Navigating the storm:
We provide added value, analysis and advocacy on EU, NATO, democracy, and security matters.
How to navigate the storm? How can freedom-loving people around the globe contain the jungle and build a civilized world? And how can NATO and the EU survive Russia’s shadow war, US estrangement, and China’s coercion? These are key issues the Brussels Freedom Hub is pursuing.
Do you have a question on current NATO and EU affairs? Do you need advice or analysis, smart debate moderation or concise writing? Can we help you network in Brussels? With the Brussels Freedom Hub as a platform, we’d love to assist you and help strengthen democracy and freedom in difficult times.
Roland Freudenstein, from Bonn, Germany, has a lifelong addiction to politics – reflected by his career in global democracy support, the think tank world and public administration. He has lived and worked in Germany, the US and Poland before settling in Brussels more than 20 years ago. He never hesitates to provide concise commentary, speak up in defence of liberal democracy, and to support democrats around the world.
With her passion for peace, democracy, and freedom, Gerlinde Niehus has driven multilateral political and military reform processes in her different leadership roles in NATO and the EU. International cooperation and politics are part of her DNA. Staying true to her academic and journalistic backgrounds, Gerlinde excels in political analysis, and rejoices communications in all its forms.
UPDATES
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Poland’s War Over Knives and Forks
In Poland’s presidential election last Sunday, the unprofessional national populist Karol Nawrocki won over the highly skilled former Member of the European Parliament and now Mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski. This result had nothing to do with the qualification of the candidates, and everything with crude, ‚us vs. them‘ identity politics of the rural, socially…
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Jürgen Habermas and the „Zeitenwende“
Jürgen Habermas, like my mother, turns 96 this year. This is, in itself, a remarkable achievement, especially as both, in their own ways, have remained intellectually agile. Admittedly this is where the parallels end. The philosopher and political-social theorist Jürgen Habermas is an institution in Germany and beyond. His works spanning by now several decades…
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John le Carré- a Very Personal Obituary
Roland Freudenstein, December 2020 “Ten minutes to midnight: a pious Friday in May and a fine river mist lying over the market square. Bonn was a Balkan city, stained and secret, drawn over with tramwire. Bonn was a dark house where someone had died, a house draped in Catholic black, guarded by policemen.” – These…
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Book review – Piotr Siemion: Bella Ciao
My summer reading in 2023. “They are seven, moving through mapless, measureless land. They are surrounded by a no man’s world, a bloodstained bedsheet of earth, a shroud at dawn. No kingdom of kindness, just the tired, trampled football field that our millennium has become.” (my translation of the opening lines, with apologies to the…
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Book review – Sönke Neitzel: Deutsche Krieger
‘German Warriors’: My primary summer reading in 2023. Mind blowing, I dare say. So Germany’s leading young military historian, Sönke Neitzel, asks what the Kaiser’s soldiers in 1914, the Wehrmacht ones in WW2, the Bundeswehr’s ‘virtual’ soldiers in the Cold War, and the post-unification first (few) real warriors since 1945 (Afghanistan) had in common. Not…
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We Are All Gaullists Now. Are We?
To the Grand Old Man of wartime and postwar France, Donald Trump’s treatment of America’s European allies would not have come as a surprise. Quite the contrary, he suspected the Americans all along of being perfectly capable of backstabbing their allies (in his view) like in the Suez Crisis of 1956. That is one of…
Activities
Brussels Freedom Hub
We are active in the following fields:
Analysis, commentary, and publishing
We are regularly analysing, commenting and publishing about European integration, international security and defence, NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, relations with China and many more. We value clarity and frankness, and avoid the bureaucratic lingo of too many of the stakeholders in the Brussels institutions.
Speaking engagements and event moderation
With our wealth of expertise, we are regularly participating as speaker or moderator in a broad range of international events. In case you are interested in one of us as a speaker or moderator, please use the contact form below.
Advocacy and networking
Should you look for good advice on how NATO and the EU work, or need contacts in the Alliance, the European Parliament, the Commission, the Council Secretariat and the European External Action Service, we are available to help you. If interested, please be in touch.
The Brussels Freedom Hub is an analysis, advocacy and networking platform for a resilient West, strong Transatlantic ties, and the global solidarity of democrats.
Topics
Brussels Freedom Hub
With our wealth of experience and insights, from NATO and EU, academia and politics, we are covering the following major topics:
European integration and EU institutions
How can Europe cope with D. Trump, and withstand the double onslaught of autocracies abroad and neo-nationalism, populism and democratic backsliding within?
NATO and transatlantic relations
NATO between Trump, Putin and Xi, juggling an increasing range of external and internal challenges.
International security and defence
From lack of leadership and courage in international politics, via Russia’s useful idiots to a crumbling global security order.
Central and Eastern Europe
Corroborated by the Ukraine war, but plagued by new autocracies
China
The biggest long term strategic challenge to the West, NATO and EU alike, – and leader of the new autocracies
Democracy
An endangered system – but hopefully more resilient than it seems
Arts and Culture
The interplay between politics and culture, especially popular culture, is notoriously understimated. Movies, serials, to an extent even music, are hugely influential on political debates and our collective subconscious. They reflect societal vibes, but also influence them in subtle ways. Here is some food for thought!