Europe Archive

CEUTA, Spain—In March 2020, Morocco closed its land borders around Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, citing the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They have remained closed since, and with no indication of when they might reopen amid diplomatic tensions between Spain and Morocco, the two enclaves have been forced to confront their dependency on a newly assertive Morocco and come up with a radically different economic model. The economic picture in the enclaves, each of which hosts some 85,000 residents, has rarely been pretty. Today, about half the salaried workers in each are employed by […]

Glistening blue water, a stunning coastline, the smell of the sea, all nearby a bustling European city: The exquisite seaport of Trieste in northeastern Italy was supposed to be the idyllic in-person venue for this year’s European Dialogue on Internet Governance, or EuroDIG 2021. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the majority of sessions took place online. But one group—the Dynamic Coalition on Data and Trust, of which I have the good fortune to be a coordinator—met in person to discuss issues around the Domain Name System, or DNS, and practical responses to DNS abuse and cybercrime.  Geographically speaking, Trieste sits […]

Rarely has an election in a small post-Soviet country been watched so closely.  Armenia held a snap poll on June 20, after months of turbulence following its crushing defeat in an unexpected six-week war with Azerbaijan over the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh late last year. At times, the passions and pressure generated by the war’s outcome had been so intense that it looked as though the Armenian state would not survive. Yet not only did embattled Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan survive, he won a strong new mandate, against all odds.  The fighting last year killed more than 7,000 people in […]

Violations of democratic norms by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are nothing new, but the explosion of anger in Europe against the anti-LGBTQ law just approved by the Hungarian parliament, dominated by Orban’s Fidesz Party, suggests Orban has crossed a critical red line. At last week’s European Union summit, no topic garnered more attention, or more fury, than the new law. If descriptions of what went on behind the scenes are accurate, Orban was berated with an uncommon degree of emotional intensity. Leaders of countries from across the EU lambasted Hungary’s self-described proponent of “illiberal democracy” in starkly personal terms—tears […]