraft in accidents in one day.
Map of the day: Rai-Oleksandrivka
Videos of the day: Kramatorsk evacuation; Russian Su-30 crashes; how helicopters hunt drones.
Russian journalists have described the nature of talks between the Kremlin and the US. A demilitarised zone in Donbas. A Ukraine without Nato membership but is allowed to join the EU membership in return. Sanctions against Russia eased, Russian gas in Europe and news talks on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And America makes its own deals with Russia.
This is how, according to The Economist, the US proposal to the Kremlin for ending the war sounded, presented in Moscow on Wednesday (21 October) by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s negotiator.
It sounds like something Russia might welcome, but that does not appear to be the case. At least not according to the findings of the Russian exile website Verstka, which a day later published an extensive report on the mood among Russia’s Kremlin-linked elite.
The article, signed by the newspaper’s editorial board, contains numerous quotes from government officials and people close to the regime, whose views on the prospect of swiftly reaching a peace deal and ending the fighting are sceptical.
Verstka wrote that war fatigue was mounting among these people, whose names it naturally did not disclose, but that they fully defer to Russian president Vladimir Putin and are waiting to see what he agrees with US president Donald Trump.
“It can be said with certainty that American sympathies have shifted to our side. We have been working on this for a year and a half,” a source close to the foreign ministry told the journalists, describing Moscow’s strategy.
Russia achieved this through the following argument: since Ukraine considers itself a victim — which it undoubtedly is, editor’s note — and asks for assistance, but is unwilling to make concessions in return for that assistance, it is no longer in fact a victim, but a player with ambitions of its own, which Western taxpayers are unwilling to fund.
Incidentally, the Slovak government uses very similar rhetoric and arguments.
According to the same source, Moscow will emphasise during the talks the hopelessness of Ukraine’s supposed situation.
Another quoted voice was a political strategist directly linked to the Kremlin, who pointed out that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner did not directly take part in the talks in St Petersburg on 21 October, reportedly due to illness.
Nevertheless, this source also praised the US approach, even if Trump’s dispute with Ukraine proved only short-lived: “We have nothing to lose from these solutions. And we could gain both an improved budget and an advantage on the battlefield.” At the same time, the domestic political strategist saw no fundamental changes that could lead to an end to the fighting.
The extent of the irrationality prevailing within the regime was illustrated by statements from another unnamed representative of a formally non-governmental organisation working directly with the Kremlin.
In his analysis, he claimed that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had created a dictatorial system from which neither elections nor a coup could remove him, and that the war would not end while he remained in office. He also cited reports by Russia’s foreign intelligence service claiming that Kyiv was cooperating with Mexican drug cartels.
Another government official had low expectations of the Americans: “For almost two years now, we have been saying that Trump is supposedly one of us and that the talks are constructive, but they have produced no results. We are fighting, burning, drowning, suffering alongside our homeland.”
The man spoke of a “peace wing”, allegedly comprising people in the presidential administration responsible for domestic policy and economic circles, but this did not mean that there was any open opposition to the war.
“There is no escape from the ship. We are waiting for them to have had enough of the war,” the official said.
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An Egyptian national who sought protection in Italy after arriving on the island of Lampedusa in August may end up dealing a constitutional blow to the EU’s asylum laws after seeking legal counsel.
The Egyptian, who is not named, had his asylum claim rejected even though he did not understand his translator. His is appealing.
“Not even European Union law can conflict with our supreme principles,” his lawyer, Claudia Avenia told EUobserver earlier this week.
Aside from his own personal circumstances, his legal case is raising serious issues that could have a knock-on effect on the EU’s new asylum and migration pact, which kicked into force this past June across all 27 EU member states.
Because he is from Egypt, he was shuffled through a fast track asylum procedure. EU laws require the accelerated process from nationals who have a 20 percent chance or less of getting asylum in Europe. Egypt fits into this category.
A new EU law also meant that he was technically not yet legally inside the EU as authorities carried out health checks, identification and other assessments during a so-called pre-screening phase.
It means he was banned from stepping outside a reception centre, where he was being housed.
Lawyers describe it as the legal fiction of non-entry, similar in scope to certain areas of international airports. Rights experts had earlier warned, when the EU rules were being drafted, that this would lead to defacto detention.
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Two leading Jewish groups want the EU’s next antisemitism tsar to also brief diplomats on foreign policy – despite the controversy it caused for the last one, Katharina von Schnurbein.
“EU external decisions have direct consequences for Jews living in Europe. Diplomats should hear from the person who sees those consequences every day,” said Pinchas Goldschmidt, who heads the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) in Munich, Germany.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) in Brussels also told EUobserver: “The [EU antisemitism] coordinator should ensure that this objective is systematically reflected in all relevant EU policies, including external action and foreign policy.”
They spoke as von Schnurbein prepared to leave her EU post after 10 years to become a German “federal government commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and the fight against antisemitism” on 28 October.
The 53-year-old German baroness was highly active at events in EU capitals, had three staff, and travelled on missions to Israel, Serbia, Switzerland, and the US.
She also worked next door to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her Brussels HQ and had close ties with the Israeli government.
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