politjobs.eu job alert – Last 2019 days of Christmas, Brussels and of this politjobs editorial

2019 has been an eventful year, and this place is too short to list everything. These past week’s events are a perfect summary of the most important topics though:

For better or worse, we are finally coming to an end of the Brexit story. With the overwhelming victory of Boris Johnson in the UK elections on 12 December, the majority of the UK citizens has made clear that they really want out. The devil remains in the details, but we can expect an EU of 27 as of 1 February 2020.

No end is in sight for a successful way of dealing with climate change. COP 25 that had to be moved from Chile to Madrid due to political unrest, took place without significant results – the biggest news was probably the PR disaster for Deutsche Bahn after a tweet from Greta Thunberg. The climate activist had posted a photo of herself sitting in the aisle of an overcrowded German ICE train – which triggered a snippy Deutsche Bahn reaction, stating that she had in fact booked a 1st class ticket (and disclosing all her personal data concerning the trip) whilst clearly not having checked if that train had actually worked (as it had not, and Thunberg indeed had to spend parts of her journey on the aisle). The aftermath will be a serious discussion Berlin’s chief data protection officer and a lot of Deutsche Bahn jokes.

Another important factor in this year’s EU-political world was and remains Donald Trump. Only for the third time in history, a Senate voted to impeach a president – and just did so for Donald Trump, who remains astonishingly unimpressed, as seems the rest of the world. The last word is indeed not spoken but the Could-not-care-less attitude of the US President and many of his peers around the world concerning the rule of law is telling – and frightening.

It is up to each of us to ensure the next year gives us more reason to look happily into the future. So do keep following the job postings here on politjobs.eu.And with these words, I am wishing you a merry Christmas, a happy New Year – and I am saying Goodbye. If you want to keep receiving the editorials, do not forget to sign up to the newsletter on www.imconsult.eu!

Irina Michalowitz