Norman Lewis

Visiting Research Fellow, MCC Brussels

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

My op-ed on my new report

[Brussels Signal @brusselssignal]

COMMENT: EU digital sovereignty is a grand delusion in a sharper suit, writes @Norm_Lewis

https://t.co/LBh4LENmeu

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Really pleased this came out when it did - to coincide with the EU’s new tech sovereignty delusions.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

🚨 NEW REPORT:
Why EU digital sovereignty is misguided, dangerous and impossible.

In The Grand Delusion, @Norm_Lewis argues that Brussels’ latest tech ambition is politically confused, empirically impossible and strategically self-defeating.

[Rob Lyons @Robspiked]

Well worth a read, not just for the failings of the EU but for any discussion of industrial policy.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

Europe talks endlessly about "digital sovereignty".

But you don't become sovereign by regulating other people's technology while failing to build your own.

The EU's latest digital sovereignty push risks becoming another expensive exercise in political theatre- big on rhetoric, weak on capability.

A brutal but necessary reality check:
"EU digital sovereignty is a grand delusion in a sharper suit."
Read @Norm_Lewis in @brusselssignal before Brussels spends billions chasing a fantasy. 👇

https://t.co/fBZscUKCxL

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

https://t.co/zAER6yZkO6

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Shameful

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

This "profile" makes a mockery of journalism.

The fantasy of a well-developed international Russian plot to turn Austria against the EU is pathetic enough. But perhaps worse is the inclusion of multiple paragraphs about the activities of @MCC_Budapest in the same context.

The clear aim is to smear MCC by association, involving them in the paranoid conspiracy conjured by the authors.

But even authors are forced to repeatedly admit that the mere existence of MCC ties to Austria is "is not proof of Russian involvement”.

So we ask the fantasist-in-chief @anna_thalhammer, what IS it proof of?

If we were as conspiratorially-minded as Ms Thalhammer, we would suggest there must be some conspiracy afoot between certain media outlets, EU elites, and the Hungarian government to attempt to discredit MCC with these smears.

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Excellent roundup this week.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

The EU is secretive and confusing by design.

In this week's roundup of the stories without the spin:

🚫Free speech comes last
🇰🇵 💸Brussels funding dictatorial regimes
🔌Green transition meets reality

and more 🧵

Dig In !

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

Any other leader would by now be subject to a barrage of EU sanctions for the sheer scale of the corruption scandal now engulfing them.

But this is darling-of-the-left Pedro Sanchez: so its silence from the EU Commission.

https://t.co/iy22U8f8BQ

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Great piece: this is green technocratic austerity, where the living standards of ordinary Europeans are sacrificed to meet sustainability targets. One Home: One air conditioner!

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

🚨How the EU makes the heatwave unbearable

Feeling the heatwave? 🥵 It’s easy to lay all the blame on climate change, but a new analysis from MCC Brussels identifies a much closer-to-home culprit: the EU’s relentless push for green sustainability over human comfort.

Europe is currently an international outlier in active cooling. Only 10% of European households own an AC unit, compared to 90% in the US and Japan. The consequences are real: 2024 saw an estimated 62,775 heat-related deaths across Europe.

We exposes how EU regulations have locked citizens into warmer homes, with three main culprits:

🚫The Crusade Against AC:
Bureaucrats push "passive cooling" (like blinds and shutters), falsely claiming AC prevents people from "becoming accustomed to natural heat."

♨️Oven-Like Buildings:
Modern regulations mandate heavily insulated, sealed homes that trap winter warmth perfectly—but turn into unliveable green ovens during sustained summer heatwaves.

📋Bureaucratic Deterrence:
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) directly penalise AC installation, while a dense mesh of planning rules, noise limits, and heritage controls make putting in an outdoor unit a legal minefield.

Behind all of this? EU-mandated green rules.

Europe’s sustainability regime has produced perverse outcomes: homes are being made cheaper to warm in winter, but at the cost of creating the conditions for exhausting heat in the summer.

The mantra of Net Zero has unfairly demonised air-conditioning and forced Europeans to ‘suck it up’ during hot periods rather than easily-installable technologies to provide cool, comfortable homes.

‼️This is not resilience or efficiency. It is another example of green austerity, where the living standards of ordinary Europeans are sacrificed to meet sustainability targets.

