The Brief, powered by APPLiA – Hanging on the telephone

For such a supposedly all–powerful and overbearing institution, the European Commission isn’t half timid sometimes, even when it comes to defending what are supposed to be its own fundamental values.

EU leaders completely rewrote the agenda of their summit discussions on Monday after learning with dismay that Belarus had forced a passenger plane carrying a wanted journalist to divert and land in its capital. The scandal is huge. A passenger plane…

The minds of EU decision-makers have been focused on Belarus’ forced landing on Sunday of a European airliner travelling between two member states. Leaders have vowed that Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko will be made to pay a high price for what many are calling state piracy.

When Margaritis Schinas says that “no one can blackmail the European Union”, Morocco and other neighbourhood states might well think that the EU’s Migration Commissioner is bluffing. The decision by Rabat to allow thousands of migrants into the Spanish enclave…