The thousands of people who work in the European Parliament’s administration are supposed to be non-political, per EU law. But staffers complain that many of the Parliament’s plum jobs are instead going to people with political connections.

Of the 11,200 people who work in the Parliament — the majority based in Brussels — only 3,900 work in politics, either as lawmakers, assistants or political group staff. The rest are admin staff doing jobs such as communications, handling payslips or conducting research to support the work of lawmakers.

This week, Parliament staffers head to the ballot box to elect members of the Staff Committee, which represents the non-political workforce in negotiations with management figures such as President Roberta Metsola. Every trade union pushing to get roles on that committee has highlighted the same issue: ending the grip of political parties on top staff appointments.

“Political affiliation has taken precedence over competence and merit,” says the election program of the Ethos union, echoing similar statements from unions such as SPF Europa, R&D and USPE.

The unions argue that new jobs often go to people with connections to political parties rather than being awarded strictly on merit, with many vacancies either never advertised or designed for preselected candidates.

“As a result, ordinary staff members — who have devoted their entire careers to the administration without passing through a cabinet post and without political experience — have virtually no career prospects,” the Ethos program says.

Examples:

The Parliament’s extensive bureaucracy is run by its secretary-general. Under Klaus Welle, who had the job from 2009 to 2022, the secretary-general role became far more powerful. The appointment of Welle’s successor, Alessandro Chiocchetti, was controversial because the Italian was the chief of staff for EP President Metsola and was seen as close to the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the Parliament. Welle helped secure Chiocchetti’s appointment by doling out top positions in the administration to political groups.

While Chiocchetti is widely regarded as close to the EPP, one of his deputies, Markus Winkler, comes from the Socialists and Democrats group. His other deputy, Anders Rasmussen, is a former top official in the liberal Renew.

To be fair, this is mainly a German, Austrian, and French thing.

Southern and Eastern Europe ,places like Greece, Spain, or even Hungary and Bulgaria are actually pretty well air-conditioned.

Honestly, the Germans, French, and Austrians are just ridiculous with this whole "comfort is bad, living well is wrong" mindset. It's just climate change hysteria.

These are supposed to be the wealthiest nations in Europe.
I’ve actually traveled to Brazil, which is significantly poorer than any EU country, and even they have way better AC coverage.
Why?

Police have clashed with demonstrators during a protest in the Italian city of Bologna after a Moroccan-born man died pleading for help under police restraint.

Human rights campaigners and Italy’s opposition parties have demanded urgent answers over the death on Sunday of Abderrahim ⁠Fakir, 42, who had lived in Italy since he was five years old and ran a small removals and cleaning business.

A video shared widely on Italian media shows Fakir, who reportedly had heart issues and asthma, repeatedly calling out “aiuto, aiuto, basta” (Help, help, that’s enough) as two officers sit on him and ambulance workers look on.

After he stops moving, the police officers are seen binding his ankles together, only later checking his vital signs with the ambulance workers, the video shows. Prosecutors have opened an investigation and requested the officers’ body cam footage.

The official Council of the EU press release is as cowardly as the act itself:

The title claims that

EU countries agree to extend temporary protection for those fleeing Ukraine

It talks about

EU’s commitment to support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes

It further obfuscates the truth with phrases like

temporary protection should be granted only to those complying with their military obligations in Ukraine.

Of course, only men have "military obligations".

As always, not a single human rights organization gave a single fuck.

---

An article in Politico calling it what it is: EU will exclude fighting-age men from Ukraine refugee scheme – POLITICO

• Britain’s political turbulence has given way, at least temporarily, to smooth choreography as Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer, becoming the seventh U.K. prime minister since 2016.
• Britain’s parliamentary democracy allows governing parties to change leaders, and thus prime ministers, without the need for a general election. Burnham was the only candidate in the contest to become Labour’s new leader. The next national poll doesn’t have to be held until 2029, though Burnham can call one sooner if he wants.
• Starmer traveled the mile from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace to formally tell King Charles III that he was resigning. Soon after, the 56-year-old Burnham went to the palace, where Charles asked him to form a government. That was when he officially became prime minister, a moment known as “kissing hands.”
• The UK has had six prime ministers over the past decade

See also:

• Andy Burnham bets political future on remaking Britain's centralised state (Reuters)
• Who is Andy Burnham, the U.K.'s new prime minister? (NPR)
• Burnham must remember the first rule of government • The biggest mistake of all would be to imagine the country enjoys a free fiscal lunch. In fact, it only has hard choices (Financial Times)

Europe has entered a new era of outsourced migration management. After a vote by the European parliament, the EU’s return regulation is nearing adoption – promising “more efficient” returns and “swifter” procedures to deport unwanted migrants. This will give countries the legal runway to set up return hubs – that is, offshore facilities to process people deemed to have no right to stay in the EU.

