Europe Archive

French President Nicolas Sarkozy once made headlines with the remark, “If Turkey were Europe, we would know it.” In July, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso gave voice to similar European sentiments in a Greek newspaper interview: “Let’s be honest,” he said, “Turkey is not ready to become an EU member and the EU is not ready to accept Turkey as a member. Neither tomorrow, nor the next day.” Despite the overwhelmingly positive European response to Erdogan’s recent triumph at the polls, and calls to revamp Turkey’s political and economic reforms by European leaders, one fact remains clear: Turkey’s membership […]

The majority of the English-language media outside of India have been notably tentative about accepting the obvious premise that the recent mob attack on eight Indians in the eastern German town of Mügeln was a racist attack. (See the earlier WPR report here.) To the extent they have, however, virtually all have framed the issue of racism and xenophobia in Germany as a specifically “East German problem.” CNN, for example, noted that “since German re-unification in 1990, racist violence has broken out sporadically in the poorer east of the country.” A Reuters report used a similar formula: “Eastern Germany has […]

Whatever consequences might ensue from the election of Abdullah Gul as Turkey’s new president, a change of direction in Turkey’s relations with Russia is unlikely to be one of them. Since the government, led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) took office in 2002, Turkey has been drifting eastward — but not toward the Islamic world. Ankara’s disputes with European countries over Turkey’s proposed entry into the European Union and with Washington over U.S. policies toward northern Iraq have weakened Turkey’s traditional westward orientation. In the east, however, the AKP government has been more eager to cultivate relations with […]

WASHINGTON — Recent changes in the leadership of two of the closest allies of the United States are altering the dynamic of the trans-Atlantic relationship in ways that would have seemed highly improbable a year ago. The election in early May of the pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy as president of the French Republic has rekindled relations between Paris and Washington, previously soured by differences over Iraq. At the same time, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in late June, used a U.S. trip to put new distance between his government and the Bush administration. The traditional close ties between […]

EARLY LAME DUCK — The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday has reinforced the impression among foreign governments that with 15 months to go, the Bush administration is already in lame duck mode. Aside from Iraq, “nothing much is going on, not even for Afghanistan,” privately admits a senior U.S. official. Meanwhile, a Western diplomat said Karl Rove’s departure has triggered an exodus from the White House and the National Security Council. As a result, he said, “There are now more holes in the administration than in Swiss cheese.” Experienced foreign diplomats, accustomed to the lack of continuity from […]

Just when life looked like it could not get any worse for the people of Gaza, the lights went out. With temperatures soaring into the mid-90s earlier this week, the power company supplying electricity to as many as half of the strip’s 1.4 million people ran out of fuel for several days. As with just about everything that happens in the Middle East, the problem boiled down to politics. Surprisingly, however, the decision leading to the cutoff of fuel shipments came from the European Union, shining a broiling hot spotlight on one of the dilemmas confronting the international community as […]

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid has made clear what she thinks of the Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq: They are occupying Iraq exactly like the Nazis occupied Denmark in the Second World War. Those who fight against them are, consequently, not terrorists, but freedom fighters, and their combat is absolutely justified. Abdol Hamid, who only appears in public with head and hair carefully veiled, is a candidate on the unified list formed by Socialists and Greens for the upcoming Danish Parliamentary elections. Her remarks in late July had immediate and wide-ranging consequences: The conservative politician Rasmus Jarlov filed charges against her for treason. […]

NO MORE DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON? — Sixty years ago, Spain’s state-run television inaugurated its transmissions with a bullfight. This month, in an indication of the social change Spain has undergone in the past 25 years, the official television network, TVE, canceled afternoon transmissions of the corrida — the bullfight — one of its highest rated summer shows. When bullfight fans protested, TVE said daytime broadcasts of the national sport contravened the law banning violent programs during children’s viewing hours. But TVE’s decision to grab the issue by the horns reflected the growing controversy over the future of the Spanish […]

