EU Refugee Crisis Archive

Thousands of Hungarians took to the streets of Budapest to protest government corruption and the erosion of press freedoms earlier this month. The protest follows the closure of Hungary’s leading opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag. The paper’s parent company cited falling readership as the reason for the closure, though many believe populist, right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban had a role to play in its shuttering. Miklos Hargitai, a Nepszabadsag journalist, told the AP that Orban’s government “doesn’t tolerate any control or criticism, not even questions.” Orban hadn’t given an interview to Nepszabadsag in 10 years. The newspaper’s closure is only the latest […]

Nero famously fiddled while Rome burned. When it comes to the European Union, its leaders don’t even bother to treat us to music. Confronted with multiple crises on fronts both external and domestic, they seem content to drift nonchalantly toward the abyss. The question is not so much whether the EU as we know it will survive; it is already irrevocably altered by Brexit. The question is whether the ideals that the union has historically championed will continue to have any relevance in today’s political landscape in Europe and the world. The list of Europe’s many crises is well known, […]

BERLIN, Germany—One year on from a historic wave of migration to Germany, a myriad of challenges remain. And the stakes are high, not only for Angela Merkel’s increasingly unpopular chancellorship. In July, the first Islamist-inspired attacks by asylum-seekers on German soil trained an international spotlight on the country’s efforts to integrate more than a million new arrivals. Last year’s chaotic scenes, which saw hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants cross German borders within a few months, have long since given way to a more sober approach. Responding to a perceived shift in public mood after foreigners attacked women in […]