En route to Europe I didn’t fear death — only dying without trying
Abdelfetah Mohamed is a volunteer with the Italian Red Cross. He works as the cultural mediator on the Ocean Viking, a search and rescue ship operated by SOS Méditerranée, with the International...
View ArticleBan on Russian gas risks reviving populism in Europe
Last week, Vitali Klitschko, the former champion prizefighter and current Kyiv mayor, told a delegation of European parliamentarians and think tankers that instability in Ukraine means instability for...
View ArticleWestern allies diverge over Ukraine war aims
War aims change, shaping and reshaping as fortunes ebb and flow on the battlefield, combatants become weary or emboldened, and political dynamics shift. Emotion plays a significant part too:...
View ArticleBritain’s last royal jubilee?
On the surface, the United Kingdom’s royal jubilees have been jolly affairs — all pomp and pageantry, marching bands and parading redcoats, bunting and commemorative souvenirs, street parties, warm...
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In pictures: Inside Malta’s crowded migrant detention centers
OPTICS In pictures: Inside Malta’s crowded migrant detention centers Inhumane, undignified detainment during the pandemic in Malta By Joanna Demarco and Julian Delia VALLETTA — A Moroccan asylum...
View ArticleVladimir Putin is no Peter the Great
Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to mine Russian history for “heroes,” shaping a national narrative that serves his domestic political purposes — or can be fitted into his idiosyncratic...
View ArticleOn becoming Belgian after Brexit
Having settled in Brussels after three decades reporting about the broader Middle East, Hugh Pope is preparing for publication “The Keys to Democracy,” a book written by his late father and classicist...
View ArticleGallipoli: A cautionary tale for Odesa
British and Australian schoolchildren are taught early on that the spectacularly disastrous Gallipoli campaign of World War I was a madcap scheme orchestrated by the buccaneering Winston Churchill,...
View ArticleWhy Macron is failing on strategic autonomy
Paul Taylor, a contributing editor at POLITICO, writes the “Europe At Large” column. BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron is blowing his opportunity to advance France’s vision of European...
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Power and plunder: Putin’s gift to the counter-kleptocracy movement
James Snell is a writer and researcher. He has written for Spectator World, Foreign Policy and other outlets. For years, countering kleptocracy — dirty money looted from the poorer parts of the world...
View ArticleChampions League final 2022: A night I’d rather forget
Deepmala Sok Appadu is a Liverpool fan who attended the European Champions League Final. Below, she recalls a night she’d prefer to forget. First of all, congratulations to Real Madrid — not that I...
View ArticleCentral banks: Too big to fail, but failing yet again
Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe. For most of last year, the West’s central bankers were convinced that spikes in prices were transitory and manageable. They believed that rising...
View ArticleWhy African states are reluctant to pick sides on Ukraine
Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe. This week, European leaders urged African and Middle Eastern countries not to buy into Kremlin propaganda blaming the West for worsening a global...
View ArticleMacron’s right, keeping the Russian door ajar might be crucial
Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe. “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war,” noted one of Britain’s most pugnacious leaders, Winston Churchill. That seems to be the principle...
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Ukraine: Time for the West to make up its mind
Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe. Asked recently why international powers that lined up on the side of the White Army in Russia’s barbaric civil war failed to affect the outcome,...
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Belgium gambles on Congo’s President Tshisekedi
Barbara Moens is a trade reporter at POLITICO Europe. KINSHASA — The Belgian royals’ visit to Congo, which ended earlier this week, was an attempt to grapple with Belgium’s grisly colonial past. But...
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For Putin and the Catholic Church, history repeats
Jamie Dettmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe. ROME — There are scholarly disputes as to when and to whom Joseph Stalin first uttered his rhetorical question about the power of the Roman...
View ArticleTrading with the enemy is sometimes necessary
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. In 1674 the French commanders of Grave, then besieged during the Franco-Dutch War, became alarmed about a huge store of explosive material and...
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Boris Johnson’s manner of going was in keeping with his character
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. “Nothing in his lifeBecame him like the leaving it.” These lines, from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” are of Malcolm telling King Duncan how the...
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How the 1976 heat wave got sucked into the UK’s culture war
James Randerson is editorial director of Innovation and Platforms at POLITICO Europe. Europe is scorching, and the intense heat has Britain’s right-wing culture warriors particularly hot under the...
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