EU politics
Austria is back on the political map – and Austrians are nervous about it
Summer has arrived early in Vienna and the city of Strauss and Schubert has never looked lovelier. The parks are…
Emmanuel Macron is Making France Great Again
Since Emmanuel Macron became president last year, he has unashamedly courted the world’s presidents, prime ministers, sheiks and chancellors. Much…
What Brexit Britain can learn from German Reunification
Obscured by the hubbub of rolling news and the cacophony of Twitter, an important anniversary has passed by virtually unnoticed.…
Is Sebastian Kurz Germany’s most important politician?
Who is the most important politician in Germany? Angela Merkel? No, it’s the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz. Merkel remains a…
The EU’s petulance is turning its Galileo satellite into a white elephant
Moves by the EU to try to stop British armed forces from accessing the Galileo satellite system, and to prevent…
Islamists are relishing France’s slow slide into chaos
There is something fundamentally rotten at the heart of the European far-left. In Britain it manifests itself in institutional anti-Semitism,…
Why do politicians refuse to tell it how it is on immigration?
One of the presumptions of democracy is that leaders listen to the public. But as poll after poll in Europe…
Brexit’s progress is defying the doom-mongers’ predictions
That EU leaders have agreed to move to the next stage of Brexit talks and rubber stamp the transition period…
Nicolas Sarkozy held on Gaddafi funding claims
Nicolas Sarkozy was put in custody this morning as part of a police investigation into allegations that he received millions…
France’s socialist party is failing to learn from its mistakes
France’s socialist party are to be congratulated for pulling off the remarkable feat of selecting as their next leader a…
Marine Le Pen’s relaunch falls flat
It wasn’t the weekend that Marine Le Pen envisaged. When last Saturday dawned in the northern French city of Lille,…
Angela Merkel is back in office but not back in power
How did she do it? How has Angela Merkel hung on for a fourth term as German Chancellor after being…
Brexit Britain: confused and alone
Here is a message Russian propagandists are sending to Western commentators. It is from Yuliia Popova of REN-TV (which was…
Angry MEPs turn on Juncker: ‘Selmayrgate destroys all the EU’s credibility’
Martin Selmayr’s appointment as Secretary General of the European Commission – an ‘astonishing power grab’ as Jean Quatremer put it –…
Minutes of an EU coup: How Martin Selmayr made his move
Martin Selmayr’s power grab, elevating him to the post of Secretary-General and putting him in charge of 33,000 staff, was a…
Italy’s political torture continues
It’s nice to get an election prediction right. Well, more or less right anyway. The Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) –…
Michel Barnier’s encouraging comment
Theresa May’s response to today’s Brexit developments has been revealing. At PMQs, she called staying in a customs union with…
Could the golden girl of the French right emulate Macron?
The news that Marion Maréchal-Le Pen will share a stage this week with US conservatives, addressing the annual Conservative Political…
Mariano Rajoy must go
Spaniards want a new prime minister. That’s the conclusion to be drawn from the latest opinion poll carried out by…
Sorry, Brendan O’Neill, but we won’t be no-platformed on Brexit
If you read Brendan O’Neill’s Coffee House article on Our Future, Our Choice! OFOC! – the campaign group of which…
Macron’s naive plan to revive national service
Emmanuel Macron’s vow to press ahead with plans to bring back national service for France’s youth has taken many by…
Can long-term forecasters answer these questions?
I find it difficult to believe some in the media are taking these latest economic forecasts for 15 years outside…
Europeans are Britain’s new minority
If you ran the marketing department of a progressive organisation, which wanted to advertise its inclusiveness, how would you do…
Germans – not Brits – are the ones who keep mentioning the war
The German ambassador, Peter Ammon, leaves Britain this month and retires after a distinguished diplomatic career as Berlin’s man in…
The toxic politics of ‘soft Brexit’
The management principle that in static organisations, people are promoted to their level of incompetence reveals the government’s two most…