CEPS in focus

By Cosima Lenz

Gender is largely absent from the EU’s antimicrobial resistance (AMR) policies and strategies. Yet AMR is a major global health threat. It happens when microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites) stop responding to medication, making infections harder to treat, and increasing the risk of severe illness and death. Misuse and the overuse of antibiotics accelerate resistance, turning once-treatable infections into serious health risks.

AMR is a global crisis, causing around 4.7 million deaths in 2021, including 35 000 in the EU and EEA. Recognising the urgency of this threat, the EU named AMR among its top priorities in its Global Health Strategy. The EU is playing a key role in shaping global and regional AMR policies and research through its funding commitments – which account for one-third of global AMR development assistance in 2020 – and collaborations, such as the Joint Programming Initiative on AMR, the Global AMR R&D hubs and other Horizon Europe initiatives.

Despite growing awareness of the need to recognise gender in AMR research, EU efforts have failed to incorporate gender or gender considerations. This is a significant oversight and needs to be immediately rectified as gender influences AMR risk, management and the effectiveness of health policies and interventions. Global research shows that women are more likely than men to use antibiotics in their lifetime. This trend is reflected in EU data, where women report slightly higher antibiotics use over the past year compared to men.

For the third year in a row, CEPS is marking International Women’s Day on 8 March with a special short series of Expert Commentaries to highlight the insights and expertise of some of our most talented female researchers.

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Georgia is no stranger to political turmoil but the country now finds itself at a perilous tipping point. Georgians are known for taking to the streets, waving EU flags with unmatched passion and fighting for their European future.

But this time, with mounting geopolitical tensions and a ruling party desperate to cling to power while appeasing the Kremlin, the stakes are higher than ever. Despite months of protests, Georgian Dream (GD), the ruling party controlled by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who amassed his fortune in Russia, has only tightened its grip, escalating repression, detaining and assaulting demonstrators, and fast-tracking Georgia’s descent into authoritarianism.

In 2024, the ‘foreign agents’ law was reintroduced despite overwhelming public protests, elections were manipulated and rigged, and then came the final blow – the prime minister’s announcement that Georgia would halt EU accession negotiations until 2028. This was the last straw. Protesters flooded the streets in November and have remained there ever since.

In response, GD has passed laws that tighten restrictions on demonstrations, increase penalties for disobeying or insulting police officers, and makes it easier to fire civil servants. Additionally, new legislation is underway to ban foreign funding for media outlets and to replace the ‘foreign agents’ law with even stricter legislation to target civil society. Many civil servants have already been fired for joining public protests and several hundred demonstrators have been detained, including journalists, politicians and activists. More than 300 of them have reported beatings, torture and other ill-treatment.

The EU’s response? Underwhelming at best. A symbolic visa suspension for holders of diplomatic passports and officials, allowing EU Member States to impose visa requirements, though with the discretion to grant exemptions. Even without exemptions, the impact is limited – the diplomats and officials were not particularly eager to travel to the EU for work anyway and they can still obtain visas for personal travel. At best, it introduces procedural hurdles rather than any real consequences.

Throughout 2024, the EU has frozen EUR 30 million earmarked for Georgia’s defence sector (in July) and has suspended EUR 121 million in bilateral support (in October), followed by the European Council deciding to halt Georgia’s accession.

In short, the EU wielded the stick but not with enough force to shift GD’s course. Worse still, there’s no clear strategy for what comes next.

For the third year in a row, CEPS is marking International Women’s Day on 8 March with a special short series of Expert Commentaries to highlight the insights and expertise of some of our most talented female researchers.

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Skills have become a central pillar in policy discussions on the future of work. Since the 2000 Lisbon Strategy, the EU has gradually shifted from focusing on formal education and qualifications – as indicators of skill bundles – to a greater emphasis on skills as individual units that can be independently acquired and traded. The Recommendation on Microcredentials – first adopted in 2022 and now featured prominently in the Union of Skills – represents the clearest indication of this shift.

Since then, policymakers frequently turn to skilling as a silver bullet – something to reduce labour shortages and help the workforce adapt to technological change, ultimately providing social mobility and even supporting the inclusion of vulnerable groups in both the labour market and society at large.

In the recent Competitiveness Compass skills are seen as ‘horizontal enablers’ of competitiveness that also ensure social fairness. But it doesn’t explain how exactly this mechanism would work. This isn’t surprising, as the debate on skills is riddled with misconceptions that oversimplify skills’ role in the labour market and in society.

In short, if we don’t move beyond this simplified view, inclusive competitiveness will remain out of reach.

For the third year in a row, CEPS is marking International Women’s Day on 8 March with a special short series of Expert Commentaries to highlight the insights and expertise of some of our most talented female researchers.

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The European Commission’s ‘Simplification Omnibus’ proposal, unveiled on 26 February, was presented as a necessary step to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and enhance European competitiveness. By amending key sustainability directives – including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU Taxonomy Regulation – the Commission claims to be streamlining compliance processes for companies.

