Western Europe Archive

Dutch voters delivered a shock in last week’s provincial elections, which also determined the makeup of the upper house of parliament. The outcome deprived Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s governing coalition of a majority in the Senate, giving the largest share of seats to a relatively new far-right party led by an ostentatious pseudo-intellectual, Thierry Baudet. The victory by Baudet’s Forum for Democracy party, or FvD, however, is not proof that the Netherlands has taken a sharp rightward turn. The parliament is highly fragmented, and the political landscape is in flux, but the Netherlands remains a nation characterized by compromise. The […]

On March 23, Italy officially joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, an expansive development strategy first unveiled in 2013 that aims to build a network of roads, railways and ports connecting China with more than 60 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. In addition to the memorandum of understanding on the infrastructure-building initiative, signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome last week, the two countries agreed on a constellation of deals worth 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion), ranging from banking and energy to sports. The visit’s outcome reflects deepening relations between the eurozone’s third-largest […]

Italy’s populist government scored a big legislative win late last year when it signed a new security decree into law, making life much harder for immigrants, especially asylum-seekers. But mayors and regional governors across the country are refusing to implement many of the law’s provisions, setting up a legal fight with the central government in Rome. In an interview with WPR, Marco Calaresu, a political scientist at the University of Sassari in Italy, and Anna Di Ronco, a sociologist at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, discuss the mounting grassroots resistance to the security decree and explain why […]

In this week’s editors episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman discuss the Christchurch shootings, the emergence of white nationalist terrorism and its implications for national security in Europe and the U.S. They also examine Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy and France, and what it reveals about the European Union’s internal divisions over whether to engage with China as an economic partner or confront it as a strategic competitor. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can […]

The mass shooting last Friday at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a self-avowed white supremacist, and the violence in Paris on Saturday by the last vestiges of the Yellow Vest movement, have nothing substantively in common. But despite being discrete phenomena, they illustrate two of the greatest emerging threats to the internal cohesiveness of Western liberal democracies: the normalization of ethno-sectarian violence, and the legitimization of political violence. Both threats have been hiding in plain sight for many years now. The Department of Homeland Security signaled the growing danger of far-right and white nationalist terrorist groups in the […]

Thousands of Portuguese nurses marched through Lisbon earlier this month to call for higher wages and better working conditions, as the main nurses’ unions negotiate with the government following a recent three-week strike that paralyzed the country’s health sector. Other public sector unions have taken similar actions, putting intense pressure on Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who survived a no-confidence motion last month. In an interview with WPR, Jorge Fernandes, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, points out that this turmoil is largely a result of behind-the-scenes politicking by Portugal’s major political parties ahead of legislative elections […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. French President Emmanuel Macron’s latest Africa trip took him to a region where France doesn’t wield much influence. But the themes he stressed over four days in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya this week were familiar, underscoring the priorities of a government that, while unhappy with certain aspects of its role in Africa, has no plans to fundamentally alter it. Macron’s first stop was Djibouti, a former French colony that is home to a French naval base as well as […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman look at British Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest Brexit setback, the Trump administration’s latest policy shift on Israel, and the United Nations Security Council’s latest report on North Korea sanctions noncompliance. 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 a free preview article every day of the week, plus three […]

If all that mattered in discussions over the future of the European Union were functional outcomes, there would be little debate or disagreement among the various sides. Almost everyone who believes in the European project would like to see the continent integrated into a mutually beneficial common market, protected from external shocks, and joined in a union of strong states whose combined strength is greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, the debate over the future of the EU is and always has been about how best to achieve those outcomes, and the differences usually center on where […]

Germany’s Green party had a weak showing in federal elections in 2017, causing analysts to largely write it off as a political force. But the past two years have seen an abrupt turnaround in the party’s fortunes. Buoyed by widespread concern about the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, as well as broader upheaval that has undermined the traditional mainstream parties, the Greens are now in the No. 2 position in national polls, and they are expected to perform well in the European Parliament elections in May. As journalist Andrew Green writes in this week’s in-depth report, […]

STUTTGART—It is readily apparent that the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, nestled between France and Switzerland, is the heart of Germany’s automobile industry, with the wealth to show for it. A giant Mercedes Benz logo revolves atop the central train station’s clock tower in Stuttgart, the state capital, dwarfing rows of high-end stores and banks. For nearly six decades, the conservative Christian Democrats, or CDU, a natural fit for the affluent state, dominated its politics. But that changed in 2011, when environmental concerns—related to both the local ramifications of plans to overhaul Stuttgart’s train station and the global repercussions of the […]

French President Emmanuel Macron called for reconciliation with Italy last week, after a heated diplomatic spat briefly led France to recall its ambassador from Rome for the first time since World War II. While the temperature has since come down a bit, the war of words reflects a larger battle being waged between members of the European Union over issues like immigration and fiscal policy, says Jan Zielonka, a professor of European politics at the University of Oxford and the author of “Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat.” In an interview with WPR, he discusses the EU-wide political implications of France […]

The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled last week that the United Kingdom must cede control over the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago that was separated from Mauritius several years before Mauritius gained independence in 1968. The 13-1 verdict, while nonbinding, was an embarrassing defeat for the U.K. and a victory for many Chagossians who have sought to return to their homeland since being expelled in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for a U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia. In an interview with WPR, Marko Milanovic, a professor of public international law […]

French President Emmanuel Macron has apparently gotten so much mileage at home out of his “Grand débat national,” or great national debate, that he has decided to take it on the road for a European tour. Several months ago, Macron began engaging in marathon dialogue sessions around France with local elected officials in an attempt to respond to the grassroots grievances that gave rise to the Yellow Vest movement. Though initially greeted with skepticism by many, Macron’s impressive ability to discuss arcane policy matters at length and in depth without the assistance of notes or aides paid off in opinion […]