Europe & EU 2018- November 19

The EU countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden and the UK.
After the 2016 Brexit vote
Official website of the European Union
Politico EU
The European elections 2019
dispatches from Rome, Vienna, London, Madrid, Warsaw and other capitals

9 November
The night Berlin became Berlin again
30 years later, the fall of the Wall seems inevitable. It didn’t at the time.
(Politico Eu) East Germany was Borduria, the police state from the Tintin albums. Cars were scarce; there were uniforms everywhere. Shop windows were uninviting, and there were no real pubs to speak of. People walked shyly away when you approached, because they were not allowed to talk to journalists.
In the three decades since the collapse of Iron Curtain in 1989, it has come to seem as inevitable that the fall of the Berlin Wall would happen peacefully. That certainly wasn’t the case at the time. The feeling then was that revolutions in Europe were never peaceful — and that with 10,000 warheads and a few million battle-ready soldiers on either side, it was wiser not to experiment.
The night the Wall did come down, and the days that followed, were full of joy and celebration. But they were also tense; fraught with the possibility of violence
That cold, sunny November weekend was euphoric. There were far too many people on the streets, but no major incidents. Everybody was generous, polite, ready to help each other.
Under the eyes of the mayors of East and West Berlin, who were shaking hands, bulldozers broke down the Wall at 8 a.m. on Sunday. It was freezing cold. Rusty tram tracks became visible as soon as the grass sods between the destroyed walls were dug out — the Potsdamer Platz, Europe’s largest traffic junction in the 1930s.
… These days, when you walk around the gleaming, sprawling government buildings in Berlin, it’s easy to forget that the cost of unification gave Germany’s Wirtschafstwunder, its post-war economic boom, an indigestion. It also created deep frustration among East Germans, who feel they lost out from the merge with the West and the forces of globalization it unleashed.
Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the brown coal smell of East Berlin has disappeared. Since 2005, the leadership of the country has belonged to an East German woman. But in the heads of Germany’s Ossies and Wessies, the Wall is still not quite completely gone.

Berlin Wall anniversary: Fall of the wall 30 years on
(BBC) On 9 November 2019, the world is remembering 30 years since an important moment in history – the day when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961, at a time when Europe was divided in two. The wall itself divided the German capital city of Berlin for almost 30 years.
It appeared overnight, much to the surprise of people on either side of it, and stopped people moving from one part of the city to the other.
On 9 November 1989, it was torn down and people could finally move freely.

4 September
EU frees up disaster funding for possible no-deal Brexit
European Commission unveils latest plans for UK departure without agreement.
(Politico Eu) EU officials are now treating no-deal Brexit as a potential disaster scenario, with emergency funds authorized to help businesses, workers and regulatory systems in EU27 countries hit hard by a disorderly departure of the U.K.
The European Commission on Wednesday stepped up its no-deal preparations and put forward a plan allowing access to two special funds to help address the possible economic impact of a no-deal Brexit.
Under the new proposal, the EU would “extend the scope of the European Solidarity Fund to cover serious financial burden inflicted on Member States directly imputable to a withdrawal without an agreement and that could not be avoided by preparing in advance.”
Assistance from the European Solidarity Fund would include “support to state aid schemes for businesses, measures to preserve existing employment and ensure the functioning of border, customs and sanitary and phytosanitary controls,” the Commission wrote in its communication, adding that it is also proposing “ensuring that the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund is available to support workers made redundant as a consequence of a withdrawal without an agreement, subject to certain conditions.”

25 July
Which way now for the EU?
As the European Union’s main institutions prepare for a leadership change this fall, Kemal Derviş examines how the bloc can harness its collective power to join the United States and China as a global superpower—all while championing European values.
(Project Syndicate via Brookings) Several commentators say the EU’s new leaders should seek to strengthen Europe’s “strategic sovereignty” through greater pooling of member states’ resources and much closer policy coordination. This is certainly much needed, not least on eurozone matters. But calls for increased strategic sovereignty often imply that a more integrated EU should become the third pillar of a “G-3” world alongside the United States and China. And that is insufficient.
The structure of global power in 2019 is very different from what it was even a few years ago. We now live in a G-2 world, in which China is rapidly catching up to the U.S. on most measures of power and influence. Although China is still far behind the U.S. in military terms, its GDP is now larger than America’s (on a purchasing-power-parity basis). Moreover, China has first-class armed forces, produces far more science, engineering, and medicine graduates than the U.S., boasts the world’s four largest banks, and has become a leading global technology player.
Clearly, no other country even comes close to rivaling China and the U.S. But, collectively, EU member states—even without the United Kingdom—would constitute a power of similar magnitude.
By bolstering its strategic sovereignty, therefore, Europe could make such a G-3 world a reality. A stronger and more unified Europe, the argument goes, could then compete with the U.S. and China in most domains—including by “weaponizing” its economic resources to further its geostrategic objectives.
Yet European leaders tempted by the prospect of a G-3 world must address two related concerns. First, it is unclear how the EU will achieve the necessary level of integration when most important decisions in the bloc still require unanimity among member states. Under the terms of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, significant further integration would require either unanimous agreement on the specifics, or their approval by qualified majority voting (QMV). But the use of QMV on such important issues would itself require unanimity or treaty change, which looks impossible in the near future.

16 July
Who is Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president?
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, has been confirmed president of the EU Commission. But just who is she? DW profiles the Brussels-born doctor and her time in Berlin.
EU, Onward
The selection of candidates to lead the European Union’s top institutions has been well received. Assuming they are confirmed by the European Parliament, how should the new Eurocrats approach their jobs?
(Project Syndicate) In this Big Picture, Daniela Schwarzer of the German Council on Foreign Relations advises the nominees – particularly the candidate for the European Commission presidency, Ursula von der Leyen – to address the bloc’s “democratic deficit” and internal divisions.
The Lessons of the EU Leadership Fight
After the European Parliament election in which fears of a populist surge proved unfounded, the European Council has now delivered a slate of highly qualified, well-chosen candidates to fill the European Union’s top leadership positions. The only problem is that it may have exacerbated the EU’s “democratic deficit” in the process.
And Philippe Legrain of the London School of Economics urges Christine Lagarde, the nominee to take over the European Central Bank presidency, to demonstrate the kind of bold, fresh thinking she has shown in the past.
Lagarde Is the Right Choice
The nomination of Christine Lagarde to be the next president of the European Central Bank is a breath of fresh air for the stale, male-dominated institution. Incumbent President Mario Draghi may seem like a hard act to follow, but Lagarde has what it takes to succeed. She needs to be bold.

