Western Europe Archive

Italian prosecutors earlier this month named five Egyptian security officials as suspects in the murder of Giulio Regeni, an Italian graduate student whose mutilated body was found in a roadside ditch outside Cairo in February 2016, nine days after he disappeared. Regeni had been conducting research on labor unions in Egypt for a doctorate at Cambridge University. For nearly three years, investigators in Rome have been frustrated by the lack of cooperation from their Egyptian counterparts, which led to the extraordinary decision to publicly identify Egyptian government agents as suspects. In an email interview with WPR, Timothy Kaldas, a nonresident […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss British Prime Minister Theresa May’s week of humiliations on the shambolic road to Brexit. For the Report, Frederic Wehrey talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the growing power and influence of the “quietist” current of Salafism in the Maghreb and what that means for the region. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers […]

The leader of Luxembourg’s coalition government, Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, was sworn in for a second term last week after a surprise election victory in October. He will now seek to further implement an ambitious policy agenda that includes free public transportation and an emissions-free economy by 2030, even as doubts persist about how these projects will be financed. In an interview, Anna-Lena Högenauer, a political scientist at the University of Luxembourg, discusses the election results, what we might expect from Bettel’s second term, and Luxembourg’s shifting position within the European Union. World Politics Review: What are the primary factors […]

Her many shortcomings notwithstanding, British Prime Minister Theresa May has a singular ability to bear humiliations with dignity. Faced with sure defeat in Parliament over her Brexit transitional roadmap agreement with the European Union, May yesterday called off the vote at the 11th hour. She now heads to Brussels in an effort to gain some concessions from her EU counterparts, particularly over the Northern Ireland backstop arrangements, despite ironclad declarations from various EU officials that there would be no further negotiations. If May can take any consolation from this predictable and predicted turn of events, it’s that few if any […]

President Donald Trump has announced a number of trade deals this year, touting each one as the best, greatest, most wonderful agreement ever. Time after time, however, the reality fell far short of Trump’s hype, including the most recent announcement of an agreement with China. Indeed, the announced “agreements” with Europe, Japan and China merely began the process of negotiating. And far from replacing the “worst trade deal ever,” the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement mainly updates and tweaks the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. One thing none of these agreements accomplished was to get rid of the tit-for-tat tariffs […]

PARIS—What to make of the Yellow Vests? For a third week in a row, they continue to dominate the news. Televised scenes of pitched street battles between protesters and police on Saturday raised alarm about an “insurrectional atmosphere” unseen in France since May 1968. Reports suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron might declare a state of emergency in response. Instead, in his first sign of retreat since taking office in May 2017, Macron agreed yesterday to suspend the planned fuel tax hike that served as the catalyst for the popular mobilizations that have transfixed, if not exactly paralyzed, the country. […]

Neither the center-left nor the center-right can claim victory in the regional elections that were held in Andalusia, the most populous part of Spain, this weekend. That hasn’t stopped the People’s Party from trying. For decades the only major party on the right, it saw its support fall to 21 percent in Andalusia, down 6 points from 2015 and its lowest vote share in the region in almost 20 years. But because the ruling Socialist Party fell further—down 7 points to 28 percent—there is a good chance the People’s Party will be able to take over the Andalusian government for […]