A personal message from me to you
A personal note on what Hexagon is, where it is going, and a request for your cooperation.
One month ago we started Hexagon. I had wanted to make writing part of my routine for some time, so starting it felt natural, but the other day I was talking to a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and she had quite a few questions about it. “What is this newsletter of yours?”, “What is it for?”, “What does Hexagon mean?”. So today I’m going personal, share what I’ve been doing over the past year and what I want Hexagon to become.
But before that, I have a small request for you.
For the past month I wrote one article per week. Each article takes many hours to produce. It isn’t as easy as sitting and writing things down. For each article I had to come up with a topic, find an angle, think of the questions I wanted answered, identify the appropriate data, explore it, analyse it, produce good-looking (I hope) visuals, and draft an analysis that hopefully explains the issue at hand in an interesting way. This is many hours of work that I’m sharing for free here. Your feedback is all I’m asking now.
I’ve put together a reader survey that will take you a maximum of 3 minutes to answer. In it you can share your feedback on Hexagon, and help me shape it in a way that works best for you. You can answer as much or as little of it, but any and all feedback is valuable.
Thank you for the support!
What I’ve been up to
In April last year I left my job. A job I had moved to Brussels for and worked quite intensively for seven years. For many reasons I was mentally exhausted, so leaving it was the right decision, and for the rest of 2025 I decided to go on a discovery journey (if you call it a midlife crisis I won’t argue with you) to find out what, in this world of doom, still excites me.
Then I left Europe for the first time. I was arrested in Russia and interrogated for six hours by the Russian Secret Services, I visited every region of Lithuania, enjoyed torrential rains in Northern Cyprus, drove through the large avenues of Turkmenistan where only white cars are allowed, chatted with Talibans in the Tajik-Afghan border, saw the Giza Pyramids and the mask of Tutankhamun, hiked through the old city of Petra, met nuns that had been kidnapped by the Islamic State, spent Christmas in Aleppo and got a selfie with former Al-Qaeda operatives. I think it would be fair to say it was quite the year. But under capitalism, the forces of production can’t really stop producing, so I came back to Brussels and launched my own political consultancy, offering my knowledge and services to the broader progressive movement. And, yes, I launched Hexagon.
What is Hexagon?
Hexagon is a newsletter for data-based factual analysis on European politics from a progressive perspective. No spam, no AI-slop, just trustworthy insights when it matters. Directly from Brussels, here I aim to share analysis of what is happening in Europe - both in the centre of the EU and in the national contexts across Europe - always from a progressive perspective and always centered on data and facts. After one month of publishing regularly, with your feedback (please answer the survey, it really does help!), I’ll better plan for how to move forward with these goals.
Why Hexagon?
Hexagons are the best shape. Hexagons are the only regular shape, besides squares and triangles,that can make a grid. And grids are awesome. But more seriously, hexagon-based maps - or hexmaps - are incredibly good (and beautiful, I might say) at showcasing reality and that’s why I picked the name. For example, let’s imagine you were interested in the main colour of the lead party in the regional governments of Germany and Austria. I know, it’s random, but people have niche interests. What would that look like in a hexmap? Like this:
Why is the hexmap great? Because it simplifies while preserving key information For example, looking at these maps you can tell that most of Germany is led by EPP regional leaders, that the Socialists still have a stronghold in the north, that the Greens only lead in a relatively big state in the south-west - all in a simplified grid map.
Who is Hexagon for
This newsletter is for everyone who wants to learn more about what is happening in European politics. For example:
for progressive activists who want to understand what is happening in the EU and across Europe on progressive movements that fight for social justice and equality and on reactionary movements that we fight against.
for political professionals escaping the Brussels Bubble who want to receive data-based factual perspective on the big issues that affect electoral politics and movement-building across Europe.
for journalists and media professionals who want to understand the progressive view of the future of European societies.
And if you’re not in any of these camps, but you’re looking for data-based factual analysis on Europe and European politics, you’re also in the right place!
And who am I?
Well, my name is Filipe Henriques. I’m a Brussels-based political consultant, researcher, and analyst with 15 years’ experience in progressive campaigns across Europe. I co-founded Portugal’s green-left party LIVRE and for seven years I was the lead data analyst and researcher at the European Green Party where I worked with political parties across the whole continent. I was born in Lisbon, and now I’m based in Brussels, after a period in Berlin. I speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and I’m currently studying Dutch. I’ve enjoyed producing data-driven visual analysis of politics since I was young and I’ve had bylines published in newspapers like The Guardian (UK), Der Standard (Austria), and Público (Portugal), among other publications.
Want to Work Directly With Me?
When I’m not writing for Hexagon, I run a consulting agency offering strategic analysis and advice to help organisations reach their strategic goals, through working with data and monitoring tools across Europe and providing data‑driven political intelligence on developments, elections, and trends across all European countries.
If you’re interested in working directly with me, you can contact me here.
Thank you for following!
Hope to continue seeing you here!