Western Europe Archive

MADRID—Spaniards are not happy that their country is headed for its fourth election in four years. According to a recent poll in El Pais, more than 90 percent of respondents said they felt either disappointment, anger or worry at the prospect of another vote. But the parliament that was chosen in April still dissolved Monday at midnight after the leaders of its main parties were unable or unwilling to come to an arrangement that would allow one of them to form a government, triggering an election on Nov. 10. While Sept. 23 was the final deadline for any sort of […]

VIENNA—Armin Wolf is one of Austria’s most hardened political interviewers. For more than two decades, the journalist and television anchor has been interviewing the country’s top politicians, winning awards and admiration along the way. At once witty and hard-hitting, he has the image of someone who can’t be caught off guard. But in a recent TV interview, Austria’s new interior minister, who is part of an interim government appointed in June in the aftermath of the worst political crisis in the country since World War II, appeared to blindside the usually unflappable Wolf. Wolf had invited the minister, Wolfgang Peschorn, […]

PARIS—Helene de Ponsay hadn’t heard the word “femicide” until April, when police found the body of her older sister, Marie-Alice Dibon, stuffed in a suitcase, thrown into the Oise River. The 53-year-old Dibon, a pharmaceuticals and cosmetics specialist, was the 51st woman in France to be murdered by her partner in 2019. More than 50 deaths later, the word is hard to miss: in headlines, in presidential speeches, and plastered on buildings in cities across the country. Women’s rights advocates are now calling for femicide to be inscribed into the penal code. “How shameful that it took until now,” de […]

Since 1945, America’s democratic allies around the world have relied on the United States to champion and defend an open, rules-based international system, grounded in liberal values and multilateralism. Since January 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump has repudiated this role and turned the United States into a revisionist power, mimicking China and Russia in efforts to reconfigure important aspects of the global order. In a desperate attempt to hold the line, France and Germany will officially launch an “Alliance for Multilateralism” at the opening of the 74th United Nations General Assembly later this month. The architects of this new alliance […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Frederick Deknatel and Laura Weiss talk about the tentative deal for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan announced this week. They also discuss the latest setback for Colombia’s peace process with the FARC insurgency and Boris Johnson’s bruising Brexit humiliation in the U.K. 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 […]

Members of Italy’s new Cabinet were sworn in this week, but questions are already swirling about the government’s staying power. The two new coalition partners—the center-left Democratic Party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, widely known as the M5S—have a history of animosity and a slew of disagreements on key policy issues. The government must also contend with Matteo Salvini, the head of the far-right League party whose failed bid to force snap elections toppled the previous coalition between the League and the M5S last month. Salvini, who now effectively leads the opposition, can put pressure on the new government […]

After weeks of political turmoil, Italy is set to have a new government, as the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, widely known as the M5S, has agreed to form a coalition with the center-left Democratic Party. The previous government, a partnership between the M5S and the far-right, anti-immigrant League party, collapsed last month after League leader Matteo Salvini filed a no-confidence motion in his own government in an effort to trigger new elections and take advantage of his rising popularity in opinion polls. The gambit backfired, however, when the M5S agreed to join together with the Democratic Party under the continued […]

Anti-government protesters have vandalized the offices of French officials aligned with President Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks, part of an ongoing backlash against the recent approval of a free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, was ratified by the French legislature in late July, prompting farmers and environmental groups to target the offices of legislators and local officials who belong to Macron’s Republic on the Move party. In an email interview with WPR, Gerry Alons, an assistant professor of international relations and a trade policy expert at Radboud University in […]