Ukraine: Russia has failed
With the focus on the Middle East, there has been comparatively little attention paid for some months to the Ukraine War.
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
Crises and capabilities: Neither has transformed the EU into a power on the world stage
Jean Monnet famously opined that the European project advances by crises.
Bucharest Nine and the Three Seas Initiative remain unequal to the task
On paper, NATO’s eastern flank, stretching from Norway and Finland in the Arctic to Romania and Bulgaria on the Black Sea, forms a coherent geopolitical frontline…
Europe has forgotten how to build
In 1969, Switzerland’s Beznau plant went online after roughly four years of construction. France built its nuclear fleet in the 1970s on a similar schedule.
A Congolese immigrant dies on a street in Dublin, so Ireland is called ‘racist’
Some words should be sanctioned as racist within the many liberal discourses on the Black and Traveller contributions to multiculturalism.
Greenland now: US control or not?
In the global competition for natural resources, the United States is still seeking to increase its influence in Greenland.
Sanitary ghettos: South Asia’s disposable Christians
The systematic degradation of Christian communities in South Asia is not an accident, but a policy.
The rare miracle of order
We live in a world of daily miracles: Walk up to an automated teller machine almost anywhere in the world, insert a card, type four digits, and a small mechanism…
The rise of the sub-national power: Why mayors and regional bosses will rule the world
It is not an accident that the man most likely to replace Keir Starmer as British Prime Minister is Andy Burnham, the directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester.
‘Long-debunked lies’: German CDU denigrates AfD in contentious brochure
The 32-page booklet entitled 'Decline for Germany, not an Alternative' launches a number of wild claims about the country's main opposition party.
Babiš has ridden the populist wave — now he actually has to be right-wing
The West’s populist wave has now lasted for over ten years. In that length of time, it has brought a sea of new faces to power, or to the cusp of it.
One of Macron’s deputies wants to do business with the butchers of Sudan
Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance (RE) party cannot agree on immigration, cannot secure its borders, and cannot articulate a coherent policy toward political Islam.
British hypocrisy and envy towards US are alive and well
A piece in the London Spectator of May 2 by Rod Liddle is a reminder of the imperishable spiteful envy towards America that still disturbs the minds of many of the…
Yes, Britain today is governed by idiots, but that is not the sole reason it is in trouble
Four score years, roughly four generations: Is that the natural life span of any democratic welfare state?
Green failure: Germany’s renewables boom leaves it generating less electricity than in 2000
Most of the new capacity, though, came from heavily subsidised renewable energy plants, especially photovoltaics and wind turbines.
Belgian giants still in Russia five years on, pressure builds as explanations wear thin
Five years after Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some of Belgium's most prominent multinationals remain active in the country.
Vienna 2026: Did Eurovision ditch wokeness for a return to factory settings?
Two years ago, after the Malmö farce, here in the Brussels Signal comment pages, we issued a warning.
German Greens’ shock after its motion passes with votes of AfD
A seemingly irrelevant vote in the state parliament of Saxony has turned into a showcase of the hysteria affecting much of Germany’s political class.
Emperors lost in their Labyrinths, unwilling to listen to the common people
If one factor links the dire unpopularity of Chancellor Merz and President Macron, it is their political insularity.
Germany’s AfD plans to replace hundreds of civil servants after election win in battleground state
The right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has announced it will replace up to 200 civil servants in the state of Saxony-Anhalt – if it comes into power…
Sitting by the river: China is not a competitor, it is a predator
As Donald Trump lands in Beijing to face Xi Jinping, the air is thick with the scent of a historic showdown.
Part II: What? Commission says pupils must not ‘question established authority’
The document explicitly sets out three stages of pre-bunking: ‘Forewarning’, ‘microdose’ and ‘refutation’.
How Farage made it through the danger zone
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party was the runaway winner of Britain’s local elections last week, winning almost 1,500 councillor seats on city and county governing…
Part I, the classroom as psychological vaccination site: The EU’s war on ‘wrongthink’
There was a time when education meant initiation into the life of the mind.
Feeble, inert and no influence: The world misses British political wisdom
It does not seem that the world is paying much attention to the vacuum in international relations and public policy that has been created by the sudden transformation…
Philippe for president of France? Despite the polls, he is clueless and vapid
French polls suggest former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe is the elite’s best chance to defeat presumptive National Rally candidate Jordan Bardella in next…
Can European democracy be bought? Ask the rich men of Qatar
Shame, not guilt, is the currency of scandal. In 2022, on anti-corruption day no less, Belgian police uncovered €1.
Is this the end of the UK? Very possibly
Perhaps the most exquisitely stupid alliance since the formation of the United Arab Republic of Syria, Egypt and Gaza in 1959 was announced last weekend.
Poland embarks on a path of rising debt and record deficits
On May 8th, the Polish government was set to sign the SAFE defence procurement loan agreement with the European Commission in Warsaw.
Why the European Right keeps rising
The four-and-a-half-hour interview that Björn Höcke, the AfD leader in Thuringia and enfant terrible of German domestic politics, gave to the German podcaster…