Eu

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

The migrant crisis could prove to be Macron’s undoing

What a forty eight hours it has been for Emmanuel Macron. On Monday, he gave his regal address to the National Assembly at the Palace of Versailles, a grandiose occasion during which the French president rivalled Tony Blair and Barack Obama for swaggering self-confidence. As Jonathan Miller said in the Spectator, it’s hard not to be ‘cowed by the absolute bravado of the young president’. Then, on Tuesday, Macron’s prime minister, Édouard Philippe, presented to the Assembly his government’s programme for the next five years. As is the tradition, the MPs were asked at the end of the general policy speech to give the PM their backing. Of the 577 MPs in

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Brexit is a retreat – not a liberation

It is a mark of Britain’s estrangement from the European Union – and, at least for now, the country’s diminished standing on the international stage – that although Theresa May attended a memorial service to Helmut Kohl at the weekend, she was not invited to speak. Of course there are hierarchies of closeness on such occasions, but there is something piercing about the manner in which what this country, and its leaders, have to say now has so little resonance.  Kohl’s death should have occasioned more commentary in this country than it has. By any reasonable estimation, he was a titan of modern European history. The picture of Kohl holding

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Emmanuel Macron and the restoration of French monarchy

Have the French belatedly realised the error of their regicide and decided to restore the monarchy?  If so, will the regime of Emmanuel Macron, whose seizure of power must certainly be inspiring politicians around the globe with its brutal efficacy, end the same way?  Macron’s glittering and symbolic appearance yesterday at the Palace of Versailles to address a joint session of the National Assembly – over which he currently exercises complete domination – and the Senate, will give historians, semioticians and journalists plenty to mull (although Macron has said that his thoughts are too complex to be explained to the media). But Macron played a blinder. Many French deeply regret not

Sunday

Mark Nayler

Spain’s lost generation

Spain’s recent economic expansion means little to young Spaniards. Many are angry with the country’s tirelessly corrupt politicians, and are unable to pursue rewarding careers in their own country. Despite three-and-a-half years of GDP growth at one of the fastest rates in the eurozone, Spain still has the second highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 18 per cent. More than 40 per cent of Spaniards aged between 16 and 25 are without jobs, while others struggle on temporary contracts with low salaries — or move abroad to find better work. Does this all mean that Spain suffering is from a ‘lost generation’ of youngsters who are struggling to fulfil

Douglas Murray

The public vs the politicians

These are difficult times across Europe. From the endless iterations of the eurozone crisis to the Brexit negotiations beginning in earnest — these and many more challenges will face our continent for years to come. But underneath them all, lies a whole set of other ructions: subterranean events which lead to subterranean public concerns and subterranean public discussions. Foremost among such deep rumblings are the anxieties of the European publics on matters to do with immigration, identity and Islam. These things are closely connected (so closely that I recently put them together in the subtitle of my book, The Strange Death of Europe), but they are unarguably stifled discussions. While

Saturday

William Cook

Liberals should not be surprised Angela Merkel voted against gay marriage

Liberal Brits got a welcome wake-up call yesterday, when the woman they’ve been calling the leader of the free world voted against Gay Marriage. ‘For me, marriage in law should be between a man and a woman, and that’s why I didn’t vote in favour of this bill,’ said Angela Merkel, after the German parliament voted to legalise same-sex unions by 393 votes to 226. All the usual suspects have been on Twitter, voicing their right-on indignation, but for anyone who knows anything about Merkel, the wonder is that anybody should be in the slightest bit surprised. The recent immigration crisis has made Merkel a hate figure for the British

Charles Moore Charles Moore

There’s a more dangerous Brexit ‘cliff-edge’ which is being ignored

People like Philip Hammond say that we must at all costs avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ in the Brexit negotiations. But the more dangerous cliff-edge is the political one. If, having voted to Leave, we do so in name but not in fact, the elites will have frustrated the ballot box, and faith in the democratic process will plunge to its death. This is Holmes versus Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Just now, Moriarty has the upper hand. But remember that Holmes survived, because Conan Doyle had to revive him — by popular demand. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, which appears in this week’s Spectator

