Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Europe is coming at a rather awkward time. European police and intelligence agencies have recently uncovered an astonishing number of alleged Chinese spies in a tidal wave of counterespionage activity in recent weeks, underscoring the sheer breadth of Beijing’s intelligence operations.
For almost 15 years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a fixture of EU politics, while leading a populist onslaught against liberalism at home. But even as Orban attracts fawning admiration from other anti-liberal populists in Europe and the United States, cracks are beginning to show in his own power base in Hungary.
While large economies like Germany, France and the U.K. have been mired in stagnant growth and even recession over the past few years, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain have managed to flip the EU’s economic script. But questions remain as to whether the region’s economic momentum can be maintained going forward.