3 July
Greece Is Over Its Crisis, but Europe Isn’t
Rachel Donadio writes on the lessons learned—or not—from the past 10 years.
(The Atlantic) The financially troubled European Union country is now poised to enter a new phase—which is also a return to an old one—of mainstream parties and stable politics. … A decade after the first EU bailout program aimed at helping Greece avert bankruptcy, whether European institutions and other EU countries chose the right approach toward Greece depends on which politician you ask.

23 June
In the Largest Protests in Decades, Czechs Demand Resignation of Prime Minister
(NYT) …the Czech capital was a sea of European Union and Czech flags, with parents bringing their children to the place where in 1989, some 750,000 people protested before declaring a general nationwide strike on Nov. 27, 1989.
The protests have their roots in a scandal that has dogged Mr. Babis for a decade and is related to the conglomerate he built, Agrofert. It is the country’s largest employer, with some 34,000 people on the payroll. He has been accused of misusing subsidies from the European Union in the development of a farm and conference center known as Stork Nest. In April, the police recommended that he face fraud charges.

31 May
Italy is evicting Steve Bannon from the medieval monastery he planned to turn into a far-right training academy
(Quartz) This is only the latest hurdle that Bannon is facing in his attempt to help the far-right grow its reach in Europe. His funding of extremist parties ended before it even started last year, after the Guardian revealed that foreign donations, like the ones the millionaire was planning to make, would break electoral laws in a dozen European countries.

The Slow Death of Europe’s Traditional Center
Smaller, pro-EU parties made large gains. Far-right nationalists won too, but less than expected.
(The Atlantic) The new European parliament has been pulled to the left and right.

As the outcome of Sunday’s European parliamentary elections unfurled, candidates representing far-right platforms (Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, for instance) claimed an impressive number of new seats. But the right’s victory wasn’t resounding: in a year that saw the highest voter turnout in two decades, support for smaller, pro-EU parties such as the Greens in Germany also surged.
The clear loser? Traditional centrist parties—a defeat foreshadowing a Europe that’s increasingly polarized, and increasingly fragmented, writes Yasmeen Serhan.
These elections don’t usually inspire voters to come out in such numbers, and those who turn out are focused mostly on issues pertinent to their home countries. But since the last parliamentary elections five years ago, the stakes have changed: Brexit, the fight over immigration and borders, the rise of new populist leaders, and an existential reckoning for the EU.

Austrian parliament sacks Kurz as video sting crisis rolls on
(Reuters) – Austrian conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz suffered the biggest setback of his meteoric career on Monday as parliament voted the 32-year-old’s government out of office in the wake of a video sting that blew up his coalition with the far right.

22 May

European election: The essential guide
Millions of people across the EU will elect a new European Parliament this week in a vote likely to shift the Continent’s balance of power.
(Politico Eu)  On Thursday [23 May], the Netherlands and the U.K. — which has to take part due to the Brexit delay — will kick off the election. Ireland and the Czech Republic follow on Friday. Czechs can also vote on Saturday, when they’ll be joined by Slovakia and Latvia. All other EU member countries will go to the polls on Sunday, May 26. More than 426 million people are eligible to vote; turnout last time was around 42.6 percent.
Projected results from some countries will start to flow in at around 6 p.m. Central European Time, with a projection of the overall result expected later in the evening.
The election is projected to produce a highly fragmented Parliament, with the long-dominant center-left and center-right blocs unable to form a coalition by themselves — handing greater influence to smaller players such as the Liberals, Greens and populists. Euroskeptics are expected to win a third of the Parliament’s 751 seats, reflecting the global rise in nationalism. Whether they will be able to act as a coherent bloc, however, is one of the big questions of this election.

Far-right Facebook groups ‘spreading hate to millions in Europe
A web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz.
Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and salvage its reputation, has already taken down accounts with about 6 million followers before voting in the European elections begins on Thursday. It was still investigating hundreds of other accounts with an additional 26 million followers, Avaaz said.
In total, the group reported more than 500 suspect groups and Facebook pages operating across France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Poland and Spain. Most were either spreading fake news or using false pages and profiles to artificially boost the content of parties or sites they supported, in violation of Facebook’s rules.
The networks were far more popular than the official pages of far-right and anti-EU populist groups in those countries. The pages taken down by Facebook so far had been viewed half a billion times, Avaaz estimated.

19 May
Austrian government collapses over Russia scandal
Kurz calls for snap election after video shows far-right leaders offering contracts for cash.
By Matthew Karnitschnig
(Politico Eu) Turns out Russian collusion isn’t a “witch hunt hoax” after all. At least not in Austria.
The country’s government collapsed on Saturday after Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he was pulling the plug on his ruling coalition after just 17 months in office.
The move came barely 24 hours after the release of a bombshell video showing Heinz-Christian Strache, the far-right leader of his junior coalition partner, trying to trade public contracts for party donations from a woman he believed to be the wealthy niece of a Russian oligarch.
“Enough is enough,” Kurz said in a brief statement to the press from his baroque office in Vienna, describing the many challenges he faced in recent months in dealing with Strache’s Freedom Party, which despite its alignment with the chancellor’s center-right People’s Party on policy issues remained a lightning rod for criticism with its racist comments and other controversies.
Salvini rally rumbled by Austrian far-right scandal
Euroskeptic rally falls flat in Milan.
Austrian Vice Chancellor Strache resigns over scandal

16 May
Young Europeans increasingly turning to the far-right
(Axios/AP) More and more of Europe’s young voters are gravitating towards far-right candidates, many of whom are under 30 and utilize social media to spread their messages, the AP reports.
Europe’s far-right parties hunt down the youth vote
Why this matters: Young, media savvy candidates have managed to make once-fringe ideas more digestible in a way that appeals to the grievances of younger voters, per the AP.
By the numbers: About 17% of 18-34 year olds voted for Italy’s far-right League party in 2018, compared to 5% in 2013. In Austria, 30% of those voters chose the far-right Freedom Party in 2017, compared to 8% four years earlier.
Go deeper: Europe’s populists form right-wing alliance ahead of EU elections

9 April
How Europe learned to fear China
Not too long ago, Europeans shrugged at Beijing’s rise.
By Bruno Maçães
(Politico Eu) When did Europe become so afraid of China?
Last month, the European Commission published its much-awaited new strategic outlook on China. The document offers up sweeping judgments on China’s development strategy and 10 detailed responses. It is written in the usual technocratic jargon that is second, or even first, nature to officials in Brussels, but it also shows signs of a more political approach. China is described as a “systemic rival,” whose economic power and political influence have grown with unprecedented scale and speed. There’s been a significant change in Europe’s attitude to Beijing. Not too long ago, Europeans shrugged at China’s rise. Overnight, it seems, their world changed. So, why did the tide turn? And how did we get here? …
Things would be different if the EU were a genuine political union — there would be no Hungarian or Greek veto. Capitals would lose their competence in foreign policy and a fully democratic common power would be fully in charge of external relations.
Europeans have been trying to achieve such a political union for the last 70 years, but is has remained an unfulfilled promise. Perhaps that’s because the EU lacks the most basic ingredient of political unity: the fear of an external threat. … Even as China — with its unrivaled economic and technological dynamism — starts to look like a much greater threat to Europeans than the Soviet Union ever did, Washington does not seem to have either the capacity or the willingness to reprise its role from the Cold War.
As in the famous play by Pirandello, European nations can be seen as a series of characters in search of an author. That search may be over. In China, they have found the external force that can bring them together.

(Bloomberg) Last-minute deal | The EU and China agreed on a joint statement for today’s summit in Brussels, papering over divisions on trade in a bid to present a united front to Trump, EU officials said. As Jonathan Stearns reports, diplomats reached an 11th-hour accord on the draft communique after China made concessions on wording about industrial subsidies that removed a European veto threat.

1 April
The Economist: Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian whose character on television is accidentally propelled to the Ukrainian presidency, won around 30% of the vote in real presidential elections yesterday, according to exit polls. With around two-thirds of the ballots counted, the actual results suggest a similar outcome. Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent, trails far behind with 16%. Mr Zelensky looks likely to win a second-round run-off on April 21st, too. The result is a resounding slap in the face to the entire Ukrainian political class

18 March
(The Atlantic) France’s “yellow-vest” protests continued onto their fourth month, with protestors torching banks and businesses in Paris over the weekend. The spate of violence coincided with the end of a series of town-hall meetings that President Emmanuel Macron convened across the country to regain the trust of locals who view him as a member of a smug, out-of-touch elite. But how should he respond to such a diffuse movement, which doesn’t just oppose the technocratic tinkering of policy, but also the very institutions of representative democracy? Macron is trying to extend the town meetings and has expressed a willingness to put some issues to a national referendum, but even he has limited room to maneuver.

4 March
Emmanuel Macron: Renewing Europe
European citizens need to learn from the Brexit impasse and apply those lessons ahead of and after the European Parliament election in May. That means embracing reforms that advance the three goals that lie at the heart of the European project.
(Project Syndicate) Never, since World War II, has Europe been as essential. Yet never has Europe been in so much danger. Brexit stands as the symbol of that. It symbolises the crisis of Europe, which has failed to respond to its peoples’ needs for protection from the major shocks of the modern world. It also symbolises the European trap. That trap is not one of being part of the European Union. The trap is in the lie and the irresponsibility that can destroy it.

14 February
How the Polish Left Could Make Its Comeback
Local Politics Is Breathing New Life Into the Fragmented Opposition
(Foreign Affairs – subscribers only) Adamowicz’s assassination illustrates the great difficulties Poland’s opposition still faces. But it also suggests strategies through which this opposition might resume power. The tragedy has helped galvanize support for new grass-roots movements that have allowed the Polish left to reclaim national attention through local politics. If these efforts prove successful, the Polish left can serve as a model for divided and demoralized leftist forces elsewhere, demonstrating that political divisions are better mended by delving into local concerns than by trying to transcend them.

11 February
George Soros: Europe, Please Wake Up
The first step to defending Europe from its enemies, both internal and external, is to recognize the magnitude of the threat they present. The second is to awaken the sleeping pro-European majority and mobilize it to defend the values on which the EU was founded.
(Project Syndicate) Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late. If they don’t, the European Union will go the way of the Soviet Union in 1991. Neither our leaders nor ordinary citizens seem to understand that we are experiencing a revolutionary moment, that the range of possibilities is very broad, and that the eventual outcome is thus highly uncertain.
The next inflection point will be the elections for the European Parliament in May 2019. Unfortunately, anti-European forces will enjoy a competitive advantage in the balloting. There are several reasons for this, including the outdated party system that prevails in most European countries, the practical impossibility of treaty change, and the lack of legal tools for disciplining member states that violate the principles on which the European Union was founded. The EU can impose the acquis communautaire (the body of European Union law) on applicant countries, but lacks sufficient capacity to enforce member states’ compliance.

22 January
Gideon Rachman: Britain underestimated Europe’s commitment to the single market
Internal divisions are less powerful than the external pressures keeping members together
(Irish Times) Throughout the Brexit process, Britain has tried to split the other 27 EU member states. But it has failed. Much to the surprise of the authorities in London (and probably Brussels, too), the European Union has lived up to its name – and stayed united.
This display of unity over Brexit is not an accident or a one-off. On the contrary, it says something important about why the European project is much more resilient than its critics realised. The 27 small and medium-sized nations that make up the EU have a powerful shared interest in protecting the European single market.
That strategic imperative is only going to become more pronounced in a world shaped by two superpowers – the US and China. Both Washington and Beijing are increasingly using trade and investment as a political weapon. As individual nations, the EU27 know they can be picked off by the superpowers. But, as the world’s largest cross-border market, the EU knows that is has comparable weight to China and America and can push back.
If America decides to impose car tariffs on European producers in the coming months, the EU can respond with measures imposing comparable pain on the US. The EU is also taking unified action against China’s forced transfer of technology. And it has responded to Russia’s annexation of Crimea by imposing sanctions that cover the whole of the EU single market

19 January
Pawel Adamowicz: Poland mourns stabbed Gdansk mayor
(BBC) Mr Adamowicz, 53, was attacked on stage in front of hundreds of people while attending the Great Orchestra of Christmas charity – an annual event where volunteers raise money for medical equipment in hospitals.
Paramedics tried to resuscitate Mr Adamowicz at the scene, before transferring him to a local hospital with stab injuries, where he underwent five hours of surgery.

