Issue #4 - August 14, 2025

Europe braces for Trump Putin meeting while having heavily invested in defense over the past few years

A high level meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled to happen in Alaska tomorrow. Trump has struggled so far to lead to a peace agreement, and Putin has no strong incentive to commit to anything that would not meet its requirements, which include territory gains over Ukraine as well as its neutrality. The EU and Ukraine haven't been invited to the summit, though European leaders have confirmed a shared strategy has been agreed with the US ahead of the meeting.

This meeting happens while a reckoning of EU policymakers has drastically re-shaped defense investments policies and manufacturing. An FT investigation based on satellite images of defense manufacturing sites finds that surface areas of production have grown over the past years. The sites analyzed are dedicated to ammunition production and linked to an EU programme, Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), and show the program has incentivized, through subsidies, a peak of shell production since 2023.

NATO officials have warned EU policymakers that the current defense capacity is far behind Russia's, which has turned its economy and industry into wartime mode to fight against Ukraine. Despite the confirmation the EU manufacturing program ASAP is a success, Fabian Hoffmann, a researcher at the University of Oslo, said missiles were critical for a convincing deterrent against Russia's superior ground forces. According to the FT, "Experts believe that long-range strike capabilities remain a serious issue for Europe and NATO more broadly, as Russia is outpacing its adversaries."

Age verification obligations in the UK shows its first impact

While the EU and some of its member states have been identifying solutions to protect minors online against harmful content, such as pornographic websites, the UK has started to pave the way on what such regulation could be like. The UK Online Safety Act has started to be enforced by its regulator, OFCOM, this summer. That includes websites providing content rated 18+ must verify the age of all of its users prior to accessing their services.

According to the FT, users have, among other options, been asked to upload identity documents, enter credit card details or scan their faces with a camera to prove they are over 18. While some pornographic websites have seen a drop of more than 40% of daily visits since July 25, the day the enforcement started, a jump in VPN downloads blurs the exact impact of the law, since users can still access these websites through VPNs.

Privacy concerns have been raised by some advocacy groups, who fear users' anonymity could be jeopardized when using age recognition tools. The EU has explored double anonymity tools to ensure strong privacy but they prove to be harder to implement. Verifying age online to protect youth turns out to be a de facto age verification of all users. This trade-off requires acknowledging that a societal debate needs to happen urgently. Platform providers need to ensure age appropriate experiences, parents need to play their role in ensuring the safest online experience for their kids, and adults overall need to agree the best interest of children involves a collective engagement.

What I have been reading

How NASA Engineered its own decline, The Atlantic, July 28, 2025
While the EU is being challenged by the rise of Musk's space supremacy, Franklin Foer shows how the iconic US federal agency has ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.

Life without screens: This camp is a teen's worst nightmare, Wired, July 21, 2025
While governments have been trying to keep teens safe online, parents can also opt for a more drastic (and way more expensive) solution to keep their kids off screens over the summer. Spoiler alert: kids can be happy with no screens too.