The West against the Rest: Now we really are up against an axis of evil
As I write, the media echo chamber has, predictably, become a fog of counter-narratives over the Israel-Hamas conflict, intended to dismiss the unique horror of…
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
The West can’t allow itself to seem weak: Biden and Blinken’s humiliation in the Middle East must be answered in kind
Tuesday night America’s global power snapped.
Terrorist attacks, demonstrations celebrating atrocities, anti-Semitic hate crimes: Will the events of the last two weeks be the end of the migration pact? They certainly should be
In 2017 the British think-tank Chatham House conducted a poll in ten European nations, asking whether “All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should…
Which side are you on? The centre-Right is at a crossroads ahead of next year’s European elections
Europe, together with the entire West, stands before a critical dilemma.
The real winner of Poland’s election was not Donald Tusk. It was Third Way
In eight years under PiS rule, Poland faced a constitutional crisis, restricted abortion rights, grappled with the Covid crisis, experienced one of the highest inflation…
Beware Country Garden and Evergrande: a Chinese property crunch could be about to set off a global financial crisis
Country Garden sounds so innocuous, but so did Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, until those sweet sounding names became shorthand for global financial disaster.
Did PiS or Civic Platform win Poland’s election? The answer is not a simple one. Don’t expect Tusk to be PM any time soon
On October 15 2023 Poland held its general elections. As of now, we are analysing exit polls and preliminary ballot counts.
Israel, Poland and the week when Europe’s fate hangs in the balance
In the cascade of epochal events that have battered the foundations of our post-Cold War world in recent years, the phrase “turning point” has become cliché.
As Poland heads to the polls, the parties are deeply divided – but not on how to deal with migration. The Polish way has lessons for all of Europe
Mischief, studied bon mots and narcissistic tirades were a hallmark of this week's debate before Sunday's elections in Poland.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a great moment of liberation – but does it also divide Germany’s former good times from the current bad times?
The Berlin Wall was one of the starkest and most tangible emblems of the Cold War divide between East and West.
Lawfare reaches Poland – if Civic Platform win on Sunday, prepare to see its opponents put on trial
When we observe the Polish public debate, we are struck by the brutality of the confrontation between Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS).
Poland faces a stark choice: Will it be a sovereign player shaping Europe’s future or a plaything of France and Germany?
Poland stands at a crossroads as it approaches its election on October 15.
Hamas has not just unleashed murder. It has made a massive strategic blunder setting the Palestinian cause decades back
October 7 2023 will enter the history books as the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Even in the face of atrocities against Israeli civilians, the EU won’t take a tough stance against Palestinian terrorists
It appears that some people are shocked about the way in which the EU is entangled in Palestinian politics and funding.
Europe’s capital needs media to challenge the status quo: That’s why Brussels Signal is launching
Access to information - and indeed the dissemination of it - has been massively democratised over the last quarter century.
Who has been interfering in the Polish elections? Germany’s hand is all too apparent
The most obvious international interference so far in next Sunday's Polish general election has been the Ukrainian-Polish grain dispute.
European Union elites are entangled in irrelevant ‘values’ and ‘concerns’
It would appear that even the tectonic shift of Brexit wasn’t enough to get European Union leaders to change their ways.
Cohabiting with bed-bugs and rats: What Paris’s current infestation says about France and the state of its politics
Punaise! is an old-fashioned slangy French exclamation — its meaning not unadjacent to WTF?
The ‘rules-based international order’ is a myth – and the sooner the West wakes up to this the safer we will be
There is an old quip by Voltaire about the Holy Roman Empire, pointing out that it was nothing of the sort: neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Poland’s economy has been a remarkable and underreported success story over the last 30 years – now both main parties appear ready to squander it
The economy is the big absentee from the Polish election campaign.
Pope Francis’s Laudate Deum is a political exhortation, not a religious treatise
Eight years after the encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis published another document, called an apostolic exhortation, to say what has been done - and what has not…
European Socialists are ‘cowards’
European Socialists are cowards, former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told a Brussels soirée last week.
Poland’s elections matter way beyond the country’s borders – they could presage a realignment in European politics
2024 EU Elections polls suggest that the national conservatives of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) will be the biggest overall winner, establishing…
Facial recognition technology now available to Western states could make China look like amateurs in mass surveillance
For me, the moment the surveillance society really began to hit home was as far back as 2010, when primary schools in the UK started fingerprinting their pupils…
Is the EU becoming more depressed? And are the lockdowns to blame?
Is the European Union becoming increasingly depressed? Evidence suggests it might be.
Surviving the Zombie apocalypse: What the Victorians can teach us
Every semester I like to ask my students a simple question: “Where would you go during a Zombie apocalypse?”
Playing geopolitical chess in central Europe: Pawns, knights, and kings in a high-stakes game
The tempo in the Central Eastern European (CEE) region is quickening, fueled by a concatenation of events that seem more like the complex choreography of a ballet…
Does the EU still have jurisdiction over the whole of the UK? The ECJ seems to think so
Hidden in the dull reports from the European Courts is a groundbreaking judgment that makes it clear just how done in Brexit has been.
Less is not always more – especially if driven by EU policy
“Less is more,” goes the old adage.
Iran’s growing grip on the Middle East risks Europe’s global future
Every year the advent of Yom Kippur marks the holiest and most meaningful day in the Jewish religious calendar, a time of atonement and deep reflection.