1 January
Europe in 2019 The prima donna continent
(The Economist) Britain will leave the EU this year, and in May voters in the remaining 27 member states will elect a new European Parliament and end the majority that the continent’s two big-tent political groups have enjoyed for decades. Expect to hear lots about the twilight of the establishment. But as Europe’s political class obsesses about its own battles, it risks paying too little attention to bigger trends: Chinese influence, American insularity, Russian belligerence and its own ageing population

2018

21 November
Steve Bannon’s far-right Europe operation undermined by election laws
Exclusive: ambitious plan to campaign in EU elections would fall foul of laws in nine of 13 targeted states
(The Guardian) The former chief strategist to Donald Trump has spent months trying to recruit European parties to his Brussels-based group, the Movement, which he promised would operate as kind of a political consultancy for like-minded parties campaigning in the bloc-wide vote in May 2019.
But the Guardian has established that Bannon would be barred or prevented from doing any meaningful work in nine of the 13 countries in which he is seeking to campaign, according to national electoral bodies and relevant ministries. Confronted with the findings, Bannon acknowledged he was taking legal advice on the matter.

9-11 November
In remembering WWI, world warned of resurging ‘old demons’
(PBS) PARIS — World leaders with the power to make war but a duty to preserve peace solemnly marked the end of World War I’s slaughter 100 years ago at commemorations Sunday that drove home the message “never again” but also exposed the globe’s new political fault lines.
As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and dozens of other heads of state and government listened in silence, French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion, as its host, to sound a powerful and sobering warning about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism and of nations that put themselves first, above the collective good.
Le discours d’Emmanuel Macron à l’Arc de Triomphe
Verbatim du discours tenu par le président français dimanche pour le centenaire de l’Armistice de 1918 devant plus de 70 chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement.

Leaders of France and Germany in poignant show of unity 100 years after WW1
By John Lloyd, co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford
(Reuters) One hundred years after the guns of World War One fell silent, the leaders of France and Germany held hands and rested their heads against one another in a poignant ceremony to mark the signing of the Armistice peace agreement. President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel inspected troops from a joint Franco-German Brigade before unveiling a plaque paying tribute to the reconciliation and renewed friendship between the foes of two world wars.

Commentary: A U.S. midterm message that resonates across the Atlantic
(Reuters) There’s more to the observation than an urban-rural split, though it may be the most important. There’s the north-south divide, deep among Americans, but not confined to them. Britain too has long had one, between, in its case, northern areas often still suffering the effects of de-industrialization and mine closures, and a wealthy south-east, London embedded within it. So does Italy, with a wealthy, relatively dynamic north and a poor, sluggish, mafia-infested south. Both impact heavily on political choices. These divides depend, not on geography, but on where the wealth has concentrated – usually, over centuries.
Educational attainment, everywhere in the world, runs with the grain of the country-city split. … Europe’s city-country and educational splits all impact on elections, but, as in the United States, the issues of immigration, of identity and of relative deprivation now overlay, often exacerbate, the older divides. The common element in all of these issues, in all Western countries, is a revolt, greater or lesser in extent, against rapid change, against liberal elites and against a loss of identity – white, in the main, but also of settled communities of past waves of immigrants. Populists, right to signal these concerns, are wrong to claim that answers are simple. But arguments of complexity are, in an impatient time, suspect. Divisions, not only in the United States, presently deepen.

3 November
Angela Merkel is on her way out – and so is her vision for the EU
Her throne will likely sit empty because Macron is the only leader with any desire to take it.
(The Spectator) Whatever anyone’s views on the enterprise, there was one question always begging to be asked of the European Union: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ At an early stage it wasn’t clear to everyone. Then the purpose and direction of travel seemed agreed — under the stewardship of Angela Merkel. She was there to settle disputes, authorise bailouts, offer German help to struggling nations and protect the project as it led to ever-closer union. Whatever else can be said of it, with Merkel at the helm at least the EU appeared to have direction. Not anymore.
This week — after another political drubbing for the CDU in Hesse — the German Chancellor announced that she would not seek re-election as head of the party she has led for 18 years. She also announced she would be stepping down as Chancellor at the next election, in 2021, a position she has held since 2005. During that time in office she has worked with four French presidents, four British prime ministers, and seven people who tried to run Italy. Her demise is proving a drawn-out affair — but we can see, in parallel, the demise of her vision of Europe. A clear, federalist vision which once seemed inevitable and now sorely lacks a leader.
Today there is simply no one on the scene capable of acting as the queen or emperor of that project, as Merkel has done for the past decade. That is due, in no small part, to the decisions she took and the hardness and hubris with which she acted when she held the most powerful position in Europe. The Merkel project had created a EU that had unachievable ambitions, seeking to govern countries with long histories of independence, and was fundamentally un-European in that it sought to impose uniformity upon the most gloriously diverse set of countries on earth.
Philippe Legrain: Auf Wiedersehen, and Good Riddance
(Project Syndicate) She has been dubbed the Queen of Europe and, since US President Donald Trump’s election, the leader of the free world. As the European Union has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past decade, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s steady hand has helped hold the bloc together. According to the conventional wisdom, when she hands over the chancellorship after Germany’s next federal election in 2021 – and perhaps much sooner if her grand coalition collapses – she will be sorely missed.
However, this will hardly be the case. Merkel’s 13 years in office have involved domestic drift and European decay. She has complacently coasted along, failing to address Germany’s mounting economic and security challenges, and allowing Europe’s many crises to fester. Her lethargic managerialism would be tolerable for a small country in quiet times; it is catastrophic for Europe’s dominant power in an era of upheaval.
Unlike many European countries, Germany has enjoyed solid economic growth over the past decade. But Merkel can scarcely take credit for that. Her four governments have enacted no significant growth-enhancing reforms. And in their obsession with running a budget surplus, they have failed to invest in the country’s crumbling infrastructure and education system.

1 October
A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come
Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.
(The Atlantic Magazine October 2018) …  the illiberal one-party state, now found all over the world—think of China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe—was first developed by Lenin, in Russia, starting in 1917. …  It is the model that many of the world’s budding autocrats use today.
Unlike Marxism, the Leninist one-party state is not a philosophy. It is a mechanism for holding power. It works because it clearly defines who gets to be the elite—the political elite, the cultural elite, the financial elite. In monarchies such as pre-revolutionary France and Russia, the right to rule was granted to the aristocracy, which defined itself by rigid codes of breeding and etiquette. In modern Western democracies, the right to rule is granted, at least in theory, by different forms of competition: campaigning and voting, meritocratic tests that determine access to higher education and the civil service, free markets. Old-fashioned social hierarchies are usually part of the mix, but in modern Britain, America, Germany, France, and until recently Poland, we have assumed that competition is the most just and efficient way to distribute power. The best-run businesses should make the most money. The most appealing and competent politicians should rule. The contests between them should take place on an even playing field, to ensure a fair outcome.

