Europe

To misquote von Clausewitz, the European Union sees lawfare as the continuation of politics by other means. Brussels’s latest sally against the government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, which it viscerally detests (and which seriously rattled Eurocrats last week with its calculated brinkmanship over the Ukrainian aid programme) is a nice example. The new casus belli is a piece of domestic Hungarian legislation from last year, the Act on the Defence of National Sovereignty. (For a fairly rough English translation of the law, see here.) The measure is essentially aimed at making it harder for transnational NGOs and foreign-funded organisations like the Soros Foundation (called the ‘dollar left’ and the ‘Soros Empire’ in Hungary) to

The rise of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has set off one of the largest waves of protest in modern German history. Half-a-million or so demonstrators took to the streets last weekend: they were a mixed bunch of all ages and ethnicities; politicians also marched alongside members of the public. All were united in their desire to stem the rise of the far-right AfD.  But while the marches looked impressive, there is little sign that they are working – or that they have the power to actually change anyone’s mind. Much has been made out of the fact that, while the AfD polled at around 23 per cent for much of

February has not started well for the European Union. On the first day of the month, furious farmers surrounded the parliament in Brussels, chanting defiance and throwing eggs at the people they blame for demeaning their industry. On Saturday, a man stabbed three people at the Gare de Lyon in Paris. The suspect in custody is from Mali but had lived legally in Italy since arriving in 2016. During questioning, the 32-year said his actions were motivated not by religion but by historical grievance, for what France ‘had imposed on his grandfather’. As has become the custom in these type of attacks, the initial explanation for the man’s rampage was

All eyes were on Hungary’s Viktor Orbán at yesterday’s EU summit in Brussels. The issue at stake was simple but vital. The EU wanted to provide €50 billion (£43 billion) in aid to Ukraine over four years, but this use of the bloc’s funds required unanimity from all member states. Orbán remained unconvinced. But would he continue unmovable, or would he budge? And if so what price would he demand? Hungary has always been concerned to keep as judiciously uncommitted as possible in the Russia – Ukraine conflict. Orban was instinctively unhappy about supporting the EU’s stance that was, whatever its virtues, highly partisan. Besides, he had other bones to

Dixmont, Yonne I am writing these words from my house in Burgundy. If I look over my shoulder out of the window I can see the house of my neighbour, a cereal farmer. If I look out to my right, across the fields, I can see the buildings of a cattle farmer. There is a third farm in my village where they produce cereal and vegetables. Every two days in France a farmer commits suicide. Others walk away from the industry Patricia, the wife of this third farmer, dropped by last night with a crate of potatoes. Her husband has been on the front line of the growing agricultural protest

The toll station on the A9 motorway near the French-Spanish border is closed with cones and guarded by the local gendarmes. A few dozen trucks are parked on the grass verges, waiting for the farmers’ barricades to open. The farmers themselves have gone, heading north to barricade Montpellier. The autoroute is utterly, weirdly silent. A thundering corridor of commerce completely closed. The truckers I talk to like that I’m British, congratulating me on Brexit as if I was personally responsible. They uniformly support the farmers although it is their livelihood that is being disrupted. Why? It is long past the time that credulous French people should support petulant farmer ‘unions’ demanding ever more

We don’t hear much about Austrian politics in Britain, which is not perhaps surprising since the landlocked Central European republic of some nine million souls, is scarcely a major player on Europe’s chessboard. Nonetheless Austria, like Britain, will hold elections this year, and a populist party with Nazi roots looks certain to emerge with the most votes. On Friday, thousands of young Austrians took to the streets of Vienna and Salzburg in demonstrations spilling over from neighbouring Germany against the rise of right-wing anti immigration parties in both countries. They were specifically protesting about a recent meeting of far-right activists near Berlin that discussed a plan to deport migrants to

Gabriel Attal has only been in his job for two weeks but the youngest prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic is already facing a series of crises. The most pressing issue for the 34-year-old premier is the farmers’ protest, which began last Friday when a blockade was erected on the A64 motorway west of Toulouse.   Early yesterday morning a car drove into the blockade, killing a farmer and her 12-year-old daughter. Details of the crash emerged throughout the day: it was not a deliberate act, the driver and the occupants were foreign and were confused by the protest. Then it was revealed that the three people in

Ravenna You’re not supposed to mock the afflicted, I know, but I laughed when I read the news that the left-wing citadel of Bologna has introduced a 30 kph (19 mph) speed limit. Forcing the Italians – a nation of famously crazy drivers who make fabulous sports cars – to drive no faster than cyclists is to deprive them of an essential element of what it means to be Italian. Poor Italians. Is nothing sacred? Not even speed? Probably, thank God, not even globalisation can change the Italian psyche I’ve lived for so many years cheek by jowl with the Italians and their ins and outs that I must confess I

‘Spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison,’ C.S. Lewis famously said. In western countries, organised religion has been declining for the last two centuries; Friedrich Nietzsche even declared that ‘God is dead’. Does the decline and fall of religion have political consequences? Can totalitarian ideology grow in the void left by religion? To find the answer, it’s worth looking to 1930s Germany. Did shallow Christianity – a lack of deep-rooted Christian beliefs – make Germans more susceptible to the Nazi party’s message during the years of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power? In the less-than-fertile Christian soils of Germany, there was room

The great and the good of this world met in Davos this week to tell each other how wonderful they are. But amid all the bonhomie and back-slapping there loomed the spectre of You-Know-Who.   Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses was his first significant step towards a second term in the White House. His first was bad enough for the Davos set, but the possibility that Trump and his Deplorables might triumph in November is too much for many to bear. Macron believes he’s the top dog among the 27 EU leaders Last week, Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, described Trump as ‘clearly a threat’

Donald Tusk’s return to power in Poland’s autumn election was interpreted by many as the victory of centrism over populism. The rogue right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) had been cast out and decency prevailed once more: this was, at least, the narrative presented to the world’s media. In Warsaw, things looked very different. On the campaign trail Tusk repeatedly promised to ‘depoliticise’ the state-owned media and restore the rule of law. Once he was sworn in as Prime Minister last month, it didn’t take him long to resort to authoritarian methods that would have led to an international outcry if a supposed moderate had not been behind them. On

I watched Emmanuel Macron’s prime time press conference last night but I wish I hadn’t. It was meant to be Macron’s relaunch of his presidency after a tough period of soaring prices, international and civil disorder, Europe in turmoil and awful polls. I should have known better than to stay up past my usual bedtime. Mr Macron is a president who delights in his own words yet is entirely unaware of his soporific effect on others. These were two and a half hours of my life I will never recover.  This wasn’t really a press conference. It was theatre. A one-man show where there was no director to tell the