Europe

It was the Viking, Erik the Red who, in AD 986, first saw Greenland’s potential. He wanted to colonize his newly-discovered island, and in a blatant piece of tenth-century spin-doctoring hit on a wizard wheeze to encourage other Norse people to come to this bleak, icy and remote corner of the unknown world: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name." More than a thousand years later, President Donald Trump is proposing something similar. "It’s a large real estate deal. Owning Greenland is vital for US security... and economic security... It’s an absolute necessity and I cannot assure you that we would not use military or economic coercion.

Russia started the war on Ukraine, so Russia should pay for the damage it has wrought. Such was Volodymyr Zelensky’s forceful message to European leaders last night as he pleaded for a "reparations loan" backed by the €190 billion ($222 billion) of Russian Central Bank capital frozen in a Belgian clearing bank since Putin’s full-scale invasion. "Just as authorities confiscate money from drug traffickers and seize weapons from terrorists, Russian assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian attacks," Zelensky told his European allies. "It’s moral. It’s fair. It’s legal." But after negotiations that went late into the night, Europe ultimately shied away from grabbing Russia’s money.

Ten days after Thanksgiving, news watchers were exposed to one of the more culturally incongruous images in recent history: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron beaming in front of the British Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street, giving each other the locked-thumbs handshake familiar to African-American jazz musicians and professional athletes of the 1970s. Right on, brother! At that moment, according to Ukrainian media, thousands of Zelensky’s soldiers had been encircled by Russian troops near the city of Pokrovsk (or Krasnoarmiisk, as it may well soon be renamed). Large gaps were appearing in the Ukrainian front, desertions were rising and Russians appeared to be opening a new front east of Kharkiv.

If I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off.  I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent decision to fine Elon Musk and his company X €120 million for “non-compliance with transparency obligations” has me nudging the minute hand closer to midnight. “Non-compliance with transparency obligations.” What do you reckon that means?

German teachers are a privileged species. Most of us enjoy the status of a Beamter, a tenured civil servant. We can be dismissed only after a serious criminal conviction, we are exempt from social-insurance contributions and even our mortgage rates are lower. Such comfort discourages dissent. Yet, after more than 25 years as a pampered Beamter, I find myself overwhelmed, not by the teaching load or the students, but by the accelerating erosion of academic standards. Having taught English, history and Latin at four different Gymnasien, I have learned that challenging students is now frowned upon by both bureaucrats and politicians. Nearly all my colleagues agree that standards have plummeted.

Yesterday’s release of immigration figures by Britain's Office of National Statistics didn’t make for particularly pleasant reading. While net migration had fallen to around 200,000 in the 12 months to June, much of this was down to an unusually high exodus of people, with 693,000 leaving the country over the same period. Many of those leaving were under the age of 30. That news, however, seemed to prompt something approaching gloating over at the New York Times, which published a piece yesterday headlined: "The British Public Thinks Immigration Is Up. It’s Actually Down, Sharply." To labor the point, the piece was accompanied by a picture of anti-migration protestors in Scotland. The not-so-subtle subtext being: what a bunch of gammon thickos the anti-migration lot are in the UK.

Kyiv When is the price of peace ever fair? War does not determine who is right, only who is left, Bertrand Russell wisely observed. Very often conflicts come down to a numbers game – and on the numbers Ukraine is losing. Despite losing more soldiers, Russia is winning on the battlefield and unlike Ukraine hasn’t even begun mass mobilization.  Donald Trump’s proposed peace deal won’t turn the clock back on Ukraine's borders, or compensate Ukraine for Russian aggression and war crimes, or even punish Putin personally for starting a horrific and needless war that has claimed as many as 500,000 lives. If anything, the deal rewards him.  But Trump hopes his proposal will draw a line in the sand to stop the relentless bloodshed.

Who will pay for Ukraine’s war effort now the Trump administration has turned off the financial taps? European leaders have expressed themselves ready and willing to take up the burden, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen affirming that “if we continue to believe that Ukraine is our first line of defense, we need to step up our assistance.” Individual countries have come up with generous funding packages – most open-handed of all being Germany, which has recently pledged more than €3 billion in direct funding. But that’s just a drop in the ocean compared to what Ukraine says it needs.

Ten years ago on Thursday, Islamist terrorists massacred 130 people in a coordinated attack across Paris. It was the heaviest loss of life on French soil since World War Two, and those who perished – as well as the 350 who were wounded – were remembered yesterday in a series of commemorations. Emmanuel Macron visited the six sites where the terrorists struck, among them the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall, and the President inaugurated a memorial garden at Place Saint-Gervais, opposite Paris City Hall. According to the Élysée Palace ahead of proceedings, the day would be an opportunity for the nation "to honor the memory of those who lost their lives... and reaffirm its ongoing commitment to the fight against terrorism.

It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defense minister’s new "Modernization of Military Service" draft law is currently being debated in Berlin. Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will gauge their willingness and ability to carry out military service. For men, the quiz will be compulsory; for "other genders" – including women – it will be optional. Those who declare themselves willing to serve will be invited for a formal assessment for recruitment into the armed forces, while anyone refusing to fill out the questionnaire could face a fine.

There was a time when the French left turned its nose up at all things American. Too low-brow for them. Not now. The victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race has caused much joie de vivre in left-circles. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Gallic Bernie Saunders and the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, described Mamdani's win as "very good news." The general secretary of the center-left Socialist party, Olivier Faure, posted a smiley face on X above a headline in Le Monde, hailing Mamdani as "the youngest mayor in New York history." Mamdani referenced his age during his victory speech in Brooklyn. "The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate," he proclaimed. "I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim.

Emmanuel Macron says Europeans should stop relying on social media for their news and turn back to traditional public media. Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, he said people were “completely wrong” to use social networks for information and should instead depend on journalists and established outlets. Social platforms, he argued, are driven by a ‘process of maximum excitement” designed to “maximize advertising revenue,” a system he said is “destroying the foundations of democratic debate.” He accused X of being “dominated by far-right content” and added that the platform was no longer neutral because its owner had “decided to take part in the democratic struggle and in the international reactionary movement.” TikTok, he warned, was no less dangerous.

This week has been a tale of two presidents. On the one hand there is Donald Trump, who has masterminded a peace deal between Israel and Hamas which, the world hopes, will end the conflict in Gaza. Even Trump’s long-standing detractors acknowledge his role in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. "Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough," explained the BBC. It hasn’t been such a good week for Emmanuel Macron. On the contrary it’s been the most humiliating few days of his eight and a half years in office. On Monday his Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, tendered his resignation after 27 days in office. It was the shortest premiership in the 67 years of the Fifth Republic.

Summer is fun. Winter is serious. Autumn in London feels almost Boolean – the light, the air, the mood, seemed to turn on an equinox dime. The political situation, I heard, had grown even stranger since my last sojourn. “Cool Britannia” is dead. Nothing today is more dated than centrism. And yet the inexorable rules of the unwritten constitution mean no election until 2029. And the great barbarian, Nigel Farage, his weapons a grin and a beer, lies in wait as his numbers rise. Like J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, in an age of immediate media, Farage’s great weapon is that he is human. The same in public and private. Who is Kemi Badenoch in private, or Keir Starmer? Are they even anatomically correct? Someone must know. We never will.