17 September
Austria: EU summit focus on Brexit, migration, cool tension
“We have to do everything to avoid a hard Brexit,” Kurz said. On immigration, he added, European external borders must be secured and frontline countries like Greece and Italy “need our support.”
Macron added to the list, saying the EU can advance on the migration issue “by respecting our values,” an apparent reference to Hungary, rebuked last week for hard-line policies, including on migration.
The summit starts Wednesday in the Austrian city of Salzburg.

10 September
The Economist: The vote in Sweden yesterday was supposed to be a rebuke of the government’s generosity towards refugees, booting out the ruling Social Democrats and boosting the populist Sweden Democrats. None of these things happened. A high turnout, partly driven by fears of just such a result, may have helped. The populists did less well than expected, and the mainstream parties better than feared
See Comment of 10 September below
Deutsche Welle: Sweden’s general election results in stalemate as far-right support surges
Sweden’s center-right and center-left blocs have fallen short of a majority. The far-right Sweden Democrats have seen a boost in support amid concerns over immigration in the Scandinavian country.
Sweden faces weeks in political limbo after far right makes gains
Sweden faces weeks of a stalemate after its traditional center-left and center-right blocs tied with neither holding a majority. The far-right made gains on a hardline anti-immigration platform.

7 August
Steve Bannon’s European Adventure
By Ian Buruma
The reputed mastermind of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has launched a full-scale effort to unite Europe’s right-wing forces and bring down the European Union. But, as with European fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, the various strands of right-wing populism in Europe today show little ideological coherence.
(Project Syndicate) After being cast out of the White House and Breitbart News, Stephen K. Bannon, often referred to as the mastermind of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has vowed to remake Europe. His organization, called “The Movement” and based in Brussels, aims to unite Europe’s right-wing populists and take down the European Union in its current form.
Bannon sees this effort as part of a “war” between populism and “the party of Davos,” between the white, Christian, patriotic “real people” (in the words of his British supporter, Nigel Farage) and the cosmopolitan globalist elites. In the media, at least, Bannon is taken seriously.
It would seem to be a tall order for this permanently disheveled American media blowhard and promoter of cranky ideas about cyclical cataclysms to change the history of Europe. Despite meeting such right-wing luminaries as Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, and Boris Johnson, the clownish former British foreign secretary, all of whom wish him well, Bannon has almost no experience in European politics

6 August
EU vows to thwart Trump’s sanctions on Iran
As measures come into effect, Europe says it has the law on its side.
(Politico EU) Senior European officials on Monday castigated U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed sanctions on Tehran as “illegal” and in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, and they vowed to intensify efforts to thwart the U.S. measures and preserve the Iran nuclear accord.
The effort to preserve the nuclear deal, led by the EU and by the three European architects of the accord — France, Germany and the U.K. — puts the United States in direct conflict with its largest and most powerful NATO allies. It represents the sharpest break between Washington and its European partners on foreign policy since Trump took office and began calling into question decades of diplomatic norms.
At a news conference, senior European Commission officials bluntly accused the Trump administration of violating international law, and said their blocking statute would allow EU companies that continue doing business in Iran to recover any damages, including legal costs, from entities — including U.S. banks and businesses — acting to enforce the U.S. sanctions.
“The EU is a market economy, we protect freedom of enterprise,” a senior Commission official said. “The purpose of the blocking statute is not to oblige any company to invest but actually it is to make sure their business decisions remain free and not imposed upon by legislation, which we consider unlawful.”

31 July
The Ugly Side of Poland’s Booming Economy
The ruling Law and Justice party is trafficking in a xenophobic, nationalist narrative.
By Rodney Jefferson and Wojciech Moskwa
(Bloomberg) The Polish conundrum—prosperity and prejudice—is much more than just a history lesson gone awry. The Warsaw government has increased its sway over the courts, fearing an independent judiciary could block its sweeping reforms. The overhaul of the justice system reached the Supreme Court in July with new laws forcing as many as 27 of the 73 judges into retirement unless they get a waiver from President Andrzej Duda and making it easier to replace the tribunal’s chief justice. The legislation sparked protests by pro-democracy groups in Polish cities. Even Mick Jagger warned Poland not to go back to the dark days as he addressed the crowd at a Rolling Stones concert in Warsaw in July. The key instigator in recasting the nature of Poland is the governing Law and Justice party. It shot to power in 2015 promising to champion Poles left behind by the Western-leaning “elites” who, according to the party’s nationalist and xenophobic narrative, ran the country for their own benefit.