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

France is finally looking forward to some Brit-bashing

Was that a touch of gloating I detected last night as I watched the news on French television? The lead item was Donald Trump’s acceptance of President Macron’s invitation to attend the Bastille Day commemoration in Paris next month. It’s always a prestigious occasion and this year marks the centenary of America’s entry into WW1. Hence the invitation to the American president which came in a telephone conversation where the pair also agreed on a joint military response against the Syrian regime should Bashar al-Assad launch another chemical attack. That Trump has accepted at relatively short notice – Macron only issued the invite on Tuesday – suggests that The Donald is

Monday

Katy Balls

Labour’s nonsensical Brexit position is perfect opposition politics

After Theresa May received a hostile response in Brussels, perhaps she was hoping for a more amiable reception today in the Chamber when she revealed more details of her pitch to EU nationals living in the UK. In a statement, the Prime Minister told MPs that hers was a fair and serious offer (confirming she remains opposed to European Court of Justice adjudicating on rights of EU nationals after Brexit) but went one step further – telling EU nationals: ‘we want you to stay’. Alas, her words did little to appease Jeremy Corbyn. Boosted by rowdy opposition benches, he accused the government of treating EU nationals like bargaining chips. The Labour leader said

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Theresa May is (slowly) seeing sense on EU nationals. Will the EU do the same?

Theresa May has made a far better offer to EU nationals, saying they will be granted permanent residence after staying five years. But the EU has not. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has said that her offer is ‘below our expectations and risks worsening the situation for our citizens’. He wants the European Court of Justice to have authority over the UK government in policing its pledge to EU citizens. Theresa May has ruled out any ECJ authority saying, quite rightly, that the Brexit vote was a move to end all that. So where now? Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta which holds the rotating EU presidency,

Thursday

The Spectator

Opening gambit

The unexpected outcome of the general election has led some to hope that a weakened government will be forced to pursue a ‘softer’ Brexit. They are right to think that the emphasis of the negotiation will have to change, but they use the wrong adjective. The choice before David Davis and his team as they start work in Brussels is not and never has been between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ Brexit; it is between an open Brexit and a closed Brexit. The former is one where Britain retains open trade with, and a high degree of free movement to and from, other EU countries — as well as taking fresh opportunities

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

At long last, Theresa May offers assurance to EU nationals

After a year of prevarication, it has emerged that the Prime Minister has agreed to offer permanent residency to all EU nationals who were living in Britain. Under current rules, anyone who has been here for five years can apply for permanent residency status: not quite the same as citizenship, but it confers the same rights as UK citizens enjoy. Two-thirds of our EU migrants are covered by this. What’s new is that no one will be booted out (which would anyway be illegal) but it seems that those who hit the five-year mark, say, in 2022 will also be able to apply for permanent residency. Her offer is conditional on reciprocity – but

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

Islamists have failed to divide France. Will they succeed in Britain?

Islamic State will be delighted by what happened outside Finsbury Park mosque in the early hours of Monday morning. In the space of three months they’ve achieved in Britain what they failed to pull off in France during five years, and provoked a retaliatory act. This is what they want. When the Syrian intellectual, Abu Moussab al-Souri, published his 1600-page manifesto in 2005, ‘The Global Islamic Resistance Call’, his stated goal was to plunge Europe into a war of religion. Describing the continent as the soft underbelly of the West, al-Souri’s first target was France, the country he considered the most susceptible to fracturing along religious lines because it has

