The risks that arise from Merkel's departure this year aren't really linked to her succession, but rather the vacuum she leaves behind in Europe. For Brexit/UK watchers, this is an important transitional year for the EU - & one worth paying attention to
Thread 1/

The outcome of Ger elections in Sept is highly likely to be a Black/Green coalition. Positive for Ger & EU. All the contenders to replace Merkel are also mainstream, some just more conservative than others. See @NazMasraff & @COdendahl very good analysis & threads for more 2/
Yet despite this constructive outcome, in short & medium term, Merkel’s departure will leave a large gap in EU no leader can credibly fill. @EmmanuelMacron will try, but without Merkel or strong partnership in Berlin, his more disruptive, abrasive style won't succeed 3/
Merkel's presidency last year is a class example of her deft political skills. Landing deals with UK & China (whose real value is framework & basis for broader political co-operation they provide); on €750bn Recovery Fund & rule of law; & climate 4/
Of course there's a lot of criticism about compromises she brokered. There is some truth to them. But very often these critiques pay little serious attention to the counterfactual, for eg, of leaving Pol & Hu behind. I think the price would have been too high to pay 5/
Could @EmmanuelMacron have brokered these compromises? Of course not. But without Macron, many of these ideas would never have been seeded. The Recovery Fund was an idea conceived in @Elysee, arguably dating back to 2017 & ill fated “Eurozone budget” & Meseberg accord in 2018 6/
Likewise, “strategic autonomy” - Paris’ intellectual framework for European
“sovereignty“ & geopolitical relevance - laid the groundwork for the EU deal Merkel's presidency brokered with China 7/
Of course you could argue Brexit, Trump & Covid-19 were as critical in changing Merkel’s outlook as Macron was. But in striking these agreements, Merkel did move away from old German balance between Atlantic (NATO) & E Europe/Moscow to build stronger links with “South” - & France
Macron can therefore claim to have succeeded where his predecessors - Sarkozy & Hollande - failed. He did so partly bc he had a strategic vision to sell to Germany (cc @PedderSophie impactful 2019 @TheEconomist interview) which Berlin eventually realised they needed 9/
It mattered that unlike previous French Presidents, @EmmanuelMacron was not just demanding German financial/fiscal support. Not unfairly then, Macron sees himself as a guiding force in EU post-Merkel. But in reality & practice, he will need a sympathetic partner in Berlin 10/
Will he find one? The new Chancellor will necessarily be more inexperienced, more pre-occupied with domestic politics & coalition management. And as @lucasguttenberg says in his very good thread, they will probably - to begin with - be very cautious on all things EU 11/
So Macron's greatest fear - the emergence of a Chancellor who will push hard on European brakes & look inward - is certainly justified. Aggravating this, Macron’s own energy & efforts will also largely be absorbed by triple covid, economic & possible security crises this year 12/
And when Germany’s new leader does eventually settle in & come up for air, Macron's own Presidential elections will be fast approaching (April/May 2022) & all consuming. So what's the punchline? 13/
Looking over the horizon, it's likely Paris & Berlin are going to be out of lockstep for some time to come. Put differently, based on the above, one could credibly argue Europe is going to be poorly or ineffectively led for at least the next 12-15 months 14/
This is why Merkel's exit from German/EU politics is @EurasiaGroup top Europe risk for 2021; full report here:
https://t.co/u7AMJoEBnV 15/
With no effective Ger/Fr “leadership safety net“, there are many issues that could stall/be negatively affected/fester this year, eg - implementation of Recovery Fund; reform of EU fiscal rules; EU/China deal; tensions with Turkey in Eastern Med; the reset with Biden etc 16/
This is not an exhaustive list of challenges EU now faces, but a few examples where Merkel’s leadership & partnership with Macron has been pivotal. This era is now coming to a close & a period of transition, uncertainty & a yet unknown Franco-German dynamic awaits on other side
Of course the EU is bigger than Fr & Ger. But the painful truth is nothing meaningful can happen without their prior & substantive alignment. The full argument is here, in my first piece for @POLITICOEurope this year ENDS

https://t.co/mZmrfO8mA1

More from Brexit

This very short article by Jeremy Cliffe is the best thing I have ever read on Brexit and the EU. It pivots on the contrast between Delors’ and Thatcher’s authentically provincial Christian visions and suggests the battle in Britain between the two is not over.


Thatcher: Protestant believer in the totally free market and absolutely sovereign centralised nation state. Delors: Catholic believer in third way personalism, corporatism and federalism. Individualism versus relational love. Heterodoxy versus Orthodoxy.

The article useful gives the lie to the idea that the Catholic vision of the EU has altogether vanished even though it is weakened. Delors wanted a social dimension to the free market and single currency and yet lexiteers laughably insist the EU is more neoliberal than the U.K.!

Subsidiary federalism is a doctrine of democracy and human fraternity. State sovereignty is a doctrine of naked power. It is a face of Antichrist. Leviathan.

Those combined that democracy can only be inside a single state fail to power just how much of private law and evermore so is necessarily international. Thus if political institutions don’t extend over borders there can be no democracy.
A not-so-little thread on how post-Brexit work permit regulations will apply in Scottish football and why it’s, broadly, not a good thing...

1) Work permit calculations are based on the points formula from this site -
https://t.co/sjqx8Df7Zg

As things stand, while this article deals with England, the system applies to Scotland also.

The goal is 15 points and the article shows various ways to get there. Essentially, play regularly internationally or in a top 5 league and you’re in. But read the article because it’s a bit trickier than that.

2) There are elements of this I’d dispute. For example, here’s the banding of leagues and, lower down, it’s an absolute mess - Denmark (ranked 14 in coefficient table) and Serbia (16) banded lower than Croatia (20), Greece (18) and Czechs (19)? It’s wholly random.


I get the point that leagues should be banded, but there doesn’t seem to have been loads of sense applied to how these things are actually banded, rather they’ve just shoved a bunch of leagues together and hoped for the best.
End of week 2 thread on post Brexit food trade

There is continued growing unease. The main picture remains one of depressed/tentative trade (c50% down y-o-y) and some high profile logistics business have taken the rational step to stop and regroup.

The big worry here is that ‘not-trading’becomes a habit. We can’t/won’t carry on at half the volumes of before, but as volumes claw back we may only reach something like 80% of previous volumes and that is a disaster for a food industry already battered by a recession.

Lots of focus has been on the idea of EU businesses stopping serving the UK. Worries about how we feed ourselves has trumped worry about our exporters at every stage. Even though it is the collapse of our export businesses that is (and has always been) the greater threat.

To reassure the mainland British shopper that feels like less of a risk. UK is a large market of wealthy consumers, and UK gov has shown it will do anything (however unfair) to ensure stuff gets in - even letting supermarkets have access to the fast track lane to Dover.


I am not as close to this but it feels like shortage on the shelves is more of a genuine immediate threat for the island of Ireland. The types of innovative solutions we have discussed this week can help but will they come in quick enough?

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I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991."
https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
"I really want to break into Product Management"

make products.

"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."

Make Products.

"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."

MAKE PRODUCTS.

Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics –
https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.


There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.

You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.

But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.

And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.

They find their own way.