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Why Warsaw still casts Berlin as adversary while Germany moves closer on security
Anti-German grievance is a default in Poland’s polarised, nuance-free politics.
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Stuart Dowell
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CZECH WATCH: Babiš no longer heading for a cakewalk as Czech election race tightens
Turnout and late-deciding voters may now prove decisive, turning a race long seen as drifting toward a Babiš victory into an unexpectedly open…
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Stuart Dowell
SERBIA WATCH: What began as student demonstrations has become a nationwide civic uprising
For Serbia’s Gen Z protesters, the barricades are the beginning of a fight to reclaim the country’s institutions from a government they believe no…
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Stuart Dowell
UKRAINE WATCH: Zelensky nominates new prime minister as he pivots from trenches to spreadsheets
The move reveals how executive power has centralised around Zelensky’s presidential office, overseen by his chief-of-staff Andriy Yermak, who is widely…
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Stuart Dowell
How Poland’s planned reshuffle exposed the governing coalition’s cracks
The delayed reshuffle is now a test of whether the government can hold together as a pro-EU bloc, while a radicalised nationalist right prepares for a…
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Stuart Dowell
How a midnight meeting exposed fractures inside Poland’s fragile ruling coalition
The governing coalition has run more like a friends-with-benefits arrangement than a common project, and the benefits are running out.
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Stuart Dowell
At the border: how migration and nationalism are redefining Polish politics
The confrontation at the frontier is now a microcosm of the larger European conflict over whether open borders give way to a new era of guarded…
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Stuart Dowell
What Hungary’s Pride march revealed about the limits of Orbán’s control
Orbán issued the threats, and then nothing happened. A system designed to make people stay home discovered, briefly, what it means when they don’t.
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Stuart Dowell
Kaczyński re-elected as PiS leader but party struggles to adapt to new political terrain
Kaczyński, long the master of binary politics, avoided the deeper question now facing his party: how to speak to voters who no longer believe in the…
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Stuart Dowell

June 2025

MOLDOVA WATCH: Putin aims to take Moldova without a single soldier using money disinformation and fear
Russia is running a campaign funded with millions in illicit cash, amplified through fake social media profiles, AI-generated disinformation, and energy…
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Stuart Dowell
SLOVAKIA WATCH: Slovakia the main loser at NATO summit after neutrality talks shake alliance trust
For a country sitting on NATO’s eastern frontline, PM Fico’s refusal to commit to a clear timetable has undermined Slovakia’s credibility as a reliable…
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Stuart Dowell
US strike on Iran exposes fragile security for Poland, Ukraine, and NATO’s eastern flank
Europe is reduced to calling for talks from the sidelines, while Warsaw and Kyiv are exposed as never before.
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Stuart Dowell
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