A heavy-handed EU approach to migration?

It looks like the EU has found a kind of solution to the migration problem, and it’s a cynical one. It’s not the concrete wall, but the idea is pretty much the same. Der Spiegel has the story. Back Channel Cooperation How Frontex Helps Haul Migrants Back To Libyan Torture CampsRefugees are being detained, tortured……

“Draghipolitik” as consolidation without democracy

Ben Judah has written the best long article I’ve read in ages. Asking the why and how of the European Union. Incidentally, it’s about the new (albeit old) man in town, i.e. Mario Draghi. Glimpse : “The truth,” said the historian Marcel Gauchet, “is that Europeans do not know what they have built.” This is……

Europe still Global, but looking for its Strategic Autonomy

Half a decade ago, Europe was still living in a multilateral and rules-based world. Then, Trump came, and all of a sudden, the world wasn’t multilateral anymore neither rules-based. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic added injury to insult and the whole world got upside down. All this helped instill the new European mantra of autonomy and……

9/11, Nineteen Years On

Or how our time has begun. Almost everything we lived in the last 20 yeas is relied to the plane crashing in NY and DC, and to the US response afterwards. Nowadays, covid-19 seems destined to open another 20-years era, totally different from the former. The future looks more uncertain than anytime in living memory.……

Homeland by Trump : blood and treasure everywhere

Or how the real world of foreign policy could be influenced by the fictional plot of politics and spooks in the age of terror. Why not ? Everyone is driven by a narrative of its own, and no one knows exactly how it is built. Here the details.

Sic transit gloria mundi : Theresa May

Theresa May, now almost former UK PM, gave a speech on 17 January, 2017, related to the brexit negotiations, still to begin at that time. The ‘Leave’ newspapers hailed her performance and it is worth remembering. The “Steel of the new Iron Lady” was seen in her. It was an “impressive” May for presenting a……

Global Trade War : “naked economic terrorism”

Zhang Hanhui, China’s vice foreign minister : “We oppose a trade war but are not afraid of a trade war. This kind of deliberately provoking trade disputes is naked economic terrorism, economic homicide, economic bullying,” Zhang said, when asked about the trade war with the US. Interesting enough : it is ‘economic homicide’, but not……

The People’s Republic at 70

By the Guardian. And the pics. Two full generations now and, eventually, a kind of wisdom.

Angela (Merkel) vs Annegret (AKK)

It was said that Angela Merkel settled its succession to the German leadership : Annegret Kramp-Karenbauer. Not anymore. Is there any certitude left in (European) politics ?

Europe needs a new narrative

Angela Merkel, a few days ago : “Simply stating that we’ve enjoyed seven decades of peace is no longer enough to justify the European project. Without forward-looking arguments to justify Europe, the European peace project would also be in greater jeopardy than one may think.” “There is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself……