Comme s’il voulait marquer ouvertement son détachement face aux petits jeux politiques, dès le lendemain des élections européennes, desquelles il est sorti triomphateur, Matteo Renzi, le nouveau chef du gouvernement italien, a tourné son attention vers l’extérieur : l’Europe bien sûr, mais pas seulement. Il a entrepris un tour d’Asie à la tête d’une mission […]

But men generally abandoned the care of their most important concerns to the uncertain prudence and discretion of those whose interest it is to reject the best and wisest institutions; and it is not till they have been led into a thousand mistakes in matters the most essential to their lives and liberties, and are […]

An historical tragedy, the whole centuries-old tragedy of the German nation, stems from its being historical out of step with the other great nations of Western Europe. And this temporal mismatch has in its turn arisen from basic uncertainty over the space it occupies. The difficulties that mark the coexistence of Germany with its European […]

…but the independence debate will be a source of serious contention that in some cases cannot be confined to the UK, such as NATO, the presence of atomic submarines, and EU membership. The politics of European separatism could also cast a large shadow over the issue, as Catalonia and Flanders loom in the background. The […]

    The result of the ballot about “Proposition 37” in California was released on November 7th. Voters refused to compel companies, supermarkets chains and sellers to label all foods containing any genetically modified organism, as demanded by the main promoter of the campaign, “Yes to Proposition 37” (http://www.carighttoknow.org/ ). The question. Should labeling be […]

21 years in prison, which can be indefinitely extended by 5 year stretches is – as all of Europe knows – what Norvegian judges thought Anders Breivik deserved for the crimes committed  on Friday 22 July 2011. He is indeed the 32 year old white middle class male Norwegian who, having until then lived an apparently blameless […]

EVERY TRIBE, every coherent community that has endured has put together its own historical narrative, a collective story that tells of the exploits that bound it together and offers people at every level a mirror into which they can peer and see some acceptable version of what they believe they are or aspire to be. […]

A revolution in the gas sector? Once again, this much abused word – “revolution” – has recently been heard in the community of oilmen, and some of the many commentators who write about energy in the media, have spoken of “market disrupion” . And from several sides it has been pointed out – as a […]

EJ – Looking at the international scene from both an American and a European viewpoint, the main reason of unease is clearly Iraq, and the main cause of preoccupation is obviously Iran. Today, the dissent of Europe on the first of these two crises is no longer stressed, and barely mentioned in diplomatic circles, but […]

Even the most convinced supporters of the European idea seem to have doubts these days: doubts about the outcome of the present crisis, and – in retrospect – even about former Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s hitherto universally recognised capacity to think further ahead than any of his contemporaries. Very appropriately in a moment when, faced with […]