25-30 July

Simon Johnson: Europe’s Trade Victory in Washington
US President Donald Trump holds himself out as a brilliant negotiator, and his supporters regard his trade policy as a perfect example of his success. But in his recent trade talks with the Europeans, Trump was clearly out of his depth.
(Project Syndicate) Restarting the TTIP negotiation is a big win for Juncker, in line with long-standing European objectives. It would also make it much harder for Trump to impose tariffs on European car imports – and German car companies’ stock prices rose sharply on the news. It is also remarkable that Juncker managed to get Trump to emphasize working with the World Trade Organization to resolve issues regarding intellectual property rights. Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner, has been stressing exactly this approach.
What did Trump get from the Europeans, other than a return to a trade negotiation straight out of the Obama era? Trump claimed, at the press conference and subsequently, that he won a pledge from Juncker to buy more natural gas and “a lot of soybeans.” Some media coverage even suggested that the Europeans had made concessions. But that interpretation does not fit the facts.
Don’t Believe the Hype About Trump’s Trade Deal with the European Union
In reality, the Europeans gave up little except their prior refusal to negotiate under threat.
(The New Yorker) In a prescient briefing published last week, The Economist noted that E.U. officials wanted to persuade the Trump Administration to pursue grievances against China through the World Trade Organization (W.T.O.)
(The Atlantic) A Tale of Tariffs: U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pledged to resolve their escalating trade war and to refrain from imposing new tariffs while they negotiate. The truce between the U.S. and Europe could make Trump’s tariffs against China more effective—yet it doesn’t necessarily avert the long-term costs of the European trade dispute.
Trump and EU agree to work toward ‘zero tariffs’
President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday announced that they have reached a deal to begin resolving a dispute over tariffs and avoid a trade war.
“We agreed today first of all to work together towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsides for the non-auto industrial goods,” Trump announced in a joint statement with Juncker in the Rose Garden.
(Quartz) Did Donald Trump accidentally suggest that the US join the European Union? … last night, Trump tweeted a new idea—that both sides should make peace and drop all tariffs, barriers and subsidies instead. What Trump’s proposing already exists of course, inside the European Union. The creation of the “single market” treats European Union nations as “one territory without any internal borders or other regulatory obstacles to the free movement of goods and service”
Updated 25 July
‘It’s not going to be a great meeting’: Trump to welcome Juncker
Commission chief wants to convince US president to back down on proposed auto tariffs.
(Politico eu) President Donald Trump is not known for backing down, but the Europeans are coming to Washington anyway to see if they can convince him to rein in his trade policies.
Less than two weeks after calling the European Union a “foe,” Trump will meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the White House on Wednesday. The sit-down comes as the 28-country bloc is fuming about the administration’s decision to slap hefty tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and is hoping to dissuade the president from imposing new tariffs on imported cars.
Juncker has been one of Europe’s most vocal critics of Trump’s trade policies. In March, he called the president’s aluminum and steel tariffs “stupid.” Warning that Europe would retaliate with tariffs on U.S. products, he added, “We can also do stupid.”
Former officials expect Wednesday’s White House meeting to be tense. …
In the EU’s view, bilateral trade between the United States and the EU is largely in balance, despite Trump’s complaints about the U.S. goods trade deficit with the EU, which totaled $151 billion last year. However, the U.S. had about a $55 billion trade surplus in services trade with the EU, and American firms doing business in Europe earned about $95 billion more in net income than European firms operating in the United States, the senior EU official said.

13 July
Donald Tusk: Trump has an aversion to the EU and NATO
European Council chief says he’ll enter race to be Polish president if Jarosław Kaczyński does.
By Michał Broniatowski
(Politico eu) European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday criticized Donald Trump’s behavior during his European trip, and his willingness to engage with authoritarian leaders.
Interviewed in his office in Brussels, Tusk spoke for more than half an hour on the Polish news channel TVN 24, and had harsh words for the judicial reforms brought in by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).
Tusk spent a sizeable part of the interview talking about Polish politics and his rivals in PiS.
“Simply speaking, the authority which fully subordinates courts, prosecutors and police as well as the independent media … will very quickly transform democracy into kleptocracy or, speaking more clearly, into a reign of thieves,” he said in reference to the government’s changes to the judicial system.
The European Commission took the unprecedented step of triggering Article 7 — the so-called nuclear option — against Poland in December, following countless warnings, requests for dialogue and demands for clarifications about changes that it says risk undermining judicial independence in the country.

11 July
Commentary: Europe’s fears about Trump-Putin summit
Gregory Feifer
(Reuters) Some European diplomats I spoke with in Washington ahead of the summit fear Trump will do more than just denigrate NATO, going so far as to threaten a U.S. withdrawal from the military alliance before engaging in a lovefest with Putin that will enable the Russian leader to further exploit Washington’s differences with Europe. More significant than issues such as a looming trade war and Trump’s desire to have Moscow re-admitted to the G8 (reduced to the G7 after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea), uncertainty about where the Trump administration is ultimately heading is shaking a continent swept up in an anti-immigrant, right-wing populist tide.

10 July
An inconvenient truth: Addressing democratic backsliding within NATO
By Jonathan Katz and Torrey Taussig
(Brookings) What can NATO do to counter democratic backsliding within its ranks? After a troubling G-7 meeting in Canada, the upcoming NATO summit in Brussels may be a hair twisting exercise in alliance management. Muted cohesion, however, is not enough to address the anti-democratic trends tearing apart the fabric of Europe and NATO. Strong actions and words are needed to counter this democratic crisis.
First, in fighting for the relevance of NATO’s Article V promise of collective defense, we should not forget about NATO’s other founding articles, including Article II: states’ promise to strengthen free institutions within their borders. We should also recall the central governance requirements that states needed to meet in order to join the alliance, including rules around civilian control of the military, legislative monitoring, and transparency of arms procurements—all democratic foundations that make the alliance stronger.
NATO currently has no options to suspend, expel, or penalize a NATO member, for example Hungary, for violating a core tenet of the alliance’s democratic values. There is not even a proper venue at NATO—for example the North Atlantic Council (NAC), NATO’s main decisionmaking body—to raise matters that some consider a direct threat to the alliance’s core principles. The NAC already has over a dozen committees, but none deal directly with democratic backsliding and human rights violations in the alliance.

3 July
Merkel migration deal’s domino effect
Austria and Italy threaten border controls if Berlin goes ahead with chancellor’s plan.
Angela Merkel struck a deal on migration that saved her own skin but threw the EU into disarray.
(Politico Eu) Within hours of the German chancellor announcing that she and her harshest domestic critic on migration — Interior Minister Horst Seehofer — had reached a compromise to end a standoff that threatened to bring down the government, her neighbors were up in arms.
Austria and Italy said they plan to reintroduce border controls if Berlin goes ahead with plans to establish so-called transit zones along Germany’s southern border to allow for accelerated deportations of refugees not entitled to seek asylum in the country.
If they do so, it would put the survival of the EU’s cherished Schengen area of border-free travel at risk.Schengen under threat as Austria hits back at Merkel’s migrant deal
Poland Purges Supreme Court, and Protesters Take to Streets
(NYT) Poland’s government carried out a sweeping purge of the Supreme Court on Tuesday night, eroding the judiciary’s independence, escalating a confrontation with the European Union over the rule of law and further dividing this nation. Tens of thousands took to the streets in protest.
Poland was once a beacon for countries struggling to escape the yoke of the Soviet Union and embrace Western democracy. But it is now in league with neighboring nations, like Hungary, whose leaders have turned to authoritarian means to tighten their grip on power, presenting a grave challenge to a European Union already grappling with nationalist, populist and anti-immigrant movements.
In his zeal to create what he calls a Fourth Republic, free of any vestige of Communist rule and vest the state with ever greater power, the party’s leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has also set the nation on a collision course with the European Union. The bloc views the changes as a threat to the rule of law and the Western values at the heart of the treaty binding the union of nations.
But the European Union’s failure to curb Hungary’s drift toward authoritarianism has emboldened other leaders in the region, where right-wing nationalism and populism are on the rise. Right-wing governments have taken power recently in Austria and Italy, while Chancellor Angela Merkel, a guardian of liberal Western values, just agreed to build camps on Germany’s borders to process migrants.

