30 August 2020 There are eight Turks for every Greek, so you might think the Greeks have to fold. But Greece has the backing of France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, and practically every other country in the eastern Mediterranean and the Arab world, as well as the entire European Union, so it has just called the …
Have we reached peak fascist in Europe? Well, all right then, peak hard-right nationalist, but are we there yet? That would be reassuring, and three events in the past week give some cause for hope. First, on Sunday Germany’s far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), failed to win first place in the two state …
Five of the world’s largest democracies now have populist governments, claimed The Guardian last week, and proceeded to name four: The United States, India, Brazil and the Philippines. Which is the fifth? At various points it name-checks Turkey, Italy and the United Kingdom, but it never becomes clear which. (And by the way, India’s prime …
NOTE: THE NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ACCEPTED BY THE ITALIAN PRESIDENT TODAY, 21 MAY, BUT AT THE TIME OF WRITING IT STILL HAD NOT HAPPENED. CHECK. From the European Union’s point of view Brexit, the impending departure of the United Kingdom, is a pity but not a disaster. Britain never joined the …
There are actually fewer migrants crossing the Mediterranean and landing in European Union countries this year than in any other recent year: only 37,000 so far, although the flow will increase with good summer weather. But they are nevertheless the ‘last straw’ as far as some EU countries are concerned. Patience is running out. Last …
Lucky old Italy just got two Donald Trumps for the price of one. One of the big winners in last Sunday’s Italian election was the Five-Star Movement, whose 31-year-old leader Luigi di Maio has promised to stop sending out rescue boats to save migrants from drowning when their flimsy craft sink halfway across the Mediterranean. …
Just one month before Italy’s national elections on 4 March, Luca Miniero’s satirical movie ‘Sono Tornato’ (‘I’m Back’) hit the screens all over the country. It imagined the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini returning to the Italy of 2018, and its timing was perfect. “”The Italians, unlike the Germans, never dealt with their dictator, they have …
China Miéville, a novelist I much admire, has published a history of the ‘October Revolution’ to mark its hundredth anniversary (which is actually on 7 November, since the Russians were still using the Julian calendar in 1917). It had an unusual effect on me. It made me question whether I was right about the utter …
“Today saying No is the most beautiful and glorious form of politics….Whoever doesn’t understand that can go screw themselves.” It could have been Donald Trump before the US election two weeks ago, or Boris Johnson during the Brext campaign in Britain last June, but it was actually Beppe Grillo, founder and leader of Italy’s populist …
Refugees from the wars of the Middle East are pouring into the European Union at an unprecedented rate. So are economic migrants from Africa and non-EU countries in the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, etc.), and some of them claim to be refugees too. They are coming at the rate of about 3,000 a day, mostly …
Europe’s Refugee Crisis: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Read More »