Western Europe Archive

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about NATO members’ contributions to and relationships with the alliance. France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, is expected to continue the NATO policy of his predecessor, Francois Hollande. There is support within the French defense establishment to increase defense spending to reach the alliance’s target of 2 percent of GDP, and Macron maintains that France will do so by 2025. Yet despite this consensus, there remains debate within France over what the country gained and lost by reintegrating into the alliance’s chain of command in 2009. In an email interview, […]

On Thursday, at a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini announced that Europe’s first joint military command center could be launched in “a couple of days.” EU states already approved the creation of the new military training headquarters in Brussels, known in EU parlance as the Military Planning and Conduct Capability, or MPCC, back in March, but they have been hashing out the final details this week. Though the MPCC will initially only oversee joint EU military training operations in Africa, speculation has persisted that it could lay the groundwork for an […]

During the campaign for this month’s presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, who was elected on May 7, was labeled an “extreme centrist” for his “neither-left-nor-right” paradigm. Establishing his En Marche party in 2016, he pledged to break from the political establishment, offering a platform to simultaneously boost France’s economy and maintain its social security net while strengthening the European Union. But many were skeptical, pointing to his role as economy minister during Francois Hollande’s unpopular administration, his degrees from elite institutions and, most nefariously, his background in investment banking. So when he announced the members of his Cabinet on Wednesday, many […]

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in France’s presidential election capped a surprise-filled campaign that upended the country’s political landscape. This has been most widely noted with regard to France’s established political parties, the Socialist Party on the left and the Republicans on the right, neither of whose candidates made it to the second-round of voting last Sunday. But the campaign signaled not just a remaking of the party landscape, but also a generational transition in French politics, one that goes beyond Macron’s youth. At 39, he is the youngest elected president of France and among the youngest heads of state of any […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about NATO members’ contributions to and relationships with the alliance. There has never been a question of the U.K.’s preference for NATO as a guarantor of European security, instead of a separate European force. In an email interview, John Louth, senior research fellow and director for defense, industries and society at the Royal United Services Institute, describes the U.K.’s role in the alliance and explains why U.K. officials—like U.S. President Donald Trump—believe European allies should spend more on defense. WPR: How do NATO alliance concerns shape the U.K.’s security […]

Emmanuel Macron has never said anything noteworthy about the United Nations. But his victory in this weekend’s French presidential election increases the chances that France and Europe still have a role to play in defending international cooperation. It is probable that the three main European powers—Britain, France and Germany—will be active supporters of the U.N. and other multilateral bodies for at least the rest of this decade. They may be able to offset, at least in part, the Trump administration’s retreat from multilateralism. Just a few months ago, it would have been hard to make even this guardedly optimistic statement […]

On April 30, Matteo Renzi showed that rumors of his political demise were greatly exaggerated. Italy’s former prime minister found his career on the rocks following a humiliation in December, when the constitutional referendum he backed was defeated. But he proved that he could still command the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of supporters of the Democratic Party, or PD, by winning a convincing victory in the party leadership primaries. Nearly 2 million people voted—less than in previous contests, but still an impressive figure, especially since the vote coincided with a holiday weekend. Almost 70 percent cast a ballot for […]

Wednesday’s vicious presidential debate ahead of Sunday’s election in France did little to improve the public image of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. In a flurry of factually dubious assertions about her centrist opponent, Emmanuel Macron, she struggled to offer a clear political platform, instead railing against free trade and demonizing Muslims. Her dismal performance, coupled with endorsements for Macron from across France’s political spectrum, is likely to seal her defeat come Sunday. But Le Pen and her movement will remain relevant for French politics. The first round of the election sidelined France’s mainstream parties from the presidential runoff in […]