Anthony Zacharzewski

I understand all the reasons why it makes sense as it is, but every year the campaign "lisez-vous le belge" comes around, I think *cough* is there not another set of Belgian writers we could be promoting at the same time, and building bridges? www.linkedin.com/posts/la-cam...

The election exit polls will be out at 21h Brussels time.

Morning in the Łazienki Park.

Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth. Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

💔

Dobry wieczór.

Yes, obviously if Ukraine thought it could gain a "cast iron guarantee of peace" in return for territory, it would jump at it. I would also give up a finger to live to 400. That doesn't mean anyone is offering that - or that I shouldn't fight back if someone attacked me with a knife.

I will ignore this analysis until Matthew names which bits of Kent he'd have given to Hitler in 1940.

I do think a 'practical' leftyism could make a bigger thing about the social licence to operate idea - the original idea of corporate personhood was that it was a social contract not a licence to do whatever the hell you wanted, you got limited liability but you had to be a good citizen!

I was having conversations with journalists just a few months ago about whether democracy was doomed. Look at this year: Orban defeated. Vukic defeated. Bolsonaro Jr defeated. Trump heading to likely defeat in midterms. That’s the beauty of democracy. Voters can respond. Don’t count it out yet.

And yet the German car industry is still begging for years more to sell fossil vehicles, rather than stepping up its game. Dinosaurs aren’t just in the fuel tank.

Of course a win for non-authoritarian leaders or movements does not automatically mean all problems are solved or that authoritarian forces can't come back in future. But it is worth maintaining hope and optimism, because if people succumb to nihilism and apathy then democracy cannot survive.

France and the UK have a veto and all other countries get a vote. Either Trump and Putin are going to spend a lot of geopolitical capital getting a corrupt has-been with no known diplomatic skill into the Sec-Gen or it’s not going to happen (it’s not going to happen)

Let's not forget that Serbia's student movement - like those in Nepal and Bangladesh - features women in key leadership roles. Serbian women students, like generations of women democracy activists before them, have demanded political rights *and* women's rights. www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/...

The Tisza river in Hungary also flows through Serbia, and a slogan there has been “Let the Tisa flow into Serbia”. Well … here we are.

Lula projected as having the best chance of winning (though Congress is already won for the right in the first round)

We stand ready to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom, the fight against corruption and strong democratic institutions, and to work together to advance Serbia’s future in the European Union. @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu

Incredible. Student List are candidates selected by groups of students to form an anti-corruption party. Another youth-led movement overthrowing an authoritarian government in Europe.

Almost not wanting to believe the news from Serbia for fear of disappointment - and knowing what a lot of work is ahead. Sending love to @crta.bsky.social and other friends there who have been fighting for democracy for so long. Now the EU needs to step up to support democracy and European values.

After Hungary and Poland, Serbia becomes the third Central/Eastern European country in few years where massive youth mobilization has contributed to the electoral defeat of the ruling autocratic party.

It's gonna be a long few hours. Send good thoughts in the direction of Serbia, everyone!

The very high voter turnout continues. By 1 p.m., 41.1% of eligible voters had participated in the parliamentary elections, @crta.bsky.social announced. (Error margin of +/- 0.9%.) For comparison: In the parliamentary elections in December 2023, 26.6% of voters had cast their vote by 1 p.m.⬇️ #Serbia

At the Polish Post Office Museum and feeling about a million years old.

Off to see the new film “Lalka (the Doll)” tonight, an adaptation of Prus’s 1890 novel. Just saw there’s a Netflix serial adaptation of the same novel - also from this year. Stories of hopeless struggle against reactionary social structures seem to be having a moment, can’t think why.

A friend working on democracy there tells me that high turnout (by the end of the day) will be a sign of popular mobilisation against SNS (the ruling party). So … let’s see what happens.

In the city, at the sea. A great day catching up with our Erasmus-wandering kid in Gdańsk.

Throughout Europe, young people are demanding radical change. For a long time, the compromise offered by European social democracy read something like this: we provide incremental change to improve people's lives. Incrementalism equals realism and radicalism equals idealism. While we may believe ...

Nie ma wolności bez solidarności / There can be no freedom without solidarity.

#OTD in 1789, the Brabantian Revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands (against the rule of Joseph II) kicked off when the rebel army led by general Vander Meersch arrived in Turnhout. This would set in motion events that would lead to the Belgian republic in 1790.

This is going to be interesting.

EU member states have proposed a 30% cut to the bloc’s sole public funding program for civil society, even as Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda depends on those same groups to enforce its digital rulebook, writes Mark Scott.

I can access news from every country in the world and translate it in seconds if it isn't a language I speak. (1992 vignette: I found out about Black Wednesday in the UK on the Friday, thanks to a day-old copy of the Guardian left on a bench in the Uffizzi Gallery).

audiophiles are like i came as soon as i heard

First stop on this train enough to make non-Polish speakers weep.

The bar for a violent revolution to be worthwhile is usually extremely high, because revolutions kill a lot of people and destroy what little still works, so you have to rebuild all that just to get back to zero.

I appreciate the Belgianness of the landscape and weather in this weather warning. You can almost smell the frietkot out of shot to the right.

This extract from Bernie Taupin's new memoir is amazing. It shows a great lyricist isn't the same thing as a great prose writer. So many four-syllable words where two would do, tortured metaphors and weird imagery. Seems when you have more than three minutes to fill, you reach for the thesaurus.