Tuesday

Henry Newman

The Euro’s badly-needed reform could finally be on the cards

Has Germany finally started to shift its position on the future of the Eurozone? Speaking today, at a conference for the German equivalent of the CBI, Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to open the door to a new form of governance for the 19-country bloc. Since the financial crisis, the common currency zone has bounced from crisis to crisis, surviving by kicking the can down the road at each critical moment. It has long been obvious that major institutional changes were required to ensure the currency’s long-term viability. During the recent French presidential election campaign, the euro was an important political issue: Marine Le Pen proposed restoring the French franc (albeit in parallel

Monday

James Kirkup

It’s time to prepare voters for some tough Brexit compromises

Brexit is like life. The journey matters more than the final destination. Instead of fixating on where we will, eventually, end up, pay more attention to the things that happen along the way. As Brexit talks start, there are abundant signs of a possible compromise on Britain’s exit, or at least, on the timing of that exit. Yes, the Article 50 period will, absent an agreement to the contrary, expire in March 2019 and with it Britain’s formal membership of the EU. But what follows might not look or feel like the clean break that some voters have imagined. Among British politicians of all persuasions, there is, once again, a

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How long can Macron’s message of hope survive?

It says much about the extraordinary rise of Emmanuel Macron that some commentators are describing the outcome of Sunday’s second round of voting in the parliamentary elections as something of a disappointment for the new president. His La République en Marche [LREM] party won an estimated 359 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, some way short of predictions last week that forecast his fledging party could finish with as many as 450. Then again, it’s the biggest majority in the Assembly since the 1968 elections and the result also confirms the destruction of the Socialist party and the disarray of the Republicians. The former picked up only 46

Saturday

Philip Sime

Pew poll shows most Europeans want to take back control from Brussels

Many in Brussels are anxiously looking out for any sign of what has been termed ‘Brexit contagion’ – the idea that the Brits might encourage others towards leaving the EU. The findings of a major Pew survey of European opinion does not point to a rush towards the exit, but it certainly does flag up dissatisfaction with the EU and its handling of many of the most pressing issues facing the continent.  Take, for example, trade policy: should a country set its own alliances or leave it to the EU? This is, in effect, a question about the Customs Union – staying in this union is often taken to define

William Cook

For all his faults, Helmut Kohl was a political colossus

The British public never really warmed to Helmut Kohl. In Britain, he was always seen as too bossy, too bumptious, too… well, too Teutonic. Margaret Thatcher thought so too. ‘My God, that man is SO German,’ she told Charles Powell, after Kohl’s attempt to woo her with his favourite dish, stuffed pig’s stomach, fell horribly flat. Even the Germans were often ambivalent about their longest serving Chancellor since Bismarck. East Germans ended up disillusioned when Kohl’s lavish promises of ‘blooming landscapes’ failed to materialise. West Germans ended up disillusioned when they had to foot the bill. Yet history will judge him kindly, in Germany and Britain. For all his faults,

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Kissin in action

Is Evgeny Kissin, born in Moscow in 1971, the most famous concert pianist in the world? Probably not, if you stretch the definition of ‘concert pianist’ to encompass the circus antics of Lang Lang, the 34-year-old Chinese virtuoso who — in the words of a lesser-known but outstandingly gifted colleague — ‘can play well but chooses not to’. But you could certainly argue that Kissin has been the world’s most enigmatic great pianist since the death of Sviatoslav Richter in 1997 – though, unlike the promiscuously gay Richter, his overwhelming concern with privacy does not conceal any exotic secrets. He has recently married for the first time, but chooses not

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Brexit negotiations will not be delayed, says David Davis

Although Philip Hammond has cancelled his Mansion House speech tonight as a result of the Grenfell Tower fire, government business will continue as normal. With the Queen’s Speech scheduled for Wednesday, it’s been confirmed that formal EU negotiations will commence on Monday: ‘David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Chief Negotiator, agreed today to launch Article 50 negotiations on Monday, 19 June.’ Now negotiations were always expected to begin next week. But following the surprise election result of a hung Parliament, there had been concern it could be delayed. After all, it is slightly strange to begin negotiations before a Queen’s Speech.