Europe Archive

In his speech to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev described the war in Afghanistan as the USSR’s “bleeding wound.” Gorbachev would order Soviet forces out of Afghanistan two years later. During the subsequent three decades, Soviet and subsequently Russian leaders sought to steer clear of the country that many likened to Moscow’s Vietnam. This history makes Russia’s re-engagement in Afghanistan in recent months all the more striking. A generation after its army invaded, occupied and then withdrew from the country, Moscow has again emerged as an important power broker […]

There is a new landmark in Moscow, opposite the towering ramparts of the Kremlin’s Borovitskaya Gate. That imposing fortified passage, through which presidential motorcades traditionally enter and exit, now shares its position on the Kremlin’s southern flank with an enormous statue of Vladimir, which was unveiled late last year. This Vladimir is not Putin, but the sainted Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev, whose baptism signaled the conversion of the Rus’ to Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century, and the alignment of their vast Eastern European empire with Constantinople and the heirs of Rome. Notably, the baptism of Vladimir—the first step […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the world. Russia recently passed a law to reduce the punishment for domestic violence to a fine and a short jail sentence. Though ostensibly an effort to prevent the separation of families over false charges of abuse, the move has been attacked by critics who argue it will lead to impunity for abusers. In an email interview, Ira Kosterina, program coordinator for gender at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Russia office, discusses women’s rights and gender equality […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss European alarm over Donald Trump’s criticisms of NATO. For the Report, Sarah Hearn talks with Peter Dörrie about the prospects for global development in an era of populist retrenchment in the West. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, click through to WPR’s Trend Lines Patreon page. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes […]

Earlier this month, protests broke out in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northern suburb of Paris, after police allegedly raped a 22-year-old black man, known only as “Theo L.,” with a baton during an I.D. check. One police officer was charged with rape, and two with assault. Despite a visit by French President Francois Hollande to Theo’s hospital bedside in an effort to calm the situation, rallies and riots, some violent, spread across the suburbs of Paris where immigrant and immigrant-origin communities are concentrated. The protests soon made their way to central Paris, drawing thousands to Place de la Republique by the end […]

In the past two months, three of the most influential individuals at the United Nations have made their exits. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon bade farewell in December. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power quit as the Obama administration wrapped up in January. And this week, Russian representative Vitaly Churkin died unexpectedly at his office at the Russian mission in New York. His departure may be the most significant of all three. Ban was a stodgy bureaucrat. Power was a fiery but often frustrated advocate for serious U.N. interventions in trouble spots like the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Churkin was an old-school […]

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Europe over the weekend in an effort to reassure nervous allies about America’s commitment to NATO and the trans-Atlantic relationship. First in Munich, at the annual security conference there, and then in Brussels, Pence delivered a message more in line with what Europeans are used to hearing about the American approach to the alliance. Like U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who preceded him last week in Brussels, Pence added a pinch of tough love to the healthy dose of soothing affection. Europeans will need to contribute more to their defense if they expect […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Dockworkers in Spain announced a series of strikes yesterday to protest a government plan to allow ports to hire nonunion workers. The strikes are set to begin March 6, although talks continue between the government and the unions. In an email interview, Alexandre de le Court, a visiting professor at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and member of the UPF Research Group in Labor Law and Social Security Law (greDTiSS), discusses labor rights in Spain. WPR: How robust are […]

In November, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus warned that a growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world’s population is a “ticking time bomb” that will lead to exploitation of the poor, immigrants and minorities. There is good evidence that time is running out to keep that bomb from going off. Economic fragility in the eurozone has fueled the rise of populist and nationalist parties in European elections since 2008. The refugee crisis confronting Europe compounded the swing. A wave of populist wins in 2016, from Brexit and Italy’s rejection of constitutional reform to the election of […]

When Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency of the United States, just a few months after British voters opted to leave the European Union, the rise of rightist, anti-establishment populists started to look like an inexorable trend across the West and elsewhere. To be sure, the twin successes of right-wing, anti-immigrant insurgencies did energize like-minded movements in other countries. And yet, they also triggered another reaction—a paradoxical, if not altogether unpredictable response. Trump’s win, and to a lesser extent Brexit, made tangible the threat of what had until recently been dismissed as a curious fringe phenomenon. By […]

The French presidential campaign was already off to a surprising start, with dark-horse candidates having won both of the major parties’ primaries. It was thrown into further disarray two weeks ago by the scandal engulfing conservative Republican party candidate and erstwhile frontrunner, Francois Fillon, who is accused of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros in salary while he was a member of Parliament for work she never performed. Fillon has denied any wrongdoing and refused to bow out, but his candidacy, based in part on his reputation as a clean politician, has taken a severe hit. The scandal […]

Leaders from Serbia and Kosovo held a new round of talks in Brussels last week in a bid to defuse tensions that have been on the rise recently. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said she was “encouraged by the constructive engagement from both sides.” Leaders from Serbia and Kosovo declined to comment. In an email interview, Naim Rashiti, the executive director of the Balkans Policy Research Group, discusses the state of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. WPR: What is behind the recent spike in tensions between Serbia and Kosovo? Naim Rashiti: Last month a train traveled between […]

Some of the most compelling dramas about the effects of globalization are playing out in the Mediterranean basin today. This is understandable given the region’s position, where the worlds of the North and South intersect, quite tragically in recent years. But three distinct zones of the Mediterranean show quite different coping mechanisms with respect to three major global challenges: migration, terrorism and economic interdependence. Throughout history, the Mediterranean has been a crossroad of cultural interaction between great empires and civilizations. Resources, people and ideas have moved from South to North, and back again, creating the great multicultural cities of Venice […]

Fears of another war are growing in Bosnia and Herzegovina as xenophobia and nationalist rivalries surge in the largely autonomous and Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska. Observers are warning that a growing separatist movement in the territory threatens the terms of the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War of the 1990s. That conflict killed more than 100,000 people and displaced some 1 million civilians through interethnic violence between Catholic Croats, Bosnian Muslims—or Bosniaks—and Orthodox Christian Serbs. Republika Srpska, the majority-Serb enclave of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was formalized by the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords, virtually cleansed the bulk of its […]

The ongoing uncertainty over Brexit has raised many questions in Europe, starting with when negotiations between the European Union and the U.K. will even begin. But beyond the specifics of the negotiations, there is uncertainty over what Brexit will mean for European defense policy, a topic that has become all the more important now that U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned the United States’ commitment to NATO, is in office. In the wake of Brexit, officials in Brussels have called for stronger defense integration across the bloc, floated renewed plans for a permanent EU military headquarters, and proposed more […]