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When misinformation and disinformation run rampant, we resist attempts to bully users off certain platforms.

Social media must be a public digital space where individuals can cohabit together respectfully.

As a think tank, it is crucial that we promote empirical evidence and progressive policies to better our society.

To do this, we have decided to diversify the social media platforms we can use for our research.

Follow us for the latest updates and live coverage of the progressive agenda on key EU issues!

🇺🇸 🇧🇷 Recent election victories in the US, Brazil, and more have challenged the idea that the far-right is dominating social media. But how can progressive narratives actually thrive in an environment that rewards extremism and outrage? Find out how with FEPS’ latest policy study “The far right, reactionary platformisation, and progressive responses"
📕 bit.ly/FarRightPlatfo…

This policy study delves into how progressive communications can break through this embedded culture, breaking its recommendations down into 5 D’s:

👉 Deepen: Put ordinary people’s voices at the heart of campaigns, and turn policy issues into stories people can relate to, all year round and not just at election time.
👉Disrupt: Connect to, and support progressive influencers, independent media and online communities that use humour and creativity to reach new audiences.
👉Discipline: Help politicians, civil society and creators tell the same few deep stories consistently.
👉Distribute: Progressives should coordinate messaging around key deep stories that can be translated into national contexts but mutually intelligible across borders. Highlight how the far right is linked to US and Russian interests.
👉Develop: Give campaign teams the skills to work on difficult platforms: understanding algorithms, using EU digital rules to hold tech companies to account and bringing to light the far right’s contradictions, hidden funding and foreign ties.

A real-time case study? The latest elections in Brazil. 🇧🇷

In the first round, the far right took a narrow lead, driven by a digital ecosystem that included allied influencers, content creators, AI content farms, an AI avatar of the imprisoned Jair Bolsonaro, ready-made content for supporters to share and potential interference by META in Bolsonaro’s favour. Most of the reach came from the broader network of far-right politicians with large online followings, not from Flávio Bolsonaro’s profile.

After the first round, the picture shifted dramatically:
🔸 Younger PT politicians, artists, producers, musicians and influencers with big followings, from across the country, became the faces and amplifiers of a successful campaign on the left.
🔸With official profiles of candidates restricted by platform rules, the campaign turned to WhatsApp. With around 10 million people joining  “Lula’s army”, it became one of the largest WhatsApp channels in the country, giving supporters clear “missions” to persuade others to vote. This created a direct link between online activity and real-world action.

✍ Written by Bharath Ganesh. By FEPS, in collaboration with @eteronOrg and Fundação Res Publica.

✊ At the Employee Ownership (EO) Days 2026, FEPS hosted two panels focusing on the benefits of employee ownership for #Competitiveness and shared prosperity, with examples from different countries to draw inspiration from. Find out more about the discussion:
bit.ly/EmployeeOwners…

🤔 Did you know? The most common form of Employee Ownership in Europe is cooperatives.

❗ But millions of small and medium-sized European enterprises face a succession problem at the moment, which is expected to worsen over the next 10-15 years. Their companies are at risk of liquidation or takeover by private equity funds or large international companies.

However, discussions at the EO Days found that there is very little awareness of employee ownership in Europe, particularly regarding its various forms, including Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). ESOPs allow an existing private company to transition to employee ownership, which can be very promising.

🤝 FEPS, in collaboration with @InstituteforED and with the support of @FEBEAethicalfin, Fondazione MeSSInA, Fundació Seira and SOCODEN, hosted two panels on:

1️⃣ Employee Ownership: Bridging Competitiveness and Shared Prosperity
2️⃣The State of Employee Ownership in the EU
🇫🇷 🇪🇸 Presentation of case studies on France and Spain

With speakers including:
🔺 @LaszloAndorEU, FEPS Secretary General
🔺 Kosta Juri, Director of the Institute for Economic Democracy (@InstituteforED)
🔺 Christian Damholt @Uniondamholt, Business Policy Consultant, Danish Trade Union Confederation
🔺 Lisa Herzog, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groening
🔺 Martin Stucki, Former CEO of Transitec Consulting Engineers
🔺 Linda van Goor, Regulatory Communication
🔺 Jone Nolte Usparicha, Director of ASLE
🔺 Nikolett Szolnoki, Advocacy Coordinator, CECOP
🔺 David Ellerman, IED
🔺Melike N. Kaplan, Tænketanken Demokratisk Erhverv
🔺Luca Pastorelli, President, DIESIS Network
🔺 Klara Žerak, Project officer, IED
🔺 Rachel Bachmann, Head of Strategic Initiatives, IED