2 July
Chris Patten: The Real Threats to the EU
The European Union must address a slew of challenges – from immigration to eurozone reform – that risk causing systemic problems lethal to the bloc. Given this, sensible leaders can be forgiven for politely sending the UK on its way, and focusing their attention on threats to the EU’s long-term cohesion and fundamental values.
(Project Syndicate) It seems that EU leaders have accepted that we British have taken leave of our senses, and there is not much they can do about it. They certainly are not going to undermine their own successful, law-based economic model to do us a favor. Brexit will hurt us a lot more than it will hurt the EU.
What could hurt the EU – indeed, threaten its very fabric – is a slew of other challenges, beginning with US President Donald Trump’s threats to the health and even survival of the transatlantic alliance, a key pillar of the post-World War II global order.
… The EU has always prided itself on being a community of values that protects minorities and has welcomed the poor and downtrodden. The EU is, after all, composed of minorities, and it has known its share of poverty and hardship.
… Good sense and experience should tell us that selfish sloganeering, violating the rule of law, and dismissing international commitments is not a recipe for good policy. Macron is right to argue that Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and Jarosław Kaczynski’s Poland should no longer be allowed to pick the pockets of their richer European partners, while trampling over EU values.
The EU must confront the challenges ahead with cohesive, collaborative policies that combine effectiveness with basic human decency. On migration, for example, it must work as one to strengthen its own borders, while helping, through development assistance and security cooperation, the countries from which people are fleeing. With more stability and open markets, they will be able to export their products, rather than their citizens.

21 June
Kemal Derviş: Toward a More Democratic Europe?
The rise of extreme populism in Europe is coming at the expense of traditional center-right and center-left parties and putting the European Union at risk. But the populist threat could induce a restructuring of European politics that ultimately bolsters the EU’s legitimacy.
(Project Syndicate) Next year’s European Parliament election is likely to reveal more about the potential for such political restructuring. The European Parliament has never generated the same level of interest as other European institutions, such as the Commission, the Council, or even the Court of Justice. European parliamentary debates rarely make it far outside Brussels or Strasbourg, and voter turnout to fill the body’s seats has typically been low. Such facts have long been cited as evidence that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit, with citizens inadequately engaged with European-level governance.
But as a series of crises have hit the EU – affecting most acutely Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy – these dynamics have been changing. Gone are the days when Europeans quietly accepted the EU, despite some complaints. Now, the EU is at the center of domestic political debates, which increasingly include existential questions about the survival of the eurozone and the entire European project.
Europe Strikes Back Against Trump Tariffs as Global Trade War Escalates
The European Union fought back on Friday against the Trump administration’s tariffs, slapping penalties on an array of American products that target the president’s political base, like bourbon, motorcycles and orange juice.
The European counterattack on $3.2 billion of goods, a response to the administration’s measures on steel and aluminum imports, adds another front to a trade war that has engulfed allies and adversaries around the world. China and Mexico have already retaliated with their own tariffs, and Canada, Japan and Turkey are readying similar offensives.

15 June
Trump Says He Sees The European Union As A ‘Foe’ Of U.S.
(NPR) When asked about who he sees as the U.S.’s biggest foe, he said that the U.S. has “a lot of foes.”
The first one he named was the EU, traditionally a close ally to the U.S. “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade.”

8 June
Commentary: In U.S. and EU, illiberalism in full bloom
(Reuters) This is one week in the politics of the EU. It does not sum up the Union: most states continue to be run by centrist parties with broadly liberal approaches to both political and social issues, and none have followed the United Kingdom to head for the exit. But the forward march of liberalism, and of the Union, has been halted; the strength of the Merkel government reduced; and the wind behind the conservative nationalists much strengthened by the newly-installed Italian populist government. Democratic politics, long criticised for clustering round the center, with little difference between left and right, now has what the critics craved: a fight for principles, strategies and the allegiance of the electorates.

1 June
Italy gets populist government
(Politico Eu) Once installed in Rome, the new government is likely to take a Euroskeptic stance and clash with Brussels on the EU budget, immigration and European sanctions against Russia, where it favors a more conciliatory stance.
The prospect of a populist and Euroskeptic government in Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, has already rattled markets and worried its EU partners.

31 May
Trump’s New Blow to Europe
Washington’s decision to impose metal tariffs on its European allies caps a year defined by U.S.-EU divergence
(The Atlantic) The first of these divergences came almost exactly a year ago, when Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris climate accord … The second major division came months later when Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. … [ putting] the U.S. squarely at odds with its European partners, who rebuked the move and widely declined invitations to attend the embassy’s opening earlier this month (of the bloc’s 28 member states, just four sent their ambassadors).
In what has arguably been the greatest break in the the transatlantic alliance under the Trump administration, Washington announced earlier this month that the U.S. would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. … the EU went to great lengths to try and convince Trump not to abandon the deal. Though unsuccessful, the EU reaffirmed it would fight to preserve the deal, even if it means doing so without Washington. It adopted a similar posture with regard to the Paris accord and Jerusalem.
… Despite their deep historical ties and their continued close cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism and security, the U.S. and the EU now find themselves on divergent paths—with one side careening towards “America First,” while the other continues toward “multilateralism.”

27 May
Italy’s president scotches populist governing alliance
A ‘technocratic’ premier may try to govern but early elections are likelier outcome.
(Politico Eu) Italy’s messy post-election drama on Sunday night took another stunning turn.
The country’s president rejected a proposed populist 5Star-League alliance that included a Euroskeptic as economy minister and looked poised to appoint a “technocratic” government as early as Monday.
The collapse of the proposed coalition leaves Italy on an uncertain path in the days ahead, veering between the possibility of early elections or a technocratic government of longer duration. It also threatens a constitutional crisis, as the leaders of the 5Stars Movement and the League condemned the president and one even called for his impeachment. And it’s sure to further rattle already nervous international financial markets.
Mattarella has summoned former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli to appear at the presidential palace on Monday morning, suggesting that he is leaning toward appointing a technocratic government.
Italy’s parliament must sign off on any new government, and that’s going to be a tough bar to clear. Even though the two main opposition parties — Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the center-left Democratic Party — have already said they would support a government sponsored by Mattarella, they alone don’t have enough votes.

