Axel Springer : POLITICO UNVEILS 2018 ‘POLITICO 28’

POLITICO's European edition, a joint venture between POLITICO and Axel Springer, unveiled today the POLITICO 28 Class of 2018: the list of doers, disrupters and dreamers who will transform European life, politics and ideas in some way in the upcoming year. The POLITICO newsroom ranks 28 people from 28 different countries. Christian Lindner, the head of the conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) in Germany, tops this year's list. By walking out of coalition talks in November, Lindner solidified his place at the center of the ensuing debate on the future of the EU.

'The POLITICO 28 is our guide to the people to watch in 2018,' said Matthew Kaminski, POLITICO's European executive editor. 'As the year that just passed, 2018 is likely to be full of political drama and surprise - and on our annual list you'll find rebels and establishmentarians, liberals and conservatives, as well people outside the political game who'll surely have an outsized impact on it. We never endorse but we do call it the way we see it, and hope that as in past years, the Class of 2018 spurs conversation as well as some dissent.'

The 2018 POLITICO 28 are: Christian Lindner (Germany), Michael Gove (United Kingdom), Muriel Pénicaud (France), Mark Rutte (the Netherlands), Laura Boldrini (Italy), Anuška Delić (Slovenia), Jyrki Katainen (Finland), Galina Timchenko (Russia), António Costa (Portugal), Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium), Armin Wolf (Austria), Etienne Schneider (Luxembourg), Meral Akşener (Turkey), Zbigniew Ziobro (Poland), Simon Harris (Ireland), Ana Botín (Spain), Flavia Kleiner (Switzerland), Olga Sehnalová (Czech Republic), Lajos Simicska (Hungary), Euclid Tsakalotos (Greece), Evgeny Morozov (Belarus), Khalifa Haftar (Libya), Eerik-Niiles Kross (Estonia), Mina Andreeva (Bulgaria), Tino Sanandaji (Sweden), René Redzepi (Denmark), Mirga Gražinyté-Tyla (Lithuania) and Klitos Papastylianou (Cyprus).

About POLITICO

POLITICO is a global nonpartisan politics and policy news organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C. In April 2015, a European edition of the publication launched through a joint venture with the leading digital publisher in Europe, Axel Springer.

Based in Brussels with a new office in London, POLITICO covers the politics, policy and personalities of continental Europe and the U.K. With reporters in key national capitals, the publication truly connects the dots between global power players. Its journalism lives online at Politico.eu; in print via a weekly newspaper distributed to more than 20,000 readers; in daily morning newsletters such as Brussels Playbook, London Playbook, and Florian Eder's German-language Morgen Europa; in POLITICO Pro, the real-time policy news service; and through newsmaking events.

In July 2017, an annual ComRes/Burson-Marsteller survey ranked POLITICO as the #1 most read and most influential publication on European affairs.