Despite opposition from countries such as Spain and France – and an outcry from rights groups – many other governments appear anxious to join in. An open letter signed by 19 EU member states just days after the vote at the European parliament, urging the “full use of the new possibilities”, indicates that implementation might be coming soon. Frontrunners like Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are already on the starting block, poised to establish joint hubs which are likely to become operational in short order.

These developments signal that positions once dismissed as fringe, legally untenable and driven by ideology rather than by evidence have been successfully rebranded as mainstream, commonsense governance. The deep politicisation of this shift was on full display when some MEPs chanted “Send them back” inside the European parliament during the vote, celebrating the removal of human beings with the fervour of a campaign rally. In the pursuit of ever stricter migration policies, the human rights protections that Europe was founded to uphold are increasingly treated as disposable.

The decision to pave the way for extraterritorial centres should alarm anyone familiar with the human cost of these schemes in the past. History shows us that they are not harmless administrative workarounds. There isn’t a single initiative to outsource migration policy that has not raised serious human rights concerns.

When Australia pioneered offshore processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, thousands of people, including children, were – according to the UN – subjected to years of arbitrary detention in inhumane conditions, resulting in severe physical and mental trauma and at least 12 deaths. Similarly, human rights organisations called out Israel’s attempts in the 2010s to press Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers into “voluntary” relocation to Rwanda and Uganda, which resulted in abuse, legal limbo or forced onward flight.

In the US, the 1990s experiments of holding Haitian refugees outside domestic judicial reach – including in Guantánamo Bay – have evolved into agreements to remove people to countries where they have no links. These agreements have led to documented reports of arbitrary detention, torture and other ill treatment, enforced disappearances and denial of access to family and legal counsel. In some cases, receiving states subsequently returned individuals to their country of origin, exposing people to a risk of refoulement (that is, sending someone back to danger).

The recent highly publicised collaboration between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and El Salvador’s Cecot mega jail – where deportees were held under extreme conditions – prompts a fundamental question for European policymakers: is this the kind of punitive, outsourced model we want to import here?

Europe is no stranger to externalisation policies. Longstanding violations of the rights of refugees and migrants in Libya and Tunisia demonstrate that migration cooperation aimed at preventing arrivals to the EU will probably result in serious and widespread human rights violations if adequate guarantees are not established from the outset.

Earlier European attempts at extraterritorial centres confirm this pattern. Italy’s agreement with Albania has been beset by questions over its compatibility with EU law. This shows how moving people offshore can severely restrict their access to lawyers, interpreters and judges, thereby jeopardising the effectiveness of the legal remedies that are essential for protecting other human rights. Meanwhile the UK’s cooperation with Rwanda, an attempt to outsource asylum procedures rather than returns, fell foul of the UK supreme court due to systemic weaknesses in the Rwandan asylum and judicial system that failed to guarantee that people sent there would be safe from refoulement.

How can anyone reasonably believe this time will be any different? Yet European governments pursuing the establishment of return hubs continue to offer the same reassurance: that they will operate in strict compliance with their international human rights obligations.

With implementation imminent, vague assurances are no longer enough. The stakes are simply too high. On one hand, European countries are experimenting with human lives. The dangers are well documented, and will only increase if governments partner with countries with poor human rights records. On the other hand, the effectiveness of return hubs remains unproven. This initiative could absorb vast public funds until the courts intervene, damaging Europe’s international credibility.

Polish prosecutors have indicted an 18-year-old Ukrainian accused of working on behalf of Russia to stir tensions between Poland and Ukraine by painting dozens of inscriptions glorifying the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a group that massacred Poles during World War Two.

Among the sites where he placed graffiti were a monument to Polish victims of those massacres (pictured above), as well as a memorial dedicated to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. If found guilty, the suspect could face up to life in prison.

The history of the UPA has been at the heart of an ongoing diplomatic dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv. However, the actions in this particular case took place in 2024 and 2025, before the current crisis emerged.

The suspect in the case was detained in August 2025, shortly after graffiti glorifying the UPA had appeared on a monument in Poland honouring victims of the so-called Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 Poles.

On Thursday, prosecutors announced that they have issued an indictment against the suspect, whom they named only as Illia K. under Polish privacy law. He is accused of 47 crimes in total.

Of those, 45 are for “acts of subversion and sabotage for the benefit of foreign intelligence, consisting primarily of placing inscriptions in Ukrainian on the facades of buildings and in memorial sites with the text ‘Glory to the UPA’ and red and black flags attributed to the UPA “, prosecutors said.

