Paola Tamma
@paolatamma
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EU correspondent @FT Italian export paola.tamma @ft .com
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🗣️Today's my last day
@POLITICOEurope
after ~6Y of covering various bits of EU policy. I owe a lot to this newsroom and ace colleagues.
🆕On December 4th I'm joining
@ftbrussels
as EU correspondent covering the economy, budget galore & financial regulation.
Be back soon 🛫🏝️😎
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Starting today in the wonderful
@ftbrussels
office, preceded by 200L of olive oil. Because you know, 🇮🇹. Keen to catch up/meet new faces — email in bio, phone number same old one!
Thrilled to welcome
@paolatamma
to the
@FT
family today!
Fab news that the best econ and finance reporter in Brussels has joined
@ftbrussels
bureau - please tell her lots of things on the budget, fiscal rules, financial regulation & the never-ending soap opera of the EU economy
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Favourite EU acronym: LULUCF. Sounds like a pokemon in the cute evolution stage. Also, forget every time wtf it means.
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Signs of 🇪🇺 unity fracturing: Italy says companies should be allowed to pay for 🇷🇺 gas in rubles "for a few months, at least...while we understand the legal framework and implications,” energy minister Roberto Cingolani told
@hanrobs
. Ministers meeting now.
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Personal news 🗞 As of this week I'm taking over the macroeconomic + finance beat at
@POLITICOEurope
- and what a time to do so. I'll strive to bring you on-point coverage on everything ecofin, eurogroup, fisma, EFB, ESM, SGP, EDP, MFF, GEC all other beloved acronyms, but also>>
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🚨BREAKING 🚨
@EIB
decided to phase out funding for fossil fuels including gas by the end of 2021 (one year later than previously proposed). 20 voted in favor, 🇪🇪🇱🇹🇲🇹🇨🇾🇦🇹🇱🇺abstained, 🇭🇺🇷🇴🇵🇱 voted against. In a plot twist, 🇩🇪 (and
@EU_Commission
)
supported the proposal.
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Everybody knew this, but now the Commission said it: Brussels won’t approve the Polish and Hungarian recovery plan this year, meaning the two countries will miss out on billions of advance payments under the bloc’s pandemic recovery instrument. Story (€)
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Taxonomy in retrospect: I started covering this file when the Commission came up with it back in 2018. It's a revolutionary way to invest that will quickly spread to the entire world, they said. DG Fisma set up a unit on sustainable finance, it became 'the' sexy thing to work on.
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EU seeks to freeze Moscow’s reserves indefinitely to assuage U.S. concerns and move ahead with a $50bn loan to Ukraine on the back of future profits from frozen Russian assets. With
@lauramdubois
&
@HenryJFoy
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An Italian just complimented me on my Italian.
I AM Italian.
This is awful.
Will I end up like a total
#eurotrash
(minus the money)
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BF: what's for dinner?
me: 🇮🇹government crisis
BF: didn't we have that last week?
🤷♀️
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Rare Belgian efficacy tweet: I return to Brussels, get tested in train station, receive a (negative) result by sms after less than 24h, and a call to inform me I should still isolate and re-test on 7th day. Kindness & clarity from all. Went beyond my (admittedly low) expectations
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What the hell's going on in the Finnish parliament, and why should we care? A thread:
— Finland is one of the countries that's still due to ratify the Own Resources Decision, a precondition for the Commission to borrow hundreds of billions €€€ on the markets 4 EU recovery fund
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How come Belgium is incapable of good viennoiserie when it borders the home of croissants, pains au choc, kouign-amann? (On the train back from Paris, I had all three this am. Massive sugar high but not regretting it.)
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Frank analysis from veteran Hungary watcher (and the journalist who broke news of Orbán’s trip to Moscow): Orbán (again) broke EU ranks and other than angry words and empty protocol threats, he is likely to go unpunished. Commission refuses to even name Article 7 procedure.
✍️I'm a journalist, not a foreign policy analyst or political expert, but here’s my quick take on Orbán’s visit to Moscow: from his perspective, it’s a huge success. Orbán garnered all the attention he wanted, scored points with Putin and Trumpworld alike, and reaffirmed his
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Personal celebration: I have just conducted my first interview in German. Don't ask me how, but it worked.
I am überglücklich.
Now, anyone wants to help with transcribing it? 😅😎
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Recovery fund update:🇳🇱 senate adopts Own Resources Decision w 45 yays, 23 nays. 🇷🇴&🇭🇺 vote on it tomorrow (RO needs 2/3 majority=support of opposition PSD); 🇦🇹&🇵🇱 upper chambers vote on it Thursday. If they all pass it, Commission can start borrowing € in June=1mo ahead of sked
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Most telling exchange at ceremony in Lisbon.
