Even as it contends still with Brexit and the rise of right-wing populists, the European Union did enjoy some ‘almost good news’ this year.
Tag: brexit
-OpEd- BERLIN — Theresa May can only lose. The British Prime Minister is fighting alone against a grand alliance of conspirators, poisoners, and wire-pullers, supported by opportunists, weather-vanes and underlings from her own Tory party — ready to tear each other apart wherever they feel they can gain power: on the one hand, ambivalent personalities […]
-OpEd- PARIS — While Brexit uncertainty continues with “last-chance summit” after “last-chance summit,” the hard questions are becoming more difficult to avoid with each passing day. Are we moving towards a brutal divorce? Or a compromise? Will the Irish question turn everything upside down? Can a second referendum turn the tide? All these questions refer […]
Promising voters to get the EU to change is easy, delivering that change is next to impossible.
LONDON — The plot to reverse Brexit is missing a key ally: U.K. business. Companies have been among the most outspoken critics of the split from the European Union, and have much to lose from a divorce gone wrong. But as a group of lawmakers tries to engineer a second referendum, business leaders are recoiling. “Business likes certainty and I can’t see how discussion of a second referendum helps create that certainty when the negotiations are not even concluded,” says Miles Celic, chief executive officer of TheCityUK, the finance industry’s lobby group. Businesses are uninterested in politics. They want commercial […]
Like the the UK and U.S. election surprises before, Italy’s recent populist triumphs marked a revolt by voters outside the major urban centers.
-OpEd- PARIS — While leafing through the newspapers in an English pub last weekend, I was surprised to see The Sunday Times, hardly a tabloid, portraying the three fiercest Brexiters as “musketeers.” A rather flattering image assuming Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg — the three men in question — are not offended by […]
The numbers contradict Donald Trump’s claims that leaving NAFTA will benefit U.S. business and workers. It will harm them, not to mention their Mexican counterparts.
The negotiations and the complex, chaotic debates around Brexit are revealing of a major dilemma facing democracies: What do you do when a country is profoundly divided?
-Analysis- PARIS — A wave of popular revolt against the establishment, globalization and immigration is washing over the West. And as the recent election results in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic suggest, it won’t be ending anytime soon. After the staggering victories of Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016, Western elites, always eager for […]
Millions of British citizens don’t want to give up being European.
With Britain missing its turn for the European Union presidency in light of Brexit, the rotating six-month duty has fallen into Estonia’s lap earlier than planned. Until the end of the year, the northernmost Baltic country will lead the EU through a complicated period: On top of difficult divorce negotiations between Britain and the 27-nation […]
PARIS — Donald Tusk had a dream: The United Kingdom was staying in the European Union — For him, this vision isn’t just a pure imaginary digression. The European Council president even appealed to the words of one of Britain’s most famous voices, quoting John Lennon’s “Imagine“: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m […]
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The Losers Of British Democracy
The British pollsters — and prime minister — have come up short once again. The surprisingly lackluster performance of the Conservatives in Britain’s snap election yesterday has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May. Following David Cameron’s Brexit debacle on June 23, 2016, this marks the second time in less than a year that […]
With Brexit woes dominating the UK and the fresh air of Macron’s victory in France, capitalistic economics in Europe may be turned on its head.
Democracy has never been an easy thing. That most British of statesmen Winston Churchill famously called it “the worst form of government, except for all the others.” In its ideal form — with regularly scheduled elections, peaceful transfers of powers, constitutions that are upheld, checks and balances respected — democracy can work quite well. Certainly there are examples still in today’s world. But as shown by events taking place right now in Venezuela, Turkey and even on Churchill’s turf, it can also be a deeply messy affair. In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is clinging to power against a groundswell […]
-OpEd- LONDON — Who can blame UK Prime Minister Theresa May for calling an election now, as her own Conservative party mandarins have been urging? Her party enjoys a 21-percentage-point lead in the polls. The opposition Labour Party is weak and divided, and the economy has yet to register the expected wobbles in the wake of last year’s vote to leave the European Union. What better time to crush the opposition and beef up the Conservatives’ 17-seat majority? Yet her decision is as strategically flawed as it is tactically clever. First, she risks losing credibility. Having promised not to get […]
Brexit could isolate Britain in its dispute with Argentina over the Falklands, though leaders in Buenos Aires need to think and speak clearly, or risk keep the status quo.