Those actions “were aimed at inciting hatred on national grounds, deepening antagonisms between Poles and Ukrainians, causing social unrest and creating a sense of helplessness of state authorities”.

There have long been tensions between Poland and Ukraine over the massacres, which Poland recognises as a genocide. Ukraine rejects that label, and also continues to honour the UPA for its role in fighting for independence from Moscow-backed Soviet rule.

The issue has recently flared up again after President Volodymyr Zelensky in late May named a Ukrainian military unit after the “heroes of the UPA”. That sparked widespread anger in Poland and prompted Polish President Karol Nawrocki to strip Zelensky of his country’s highest honour.

Russia has also long sought to exploit such tensions, and Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) notes that Illia K.’s actions were carried out “at the request of the Russian security services”, which were seeking to “incite conflicts between the Polish and Ukrainian nations”.

In addition, Illia K. also faces one charge of participation in an organised criminal group and another of preparing for an act of subversion or sabotage that would have involved flying a drone over Poland’s Armed Forces Day parade in Warsaw last year, which was attended by President Nawrocki.

Prosecutors note that the accused “acted for financial, not ideological, reasons”. He was paid for his actions in cryptocurrencies. That is typical of the so-called “disposable agents” Russian increasingly uses, who are amateurs – often young Ukrainians or Belarusians – hired and paid through messaging service Telegram.

The suspect has been held in pretrial detention since he was arrested by the ABW last year. If found guilty, he could face up to life in prison.

Prosecutors say that, although Illia K. initially admitted to the charges against him, he later decided to change his stance and has pleaded not guilty while exercising his right to remain silent.

Poland has in recent years detained, charged and in some cases convicted dozens of agents accused of carrying out espionage, sabotage and other so-called “hybrid actions” on behalf of Russia and its ally Belarus.

In March, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) reported that Poland is now the “primary focus of Russian activity” when it comes to sabotage.

In June, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski warned that Moscow is “waging a full-scale cognitive war against us” and that there is a “Russian fifth column” operating in Poland.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.

Poland has cautiously welcomed an announcement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of a five-point plan intended to alleviate the diplomatic crisis triggered by his earlier decision to name a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which led massacres of Poles during World War Two.

In a statement on Friday evening, Zelensky announced that, following a meeting on Kyiv’s policy towards Poland, “the priorities are clear: all of us in Europe need good-neighbourly, equal, and mutually beneficial relations built on respect”.

He reiterated Ukraine’s gratitude for Poland’s “significant support” since Russia’s full-scale invasion and announced that his administration had “agreed on several key steps” in response to the current tensions.

“First, there will be decisions on the diplomatic track,” said Zelensky, though without indicating what this would mean in practice. “Second, all archives of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine concerning the tragic events in Volyn during the 20th century will be opened.”

The latter is a reference to the historical issues that are at the heart of the dispute. The historical region of Volhynia, which is now mostly in Ukraine, was part of Poland in the interwar period.

There, and in some neighbouring areas, the UPA, a nationalist partisan formation, led massacres of around 100,000 Polish civilians, mostly women and children, during World War Two, when the region was under Nazi-German occupation.

Poland recognises those massacres as a genocide. Ukraine vehemently rejects that label, and also points to anti-Ukrainian measures in the region by the interwar Polish state as well as massacres of Ukrainians by Polish groups during the war.

As his third pledge, Zelensky announced that there would be “decisions to grant a substantial number of permits for search and exhumation work”.

From 2017 to 2025, Ukraine prohibited searches for and exhumations of Polish massacre victims on its territory, where it is believed that tens of thousands remain buried in unmarked mass graves

In a diplomatic breakthrough, such work was allowed to resume last year. However, Ukraine has so far only approved a small number of requests for searches and exhumations, prompting some complaints from Poland.

As a fourth point, Zelensky said that his team had “discussed possible formats for expanding dialogue between the societies of Ukraine and Poland”, though again without providing details as to what this would involve.

Finally, he said that he had agreed with the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP), Oleksandr Alfyorov, to expand the institute’s capabilities and funding, so that it can “properly represent Ukraine’s interests”.

Alfyorov caused anger in Poland earlier this year when he said that the Volhynia massacres are viewed in Ukraine as “just a local historical episode” and suggested they did not constitute a genocide. That prompted a rebuke from Poland’s own Institute of National Remembrance (IPN).

In response to Zelensky’s announcement, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that he “accepted the words and decisions with satisfaction and hope”. He reiterated that Poland is “ready for a serious and friendly dialogue on the matters that unite us and those that divide”.

However, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, a deputy prime minister, emphasised that it was important now for “the announcements regarding the opening of archives, exhumations and dialogue to turn into concrete actions”.

