Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC. He tweets @DaliborRohac
The news that came out of Georgia late on Saturday was as saddening as it was predictable. For weeks, the country’s ruling party, the Russia-aligned Georgian Dream (GD), were advertising that they saw no alternative to staying in power following the rigged parliamentary election – promising a ban on opposition parties and even ‘Nuremberg trials’. If there is
Reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, Donald Trump reiterated his long-standing ambition to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a quick negotiated settlement instead of continuing with open-ended military support to Kyiv. If he wins the election, Trump said, ‘the first thing I’m gonna do is call up Zelensky and call
Has France’s far right just made a 180-degree turn on Ukraine? The leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, expressed his support for sending ‘ammunition and equipment [Ukraine] needs to hold the front’ at a recent arms fair. Last year, Bardella stated ‘the war would not end without a withdrawal of Russian troops and a return of complete
If one story dominates the cacophony of results of the European election from across the 27 countries of the Union, it is the defeat of incumbents in the EU’s largest member states: France and Germany. While their underperformance was expected, its aftershocks risk leaving Europe weak and ineffectual in the face of Russian aggression in
Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico is fighting for his life in hospital after being shot several times. While it is impossible to fully flesh out the consequences of today’s assassination attempt, it is safe to say that the event is a dramatic game changer for Slovak, and potentially for Central European, politics. During a meet
Emmanuel Macron is playing the emperor again. Last week he proudly announced a grand new strategy, but without any indication of how to pay for it. The French President said that ‘“Made in Europe” should be our motto,’ and urged Europeans to ‘take back control of our supply chains, energy and innovation’. Macron’s call for
What should we make of the recent hardening of Emmanuel Macron’s position on the war in Ukraine? At the beginning of the conflict, France’s president spent countless hours talking with Vladimir Putin; now, he spends his time entertaining scenarios in which French troops could be sent to Ukraine, and calling on other European leaders to
As Donald Trump marches towards the Republican nomination, a question hangs over Europe: how should the continent prepare for a world in which Nato becomes dead letters? For some, the answer is ‘strategic autonomy’; for others, it lies in procuring as much US-made kit as possible to buy goodwill with the future administration. One obvious
For years, European leaders have recognised that ‘in a world of carnivores, vegetarians have a very tough time of it,’ as Germany’s former Foreign Minister Siegmar Gabriel put it in 2018. Six years later, as a handful of well-armed Houthi pirates all but shut down maritime trade on the Red Sea, Europe is finding itself to be
In 2019, France’s president Emmanuel Macron famously called Nato ‘braindead’. Think what you will about the health of the defence alliance, but it is increasingly the European Union, not Nato, that seems paralysed, unable to think more than just a step ahead. The EU has been trundling along in this state for some time now.
Pranked by a Kremlin-friendly comedy duo, Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, spoke for many when she confessed her ‘fatigue’ with the war in Ukraine. But there is some bad news for all the Europeans ‘tired’ of the conflict. Europe’s real job will only begin when the current war of attrition eventually congeals along more or less
If it continues to hold, the likely electoral victory of Poland’s opposition last night is good news for all those concerned by the health of Polish democracy. In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum painted a dire picture of creeping state capture, suggesting that in some ways, ‘Poland already [resembled] an autocracy,’ and eloquently arguing why
Hamas’s heinous attack and the robust Israeli response serve as a useful reminder of well-known double standards on the activist left. In an echo of those US Republicans who are unable to see Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression with any moral clarity – framing it instead as a ‘territorial dispute’ – some commentators have been
Brits or Europeans might not have taken note of the ongoing strike by United Auto Workers (UAW) nor of the fact that Donald Trump has chosen to host them at a rally in Michigan instead of participating in the GOP primary debate last night – just a day after president Joe Biden had joined the
The row over Ukrainian grain imports shows that politicians in Eastern Europe can be their own worst enemies. Five Eastern European countries – Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, led by Poland and Hungary – failed to convince other EU member states that the existing ban on imports of grain from Ukraine, imposed earlier this year, should be
Although Western support to Ukraine’s defence effort continues unabated, the honeymoon between Kyiv and even its staunchest allies is decidedly over. In a recent interview, President Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, said that Ukraine sees Poland as its close friend ‘until the end of the war.’ Then, he added, ‘competition between the countries will begin.’ The quote,
US president Joe Biden has been busy curbing expectations about Nato’s looming decision over Ukraine’s future membership. Starting the accession process at the summit in Lithuania this week would be ‘premature’, Biden said. Ukraine still needs to meet other qualifications for membership, ‘including democratisation’, the president added. Biden’s hesitation is misplaced. The Vilnius summit offers an opportunity for Nato to redress the historic
The off-colour comment by Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, that post-Soviet countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania did not enjoy ‘an effective status within international law’ was not a gaffe or a case of a Chinese official gone rogue. Instead, Shaye’s remark, which he made on Friday night on France’s LCI channel, must
What should be done about Ukraine’s grain exports? Ongoing controversy in Poland over the country’s imports into the EU, which currently face zero tariffs, gives a flavour of the fights to come if Ukraine becomes a fully-fledged member of the bloc. It also presents an opportunity to start a much-overdue conversation about the EU’s worst,
With an early election just six months away, the most pressing question facing Slovak politics is whether the country is about to turn down the path of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. The decision might come down to just one individual: former prime minister Peter Pellegrini. A lot is pointing in direction of Orbánism. With the collapse of