VDL (handing over 🇵🇹recovery plan to Costa, smiling for the cameras): "A lot of details written in, a lot of work ahead of you…"
Costa (grabbing the plan): Now I can go to the bank?
VDL(Still smiling): Now you can go to the bank
🤷♀️
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EU finance ministers reached a deal on fiscal rules. Here's my news story, and a thread with some unedited thoughts. 1/
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Today marks my 5th anniversary
@POLITICOEUROPE
. Beyond the blood, sweat & tears, there’s a ton of fun. Thanks to
@KaminskiMK
, the late Stephen Brown,
@jancienski
for taking a chance on me. Above all thanks to my sources, past, present & future, who make my job a hell of a ride 🙏
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Women will have abortions, as they have had for millennia. The Q is not whether they should/shouldn't. The Q is whether it should be legal and safe, or criminal and potentially lethal. And actually, that's not really a Q.
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The price of the Green Deal — and who will pay for it— is THE political question. BUT climate inaction has a cost too, and it's higher.
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I was just called Paella in an email and I think I should adopt it as my nickname 🥘🥘🥘
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EU national experts will tomorrow discuss a plan to invest Russian central bank assets to generate returns for Ukraine fo up to 2.6pc per year. We got a leak of the Commission’s paper Friday, now free to read.
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Vestager's debut album cover
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Almost one in four young people in Italy isn't in training, education or employment. Highest rate in whole EU. Add that to one of the world's oldest populations and highest life expectancies, and you get yourself a fiscal time bomb. Graph by
@DelorsInstitute
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We got the draft of legal options the EU is considering to grab Russian state and private assets to pay for Ukraine reconstruction.
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The train from Brussels to Luxembourg is particularly scenic, cutting through Walloon hills on birch-lined tracks, populated by Monday hikers (it’s a thing apparently) and EU commuters. If not for the 60+’ delay and non existent reception I would be thoroughly enjoying it.
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EU diplomat: "Hope that the best EU team wins the football final."
I'm dreading this turning into a Brexit match, but it seems inevitable.
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Am I the only one or someone else cringed at VDL's appropriation of Beatrice Vio's incredible sports feat as a token of the ... what was it ... spirit of Europe? The woman is undoubtedly an incredible athlete and human, & deserves all respect for her achievements. But ... cringe.
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She's wearing a lifevest
Today,
@SwedishPM
Magdalena Andersson received UK PM
@BorisJohnson
in Sweden. They signed a Joint Declaration on Security and Defence and discussed bilateral relations and cooperation between Sweden and the UK.
Read the declaration here:
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Commission plays hardball with Hungary’s money: no funds will be released until Brussels is satisfied that Budapest complied with 27 key reforms. Story, with the infallible
@HankeVela
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New: Hungary makes extensive commitments on judicial reforms in a bid to secure €7.5 billion in EU financing. Brussels is set to make a decision in the coming weeks, but either way the political cost is high. Details of reform plans:
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I was just told by a spokesperson for a ministry of a European country that "your deadline is none of my concern." There are tons of great spokespeople out there but it only takes one like that to make me resent the category. Uselessness granted, rudeness for free.
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Just received 35L extra virgin olive oil from home. I'm keeping a third for me, the rest is for BXL press corps. If anybody by any chance is doing the same with red wine, gimme a shout. Let's make joint purchasing cool.
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Filial appreciation tweet: My mum wrote a book together with her fellow vaccinators/doctors, on their experience of the vaccination campaign in Milan. Today they received this reply from Italy's PM. And I know she's too shy/modest to boast, but I'm not: my mum's übercool.
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When amazing colleagues bring you cake in the press room 🥳 thanks
@liliebayer
&
@HenryJFoy
#EUCObirthday
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With the amount of Italian immigrants, I'm surprised at the dearth of ice cream shops in this town. There is no good gelato for miles. Hit me with your icecream recs.