13 April
Europe and its populists
(Lowy Institute) The overwhelming victory of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in Hungary’s 8 April elections is yet another sign that nationalist and populist parties are alive and kicking in Europe.
Orbán’s policies will also underline the very significant differences of opinion that exist between those member states governed by nationalist/populist parties, such as Fidesz, which do not support further European integration, and those governments, Germany and France in particular, who argue the lesson from Brexit is that Europe needs to integrate more actively and aggressively.
Coupled with this are major concerns in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris about steps Orbán might take to clamp down even further on democratic rights, especially limits on media freedom, the independence of the judiciary, and NGOs.
Nationalist/populist parties are now represented in parliaments across Europe, including in the majors. In some countries, such as Poland and Hungary, they form government; in others, such as Austria, they are part of a governing coalition; and in others they tolerate minority governments. In all European countries nationalist/populist parties are reshaping the political environment and forcing traditional parties to confront the issues they raise, and to look for new coalitions.
EU states with the highest populist share of votes include Hungary, Greece, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria.

24 March
United we fall: a European army is a really bad idea
Who would be in charge? What would they be fighting for – and in what language? This is an idea doomed to failure, says an Iraq war veteran
Colonel Tim Collins
(The Spectator) Any European army would fall under the unelected career politicians of the EU whose ability to make a decision has to be seriously questioned. While it could, in theory, exist, it would achieve little more than that mere fact of existence because of the indecision and complexity within the EU itself
The European Corps, or Eurocorps, has existed since 1993 with five European nation contributors, but with the Franco-German Brigade at its heart. It has deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo and to Afghanistan in 2004 and 2006. Haven’t heard of it? Neither has the enemy.

11 March
Astonishing! While we were all focused on DJT.
A very EU coup: Martin Selmayr’s astonishing power grab
How a bureaucrat seized power in nine minutes
(The Spectator) The coup began at 9.39 a.m. on 21 February, when 1,000 journalists were sent an email summoning them to a 10.30 a.m. audience with Jean-Claude Juncker. Selmayr is now accountable to no one. Indeed, he has lost no time further consolidating his power. He has moved his office close to the President’s. I understand he will continue to chair meetings in the President’s office and even plans to put the hitherto independent European legal service under his command. So all he needs now is a new president as docile as Juncker has been and he’ll have achieved his aim: before his 50th birthday, and without ever having stood for elected office Selmayr will become the alpha and omega of the European Commission.”

7 March
Italy’s howl of nihilism
The old system has been swept away in a blind flight toward an uncertain future.
Politics can create strange bedfellows, but nobody knows who will sleep with the winners of Italy’s election: Matteo Salvini, the nationalist leader of the far-right League, and Luigi Di Maio, the moderate face of the furious 5Star Movement. No parliamentary majority is in sight. The populists won; they crushed Italy’s last traditional party — former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party — and swept away old, smiling Silvio Berlusconi. But they didn’t win enough seats to rule.
Revolution at the polls: How Italy made Steve Bannon’s “ultimate dream” come true Anti-establishmentarianism, isolationism, xenophobia and populism won the country’s general elections on March 4.

5-6 March
(The Atlantic) At least one thing seems clear after Italy’s elections on Sunday: The country’s relationship to the European Union is going to change. The majority of votes went to parties that are skeptical of both Italy’s long-standing EU ties and its political establishment. But the results have raised big questions about where the populist winners will take the country in the wake of the center-left establishment’s collapse.
Italy election: Populist surge prompts political deadlock
(BBC) Italy is on course for a hung parliament after voters backed right-wing and populist parties, projections based on partial results suggest.
The Eurosceptic, anti-establishment Five Star Movement has won the lion’s share of the vote.
But ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition, which includes the far-right League, looks set to win the most seats in the lower house of parliament.
Forming a government may now take weeks of negotiation and coalition-building.
Alternatively, fresh elections could be held in a bid to produce a more decisive result – though there is no guarantee that would happen.

4 March
Germany gets new government
Social Democrats clear path by backing new grand coalition.
(Politico Eu) The decision ends nearly half a year of uncertainty over Germany’s political leadership. The limbo hobbled Merkel’s caretaker government, forcing delays on a number of pressing fronts, in particular the debate over EU reform.
A rejection of the coalition by the SPD would have thrown German politics into disarray, leaving a minority government or a new election as the only remaining options. …
Merkel was also forced to accept a number of changes in the wake of September’s election. Her new team of ministers, announced last week, includes Jens Spahn, her loudest critic within the party. She also promoted a potential successor, naming Saarland premier Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to become the CDU’s general secretary, a key leadership position.
For a weakened Merkel, a fourth term as chancellor offers a final chance to secure her legacy. Many believe she will try to do so on the European front, where France’s Emanuel Macron has been clamoring for deep structural reforms to the EU.

3 March
Who killed European social democracy?
Collapse of center left risks destabilizing Continent’s politics.
(Politico Eu) Social democracy, the most influential force in European politics for decades, is dying. And the result could be political fragmentation, instability and paralysis.
In recent months, social democratic parties have been swept from power in the Czech Republic, Austria, France and the Netherlands, adding to a long string of losses since 2010.
Many blame the financial and economic crises that began in 2008 and caught governments flat-footed. But while resistance to austerity fueled social democracy’s decline, the roots of its misfortunes stretch back much further.
“The weakening of the political left has been long in the making,” argued Jan Rovny, a political scientist at Sciences Po in Paris. “It has been largely caused by deep structural and technological change that has altered the face of European societies, changed the economic patterns of the Continent and given a renewed vigor to politics of identity.”

30 January
How (the European) Trump won a second term
(Politico Eu) Miloš Zeman appealed to Czech skepticism of EU and opposition to migration.
He’s a septuagenarian who dislikes Muslims, the media and migrants and loves Vladimir Putin. He’s detested by urban dwellers and liberal elites who see him as a national embarrassment and a menace to values they hold dear.
And he’s just won his second term as president. …Zeman’s reelection also means the Czech Republic’s running battle with the EU regarding such issues as migration and sanctions against Russia will continue, with the possibility raised during the campaign of a referendum being held on EU membership. However, to mount such a vote would mean going through a complex and difficult legal process