March 2026
EU development tenders attract serious competition, but a large share of proposals fail for reasons that are structural rather than incidental. This piece draws on direct experience of preparing and reviewing proposals in EU-funded programmes to explain what the market actually demands. It maps the procurement landscape across NDICI-Global Europe, IPA, and related instruments; clarifies the often-misunderstood distinction between service contracts and grant agreements; and identifies the five failure modes that recur most consistently, from weak consortium design and generic methodologies to expert profiles that do not match Terms of Reference. The second half sets out what distinguishes consistently competitive bidders and offers an honest diagnostic for organisations assessing their own readiness. Aimed equally at organisations entering the EU tender market for the first time and at those looking to sharpen an existing approach.
March 2026
Europe's rearmament is accelerating, but the material foundations are unstable. This analysis maps a defence-industrial reality that is still underweighted in policy debate. Key inputs for advanced systems—from rare earth magnets to tungsten, gallium, antimony and aerospace-grade titanium—sit in supply chains concentrated in China and, in specific segments, Russia. It also flags a hard planning constraint: Beijing has already codified the possibility of categorical denial for defence end-use, with the most consequential measures suspended, not withdrawn, until late 2026. Without procurement conditionality, demand anchoring and investable midstream capacity, defence spending risks becoming an aspiration rather than resilience.
February 2026
The transatlantic critical minerals conversation is finally moving at political speed, but it is still misaimed. The real chokepoint is not extraction, but refining and processing, where China's dominance translates into pricing power, leverage and an ability to disrupt downstream industry regardless of where ore is mined. This piece contrasts the EU's CRMA and RESourceEU pathway with a more muscular US toolkit, including price floors, offtakes, equity stakes and stockpiling, and identifies a strategic risk: allied competition for scarce non-Chinese capacity can produce displacement rather than net expansion. The conclusion is operational—if Brussels and Washington want a credible agenda, it must be built around midstream coordination, joint investments, aligned demand support, shared market infrastructure and recycling at scale.
September 2025
The next EU Multiannual Financial Framework is not a technocratic footnote; it is where Brussels decides what it can realistically prioritise in a harsher geopolitical and economic cycle. This explainer cuts through the architecture—four headings, fewer programmes—and zooms into Global Europe, the external action envelope that will shape how the EU funds partnerships, pre-accession, humanitarian response, macro-financial assistance and Global Gateway-style investment mobilisation. We also highlight the political fault line likely to define negotiations: the trade-off between flexibility and oversight, specifically the Commission's ability to move money quickly against Member State and Parliament control over large external envelopes. For implementing partners and firms, the piece doubles as a practical read of where the market is likely to be, by region, instrument and policy intent.