Western Europe Archive

The European Union issued its second annual report on the rule of law in EU member states last week, singling out Hungary and Poland for harsh criticism.  “Risks of clientelism, favouritism and nepotism” are unaddressed in the former, the report reads, while the independence of the judiciary and political pressure on the media are a concern in both. In one sense, this harsh rhetoric only served to underscore the EU’s failure to meaningfully confront these illiberal regimes and prod them to change course.  But recent signs indicate that Brussels is ready to challenge the budding authoritarians in its midst by […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Europe Decoder, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about Europe. Subscribe to receive it by email every Thursday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Months after Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko effectively hijacked a plane in order to arrest a Belarusian dissident, and weeks into a crisis in which he is encouraging migrants to cross Belarus’ shared border with the European Union as retaliation for Western sanctions, Brussels still has no plan for how to deescalate tensions with Minsk. Lithuanian […]

Since 2011, Syria has been ravaged by a civil war that has seen numerous atrocities committed against its civilian population, including torture and war crimes. In the face of such abuses, there have repeatedly been calls for accountability. But how can perpetrators be held accountable, and by whom?  In criminal law, including international criminal law, the state is primarily responsible for seeking and carrying out justice. But the idea that the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad would hold credible trials—especially into his regime’s own conduct—is fantastical at best.  Another option, then, might be to seek accountability through the International Criminal […]

Last week, the European Union surpassed the United States when it comes to the share of its population that is vaccinated against the coronavirus.  More than 56 percent of people in the EU have now received at least one vaccine dose, compared with just under 56 percent in the U.S. The EU looks set to overtake the U.S. shortly on the percentage of people who have received a second dose as well, which now stands at 48 percent in the U.S. and 44 percent in the EU. Five EU countries, including Belgium and Spain, have already administered second doses to […]

Once again, the U.K. appears to be out of step with its closest ally on chips and China, sitting on its hands over the sale of its largest semiconductor factory to a company with alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party. The U.K’s “have your cake and eat it, too” approach highlights disturbing inconsistencies that undercut its national security positioning and seem certain to reawaken tensions with the U.S. on policy toward China and technology. Highlighting the inconsistency at the heart of U.K. policy, the current controversy arises even as Hull, in the northeast of England, is due this month […]

Over the past several months, as China began building its own space station in low-Earth orbit and collaborating with Russia on an asteroid mission and new lunar base, some in the United States have expressed concerns that a new space race is on. Cold War-style rhetoric has cropped up in media reports and government statements alike—and not for the first time. The establishment of the U.S. Space Force in 2019, for example, was largely justified as a response to the alleged weaponization of space by China and Russia, both of which in turn saw the new American military branch as […]

Last week the European Commission seized global leadership on climate change, unveiling a sweeping scheme to reduce the EU’s carbon emissions by 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and achieve “net zero” by 2050. Brussels envisions a total overhaul of the bloc’s economy, including eliminating the sale of new gas- and diesel-powered automobiles by 2035 and introducing border taxes to penalize imports from jurisdictions less committed to decarbonization.  The bloc’s bold move ramps up diplomatic pressure on the United States, China and other major emitters to respond in kind in the run-up to the Glasgow climate change conference. The ultimate fate […]

Last week, the British government introduced a bill that would allow asylum-seekers to be transferred outside the country while their claims are being processed. The measure, which was swiftly criticized by human rights groups, comes on the heels of a similar system being enacted in Denmark last month. On the latest episode of the Trend Lines podcast, Khalid Koser, the executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the troubling erosion of the right to seek asylum in some of the world’s wealthiest countries, even as the total number of forcibly displaced […]

According to article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” But that promise, which was enshrined three years later in the 1951 Refugee Convention, has never been completely honored. In fact, it has been progressively eroded in recent years across the Global North, even as the numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers around the world have swelled.  Just last month, the Parliament of Denmark passed a law allowing it to relocate asylum-seekers outside Europe while their claims are being processed. A similar measure is […]

The recent Fourth of July holiday weekend in the U.S. brought the latest installment in the wearying litany of colossal cyberattacks. The breach of the Miami-based software company Kaseya, which combined a supply chain attack with ransomware, affected hundreds of organizations all over the world—from kindergartens in New Zealand to a Swedish supermarket chain representing 20 percent of the country’s food retailers.  The company at the center of the incident, Kaseya, offers “complete, automated IT management software for [managed service providers] and IT Teams,” according to its website. Put another way, Kaseya software has low-level, privileged access right across the […]

In January this year, two shipments of shirts made by the major Japanese brand Uniqlo arrived at a port in Los Angeles, where they were detained by the U.S. authorities. Few heard about the seizures until they were revealed in documents released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency in May. It’s been a quiet story, receiving none of the media commotion that accompanied the Chinese boycott against fast fashion giant H&M and other retailers in March—but it has sent a ripple of fear through the fashion industry, nonetheless. The confiscation was part of a U.S. effort to prevent […]

CEUTA, Spain—In March 2020, Morocco closed its land borders around Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, citing the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They have remained closed since, and with no indication of when they might reopen amid diplomatic tensions between Spain and Morocco, the two enclaves have been forced to confront their dependency on a newly assertive Morocco and come up with a radically different economic model. The economic picture in the enclaves, each of which hosts some 85,000 residents, has rarely been pretty. Today, about half the salaried workers in each are employed by […]

Violations of democratic norms by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are nothing new, but the explosion of anger in Europe against the anti-LGBTQ law just approved by the Hungarian parliament, dominated by Orban’s Fidesz Party, suggests Orban has crossed a critical red line. At last week’s European Union summit, no topic garnered more attention, or more fury, than the new law. If descriptions of what went on behind the scenes are accurate, Orban was berated with an uncommon degree of emotional intensity. Leaders of countries from across the EU lambasted Hungary’s self-described proponent of “illiberal democracy” in starkly personal terms—tears […]