GOOD GOOD FRIDAY MORNING. Brace for impact as China drops a major Easter surprise: Chinese space station Tiangong-1 is kaputt and expected to make its uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere this weekend. This could happen any time between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon and anywhere between the 43rd parallel North and the 43rd parallel South, according to the European Space Agency’s latest forecast — basically anywhere, roughly, from Marseille to Rio de Janeiro.

Confused? ESA has an FAQ here (and a rocket science blog here.) According to the agency, there’s not much to worry about: You’re likelier to be hit by lightning twice in the same year than by a piece of the burning space station hurtling to Earth. Stay safe — and take a look at the spectacular pictures taken by Bonn-based space watchers Fraunhofer FHR Institute.

NOT OVER IT: The European Parliament has more to say about the Commission’s new Secretary-General Martin Selmayr — 61 more things, to be exact, according to a draft list of written inquiries obtained by Playbook. It’s unedited (and the copy could do with some translation into English and a little smoothing-out), but the substance is there and perhaps even more intriguing in its rawness: MEPs are unhappy with the outcome of Tuesday’s hearing, and have no intention of hiding it.

Key quotes: “Did the European Commission arrange a ‘fake procedure?’”; “Would M. Oettinger say that in the interest of the service … the European Commission could decide whatever it wants?” MEPs speak of a “farce” and say Selmayr leaked “confidential information” to Germany’s Der Spiegel, calling for him to be sanctioned. Their presumption of occupying the moral high ground makes the battle no less interesting to watch.

OUTER (EU) SPACE

MADE IN THE EU 27: Brexit is real to this wine gum producer.

WILL THEY DO IT? More seriously, I’ve asked Brussels people of all stripes and political colors whether they think the Brits will in fact leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. A very few say “yes and good riddance,” glad at the prospect of being rid of eternal troublemakers. Some say yes more sadly. Others are indifferent to the whole thing but say they do believe Brexit will happen, given both sides already put in considerable work to sort things out. But the bottom line seems even clearer here than anywhere else: The Brits are leaving.

Only Council President Donald Tusk still says Brexit is reversible — but whether he believes that the process can really be undone or just wants to avoid the EU being blamed if negotiations go wrong is another question.

A master plan: One year from today, the U.K. will have left the EU — unless Remainers get their way after all. POLITICO’s Charlie Cooper took a look at Best for Britain, the campaign group best positioned to lead the last-ditch battle to stop Brexit. Their best bet is not to preach to the 48 percent — but to break “the echo chamber of anguished Europhiles,” Charlie writes. “If they can successfully reach out to ‘soft Leavers’ and convert them to their cause, they believe the Brexit juggernaut can be stopped before the point of no return.”

‘Swiss nightmare’: The European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, talks to EU Confidential’s executive producer, Andrew Gray, about the biggest Brexit challenges and how the Parliament is dealing with them. Verhofstadt says he has a plan to avoid a “Swiss nightmare” of too many post-Brexit agreements with the U.K. and warns the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland may still prove the toughest issue to solve. The podcast also takes a peek into Brussels’ British expat community, who channeled their Brexit-related heartbreak and anguish into skits and songs on stage at the Brussels Press Revue. Listen to the latest episode here.

IRELAND’S SCARS: On Good Friday 20 years ago, a 35-page document put an end to decades of violence in Ireland. But not all wounds have healed, and Brexit threatens to tear them open again if the process rips up a key element of the peace — the invisible border — that was made possible by the EU membership of both Ireland and Britain. “True reconciliation looks further away than ever,” Peter Geoghegan reports for POLITICO from Belfast.

POWER POLITICS

RUSSIAN COUNTER-NARRATIVE: Most EU countries didn’t attend a briefing by the Russian embassy in Moscow earlier this week. But a handful — those that didn’t expel diplomats or take measures against Moscow for the Salisbury nerve agent attack, incidentally — did. POLITICO’s Giulia Paravicini got the lowdown on who went and what they were told. Here’s her scoop.

Feeling better: Yulia Skripal is “improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition,” doctors treating the 33-year-old daughter of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal said Thursday.

Russia hits back: Moscow has ordered the expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats and the closure of the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg, in what officials say is only the first step of a tit-for-tat retaliation. The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on Thursday where he was informed of the expulsions and told the U.S. must surrender the consulate building in St. Petersburg by March 31. POLITICO’s David Herszenhorn has the story.

BRITISH SOFT POWER: The U.K. is showing renewed interest in the Western Balkans and has launched itself — or its iconic broadcaster, rather — into a soft-power struggle to win over public opinion with the reopening of its Serbian language service in Belgrade this week. It’s been seven years since it closed shop in the Serbian capital, where pro-Russian media have since taken over. Influence is fluid in this part of the world.

Not wild about it: President Aleksandar Vučić, who has to be reminded that a critical press is something one has to live with — and can survive — in a democracy, one of his EU interlocutors told me. The people of Serbia need to know “this is not objective information, but information that is in the interest of one kingdom,” the Serbian president said. Valerie Hopkins has the story.

POLICY FEUDS

BERLIN’S BALANCING ACT: Germany played its role in the EU’s show of solidarity with the U.K., expelling four Russian diplomats this week. And newly appointed Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has taken his first emancipatory steps away from his Social Democratic party’s historical closeness to Moscow. But Berlin still has energy interests to protect, it seems: German authorities have given Russia’s energy giant Gazprom the green light to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline through its waters in the Baltic Sea. POLITICO’s Anca Gurzu took a closer look.

A BAN ON KILLER ROBOTS: Next month, governments

will meet for the fifth time in Geneva to discuss how to regulate — or potentially ban — autonomous deadly weapons powered by artificial intelligence, or “killer robots” in the words of their critics. Some countries — including the United States, Russia and China — strictly oppose a ban, while others, primarily developing countries, are eager to implement strong regulation as soon as possible.

To bridge this gap, Europe’s two heavyweights France and Germany are pushing a compromise, along with the argument that it’s hard to ban something that doesn’t really exist yet. But their suggestion is prompting backlash among watchdog groups that believe Europe should be leading the charge for a ban. POLITICO’s Artificial Intelligence Correspondent Janosch Delcker has the story. 

HOW TO LOSE TRADE WARS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE: Europeans aren’t worried about the immediate effects of a trade war with the U.S. but rather the spiralling of countermeasures that could end up hitting both economies and impact the EU’s ongoing economic recovery, writes POLITICO’s Pierre Briançon. “If we’re talking just about the steel and bourbon war, the impact will be limited; Europeans don’t drink Mint Juleps anyway,” according to a French finance ministry official. “The worry is both the possible domino effect, and the risk of escalation.”

DULY NOTED: L’Europe En Marche claims it has no plans to cooperate with Italy’s 5Star Movement: “No contact has ever been established at any level,” the party tweeted, citing Playbook’s note on similar denials from the Italian side. Strangely, the tweet has since been deleted.

IT’S A DATE: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet April 27. Kids, don’t try this at home, but it looks like testing nuclear weapons can win you new friends in Washington, bring old friends closer together and get you to the negotiating table with that neighbor you’ve been threatening to make extinct. Kim is also expected to meet with U.S. president Donald Trump, but a date hasn’t yet been set.

ICYMI: Trump, by the way, said he might like to “hold up” a newly updated trade agreement with South Korea in order to strike a nuclear deal with its northern neighbor. “We’re moving along very nicely with North Korea,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”