Calling on Russian pilots to resume “combat duty,” Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Aug. 17 that his country’s strategic nuclear bombers would resume their Cold War-era practice of conducting long-range patrols “on a permanent basis.” He told reporters that “our pilots have spent too long on the ground. I know that they are happy to now have this chance to begin a new life and we wish them luck.” Although the main function of these aircraft is to conduct nuclear missile strikes against the continental United States, Putin said he hoped that other countries would show “understanding” for the Russian […]

The plans of an Islamic association to build an imposing “Central Mosque” in Cologne are the subject of ongoing controversy in Germany. The mosque design features a giant 35 meter high dome flanked by two 55 meter high minarets. Much of the initial public opposition to the mosque project was organized by “Pro Cologne”: a political movement that local authorities have classified as “right-wing extremist” — a common euphemism in Germany for neo-Nazi groups. Last May, however, the controversy over the Cologne mosque project took on a new dimension when the renowned German journalist and historian of the Third Reich, […]

DIPLOMATIC LUNCH — The French were elated by the success of the Bush-Sarkozy lunch at Kennebunkport, which Paris regards as the first in a sequence of meetings designed to establish a personal relationship between the two leaders. Sarkozy certainly, and Bush presumably, will be in New York for the opening of the U.N. National Assembly on Sept. 23, when U.N. ritual prescribes that they will sit together at lunch. An official visit to Washington by the French president will follow shortly afterwards, possibly by the end of that same month. The warming of U.S.-French relations is all the more satisfactory […]

On Aug. 2, after being escorted by a nuclear-powered icebreaker and another research vessel, two Russian mini-submarines traveled more than two miles below the ice at the North Pole and planted a titanium Russian flag in the seafloor, claiming the underwater territory for Moscow. The publicity stunt played to huge audiences in the Russian media and on state-run television, where the tone of the coverage resembled that given to Soviet cosmonauts. Elsewhere, the underwater mission was greeted with a mixture of humor and anxiety. Late night talk shows worried what the land grab would mean for Santa’s village and his […]

To look at him, one would never suspect that Vladislav Surkov once worked as an agent for a crack special operations unit in the Red Army’s intelligence corps. A svelte, retiring figure, Surkov, 42, usually shies away from the public spotlight. When he does give interviews or make public appearances, therefore, it commonly occasions a media frenzy. Attempts to slice through the veil of mystery shrouding this high-placed presidential aide assume particular urgency because, by some estimates, Surkov is the second most influential person in Russian politics. Surkov came to the attention of casual Russia-watchers in the West following a […]

In a written statement submitted for his July 31 Senate confirmation hearing, Gen. James E. Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command and the Bush administration’s nominee to become the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed that the administration has decided not to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) after it expires in Dec. 5, 2009. In his written description of his vision for developing a conventional, non-nuclear, prompt global strike capability, Gen. Cartwright included the following question: “Does the Administration’s decision not to extend the START Treaty have any impact on development of a […]

The Turkish nation delivered its verdict last week, even taking Erdogan and his supporters by surprise. Turkey’s parliamentary elections on July 22 resulted in a decisive victory for Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, of the Islamic-rooted party AKP. The AKP’s 47 percent of the vote has reaffirmed the party’s place as one of the most powerful political parties in the history of Turkish elections, claiming an even larger share of the vote than was realized in 2002. “Democracy has passed a very important test,” Erdogan said in his victory speech, amidst bursting firecrackers and showering balloons at his Ankara party headquarters. […]

Earlier this year, the French General Secretariat for National Defense (SGDN) reaffirmed a warning to French policymakers that the ubiquitous BlackBerry represents a potential intelligence vulnerability when used to transmit sensitive information. The BlackBerry is a handheld computer developed by the Canadian firm Research in Motion (RIM) that allows users to forward electronic messages sent via the Internet (email) to the device. According to French sources, the main SGDN concern is that the security framework used by the BlackBerry to transmit email is vulnerable to interception by British and American intelligence. As a result, the French government restricted its use […]