Fishing remains one of the key sticking points of negotiations – Getty Images Boris Johnson has told the French president the UK wants to “explore every avenue” to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, days before the PM’s self-imposed deadline. Mr. Johnson told Emmanuel Macron “intensive talks” were needed to “bridge significant gaps”…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at a press conference at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin following a virtual meeting with governors of Germany’s 16 states on Aug. 27, 2020. (Omer Messinger-Pool/Getty Images) As Angela Merkel enters the home stretch of her nearly 15-year tenure, more people express confidence in the German chancellor than in any other world…
At a solemn ceremony at the Panthéon to mark the 150th anniversary of the (re-)birth of the Republic, president Macron chose a 59-year-old anti-Brexit British expatriate to be one of five newly naturalised French citizens emblematic of what it means to become French. Macron does nothing without gauging its historical and political theatre. Coming just days…
Collage sources: EU Website NEW YORK (IDN) – Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” is a play featuring two characters waiting for a character, Godot, who never arrives. As such, it is a useful metaphor for the goings-on of the European Union (EU). Observers of the EU’s evolution in the capital of Brussels have witnessed a…
Emmanuel Macron from the Elysée Palace during a televised interview on TF1, in Paris on July 21, 2020. © AFP – LUDOVIC MARIN A historic rescue plan for economies left shattered by the coronavirus epidemic was hailed by French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday as “the most important moment in the life of our Europe since…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, hold a joint news conference via video conference to mark Berlin taking over the EU’s rotating presidency from July 1 until the end of the year, in Berlin, Germany, July 2, 2020. Kay Nietfeld/Pool via Reuters As Germany takes over…
The German Chancellor’s surprising move to back a cashed-up EU recovery fund is giving fresh impetus to a supranational approach. The German Chancellor has a record of defying orthodoxies and the Covid-19 crisis cries out for extraordinary steps BERLIN • German Chancellor Angela Merkel is well known for her political flexibility. After the catastrophe of…
(Bloomberg Opinion) — The European Union’s pandemic recovery plan has all the hallmarks of a historic leap in the dark for the 27-member bloc. It aims to unleash as much as 750 billion euros ($826 billion) of fiscal stimulus, fueled by joint borrowing on financial markets — a big deal for member states that have always jealously guarded the power to…
The clock is ticking on the continuing existence of the EU. Image credit: Christian Wiediger on Unsplash The French president Emmanuel Macron recently fired a warning shot across the bow of the European ship of state. He said that without making all EU countries mutually responsible for the debts of individual countries, the EU could…
This is the story behind the clashes at the Greek border. Migrants wait to board a ferry in the port of Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, on March 20. (Vangelis Papantonis/AP) In the midst of Europe’s coronavirus problem, a new border crisis has flared up. On Feb. 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Turkey would open its European…