📣 When women participate in peace processes, peace is more sustainable, but in 2025, women accounted for only 5% of negotiators across 57 peace processes. The roundtable “Geofeminism and the WPS agenda: Lessons from the SWANA region”, hosted by MEP Chloé Ridel as part of the European Parliament Gender Equality Week, looked at why the inclusion of women and girls worldwide is essential to building peace & discussed alternatives to relying on military power alone.
bit.ly/Geofeminism

The new EU Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Action Plan, the MFF & the GAP IV are opportunities to put the needs & expertise of women’s organisations & feminist peacebuilders at the heart of the strategy.

🚩 Yet it comes at a moment when the world is dominated by nationalists who are also masculinists, who have a vision of power based on domination & intimidation. We face the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946, while military spending continues to rise at the expense of global development aid, which fell by 23% in 2025. The US, Russia, among other far-right governments, are pushing an anti-gender agenda, while other countries are letting their WPS commitments run out & cutting funding for women’s organisations & development.

In the face of these predatory dynamics, speakers from the region, including local women peace builders, pointed out what we need to preserve & advance WPS policy in the EU:
🔺Stronger political will & horizontal thinking to combine the new WPS Action Plan, MFF & GAP IV
🔺Long-term & sustainable funding & gender budgeting in all contexts
🔺Clear accountability & stronger support for local gender-equality actors
🔺Building more equal partnerships with civil society
🔺Recognising & fighting the abuse of sexual & reproductive rights in & post-conflict

The EU’s credibility among women’s movements & civil society in the SWANA region is dependent on a consistent application of international law. Lasting peace requires investment in development, sustainability, poverty reduction & gender equality. 🕊️

Through a feminist geopolitical lens, the discussion also analysed the escalating violence & blatant violations of international law in the SWANA region, including the efforts of the US and Israel to redraw the map of the region by force and to crush Palestinian self-determination.

With speakers:
🔸@IratxeGarper, President, S&D Group
🔸@ChloeRidel, MEP, S&D Group & Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET)
🔸@AnnLinde, Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Co-Chair of the FFPPVC & Special Advisor on Foreign Affairs at FEPS
🔸@LinaAH1, Director of @AsfariInstitute, Lebanon
🔸Hania Bitar, Director General at the @PYALARA
🔸Julia Koch - de Biolley, Head of the EEAS Taskforce for Equality & Acting Ambassador for Equality
🔸@shada_islam, Advisor & Analyst on Europe, geopolitics and inclusion

🤝 This event was organised by the Feminist Foreign Policy Progressive Voices Collective (#FFPPVC), a collective promoting a feminist and progressive approach to foreign policy, led by FEPS in collaboration with @FESonline EU Office. It was held with the support of @Equipop_Ong and @TheProgressives

🇪🇺 🇬🇧 After the new chapter of relations in 2025,"For the impactful EU-UK partnership in the rapidly changing world', the fringe event of the 2nd edition of the "EU-UK Progressive Forum" was held at FEPSHQ for a strategic and honest conversation on the future of the partnership. Missed the event? Watch it via the link below!
bit.ly/EUUK2026

Following the 2025 EU-UK framework for cooperation, the 2nd edition of the Forum focused on key questions, including
💡 From transactional to strategic: How can the EU and UK build a deeper partnership based on shared democratic values and common interests?
🤖 Strengthening resilience: How can they respond jointly to hybrid threats such as cyberattacks, disinformation and energy disruption? Aligning strategic priorities: Where do UK priorities converge with emerging EU priorities in foreign, security and energy policy?
🇪🇺 The UK’s role in Europe: How should the UK position itself amid wider EU discussions on strategic partnerships, relations with countries such as Canada, Iceland and Norway, and future enlargement?
🌹 Beyond security: Where is there scope for deeper cooperation on climate, energy, trade, digitalisation and democratic resilience?

With speakers including:
👉 @StewartWood, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Europe, Eastern Europe, International Security and Growth
👉@brandobenifei, MEP
👉 @ChelFulhamBen, MP, House of Commons
👉 Katarzyna Ueberhan @KUeberhan, MP, Sejm
👉 @LaszloAndorEU, Secretary General, FEPS
👉 @luiseruerup, Director, FES London
👉 Moderation: @Ania_Skrzypek, Director for Research and Training, FEPS

This fringe event was held in the context of the EU-UK Progressive Forum, organised by FEPS, in collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung | EU Office and @FES_GB