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Really worth watching. Great insights.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

🚨New MCC Brussels podcast🚨

Britain’s populist revolt

Europe’s Israel divide

The EU’s LGBTQ ideology push

John O'Brien | @RichardJSchenk | @Furedibyte

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Great speech and a book everyone should read to understand the political dynamics of the present.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

How do we explain the populist surge?
Ordinary people were abandoned by both the political establishment and the left. From the late-1970s onwards, elites rejected the values that built their nations, religion and culture. Millions suddenly felt politically homeless.

@Furedibyte

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Way to go!

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

Politico Playbook seemed genuinely surprised this morning to find MCC Brussels booked solid with a full summer schedule.

Hard-hitting meetings. Front-page moments. Freedom celebrations stacked back-to-back.

They must’ve forgotten: despite the slings and arrows, 

WE ARE MCC BRUSSELS.

UNDEFEATED since 2022.🏆
Still standing.⚽️
Still fighting.⚽️
Still scoring for freedom. 🔥

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Wow!

[Crypto Tice @CryptoTice_]

BREAKING:

Poland just told the EU to go to hell.
President Nawrocki vetoed the Digital Services Act.

"The state is supposed to guarantee freedom. Not restrict it."

The EU spent years building the most sophisticated censorship machine in the Western world.

One man. One veto. Destroyed.

Think about what this law actually was.

> Governments deciding what you can post.
> Governments deciding what you can share.
> Governments deciding what is true.
> Governments deciding what you are allowed to think.

Poland said no.

While Germany complied.
While France complied.
While the entire EU rolled over.

Poland vetoed it.

- The same Poland that buys more gold than the ECB.
- The same Poland that surpassed the European Central Bank in reserves.
- The same Poland that has been right about everything.

Is now the last wall standing between European citizens and state-controlled speech.

The EU doesn't want free citizens.
It wants manageable ones.

Poland just reminded them what freedom actually looks like.

Every European should be paying attention.

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

The UK has already joined the EU’s Ministry of Truth

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

Britain now bans elected European politicians from entering the country for the crime of speaking at the wrong protest.

@jacobreynolds and @Barbarabonte discuss Philippe De Winter’s UK ban - and what it says about free speech.

From our latest podcast.

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Prebunking is the old fear of free thought dressed up in the lab coat of behavioural science. It casts ideas as pathogens, children as vulnerable hosts and teachers as immunologists of thought. But every age has had its priests of authorised truth, and every age has branded its heretics as dangerous. Galileo would have been prebunked. The real danger is not that people may encounter bad ideas; it is that a civilisation becomes so frightened of ordinary judgment that it teaches children to suspect dissent before they have even learned how to think.
Galileo Would Have Been Prebunked https://t.co/OxLKvujaie

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

The EU's latest thought-control attempts 😲

Our @Norm_Lewis has a two-part expose on how the EU is funding an Orwellian system of thought-control.

It it literally designed to shape what you think.

https://t.co/wmkogVfOss

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Wow! There's a great deal to get your teeth into this week. Enlightening update as always.

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

The EU is secretive and confusing by design.

In this week's roundup of the stories without the spin:

Brussels’ Week in Self-Parody 🤡
The Farmers Brussels Forgot 🚜
Eurovision Fixes the Voters 🎤
and more 🧵

Dig In !

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

The EU says it wants to teach “critical thinking.” But read the fine print.

Children are to be “pre-bunked” against speech that “questions established authority” - taught to distrust dissent before they’re old enough to debate it.

This isn’t media literacy. It’s preventive governance. A Commission-approved mental filter for democratic life.

Part 2 in @brusselssignal by @Norm_Lewis is essential reading.

“Before citizens are old enough to vote, they are taught which kinds of speech to distrust.”
Read it. Then ask yourself what kind of democracy fears questioning authority.

https://t.co/rCi4Nng0BU

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Part II of my opinion piece on the EU's institutionalisation of 'prebunking' disinformation in schools
Part II: What? Commission says pupils must not ‘question established authority’ https://t.co/yChk7p9gxo

[Norman Lewis @Norm_Lewis]

Great piece which really helps to explain the Hungarian system

[MCC Brussels @MCC_Brussels]

Hungary was never just about Orbán.

The real story is the constitutional system that made both Orbán - and now Péter Magyar - possible.

This essay from @RichardJSchenk cuts through the lazy personality-driven narrative and explains the deeper machinery of Hungarian power:

• why supermajorities matter
• how the system rewards dominance
• why 2026 may reshape the state itself, not just the government

This is a sharp analyses of modern Hungary and essential reading for anyone trying to understand Europe’s political future. 🇭🇺

https://t.co/ioBX8aR4Q0