Europe

This weekend in Oslo politicians and activists from Norway’s conservative party, Høyre, will meet to confirm their new leader, Ine Eriksen Søreide. This is not just a vote to further the prospects of the next generation of centre-right leaders but – due to a rare alignment of domestic and geopolitical conditions – the potential starting point for a renewed push towards Norway joining the European Union (EU). Formerly Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, Søreide is a committed Europhile. She has been unambiguous on EU membership, saying Høyre is ‘clearly a yes party’.  It is perhaps just a peculiar coincidence that has left several North Sea powers outside the EU. Before the UK’s 2016 vote

The news in France over the weekend was dominated by the resignation of Jack Lang as head of the prestigious Arab World Institute in Paris. In more ways than one, Lang is France’s answer to Peter Mandelson, a figurehead for the bourgeois left and a figure of loathing for those on the other side of the political spectrum. The fall of Jack Lang raises some uncomfortable questions for the Elysee Lang resigned after his name appeared 673 times in the Epstein files in correspondence between 2012 and 2019. Also made public was a video of Lang and Epstein in front of the Louvre pyramid in March 2019, more than a

Keir Starmer has been seized by a dogged determination he does not always exhibit and has announced that he is seeking to revisit the UK’s participation in the European Union’s defence fund, SAFE. Established last May, Security Action for Europe (SAFE) is a fund designed to provide €150 billion (£130 billion) in competitively priced, long-maturity loans for urgent, large-scale defence procurement projects. It was primarily intended for the 27 EU member states, but the terms were drawn very carefully: the loans were also open to Norway, Ukraine and third-party countries which had agreed security pacts with the EU, and could be spent with companies meeting the same criteria. This meant,

Going to Lublin in eastern Poland is a bit like visiting Pompeii. The city’s old town – compact, intricate, fetchingly tarnished – is as haunting as Krakow’s and more authentic than the reconstructed Warsaw. But something is missing, and you can feel it. Before the war, the Jewish population of Lublin stood at 43,000. Now, it is just 40. Structures remain but their purpose has gone forever, replaced by a palpable absence. Lublin was once a centre of Jewish life, the foremost in Europe. From the 16th century onwards, it teemed with yeshivas and synagogues, rabbis, philosophers and publishing houses. The Jewish ‘Council of the Four Lands’ operated from Lublin, an

In 1969, Charles de Gaulle told his friend André Malraux that America’s “desire – and one day it will satisfy it – is to desert Europe. You will see.” It has taken nearly six decades, but de Gaulle’s prophecy now looks uncomfortably close to fulfilment. Among EU officials, a harsher conclusion is taking hold After years of diplomatic effort to manage, placate and charm successive American presidents – and Donald Trump in particular – European leaders are coming to a grim realisation: the United States is, at best, indifferent to their interests and sensibilities and, at worst, openly hostile to them. Some, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, still believe Trump

Nine months into the chancellorship of Friedrich Merz, the outlook for Germany looks grim. The country’s economy, the world’s third biggest, has been in recession or stagnation for the past three years as its leaders confront the worst economic crisis since the 1950s. Damningly, portions of the German press have accused Merz of presiding over an ‘economically lost year’. Last year’s data makes for tough reading: industrial production was down 1.3 per cent and large corporate bankruptcies up 25 per cent. In the first six months of the year, 109,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. 48,000 of these were in the battered car industry which has a 24 per cent share

Marine Le Pen returned to court this week to contest her conviction last spring for misusing EU funds. Convicted of diverting more than €4 million (£3.5 million) meant for Brussels affairs in order to pay her staff, the leader of the National Rally was fined €100,000 (£86,600) and disqualified from politics for five years with immediate effect. The appeal will last a month and the verdict is expected in June. If Le Pen is successful, she will be able to run in next year’s presidential election; if she fails to overturn or drastically reduce the sentence, her protégé, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, will represent the National Rally. Le Pen struck a

Remember when the President of the United States casually enquired about purchasing Greenland in 2019? The world scoffed. Denmark, a nation whose greatest geopolitical aspiration usually involves a decent bridge or tunnel, emitted a collective gasp of ‘Oh no, he didn’t’. It was all very quickly dismissed with a chuckle as just another example of Donald Trump’s fantasy of embiggening America. But fast forward seven years, and the laughter is stuck in Copenhagen’s throat. This is because the Arctic, far from being a frozen curiosity, is rapidly becoming the next great theatre of global power. Trump, with his signature sledgehammer, may well have been years ahead of the curve in a way that

Paris has been invaded this morning by more than 100 tractors driven by furious farmers. Just before dawn, a tree was felled by the protestors in the west of the capital close to the Roland Garros tennis stadium. The farmers have warned more will follow. ‘They want to slaughter our cows, so we’re going to slaughter their trees,’ one farmer told reporters. This is the France that the Paris elite despises: the France that loves its traditions, that works hard, pays its taxes and despairs at the country’s chronic mismanagement There have been other acts of rebellion in the country. Access to the southern city of Rodez has been blocked