-Essay- VALENCIA — As a British national living in Spain, it is strange to (still) be an EU citizen and yet start to feel unwelcome in this “European home.” All this thanks to Brexit, that nasty little gnome doggedly making its way through the disbelief of millions. Born in Iran and with nearly 40 years […]
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The Day Brexit Got Real
When Big Ben struck midnight, its bells didn’t just signal the start of a new day. They also marked a sea change in geopolitics. That was the moment Prime Minister Theresa May chose to sign a letter of intent that officially begins the UK’s departure from the EU. The date had been marked on everyone’s […]
It’s a pattern that, sadly, is becoming too familiar in Europe. The initial shock of the latest terrorist attack soon gives way to anger, sadness, prayers, and a gnawing sense of powerlessness. And then, eventually, we move on — until the next time. Yesterday’s attack in London had the particularity of actually occurring on the […]
The headlines this morning provide two bits of far-flung hope for those still shaken by Brexit and Donald Trump: the new version of Trump’s travel ban applied to six majority-Muslim countries was blocked by a judge in Hawaii; meanwhile, halfway across the world, Geert Wilders’ far-right party suffered surprisingly disappointing results in Dutch parliamentary elections. […]
The tiny European country has improved its position as a post-Brexit business destination by reforming its fiscal rules and digital environment.
MUNICH — What a crappy year you were 2016. With your terrorist attacks, the British going mad with Brexit and the Americans electing a Twitter troll as commander-in-chief. In Syria and other war zones, people were drowning all year in blood. On top of all of that, many of our most beloved artists and performers […]
-Essay- PARIS — Changes, disruptions, earthquakes … We no longer know what word best describes the political events unfolding before our eyes. After former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost in the conservative primaries, and current Socialist president François Hollande chose not to run, Matteo Renzi resigned as Italian prime minister, becoming the latest European leader […]
[dailymotion //www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x55f778 expand=1] Goodbye 2016: A Zapping Video Year In Review by Worldcrunch
-Analysis- PARIS — Long live the people! For a few months now, referendums have been blooming all over Europe. In Britain, to decide whether or not to leave the European Union. In Hungary, to ban European Union refugee-sharing quotas. In the Netherlands, on the EU’s pact with Ukraine. Now in Italy, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi […]
–OpEd- BERLIN — It’s been said that house guests are like dead fish: After three days they start to smell. When it comes to government officials, it usually takes a little longer. Americans make a president clear out of the White House after eight years, at the latest. That’s smart. Heads of government in Germany […]
We first had “Merkozy,” a marriage of convenience between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy made to counter the European debt crisis. Then the pair was forced to part ways when Sarkozy lost to current French President Francois Hollande. Merkel and Hollande’s relationship was always awkward, with one newspaper saying “there […]
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Turkish Strongmen, Western Weakness
Turkey has grown silent. Since the failed military coup in July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown across Turkish society has featured a particular focus on journalists working for opposition newspapers. According to Reporters Without Borders’ Julie Majerczak: “Turkey has become the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” But the crackdown goes well beyond press freedom. Two […]
Britain’s decision to leave the EU is having a ripple effect on the island nation of Cyprus, where ex-pats and tourism operators are already feeling the pinch. But there may be a more long-term windfall in the finance industry.
In 2015, Apple earned more than the five most profitable companies in Europe combined.
Momentous national referendums in Colombia and Britain have shown how dangerous it can be to put complicated decisions in the hands of a fickle populous.
-OpEd- PARIS — In the northern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) defeated Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in local elections. In the United States, the Republicans chose Donald Trump as their candidate for the White House. The British voted for Brexit. Italians elected as mayors of Rome and […]
The weakening power of the “Mother of Europe” comes at a bad time for both Germany and the rest of the continent.
Politicians are hiding behind complacent language instead of facing the challenges that their constituents are fired up about.
LONDON — Britain’s departure from the European Union would have immediate far-reaching consequences for the British job market as hundreds of thousands of British and European Union citizens want to leave the UK to work on the continent instead, according to a recent survey by the StepStone global private markets specialist found. Some 600,000 British-based […]
Now that two of the world’s five biggest economies – Germany and Britain – are headed by women, and the biggest one of all, the U.S., has a woman front-runner in its presidential election, the glass ceiling in politics can probably be declared broken, and it’s time to consider what kind of change this brings to the world. The overall statistics of female leadership do not look particularly encouraging. There are fewer women heads of government today than there were last year. Not even 5% of government leaders are women. Yet they are winning where it matters: If there were […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Call it the “glorieuse incertitude du sport” — the glorious uncertainty of sports. During the finals of soccer’s just completed 2016 European Championship, Portugal saw its singular star Ronaldo taken out of the game after an injury, but won anyway against a favored host French team that had overcome its eternal nemesis, […]
i, July 12 Tuesday’s edition of the British daily the i features new Conservative Party leader Theresa May, with the headline “May Day.” Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to present his resignation to the Queen on Wednesday, which will make Theresa May will the UK’s new leader. On Monday, Andrea Leadsom, the final […]