Section: European Voice (EU)
Why Europe shouldn’t cooperate with Russia’s economic bloc
There are several encouraging developments in the European Union’s position on Ukraine and Russia. This week, EU leaders are expected to renew sanctions against Russia for its ongoing invasion of and aggression against Ukraine. Effective next month, the EU’s trade deal with Ukraine will kick in, after a year’s delay to placate...
Hollande sees glimmer of hope for 2017
PARIS — For the first time in three years, François Hollande can contemplate the slim possibility that he might have a chance to be reelected as France’s president in 2017. The outcome of regional elections on December 13, which highlighted divisions between the far right and the mainstream opposition conservatives, gives the French...
Matteo Renzi’s pipeline politics
MILAN — Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is expected to vent his frustration at the EU summit Thursday at what he sees as German duplicity about energy policy and sanctions on Russia. Italian officials claim Berlin is on the one hand demanding unified EU action when it comes to sanctions on Russia for its military takeover of Crimea and parts of...
Kerry: Russia a ‘significant contributor’ to progress in Syria
“Russia has been a significant contributor to the progress” the world has made on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday in Moscow. U.S. officials have repeatedly criticized Russia’s intervention in Syria as “counterproductive” — designed more to bolster President Bashar Assad than to degrade the Islamic State. But the tone of...
Eastern Ukraine, Europe’s West Bank
During a recent visit to France, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sent out a controversial tweet saying that terrorism is a “daily reality for Ukraine.” The tweet triggered vociferous condemnations for trying to tie Ukraine to the Paris tragedy, as well as essays and op-eds in the Ukrainian media defending Poroshenko’s comparison....
The battle for civilization is happening in Paris
On a recent trip to Paris just before that city’s most tumultuous month in years—one that began with terrorist slaughter and ended with Saturday’s historic 195-nation climate accord—I noticed that the hottest item being hawked on the streets was the “selfie stick.” Parisian street vendors carry bronze replicas of the Eiffel Tower and...
Obama officials are talking to Putin more than ever
An Obama administration debate about whether to engage Vladimir Putin or treat him like a pariah has tilted in the engagement camp’s favor—even as critics and some officials worry that it’s become too easy for the Russian president to get a stature-enhancing meeting with U.S. leaders. When Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Moscow...
Bouquet and brawl in Ukrainian parliament
Scuffles are not unknown in Ukrainian politics but they rarely involve flowers. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was interrupted during his annual address in the Verkhovna Rada Friday in which he appeared to suggest that the government was not responsible for tackling corruption. Oleg Barna — an MP and member of the President Petro...
9 things Europeans must know about Donald Trump
If you’re European, chances are you hate the idea of Donald Trump — and are utterly fascinated by it. The Republican frontrunner’s call to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States Monday swept across Europe faster than the Bubonic plague, sparking denunciations from prime ministers and presidents across the continent, and in...
The bizarre world of Jeremy Corbyn and Stop the War
LONDON — The world of the British far-left is a small one. A consequence of this is that the same old faces seem to continually pop up in its various incarnations. The Stop the War Coalition is a case in point. Initially a front group for the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Stop the War’s leading lights — Lindsey German (ex-SWP),...