“Today, Poland and Ukraine have a common enemy: Russia,” added Kosiniak-Kamysz. “That is where the threat lies. Sowing discord between our nations serves the interests of the Kremlin.”

Meanwhile, a senior aide to Polish President Karol Nawrocki – who deepened the crisis by last month stripping Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour – also cautiously welcomed Zelensky’s announcement.

“Facing the historical truth is the only way to build further relationships,” Bartosz Grodecki, the head of Nawrocki’s National Security Bureau (BBN), told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“The Ukrainian president’s decision to open the entire archives of the Security Service of Ukraine and the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine concerning the events in Volhynia, as well as additional permits for search and exhumation work, is a step in this direction,” he added.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, has agreed to step down after signing a constitutional amendment passed by the ruling Tisza party of the prime minister, Péter Magyar.

The amendment will end Sulyok’s term immediately, citing society’s “serious loss of confidence” in a leader elected in early 2024 by lawmakers from the former prime minister Viktor Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party.

Sulyok said he had no choice but to rubber-stamp the legislation as he respected the letter of the law.

However, the former constitutional court judge warned that the reform had harmed the rule of law in Hungary.

He said on Saturday: “The seventeenth amendment to the constitution has marked a watershed in Hungary’s constitutional democracy.

“By removing public office holders in a manner that openly violates the rule of law … it sets a negative precedent that inflicts a deep wound on the constitutional values of democracy, the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

The legislation was part of Magyar’s drive to dismantle Orbán’s bastions of power after ousting the rightwing leader in an election landslide in April.

See also:

• Hungary's PM Magyar to ask chess champion Judit Polgar to become president (Reuters)

President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, has vetoed a government bill that would have allowed unmarried partners, including same-sex couples, to sign an agreement granting them certain rights.

The proposed law would have marked the first time that Poland had recognised same-sex relationships in domestic law. However, Nawrocki argued that such a move would threaten the institution of marriage, which is enshrined in the constitution.

The measures in question were approved by both houses of parliament in May and June with the support of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre right.

The proposed law would have allowed couples, both same-sex and opposite-sex, to enter into a new type of contract, signed before a notary and then submitted to the registry office.

It would have granted them some of the rights available to married couples, including joint property and tax settlement, access to their partner’s medical information, exemption from inheritance and gift taxes, and the right to decide about their partner’s burial if they die.

However, the two main opposition parties – the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) – voted against the legislation, and Nawrocki himself also made clear that he intended to veto it.

On Friday morning, the president confirmed he would not be signing into law the two bills passed by parliament that would have introduced the new system.

He said that the measures would effectively “introduce civil partnerships through the back door”, and that such partnerships are “intended to replace or substitute the institution of marriage”.

“As the guardian of the constitution, I cannot accept a solution that would lead to the loss of the special status of marriage defined in article 18 of the constitution as a union between a woman and a man, placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland,” he added.

Nawrocki also argued that the proposed measures were contrary to the principles of social justice because they would have granted such couples some of the privileges of marriage but without all of the same obligations. He also noted that the proposed new type of contract could be terminated far more easily than a marriage.

“Marriage, which best secures family stability, cannot become one of many equally valid options offered by the state administration,” declared the president. “The family is a community fundamental to the survival of the nation.”

However, Nawrocki added that, as he has previously said, he remains open to legislation that would grant loved ones rights relating to healthcare and various administrative issues. But only if it “does not create an alternative to marriage” or “introduce ideological changes to family law”.

Nawrocki’s decision was condemned by Tusk, who called it “an expression of contempt toward people and their right to happiness and a normal life”.

The government’s plenipotentiary for equality, Katarzyna Kotula, accused the president of “turning his back on the two million Poles living today in informal relationships”.

However, she pledged that “the veto will not halt social change”. If such change “cannot go through the door, then [it will go] through the window”.

Kotula noted that Poland has already begun legally recognising same-sex marriages conducted in other European Union member states, after being ordered to do so by the European Court of Justice. While “not all benefits are yet available” to such couples, “this is something that I intend to deliver”, she added.

However, the government’s ability and willingness to take such action, even when it cannot be vetoed by Nawrocki, is hampered by internal disagreements over the issue within Tusk’s coalition

The Left (Lewica), from which Kotula hails, and Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) party are generally in favour of strengthening LGBT+ rights. But they have met with resistance from more conservative elements in the coalition, in particular the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL).

The measures vetoed today by Nawrocki were already a compromise within the government: earlier plans to introduce same-sex civil partnerships were watered down to instead simply allow same-sex couples to sign a contract granting them certain rights.

However, opinion polls show that the Polish public itself is in mostly in favour of recognising same-sex relationships. State research agency CBOS last year found its highest-ever level of support for the introduction of civil partnerships, with 62% of Poles in favour.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.