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The best bureau in town 🫶
@AndyBounds
@alicemhancock
@lauramdubois
@HenryJFoy
@dariamslv
& invisible weapon
@JavierespFT
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It's half-time for the 🇪🇺 recovery fund. While it succeeded in calming markets and allowing for a speedy recovery, its promise of higher and greener growth remains largely unfulfilled — raising Qs on what will come next. My first Big Read for the
@FT
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keeping track of this recovery plans ting:
PLANS ENDORSED BY COMMISSION
1st batch
🇦🇹🇧🇪🇩🇪🇪🇸🇫🇷🇬🇷🇮🇹🇱🇺🇱🇻🇸🇰🇵🇹
2nd batch
🇨🇾🇭🇷🇱🇹🇸🇮
DUE TO BE APPROVED BY COUNCIL
First batch on 13 July
Second batch on 26 July (tentative)
NOT YET ENDORSED
🇵🇱🇭🇺🇨🇿🇮🇪🇪🇪🇫🇮🇸🇪🇷🇴
MISSING:
🇳🇱🇧🇬🇲🇹
yo welcome
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Italian volatility in an image:since my political coming of age, pretty much every party has managed to be on top at one time or another. Italians are unafraid of testing new things — for good or bad.(you may want to bookmark
@pollofpolls_EU
'a Italy page: )
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🚨policy scoop:
@EU_Commission
to present binding rules to improve minimum wages of Europeans, but it will face a bunch of opponents including Nordics, V4, and employers' associations. I tell you more (with graphics from 📊master Arnau Busquets Guàrdia) ⏬
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Just paid €3.60 for two excellent cappuccini and an espresso, but the bartender didn't issue a receipt. Perfect summary of my love/hate relationship w 🇮🇹
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📣
@POLITICOEurope
today launches Competition and Industrial Policy Pro, with a daily newsletter covering anti-trust, industrial policy, state aid, single market and🇪🇺competition with🇺🇸&🇨🇳China. I'm joining
@frogontheroof
and
@simonvandorpe
's team. Sign up!
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huh, just realised that today marks my 3rd anniversary
@POLITICOEurope
. That + a few whites = time flies
(the two things are probably related)
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So, flash forward +2 years, much institutional ping-pong, realpolitik later — how has this ended? IMHU with a lose-lose proposition. The main goal — no greenwashing — was missed, and something bigger was lost in between: credibility for the EU's science-led approach to policy.
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What's the most kook thing you did when you started off as a journalist, that you feel you can share cos you somehow got over the
#impostersyndrome
?
I signed up to an ECJ newsletter thinking I'd get EU court updates. I'm still getting updates from the European Cleaning Journal.
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Do I get something for having written over 1000 pro articles
@POLITICOEurope
? (Likely answer: to write 1000 more)
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My mum reminded me of my brief stint as a front-woman in a blues band of 50-somethings. Five years ago on this date, in an Irish pub in Rome:
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What I love most about my job: I can just ask Qs, all sort of Qs (hopefully the right ones) to anyone. It's pretty awesome when you pause to think about it.
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It’s really Christmas when the press room of the
@EU_Commission
is all to oneself. (No I don’t do holidays)
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Sorry for the escatological tweet, but you must know now that gabinetto in Italian means both cabinet (as in the body of ministers) and toilet cubible (as in🚽). If you're mentally 5YO like me this will make you internally giggle every time you hear the word.
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“Sometimes, even a central banker’s heart is used,” Draghi’s parting words to Parliament.
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This is happening in the EU
This Iraqi girl, holding a Polish guard teddybear, got transported to a border guard center after crossing the PL-BY border with other migrants, including children. She didn’t stay there for long — the guards confirmed they’d transported the group back to the woods in Belarus.
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That time of the year again! People in Brussels, you want some fresh EVO oil from Italy? ⏬
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Forcing myself to go out for a walk because 12h shifts and sleepless nights are turning my brain to mush. Take breaks colleagues. The marginal returns on your work (and mental health) are off the charts.
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If I am ever someone's landlord (doubtful) I hope I'll be nicer than those I've had so far. the last one wanted to bill me ROOF WORK bcs "it didn't rain inside before you moved in." I don't have the power to make things rot, I had to explain (& threaten legal action). the nerve.
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Se una capa di stato (vedi Thatcher, Merkel) è sempre sobria/austera nel vestirsi, la si attacca perché mascolina/educanda. Se una osa (il tacco leopardato della May, la scollatura della Marin) allora è inappropriata/frivola. Come la fai sbagli. Ma a un uomo le dicono ste cose?NO
In Finlandia è esplosa una polemica per la foto con scollatura della premier Sanna Marin apparsa su una rivista femminile.
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Breaking my Twitter fast just to say that the
#Qatargate
scandal in Milan is known as quater gàt, which literally means four cats and translates as a few idiots, and I just find it extra.
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In Lombardy — the richest region in the world's 8th richest country — doctors who took Aesculapius' oath to "use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment" have to pick who to save due to shortages.
@GretaPrivitera
for
@POLITICOEurope
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Got that Stockholm syndrome feeling knowing there will be no newsletter to write for the next 10 days. What am I going to do with my life.
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Italy won 3-0, and I just got on the waiting list for a vaccine. Tonight’s a good night.
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Effects of +10 years of living in Northern Europe:
— I no longer have a 'summer' and 'winter' closet.
— Swimming in the rain, with gale-force wind and water below 10°C is ok
— I cherish every 5-minutes sunshine window
All that effort comes crashing down in family whatsapp group
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What's going on in Brussels, I almost got mugged in Midi and the violence in St Gilles is out of control. I don't scare easily but people are getting shot in the street. Pls stay safe people.
