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Poland’s new tune in Europe
WARSAW — Europe’s troublemaker is changing its tune. Since Poland’s populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) came to power in 2015, the EU has struggled to get Warsaw to play by the rules. Diplomats...
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A no-Salvini alliance is Italy’s best hope
MILAN — Italians are no strangers to political crises. But even by their standards, this one feels different: It has no real reason to be. Interior Minister and far-right League leader Matteo Salvini...
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New Greek government cracks down on migrant squats
ATHENS — As the sun went down over the Exarchia district of Athens one recent evening, hundreds of people gathered beneath a banner with the protest slogan, “No Pasarán,” a resistance slogan from the...
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Brexit ball is in EU’s court
We’ve entered the Brexit endgame. Deal or no deal, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union on October 31 — or so British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeated day in, day out since he...
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My trip down the Brexit Party rabbit hole
LONDON — Ever since the Brexit Party emerged, I have found myself drawn to it in much the same way that the boy in the Hans Christian Andersen story felt compelled to follow the emperor pointing out...
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The deep roots of Italy’s coalition chaos
MILAN — The chaos in Italy has really only just begun. The collapse of the government earlier this summer and the byzantine posturing and horse-trading as the country’s major parties struggle to form a...
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Has Europe reached peak populism?
PARIS — It may seem perverse, in the week when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) posted record scores in two regional elections, to even whisper that anti-EU populism may have peaked in...
View ArticleWhy the Tories fear the student vote
LONDON — Thousands of curious young minds in the U.K. are spending the next few weeks getting ready for their move to university. Amid the whirlwind of making new friends, testing out the college bar...
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Europe can do more than Merkel in Hong Kong
HONG KONG — Should Europe be more assertive with Beijing regarding the crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong? China would like the answer to that question to be an emphatic “no.” But there’s much...
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Welcome to the EU neighborhood, Britain
LONDON — Over the past 40 years, the Brits have become used to watching their prime ministers swing their weight around on the European stage. Margaret Thatcher’s so-called hand-bagging to secure a...
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Why Britain needs to give back control
GRIMSBY, United Kingdom — More than three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the important questions have yet to be answered. Not just how Britain will leave, or when, or...
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Putin’s star is fading
For democracy activists in Russia, the real victory this week isn’t that Vladimir Putin’s party performed so poorly in Sunday’s Moscow city council election. That’s just a consequence of a far more...
View ArticleIt’s not up to Brussels to pull Britain out of Brexit mess
In his op-ed “Brexit ball is in EU’s court” (POLITICO, August 23), Belgian MEP Johan Van Overtveldt tries to pin the blame for the current Brexit standoff on the European Union, urging Brussels to show...
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New Commission bows to the populists
Ahead of the European election in May, many feared a populist tide would submerge the European institutions and hand the reigns to Euroskeptics hellbent on dismantling the European project. The worst...
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Threat to ‘European way of life’ is not migrants. It’s populists.
Incoming European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is focused on the wrong threat. The unveiling of her new roster of top civil servants this week contained more than a few surprises. Beyond a...
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Who costs taxpayers more: The Trumps or the British royals?
LONDON — There’s something comfortably retro about the British royal family. No matter the geopolitical or domestic turmoil, you can count on them to be there, lurching from one scandal to the next....
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Unification, not no-deal Brexit, will destroy Ireland
As Brussels and London try to find some kind of grand Brexit compromise, Ireland’s fate appears to be hanging in the balance. Much of the attention has been focused on the danger that would result from...
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Macron risks big trouble with ‘Big Bang’ reform
PARIS — Just when Emmanuel Macron seemed to have finally put the Yellow Jacket protests behind him, the French president is stirring up the country once again — with what he’s calling a “Big Bang”...
View ArticleItaly needs EU help to break with Salvini on migration
Italy is ready to move on from the Matteo Salvini immigration playbook — but it won’t be able to do it alone. As part of the new government in Rome’s pivot back to Europe, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte...
View ArticleThe anti-Putin ‘shaman warrior’ who spooked the Kremlin
MOSCOW — A Siberian shaman walking to Moscow to exorcise the “demonic” Vladimir Putin was seized by armed police in a pre-dawn raid that sparked criticism from rights groups and mockery from opposition...
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