Europe
Europe is giving up on free movement
Ten years ago on 31 August 2015, Angela Merkel told the German press what she was going to do about…
Putin orders new offensive
‘You want a ceasefire? I want your death,’ said Russia’s chief propagandist Vladimir Soloviev during prime time television, the camera…
How English are you really?
I’ve struggled to ascertain from afar the true nature of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland. Progressive media love to quote its…
Is Poland’s revival a mirage?
In 1988, when I was six months old, my British father and Polish mother took me to meet my family…
Debunking the myths about the ECHR
This year the European Convention on Human Rights and its Strasbourg court are 75 years old – the age at…
What Europe gets wrong about the far right
The head of America’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (Doge) has written to all federal workers in the US asking them…
Europe should listen to America’s uncomfortable truths
The response in Europe to J.D Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last Friday was one of predictable outrage.…
Is Europe really faring better than Britain?
Five years ago this week, Boris Johnson was celebrating the achievement of leaving the European Union and wondering how he…
Europe’s blind spot over anti-Semitism
You would think that we Europeans might have learned a thing or two about anti-Semitism over the past century or…
The slippery business of catching a snake
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna It is strange how events elide and create a pattern whose significance remains elusive. I had just…
Stalemate over Taiwan is the best we can hope for
A good outcome is the tacit recognition on all sides that we currently lack the means to solve this intractable problem, says the former diplomat Kerry Brown
Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow
Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912…
How the EU turned on Ireland’s low-tax project
First, the good news. The Irish government is about to receive a €13 billion windfall in the form of back…
My teenage Interrailing adventures
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna In my life I have nearly killed myself mainly with cigarettes and alcohol and dangerous journeys into…
The danger of a Labour supermajority
We are witnessing what could well be the last few weeks of a constrained Labour party. Sir Keir Starmer is…
The EU ‘elections’ vindicate Brexit
If Britain had not left the European Union, we would be going to the polls this week as well as…
What Xi wants in Europe
On a quiet street in Belgrade, a bronze statue of Confucius stands in front of a perforated white block, the…
Europe has no answer to its immigration problem
Pulling off the rhetorical trick that Brexit would undermine the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator,…
In defence of the EU
Eastern Europe is the graveyard of empires. Rome failed on the Danube, Napoleon on the Dnieper. The epic struggle between…
Ruled out
What’s to stop us leaving the ECHR?
Across Europe by train
I found Jean-Pierre standing at a half-open window gulping down lungfuls of stale Dutch air as our night train chuntered,…
My Eurovision winners and losers
I had the sudden suspicion, at about ten o’clock on Saturday night, that I was the only straight male in…
Carbon fixation
Europe’s net-zero backlash
The EU is alienating eastern Europe
For most of its 66 years of existence, a vital part of the EU’s mission has been the inexorable expansion…
Does Ukrainian exist?
After six months of war in Ukraine, most observers agree that the roots of Russian aggression lie in the country’s…