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Very possibly the prettiest place I’ve ever filed from (minus the church bells at every quarter hour, day & night)
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Huge backlash against the Economist’s
#Britaly
cover. Not offended, simply think it misses the point. Italian politics is functionally mad. Can’t say the same of UK.
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Current favorite Italian word: papabile = Adjective for someone eligible to be selected for a top job. Literally: Pope-able.
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Estonia is pioneering a bill to appropriate €20m in frozen Russian assets, hoping to "set a precedent, to encourage other countries and most importantly, to also encourage a pan-European solution," Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told me.
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Political boomerang for VDL who taught them blockades work. Also raises questions about the Commission's democratic methods, if the loudest/most destructive groups obtain policy wins...
Quite astounding scenes in Brussels today as farmers destroy police barricades around the EU quarter, drive tractors at police, dump produce on roads and set light to traffic infrastructure.
They are demanding more concessions from environmental regulations.
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The European Commission wants to end payslip differences due to gender-based discrimination in the EU, and it’s planning to present binding rules to that end on Thursday. I had a preview of the proposal, now free to read ⬇️
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Nice things I’m going to try out when this is all over:
Go to see a ballet at the opera, dressed up💃
Host a supper club for total strangers in my home🍽️
Sign up for a yoga class (and actually go)🧘♀️
Babysit people’s pets, consider getting my own🐱
Run a marathon🏃♀️
What bout you?
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While legally correct (legal basis is ART 122 of the EU treaty, "exceptional occurrences,) this is a political half-truth. Many including within the Commission see this as a test-case for permanent fiscal integration — exactly what the Finns (and not only them) are wary of.
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For
@ManfredWeber
, a tax fraud conviction and ongoing trials for corruption, bribery, illegal financing are akin to “a political approach that has irritated some,” he says in his endorsement of Berlusconi as 🇮🇹 president. 🤷♀️
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This doesn’t make up for 8 months’ winter. But Brussels is trying hard.
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For about two weeks now, the general response I get when asking for interviews is: let's do it in the fall. It's not even August yet.
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Short word of advice for EU Commission comms folks: staggering press conferences throughout a week would secure you more and better coverage rather than cramming non-stop press events in one day. Just sayin'.
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Explaining ferragosto to the German BF, shocked at notion that Italians would bring baked pasta to the beach. He thinks we’re insane. 🤷🏽♀️
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Oh no, the
@EU_Commission
is doing it again! holding a technical briefing before it releases the actual docs. This is bad practice and undemocratic - how can we have Qs on documents we haven't seen? It's a waste of our & Commission experts' time. CC
@apibrussels
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Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki serving psEUCOdrama — I suggested this as headline but sadly it got changed 🤷♀️
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@tessie_the_mess
Being handed a book titled “on writing well”... (great book. Thanks
@jancienski
)
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Off for a week in the boot 🇮🇹looking forward to overheating and oversleeping. Current view:
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Draghi on the race for the presidency: "I have no particular aspirations of one kind or another, I am a man, a grandfather if you like, in the service of the institutions. A grandfather. The responsibility of decision making is entirely in the hands of the political forces."
👴
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Baristas: no point making great cappuccino if you don’t provide a spoon. Sorry, but someone has to say it.
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I’m trying a new old thing to battle the Brussels heatwave. Just pull up some chairs -preferably white plasticky ones- and sit by your front door, you’ll be amazed at the amount of friendly interactions with strangers. Italian granny rules.
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Everybody’s keen to spend billions euros 💶 but how to repay them? Story ⏬ w/contribs from
@GuntramWolff
and
@lucasguttenberg
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For young people, this hasn't been an easy year — and neither is the one ahead. High unemployment, 'scarring effects,' mental health issues, and mountains of debt are the challenges the Class of Corona is facing.
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Cupboard days are over 💫 POLITICO's brainpower is bringing you the intel on the Swedish Presidency of the Council at 11.30am (pros only), with ace colleagues
@SarahAnneAarup
trade,
@clothildegouj
tech,
@america_hdz
energy, & me for all things €€€, moderated by
@laurenscerulus
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MAGICAL MYSTERY MONEY TOUR🎶
@EU_Commission
yesterday presented a one trillion € investment plan💰meant to provide the financial firepower for its
#EuropeanGreenDeal
. How? I’m gonna break it down in my first
#thread
. Or read this story w/
@liliebayer
1/
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Italian headline in a comment piece penned by the daily's founder: "The girl raped by X [name of rapist] was naïve"
Idea: instead of short lived public outrage, let's provide women victims of violence with pro bono legal support to sue the author for slander. Make the pig pay.
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Famine is already killing children in Yemen as aid dwindles
@AhmadAlgohbary
@monareliefye
@Fatikr
@JamilaHanan
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