Europe Program - The Sixteenth Council

Critical Minerals and the Green Transition: Europe’s New Dependency Risk

The European Green Deal is one of the most ambitious climate and industrial strategies toward a decarbonized energy system, industrial leadership, and climate resilience. However, while Europe seeks energy independence from fossil fuels, it faces an important vulnerability: dependence on critical minerals. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements, and graphite are indispensable for electric vehicles, renewable infrastructure, and advanced technologies — but their supply is heavily concentrated in a few countries, creating potential strategic bottlenecks.

Negotiations and Tariff Threat of Ongoing US-Europe Territory Dispute

The US-Europe dispute over Greenland reflects a new era of geopolitically driven trade policy. President Trump’s threats of escalating tariffs aim to force European acquiescence, prompting discussions on Europe’s anti-coercion measures. NATO deployments to Greenland, debates over US missile defence, and concerns from Russia and China underscore the stakes. Failure to reach agreement risks severe economic disruption for Europe, particularly Germany, while US-EU trade faces uncertainty. The crisis signals that tariffs are increasingly a tool of strategic coercion rather than revenue generation.

EU–Mercosur: A Win–Win Partnership in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty

After more than two decades of negotiations, the EU–Mercosur Agreement creates one of the world’s largest free trade areas, connecting over 700 million consumers. It offers Mercosur preferential access to the EU’s high-income market for agri-food and bioeconomy exports, while providing the EU improved access to Mercosur markets for industrial goods, machinery, automobiles, and services. This structural complementarity drives mutual gains rather than zero-sum competition, enhancing economic resilience, investment flows, and supply-chain diversification for both partners in a fragmenting global order.

AI in 2025: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By 2025, artificial intelligence has shifted from disruptive innovation to strategic infrastructure. It is boosting productivity, accelerating scientific discovery, and expanding access to knowledge, while simultaneously intensifying labour disruption, market concentration, and governance gaps. More troublingly, AI is eroding trust in information, enabling surveillance, and compressing decision-making in ways that strain democratic and security systems. AI is no longer a neutral tool; it is a force multiplier whose impact depends less on capability and more on the strength of institutions that govern it.

A Continent Under Pressure: Europe’s Battle for Sustainable Food Security

Europe’s food security is entering a new era of vulnerability as climate change, rising production costs, geopolitical shocks, and widening inequalities disrupt every stage of the food chain. While food availability remains strong, affordability and access are deteriorating for millions. With climate-driven losses mounting and supply chains increasingly exposed to external risks, Europe must shift from reactive crisis management toward a resilience model built on climate adaptation, supply-chain diversification, stronger food-safety governance, and targeted support for vulnerable consumers.

A brief analysis of Labour’s first year in government – A story of economic struggle and foreign policy success

Labour’s first year in government has been defined by economic strain at home and diplomatic gains abroad. While foreign policy successes with the US and EU have strengthened the UK’s global standing, domestic frustrations dominate public sentiment. Rising unemployment, stubborn inflation, and controversial social policies have eroded trust, leaving Labour squeezed between Reform on

Navigating the Reconfiguration of the Global Order

The global order is undergoing its deepest reconfiguration since the Cold War. Power is diffusing beyond the U.S.–China axis to assertive regional powers, non-state actors, and transnational corporations. Conflicts, supply-chain shocks, and climate pressures are exposing the fragility of old institutions. De-risking strategies, digital competition, and the energy transition are redrawing economic and security maps in real time. Resilience, adaptability, and pragmatic cooperation—not outdated assumptions—will determine which nations and institutions thrive in this fluid, contested system.

Putin Over Poland: Why Moscow Would Dare Cross NATO’s Red Line — And What the Alliance Must Do

Russia’s drone incursion into Poland underscores the fragility of NATO’s deterrence and the Kremlin’s strategy of probing allied thresholds. Poland, now NATO’s psychological tripwire, faces not just tactical provocations but existential tests of credibility. Moscow’s calibrated violations aim to erode unity, force hesitation, and broadcast weakness. NATO’s response must be decisive: integrated defences, rehearsed protocols, and unified political messaging. Poland is more than geography—it is the frontline of Europe’s collective security, where ambiguity fuels aggression and clarity sustains deterrence.

Guarding Europe’s Eastern Horizon: How NATO and Poland Can Turn Russian Probes into Strategic Strength

As tensions mount on NATO’s eastern flank, Poland emerges as a pivotal actor in defending Europe’s security architecture. Russia’s aerial and cyber probes are not only a threat but also a test of alliance cohesion. By investing in forward defense, intelligence sharing, and rapid-reaction capabilities, Poland and NATO can transform these provocations into opportunities to harden Europe’s eastern horizon, signaling to Moscow that unity and readiness—not hesitation—define the future of European security.

Is Europe About to Be Colonized?

Europe stands at an uncomfortable crossroads, squeezed between Washington and Beijing. As the U.S. reasserts its security dominance and China deepens its economic reach, the continent risks drifting into a 21st-century form of colonial dependency—ceding sovereignty over defense, technology, and supply chains. Without a coherent, purpose-driven vision of its own, the EU could end up reacting rather than leading, becoming a strategic pawn instead of a power in its own right.

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