iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 12h

Of note from the newest member of the EU list: Google, Apple and Amazon each get more meetings with EU officials than any single European company. So much for Brussels being irrelevant — Big Tech out-lobbies Europe's own industry on its home turf. @lauramdubois.ft.com

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Of note on the EU list today: the US has formally told the Council of Europe it is leaving GRECO, the anti-corruption monitoring group. Only two countries have ever left before — Russia and Belarus. @profjacob.bsky.social

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

As a Brit living in the EU: Burnham will set out options for UK-EU ties, No 10 won't rule out rejoining, and the chosen one would go to voters at the next election. I accepted 2016 because people voted for it. If they vote to go back, I'll accept that just the same.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Of note on the EU list today: Kallas says EU naval Operation IRINI has boarded six suspected shadow-fleet tankers. These are flag checks under UNCLOS Art. 110, not seizures: papers are collected, and none has been reported detained. Arrest is up to national authorities. @kajakallas.bsky.social

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Worth reading from @jorgeliboreiro.bsky.social: Brussels has written to capitals asking them to keep cutting gas and electricity demand, with storage “exceptionally low” going into winter. No immediate shortage, says the letter, but prices could change that. As the post puts it: very 2022.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Of note on the EU list today: Sweden holds 2.34% of the EU population, enough on its own to hand Chat Control's opponents a blocking minority in the Council. The two parties that could lead its next government won't say how they'd vote. @brusselsrecord.com

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

EU treaties: 'Any European State' may apply. Morocco tried in 1987 and was turned down as non-European. Canada, rereading that sentence very slowly. @spignal.bsky.social pitched Canada-joins-the-EU two years ago to make a dull brief less dull.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Fitting: a special Brussels–Berlin train to get Europe's rail people to InnoTrans, their big trade fair. Now for a regular one. Of note on the EU list today, from @jonworth.eu's #CrossBorderRail file.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Brexit's long tail: Sweden is still deporting Brits who lived there before Brexit, even though the likely incoming government has promised new laws to give them a second chance. @lisaocarroll.bsky.social met one man hours after he was removed.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Sunday in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: SPD 37, AfD 36, and the CDU on 6%. If the final poll holds, that is the CDU's worst regional result. An EPP party in single digits next to an AfD in the mid-30s is a Brussels story too. Via @europeelects.bsky.social

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Brussels says the offer to Canada "is not against anyone". @nvondarza.bsky.social has the sharper read: to a US president claiming control over the Western Hemisphere, any EU embrace of Ottawa looks like a threat. The geopolitical holiday is over, and the Commission should have known it.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The drums of war: Belarus has tank battalions drilling beside the Suwałki Gap until Friday and calls it "purely defensive". The night before the drills began, a drone from Belarus crossed into Lithuania and was shot down by Italian jets. Vilnius has protested. No word yet from Warsaw.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Unusual: a Flemish MP was taken to hospital this morning after getting stuck in the parliament toilet all night, local press reports. Rescue services broke down the bathroom door which had a “defective” lock. The MP suffered from breathing difficulties as a result of the drama. Get well soon!

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Of note on the EU list today: the GRU's European arson contractors were recruited off Facebook by a salsa teacher in Petrozavodsk. €100 to photograph a target, $3,000 to burn one. Romania's was a gas regulation station serving 25,000 consumers. @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

From the EU list: Trump's 'divide and rule' in reverse. Instead of threatening tariffs on a single EU member state, he is offering to lift them for one, Ireland. Worth watching whether the bloc holds its line on trade. @nvondarza.bsky.social

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Of note on the EU list today: the EU-UK reset summit slips again, to late November at best, amid tension over 'Made in Europe' rules and with UK industry under strain. The reset keeps colliding with Brussels' buy-European turn. @simonusherwood.bsky.social

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Of note on the EU list today: the AfD's Sachsen-Anhalt winner Ulrich Siegmund tying rearmament to 'remigration' and deportations — and @manuelmueller.foederalist.eu reading it as a promise of civil war. This, not the Trump map, is the story German politics will be about next week.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The path to full replacement of journalists by Ai is open and only dependent on more compute, better context, a decline in hallucinations and social acceptance. This is partly because human journalists are vacating areas where Ai struggles, such as fact-checking, phone calls and source development.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Canada can’t join the EU because member states have to be European! Morocco applied in the 1980s and was rejected for this reason. Unless of course you ignore the rules or change them, which would open the door to a huge EU enlargement

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

The Romania elections cancellation story has been largely ignored by western media but thanks to JD Vance us now on the agenda to the point where Macron has been forced to respond publicly.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Fact checking, when newspapers were print-only, used to be part of the job of sub-editors. With the digital revolution these jobs were scrapped and subs told to rewrite and lay out only. Fact-checking should be in-house, not outsourced. The “back bench” should make a comeback.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Since Brexit the EU has dropped British English in favour of American English. Words like “finalized” now pop up across all EU docs. Some of this is unintentional, but when British diplomats were in the room they made sure they edited out that nonsense:)

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Will the EU take down X as some politicians want? The chance must be close to zero. In any transatlantic trade war Europe has much more to lose, and Europeans are pretty dependent on US tech.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Netflix should do a Narcos-like series based on Belgium’s losing battle with organised crime. The bad guys would be Turks who would constantly complain about the weather.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Fun fact: Belgium hasn’t had a federal government for six months. Hardly anyone has noticed.

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Justin Stares @justinstares.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Do you really need to take your phone into your yoga class? Can’t you leave it in your locker?

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