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Time to break the Franco-German stranglehold
PRAGUE — The European Union has failed Eastern and Central Europe. When eight former Soviet Bloc countries — including my own, the Czech Republic — joined the bloc on May 1, 2004, it was an occasion we...
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In Greece, a refugee puts migration on the ballot
ATHENS — Yonous Muhammadi is a first-time voter. And on Sunday, when he turns up at the ballot box in Athens, he’ll have the chance to cast a vote for himself. The 45-year-old, a member of the...
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As goes Macron, so goes Europe
PARIS — Of the 28 countries going to the polls this week, nowhere will the vote matter more for the future of Europe than in France. Having placed a poorly performing, accident-prone candidate in the...
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The tragedy of Theresa May
LONDON — And lo, it has finally come to pass. After months if not years in which British Prime Minister Theresa May defied political gravity, clinging to office despite the seemingly insurmountable...
View ArticleFacebook vs. the EU
For all the talk of the European Union taming Silicon Valley’s tech giants, Facebook is still running wild across the Continent ahead of this week’s European Parliament election. European voters are...
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The Europe issue claims another British scalp
LONDON — From the moment Theresa May became the U.K.’s prime minister, it was foreordained that her political death would be brought about by Brexit. The issue of Europe and Britain’s place in it has...
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In pictures: European election highs and lows
Joel Goodman/London News Pictures via ZUMA In Manchester, Brexit Party supporters are overjoyed as results are displayed on televisions at the convention center. Ben Birchall/Press Association New...
View Article5 lessons from the European election
If European elections used to be a sedate affair, the 2019 iteration was anything but. Besides the obvious — a growing fragmentation of European politics, a solid but not dominant position of the far...
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How Italy lost the European election
ROME — It’s a hard time to be Italian and European. At a moment that should be a continental celebration — an election marking the appearance of an energized, pluralist and, above all, European...
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Britain has never been more European
LONDON — Britain, welcome to Europe. Nigel Farage’s upstart Brexit Party — which ran away with 32 percent of the vote and is set to gain 28 seats in the European Parliament — has blown the United...
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Belgian king’s far-right migraine
“The king is going to need a big box of paracetamol, the strong ones,” Bart De Wever, the mayor of Antwerp and leader of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, gloated as Belgium’s election results...
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Europe’s populists can’t be defeated — but they can be contained
The European election confronts us with a somber reality: Right-wing populism is now a major force in Europe — and it is here to stay. Forget the doomsday predictions about the end of the Continent’s...
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Now Macron really is the president of the rich
PARIS — Forget Emmanuel Macron’s idea of a “Jupiterian” presidency. The French leader has become an Achilles, an all-conquering hero with a potentially fatal, hidden weakness. Macron has been playing a...
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Europe’s Syria quagmire
Europe doesn’t have a Syria policy — at least not one that acknowledges what’s happening in the war-torn country. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is increasingly likely to win the brutal conflict that...
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Germany’s military maneuvers
Germany is considering a break from decades of military non-confrontation. High ranking officials are contemplating sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait — joining the United States and France in...
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Europe’s new energy dependency
Combatting climate change is, by definition, a global task. Europe has shown it’s ready to take a leading role in this fight: Legislation proposed by the European Commission and making its way through...
View ArticleWhy Britain needs a Brexit extension
LONDON — The European Parliament election in the U.K. last month showed the country has changed its mind on Brexit. Nigel Farage’s upstart Brexit Party stole the headlines by coming first in the polls...
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Poland’s two-faced immigration strategy
WARSAW — As migrants to Poland, Vasyl Setrin and Anna Setrina might have been expected to have a hard time. They knew nobody, spoke no Polish and had arrived in a country where the government would...
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European conservatives’ Spitzenkandidat dilemma
Europe’s conservatives face a vexing choice in the aftermath of last month’s European election. The European People’s Party — the powerful alliance of the Continent’s center-right forces — can either...
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Boris plays his Trump card
LONDON — Boris Johnson’s pillaging of the Donald Trump playbook continues. And it seems to be working. At the launch on Wednesday of his campaign to replace Theresa May as Conservative Party leader,...
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