However, beneath the rhetoric of simplification lies a profound retreat from the EU’s sustainability commitments. The proposal significantly weakens corporate transparency, accountability and long-term economic credibility, undermining years of progress in environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulation.

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Germany went to the polls last Sunday and the conservative CDU came first, followed by the far-right AfD. Upcoming coalition negotiations will ultimately determine the next government’s composition, but CDU leader Friedrich Merz will likely become the next Chancellor, with the Social Democrats (SDP) as the probable junior coalition partner.

The past 3.5 years were sobering – the ‘traffic-light’ coalition of the SDP, Greens and liberal FDP fell short of playing a constructive role in EU policymaking, despite having set itself an ambitious EU programme. Finding compromise in a tripartite coalition proved challenging and relations between France and Germany – already not in the best shape – further eroded.

With the current geopolitical situation, the new government will have to show much more EU leadership than before. But whether they can deliver is another matter entirely.

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The Italian government’s recent refusal to comply with an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant exposes deep-rooted hypocrisy in EU migration policy. While claiming to fight ‘human trafficking’, the Italian government has shielded a high-ranking Libyan official accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

This case exemplifies a broader trend where ‘migration’ concerns are used to justify legal exceptionalism, erode the rule of law and foster impunity.

The case concerns Osama Elmasry (or Almasri) Njeem, chief of the Libyan judicial police. He was arrested in Turin on 19 January following an ICC arrest warrant for crimes including torture, rape and sexual violence, murder and persecution. Just two days later, he was released and flown back to Libya on an Italian state aircraft.

The Italian government presented a list of unconvincing justifications for why it released him: the Court of Appeal of Rome hadn’t validated the arrest as it awaited the necessary approval from the Minister of Justice; the documents hadn’t been translated from English to Italian; and he was expelled for being a ‘national security risk’. However, Italy’s refusal to execute the ICC arrest warrant isn’t just a procedural failure but a direct violation of Italy’s – and the EU’s – legal obligations.

The ICC is currently assessing a legal complaint against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, and it has given the Italian government 30 days to provide further information so it can assess its decision to not cooperate.

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Zooming out from the buzz around DeepSeek, it’s clear the AI game is rapidly changing. The usual big tech players no longer have the playing field to themselves. During the last few weeks, a wave of impressive, mostly open-source AI models have hit the scene, many created by smaller, scrappier companies outside the traditional Silicon Valley giants.

In short, the AI landscape is no longer just about who has the most money or the biggest data centres – it’s about who can innovate smarter, faster and achieve more with less.

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Europe’s engagement with the new Syrian leadership has been notably swift, yet it still refuses to recognise the Taliban. On 19 December 2024, the European Council issued guidelines for recognising Syria’s transitional government, tying it to respect for ‘human rights, including women’s rights, non-sectarian governance, and the protection of members of religious and ethnic minorities.’ On 4 January 2025, the German and French foreign ministers visited Damascus, less than a month after Bashar Assad’s fall.

Europe’s differing approaches to Syria’s new governing authority and the Taliban clearly shows the complexity of modern diplomacy and the intricate geopolitical and ideological factors driving Europe’s Middle East foreign policy decisions.

Of course, Europe currently hosts millions of Syrian refugees, many of them having fled the violence and extremism that flourished during the civil war. With continuing pressures on European governments – ranging from housing to social integration – the prospect that these refugees might soon return to a stable Syria is an alluring incentive for Europe to positively engage with Damascus and support its transition.

But by proactively helping Syria (and doing its best to avoid the mistakes it made with Afghanistan), Europe would also be doing itself a huge favour, by alleviating social strains in hosting EU countries, taking away some of Russia’s influence in the region and contributing to long-term security in the Middle East.

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The release of the freely available and surprisingly capable language model DeepSeek R-1 shocked the world, made it question the growing demand for computer chips and led the mighty NASDAQ to dive on Monday. Here’s a Chinese open-source project matching OpenAI’s capabilities – something we were told wouldn’t happen for years – and at a fraction of the cost. The panic revealed more about our assumptions about AI than about the model itself.

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The EU should stick to its course, pursue the Green Deal and complete the single market. It needs to demonstrate its resolve and act united as a new – potentially hostile – US administration rolls in and shakes up the foundations of transatlantic cooperation and the world order. But it must also stand firm if China makes its own attempts to split an EU united front.

To do so, the EU should act decisively with the powers it has according to the Treaty, while being much more vocal against any efforts to politically undermine Europe and divide it.

We’ll see over the next few weeks how up to this task the newish von der Leyen II Commission is and how determined it is to counter pressures from both Member States and from abroad. It should clearly indicate whether it believes Europe is still able to credibly anchor itself in between the US and China – but if the past few weeks are any indication, things are not looking promising. Europe, and the EU, have been pushed into a defensive position against full-on attacks from many fronts, including the new US President, but also industry and opinion leaders and the EU’s own extremist parties.

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