Senior officials in the European Commission are seething at the national governments on the EU Council for what they view as caving to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s threat to veto aid to Ukraine amid the EU’s long-running dispute with Budapest over its failure to uphold democratic institutions.
The peace deal ending the war between Ethiopian federal government and the TPLF is a breakthrough, not because it handed victory to one side, but because it reestablished the federal constitutional framework, however contested, as the blueprint for resolving the political and constitutional disputes at the heart of the conflict.
In the countries where they have gained power, Latin America’s left-leaning leaders have usually won by campaigning on economic and social issues. Now that they are in power, they must deal with the region’s security challenges—and the political fallout for the failures that occur, whether or not they are to blame for them.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s political future hangs in the balance after an independent panel found evidence that he had violated the country’s constitution and breached the country’s anti-corruption laws in an incident involving large sums of cash stolen from one of his properties two years ago.
Tensions over the war in Ukraine have relaxed since the U.S. midterm congressional elections but could ramp up again if Europe continues to fall behind the U.S. when it comes to providing financial and military support for Kyiv. Europe cannot afford a rift on this issue while Ukraine’s–and its own—security is on the line.
French President Emmanuel Macron is in Washington this week for an official state visit to the United States. While the visit comes at a pivotal moment in the bilateral relationship, many European observers are paying attention to the areas of divergence over issues related to trade and Western unity as the war in Ukraine drags on.
After an inauspicious start, 2022 has been a year of low-key but surprisingly successful muddling through for multilateralism. While the war in Ukraine had the potential to throw international institutions into disarray, overall these institutions weathered the storm in better shape than seemed imaginable shortly after the invasion.
This week, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave a speech that some commentators took as evidence that Sunak intends to soften London’s stance toward China. In reality, domestic politics and international events are unlikely to permit major changes to one of the most controversial aspects of British foreign policy.