Over the years, journalists have helped steer the EU, one question, one leaked report and one tenacious investigation at a time <a target="_blank">(Photo: Shada Islam)</a>
Over the years, journalists have helped steer the EU, one question, one leaked report and one tenacious investigation at a time (Photo: Shada Islam)

EU politics

Going into 2025, Europe is sitting atop a ‘volcano’ of racism

By Shada Islam,
Brussels
,

It’s been an agonising year and 2025 is unlikely to be any better. 

Gaza’s besieged population, or what’s left of it after more than a year of devastating Israeli strikes, now faces a full-blown, man-made famine. 

A UN special committee has said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza, following the 7 October Hamas terror attack, are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” 

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes, saying there were “reasonable grounds” to believe both has “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival”.

Many EU states have said they will respect and implement the court decision even though only hours earlier they rejected EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s plea for suspending political talks with Israel and shrugged off evidence that 70 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children.

In the US, Donald Trump is going to “Make America Great Again” again, this time with the help of a curiously eclectic cabinet.

Here in Brussels, a new cohort of mainly rightwing and right-leaning EU commissioners is poised to take charge, shifting discourse and policies even closer to the far-right.

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Over the years, journalists have helped steer the EU, one question, one leaked report and one tenacious investigation at a time (Photo: Shada Islam)

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Author Bio

Shada Islam Shada Islam  is an EUobserver columnist, and independent EU analyst and commentator who runs her own strategy and advisory company New Horizons Project. She has recently won the European Woman in Media award and the Media Career Award 2023 for her outstanding work and powerful voice on EU affairs and focus on building an inclusive Union of Equality.