Brussels

With Britain leaving the EU, Brussels is adopting a new assertiveness – but Poland and Hungary are fighting back. The two countries are plotting a strategy of vetoing the EU’s latest budget because of a mechanism attached to it allowing the bloc to withhold money if a country falls short of its standards. Poland and Hungary fear that this measure could leave them vulnerable if Brussels doesn’t like their domestic legislation. But this drama is about more than just money – it also shows the direction Euroscepticism is heading in after Brexit. Without Britain’s influence, Euroscepticism is now beginning to take on a new form – more cultural, and less economic. Poland and

Belgium has had some of the toughest coronavirus restrictions in Europe during the second wave of the pandemic, with hospitality venues closed and socialising severely restricted. So Mr Steerpike was surprised to note this interesting story in the Belgian press today, which suggested that some may not be following the rules as closely as expected. According to La Dernière Heure, 25 men were arrested this weekend after their lockdown festivities were interrupted by the police. The paper writes: ‘Twenty-five men in their birthday suits were interrupted in the middle of a gang bang on Friday evening in Brussels, close to the central police station of the capital’. Even more intriguingly,

When EU finance ministers ended their crisis meeting this morning, they had spent 16 hours trying to establish what collective help, if any, they wish to offer to the countries most affected by the epidemic: Spain and Italy. They agreed on not a thing. Instead, the meeting broke up acrimoniously with Italy, Spain and France demanding that the European Central Bank issue ‘coronabonds’ to help finance economic recovery – while Germany, the Netherlands and others resisted. So we see the EU split along the same lines as did the 2008/09 crisis, and indeed along the same fault lines that have been growing ever wider over the past three decades. The