All Europeans should read a speech Koen Lenaerts, president of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, delivered to law students in Leiden in mid-June, writes Caroline de Gruyter. It is a speech about European values and the fundamental place they occupy in Europe’s legal system.
Does a direct link really exist between rising defence spending and budgetary cuts in healthcare, benefits or pensions, as many citizens assume? Is it true that European countries must choose between ‘guns or butter’?
Autocrats and ‘strongmen’ want us to feel defeated on international law. But ‘the fact that certain laws are being violated does not, of course, mean those laws no longer exist’, writes Caroline de Gruyter.
Usually, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Facebook posts earn him an endless stream of insults, cynical comments and worse. But this time it was different.
What Vladimir Putin cannot achieve on the battlefield and in Russian factories due to incompetence and corruption, he is trying to achieve instead by offering American companies and politicians fat contracts and huge profits, writes Caroline de Gruyter.
Small European states now seek protection through deeper EU ties amid growing global power rivalries. The latest example is the principality of Liechtenstein. The lesson seems to be that in a larger club, you have at least some protection against tyrannical superpowers, writes EUobserver columnist Caroline de Gruyter
The French sociologist Gaston Bouthoul’s wrote the “standard book for understanding war”. Bouthoul was fascinated by demographic factors, particularly the abnormally high proportion of young, unemployed men in a population just before the outbreak of violence, explains Catherine de Gruyter.
The European decision not to impose tariffs on American imports may look ‘weak’, but is smart policy. It makes sure prices in Europe will not go up. This shows American voters that Trump is inflicting pain on them, not on Europeans, writes Caroline de Gruyter.
On 27 May, an official document, The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, calling for regime change in European countries was published, written by a senior adviser for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the US State Department, writes Caroline de Gruyter.
Since Sunday (1 June) when Poland again elected a far-right president, one question is back again in Europe: are we living a ‘1968’ but in the opposite direction? Are we, 57 years after the leftish-liberal student revolution, facing another revolution — this time an very rightwing, conservative one?
To remain dominant in the global economy, Trump is left with two options: either to confront China, or to bring as many other countries under his control as possible, especially wealthy allies like Canada, EU countries and Mexico. There are many indications that he will choose this second path, writes EUobserver columnist Caroline de Gruyter.
Despite the initial quarrels, EU leaders try to make up and bridge their differences, seeking compromises all can live with. This is what the EU was invented for.
In 1954, plans for a European Defence Union crumbled because western Europe still had American protection. Today, with that luxury gone, Europe will finally get serious about its own defence.
After the US election, a new characterisation of transatlantic differences is popping up: Americans are supposedly thinking ‘astrologically’, while Europeans are thinking more ‘astronomically’ — ie while identity politics and sentiment prevail in America, facts and reason tend to dominate policy-making in Europe.
It is not just outsiders who often fail to recognise Europe’s elasticity — Europeans themselves often make the same mistake, regularly comparing it to an ‘oil tanker’ incapable of changing its course, while in reality, Europe has changed course many times over the past decades.
China, a major player in the peace economy, has now switched to the war economy. The story of the new Chinese car factory in Turkey is just one example of how this works.
Towards the end of his life Jacques Delors, the former EU Commission president who died last December, increasingly worried about national egotism of EU member states. At a time when political mud-slinging seems to be the norm, particularly in the US but also in Europe, it is time to take Delors’ remark seriously.
Austria’s victorious far-right party leader Herbert Kickl, a pro-Russian conspiracy theorist who has vowed to become a ‘Volkskanzler’ [People’s Chancellor] like Hitler once was, happily noted: “We are the middle now.” So what does the centre have as a reply, asks Caroline de Gruyter?
Finland’s long border with Russia is its Achilles heel — and all Finns were always aware of this. Therefore, everything Finland does remains focused on keeping that border stable and, at the same time, preparing itself for the worst-case scenario — even after many decades of tense peace.
If you want to prevent war, you must first understand and accept the notion that in international politics tragedy is always lurking somewhere.