Europe

Emmanuel Macron appeared on French television last week and spoke for three hours without saying anything of interest. It was a damning indictment of his eight years in office. The country is up to its eyes in debt, ravaged by insecurity and overwhelmed by immigration, but Macron told the country that none of it is his fault. On the contrary, the President scolded the French for being ‘too pessimistic’. The disdain is mutual. A poll conducted in the wake of the President’s interminable television interview found that 71 per cent of the people consider him to be a ‘bad’ president. As to the idea that Macron might stand for re-election

For years, the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the European Union have been negotiating, on and off, to resolve the complex issue of Gibraltar’s post-Brexit land border with Spain. Now, ahead of next week’s meeting in London when Keir Starmer welcomes EU leaders to discuss a ‘reset’ in UK-EU relations, Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has brought ‘the Gibraltar issue’ firmly back into the spotlight.  Referring to the planned reset, which covers a wide range of issues including defence and security, fishing and British exports, Albares told the BBC’s Newsnight programme, ‘There are many, many things we need to talk [about], Gibraltar included.’ Emphasising that the relationship between the UK and

The great ‘EU Reset’ of 19 May – when the first formal UK-EU summit since Brexit will take place – is rapidly approaching. Yet even before Keir Starmer and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meet in London to thrash out an agreement, advance attempts to sell the new relationship are growing. That so much surrounding Monday’s UK-EU summit in London is being kept secret on either side of the Channel is auspicious ‘UK wins £500m in science grants from EU Horizon scheme after Brexit lockout,’ the Guardian excitedly told its readers earlier this month. It claimed that British scientists were ‘over the moon’ with Britain’s return to the EU’s flagship

In 1988, when I was six months old, my British father and Polish mother took me to meet my family in Krakow. My parents brought an extra suitcase filled with disposable nappies because such luxuries weren’t sold on the other side of the Iron Curtain. At the time, there was only one shop in Krakow that sold foreign goods, but my father was pleased to discover that a gallon of whisky could be bought for only $8. He was a member of the House of Lords and, I’m told, we were trailed for our entire stay. Everywhere we went, a large Polski Fiat 125 driven by a suited man followed

Bruno Retailleau, the hardline French Minister of the Interior, has issued a confidential circular to regional prefects with a simple instruction: tighten the rules on naturalisation. For decades, France has handed out its passport to people who may speak French, but have little understanding of French history or values, and, in some cases, entered the country illegally. That era may finally be coming to an end. Retailleau has revived the principle that nationality is not a right, but a privilege Retailleau is hardening the assessment of who deserves French nationality, instructing regional prefects, who take the decision as to who gets a passport, to be considerably more tough. No more

Just when he thought he was home and dry, Friedrich Merz has fallen at the final hurdle to become Germany’s next chancellor. At a vote in the Bundestag this morning that many thought would be a formality, the CDU leader fell short of the votes needed to confirm him as the country’s new leader by six ballots, plunging Berlin into fresh political crisis. Never before in Germany’s post-war history has a chancellor-in-waiting failed to get through the first round of Bundestag voting to elect a new leader. While 310 MPs voted in favour of Merz becoming chancellor, 307 voted against him. Damningly, this means that of the 328 MPs who form the ‘grand coalition’ Merz

‘Germany is back,’ said Friedrich Merz, the man likely to be elected as the new German Chancellor this coming week. What sounds like a promise to some and a threat to others is certainly a sign that the new German leadership will aim to take a more assertive role in European and world politics. Merz isn’t even chancellor yet, but he’s already keen to signal that he will take a more active interest in foreign policy than his predecessor. The outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz has gained a bit of a reputation for his reluctance to respond to international events, particularly the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the invasion began in

By officially classing the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as ‘right-wing extremists’, the German establishment may have scored an own goal – or even shot itself in the foot. The domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), announced its decision today after keeping the insurgent party under close observation – including by state spies – for years. But the AfD is no tiny sect of secretive neo-Nazis. It is a legal and open party, founded in 2013, that no fewer than 20.8 per cent of Germans voted for in this year’s general election. Now that the centre-right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD are forming a

This month Pakistan has expelled more than 80,000 Afghans in what the government has labelled its Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan. In total, since September 2023 the United Nations estimates that approximately 910,000 Afghans have reluctantly returned to their country. Many of these are holders of Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC), which were given to them when they arrived. The Pakistan government has given Afghans until today to leave. After this, they will be forcibly deported. The Interior Ministry has warned landlords that ‘strict action’ will be taken against them henceforth if they provide accommodation to undocumented Afghans. Pakistan justifies the mass expulsion on security grounds, alleging that many Afghans ‘contribute to

Ever since President Trump started his tariff war earlier this month, the European Union’s response has been surprisingly clear. It should retaliate with tariffs of its own. It should focus on its own economic sovereignty. And it should make sure that targeted American industries feel the consequences. In other words, it should hit back, and hit back hard. And yet the incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz has proposed a very different response: a grand Atlantic free trade pact. But can he convince Brussels to get on board? It is certainly a break from the past for the man who next week will take over as Europe’s most significant politician. As

These have been terrible days in France. On Thursday, a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death and several of her classmates wounded at a private school in Nantes. It was an attack of singular ferocity. The victim, who was stabbed 57 times, was killed by a fellow pupil, a boy her own age. According to police, he had no ‘clear motive’ for his crime. On Friday a 20-year-old, named by police as Olivier H, walked into a mosque in southern France and told Aboubakar, a 24-year-old of Malian origin, that he would like to pray. Aboubakar, who performed odd jobs in the mosque, led Olivier into the prayer room and

Just a week after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Spain to spend more on defence, the country’s socialist prime minister, has unveiled a massive defence development initiative costing over ten billion euros (£8.5 billion). This new plan raises Spain’s defence budget from a mere 1.4 per cent of its GDP, the lowest amongst Nato’s 32 members, to Nato’s current target of two per cent. When announcing the measure, prime minister Pedro Sánchez notably refrained from mentioning Bessent’s directive or US president Donald Trump’s pointed observation that ‘Spain is very low’ in defence spending. He did, however, frame the decision as a necessary response to new global realities: ‘We are