Europe’s engagement with the new Syrian leadership has been notably swift, yet it still refuses to recognise the Taliban. On 19 December 2024, the European Council issued guidelines for recognising Syria’s transitional government, tying it to respect for ‘human rights, including women’s rights, non-sectarian governance, and the protection of members of religious and ethnic minorities.’ On 4 January 2025, the German and French foreign ministers visited Damascus, less than a month after Bashar Assad’s fall.

Europe’s differing approaches to Syria’s new governing authority and the Taliban clearly shows the complexity of modern diplomacy and the intricate geopolitical and ideological factors driving Europe’s Middle East foreign policy decisions.

Of course, Europe currently hosts millions of Syrian refugees, many of them having fled the violence and extremism that flourished during the civil war. With continuing pressures on European governments – ranging from housing to social integration – the prospect that these refugees might soon return to a stable Syria is an alluring incentive for Europe to positively engage with Damascus and support its transition.

But by proactively helping Syria (and doing its best to avoid the mistakes it made with Afghanistan), Europe would also be doing itself a huge favour, by alleviating social strains in hosting EU countries, taking away some of Russia’s influence in the region and contributing to long-term security in the Middle East.

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The release of the freely available and surprisingly capable language model DeepSeek R-1 shocked the world, made it question the growing demand for computer chips and led the mighty NASDAQ to dive on Monday. Here’s a Chinese open-source project matching OpenAI’s capabilities – something we were told wouldn’t happen for years – and at a fraction of the cost. The panic revealed more about our assumptions about AI than about the model itself.

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The EU should stick to its course, pursue the Green Deal and complete the single market. It needs to demonstrate its resolve and act united as a new – potentially hostile – US administration rolls in and shakes up the foundations of transatlantic cooperation and the world order. But it must also stand firm if China makes its own attempts to split an EU united front.

To do so, the EU should act decisively with the powers it has according to the Treaty, while being much more vocal against any efforts to politically undermine Europe and divide it.

We’ll see over the next few weeks how up to this task the newish von der Leyen II Commission is and how determined it is to counter pressures from both Member States and from abroad. It should clearly indicate whether it believes Europe is still able to credibly anchor itself in between the US and China – but if the past few weeks are any indication, things are not looking promising. Europe, and the EU, have been pushed into a defensive position against full-on attacks from many fronts, including the new US President, but also industry and opinion leaders and the EU’s own extremist parties.

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The announcement of the USD 500 billion US Stargate Project marks a bold leap into the future for AI. Announced with great fanfare at the White House by President Trump, flanked by the CEOs of OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle, the initiative aims to build the most advanced AI infrastructure the world has ever seen.

This matters because AI drives innovation, creates industries, and fuels economic power – and those who lead in AI will shape the global power balance. And the scale is staggering. An initial USD 100 billion investment, ramping up to half a trillion dollars over four years, to fund state-of-the-art data centres, cutting-edge hardware and sustainable energy systems.

Although the funding is currently private and tech leaders have skirmished over the availability of the committed funds, being announced right at the start of Trump’s presidency signals strong political backing and an explicit alliance with the Big Techs. This could lead to smoother AI regulatory processes, tax incentives and alignment with additional public spending initiatives, such as a future iteration of the Inflation Reduction Act or the CHIPS Act.

The picture becomes even clearer if we consider that Stargate was announced immediately after Trump had scrapped the Biden administration’s Executive Order on AI, erasing and rewinding US AI policy and paving the way for an era of laissez faire AI.

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Since the US Presidential election there’s been a debate in Europe over a possible ceasefire agreement and the security guarantees Ukraine needs to deter Russia from resuming hostilities. A European ground operation in Ukraine is a welcome idea but only if it can be backed up by the US. This means convincing Donald Trump that European leaders are fully serious about guaranteeing European security.

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We live in a complex world, rich with data and insights, where finding our way is becoming increasingly challenging. As Herbert Simon wrote back in the 1950s, ‘a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention’. And when there’s a dearth of attention, knowing where to look becomes an uphill battle.

Nowhere is this truer than in the burgeoning world of AI. New policies and standards are emerging every day. Large corporations update their models, while startups secure funding to drive innovation. Scientific collaboration spans across continents, researchers tap into software and data swaths to achieve new breakthroughs, all while business leaders form alliances and politicians ponder their next moves. All this in a frantic effort to ride the wave of the most powerful general-purpose technology of the past few decades.

For businesses, policymakers and investors, understanding the AI revolution requires improved skills in locating, processing and analysing data to detect patterns and forecast trends.

And even if they do find the data, understanding what it means often requires guidance, analysis and easy access to technical and non-technical explanations. After all, knowing where we are is a key prerequisite for understanding where we’re going.

To bridge this knowledge gap, CEPS has created a large-scale data platform called AI World. It’s a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all things AI, from insights on market developments, and leading companies and locations, to emerging applications and techniques.

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COP29 left many disappointed, seen by many as a choice between failure and disaster. Fair criticism but the Paris Agreement is still delivering as it was designed to do – namely a bottom-up, consensus-driven framework.

While COP29 was mainly seen as a stepping stone to COP30, when updated national climate plans are expected to be presented, the bar was set high this year for hammering out a landmark climate finance deal. However, COP outcomes often reflect the lowest common denominator; some proposals are inevitably too modest for some and too ambitious for others.

This means success or failure is rarely a clear-cut binary. While these two weeks of COPs always capture the global spotlight, they’re merely steps in an incremental, consensus-driven process. As the European Commissioner for Climate aptly put it: ‘It is less than what we would have liked, but better than we feared’.

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The European Parliament (EP) hearings for the new Commissioners are now over. After some last-minute drama and a little delay, the EP has greenlit all candidates – for the first time in 20 years.

In theory, the confirmation hearings are a great instrument for scrutinising the incoming Commissioners. Such a process can be healthy, especially for a complex polity like the EU (i.e. often accused of being untransparent and unaccountable). In practice, however, it’s compromised by party-political tit-for-tat and structural issues around how it’s organised. Below are my five main takeaways from the last three weeks.

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