One of the biggest elections in this “ultimate election year” is the one scheduled for June, when more than 400 million people in 27 countries will be eligible to vote for a new European Parliament. The elections will have considerable impact not only for the people who live in Europe but also for the rest of the world.
There are few impulses more deeply rooted in the U.S. political imaginary than the urge to remain aloof from the turmoil that often engulfs the wider world. With the possibility of another era of U.S. withdrawal from aspirations to be the world’s “indispensable nation” now looming, Washington’s allies in Europe need to prepare for it.
After almost two years of stalemate and political wrangling, Northern Ireland’s power-sharing governance system is back up and running. But the latest boycott that paralyzed the government was just the latest in a long line of disputes that has seen Northern Ireland’s dysfunctional legislative body shuttered for long periods.
As the U.K.’s Conservative Party hurtles toward an extinction-level event in elections later this year, some observers have pointed to Canada’s elections in 1993 as a fitting precedent for the total collapse of a once-dominant conservative party. Yet for all the similarities, the differences between the two cases are also revealing.
Spain is often lauded for being a great place to raise children. But UNICEF’s latest report card on child poverty among the world’s most affluent countries, released in December, shows a much less rosy picture. Spain sat near the bottom of the list, with more than 1 in 4 children living in poverty and little progress in the past decade.
With tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections in late February, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko installed allied figures in seats of power across the country and rooted out whatever was left of Belarus’ political opposition, thereby extinguishing the last dying embers of his country’s democracy.
The far-right party Chega surged in Portugal’s elections, signaling the end of Portuguese “exceptionalism” and bringing the country in line with much of Europe.
The European Union is making efforts to step up in security, proposing a joint defense spending program and setting targets for increased joint weapons purchasing and procurement. But can the EU actually become a security provider, rather than a security consumer dependent on the U.S.? There are good reasons to remain skeptical.
The Baltic states are increasingly asserting themselves on the European and NATO stage. And Latvia is intent on not being left out. But while security concerns are paramount, the government of Prime Minister Evika Silina also has a substantial domestic policy to-do list that may dictate if Latvia can redefine its role in Europe.
As Europeans come to terms with the long-term consequences of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine and growing isolationist sentiment in the U.S., the potential of a more militarily self-reliant EU has begun to affect internal policies and debates in Brussels that will influence European politics over the coming decades.
In recent weeks and months, farmers across Europe have taken to the streets to protest against rising production costs and falling wholesale prices. Disruptive farmer protests in Europe are nothing new, but these demonstrations are unprecedented in both scale and nature, provoked by a perfect storm of seismic global events.