To express ourselves as we please, that is what elites fear most
TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form social media platform, has lately been in the spotlight on both sides of the Atlantic. Not without good reason.
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
“Saving” the state by breaking the law? A Roman warning
The notion that in affairs of state the ends justify the means long predates the writings of Machiavelli, the figure most identified with this idea.
Kallas wants US to be afraid of Russia, but can’t even get Europe to be afraid of Russia
The European Union has no “foreign minister.
Collapse of Syria final death knell of 1919 attempts by Allies to build nations
Whatever else it may be, the collapse of the Assad government in Syria must rank as the final unflattering death knell of the attempts at nation-building by the…
High-born French and low-born Italians against Chinese Commies: car wars
European car companies are locked in an increasingly bitter struggle to maintain profits and market share amid a secular downturn in sales of internal combustion…
Syria, a Petrie dish of rapine and warring baronies
Dystopia was once upon a time a filmic theme park, wherein a director could imagine all sorts of random tyrannies and arbitrary agents of terror.
Von der Leyen has just turned the EU into a cheerleader for Islamist terrorism
Take a moment to read this tweet: “The cruel Assad dictatorship has collapsed. This historic change in the region offers opportunities but is not without risks.
EU does not want a member state in Georgia, it wants a client state
If you would hear it from the liberal internationalists, the battle for the future of democracy is being fought in Tbilisi.
No more precise documentation, now truth has gone missing in war
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.
Trump can make world energy prices tumble, hitting Putin hard
A negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine shortly after Donald Trump takes office in January of 2025 seems more and more likely.
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Democracy dies in impunity: the necessity of drastic electoral punishment
Political impunity is harming democracy by allowing establishment parties to persist despite failures.
The Greens are fading now, but I was in Germany with them at the start
The Greens are failing in elections all over Europe. They were wiped out in Iceland’s elections and have only just avoided the same fate in Ireland.
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UK government and its flea-bitten policies out of step with new rhythm of the West
Chancellor Rachel Reeves' recent budget has deepened the decline of respect for the Starmer government, as it leverages tax increases amidst widespread discontent…
In France the helicopter air-drops of fresh cash are over
In one of his Letters from Paris published many years ago in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik observed that the French suffer from what he called a “White Helicopter”…
Threadbare Xanadu: Europeans discover the EU is a bogus confection
What is Europe? Is there such a place? Or is this Europe thing just a creation of a communal imagination that itself exists solely because of a self-defining doctrine?
Many British Muslims want blasphemy laws to protect ‘Abrahamic religions’
Last week a Labour MP stood up in the British parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions and demanded the implementation of Islamic blasphemy laws.
Brussels Signal reported weeks ago, now FBI confirms, Chinese eavesdropped on candidates
On October 17, Brussels Signal reported on a Chinese security breach of major US telecommunications networks.
The rise of BRICS is a new challenge for an already collapsing EU
The expansion and growing influence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and other allies) represent an unprecedented challenge to the global balance…
European establishment won’t listen to voters, so national populists will keep winning
Last Sunday’s Romanian elections, in which a populist-right candidate, Călin Georgescu, defied the opinion polls and jumped into top place in the first round…
Calin Georgescu just blitzed Romanian politics: will his formula spread?
Never in the history of liberal democracy anywhere – let alone in the Western camp – has a candidate shot from quasi-total obscurity straight to first place…
A maybe-president, Ireland’s everyman champ is named as a rapist
By this time, you must know who Conor McGregor is, and if you don’t then here he is: McGregor is a 36-year-old Irishman, a world champion mixed martial arts fighter…
European attitude to Israel shows moral rot among leaders
It is both a pitiful and contemptible state of affairs when within a few days of each other the pope writes, at least as a personal reflection and not on behalf…
40% of Pakistanis want to leave their country: Guess where they want to go
According to a November 14 report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Pakistan has climbed to fifth place among countries with the highest number…
A surreal dystopia: Ireland’s identity being dissolved in frustration and anger
The Great Barrier Reef is being eaten by gigantic Crown of Thorns starfish that, extruding their stomachs inside out, coat the poor coral with corrosive acids and…
Merkel scolds the Germans for being a great disappointment to her
Are you still looking for Christmas presents? I have a fashionable doorstopper to recommend to you, courtesy of the former German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Britain’s censorious elites will regret going to war with Elon Musk
In the years after the Brexit vote, Britain’s Europhile establishment loved to complain about the damage this break with liberal internationalism was supposedly…
Towards a new policy on Iran? Trump may force European leaders to rethink their stance
The re-election of Donald Trump as US president could radically transform Europe's relations with Iran, particularly in a context marked by Israeli pressure and…
Member states doubt EU database for biofuels, saying market distortions are likely
The Union Database for Biofuels (UDB), which came into effect on November 21, is part of the Clean Energy for All Europeans package of the Renewable Energy Directive…
Outdated software running Germany Inc goes for easy protection not innovation
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader and likely future chancellor Friedrich Merz is sidling cautiously up to the debt brake issue that just demolished the traffic…
Will Ukraine become Europe’s forever-problem?
As the war reached its 1000th day this week, any form of victory seems further away from Kyiv’s grasp than ever before. Militarily, Ukraine’s situation is dramatic;