Europe News

European Union institutions are known worldwide for a certain lack of accountability and inconsistent policymaking processes that are undertaken more on the sly than in a democratic matter. Alternatively, if a genuinely democratic decision has been made, it’s all too often ignored. Just as Americans often take issue with “the swamp” on Capitol Hill, so…

A July 2022 International Monetary Fund working paper found that in Europe, within the prior year, “oil prices had doubled, coal prices tripled, and natural gas prices increased more than fivefold.” Further, about half of all inflation could be linked to this increase in energy prices. And perhaps most importantly, the study noted: “Higher energy prices…

President Joe Biden’s decision to authorize reserve troops to be sent to Europe is “a sign that the Ukraine policy has become just another endless war,” Sen. Josh Hawley says. “I mean, this is all about Ukraine. This is exactly what I said would happen, that we have to send more troops there,” says Hawley,…

This one of the saddest of the more than 1,000 columns I have written. I am writing in Budapest after spending four days in Warsaw last week and four days in Munich two weeks before that. To put this in context: I have traveled abroad every year since I was 18 years old—except for 2020,…

An oft-repeated phrase among those favoring taxpayer-funded health care, day care, and pensions is that such programs are “free.” However, I recently moved to France, and paying my social charges and taxes proves these services are anything but. I expected taxes to be higher, but I was unprepared for the limitations that France’s system places…

Compared to Western Europe, the American middle class has it pretty good when it comes to taxes. Of course, that’s more of an indictment on Western European governance than it is an endorsement of the U.S. tax system. And, unless Washington changes its big-spending ways, the U.S. middle class soon will face similar astronomical taxes….

Finland is joining NATO, and Victoria Coates says Russia is less than pleased.  Leaders in Moscow are “thoroughly outraged about this and claiming it causes some kind of intolerable threat to Russian security,” says Coates, a senior research fellow in international affairs and national security at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news…

Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world’s largest importer of oil and natural gas. Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it. Europe…

We are just one week into 2020, and already Europe has suffered its first Islamist terrorist attack of the year. On Friday, a 22-year-old French citizen named in the press as “Nathan C.” began stabbing joggers in a park in Paris. One man died while trying to protect his wife, who was also seriously injured….

There’s lots of talk in Washington about the Islamic State and the Trump administration’s Syria policy. That’s an important discussion to have, but it’s only one part of the counterterrorism discussion that America has to be engaged in. Consider events in Europe over the past week. On Oct. 3, an information technology specialist, Michael Harpon,…

When the caliphate of the Islamic State collapsed, its fighters scattered. Many ISIS terrorists ended up in camps being run by Syrian Kurds in northern Syria. Among the number are about 2,000 Europeans, and what exactly to do about that is the biggest source of disagreement that exists between the U.S. and Europe on counterterrorism policy today….

Free speech is increasingly under attack on college campuses — but if you think it’s bad here, look across the pond to Europe. Authorities over there are increasingly cracking down on so-called “hate speech” — a label that’s been applied to speech critical of Islam, homosexuality, and more. Paul Coleman, a British attorney who’s had…

The announcement of new leadership at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty could signal the beginning of a new era in U.S. international broadcasting. Last week, foreign policy specialist and German Marshall Fund senior fellow Jamie Fly was appointed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s new president, a choice that bodes well for the mission and for management of the…

On June 22, German workers celebrated their Tax Freedom Day—the day when taxpayers have finally earned enough money to pay the country’s tax bill. Germany’s Tax Freedom Day falls more than two months after taxpayers in the United States celebrated our freedom on April 16. Germany is not alone in Europe when it comes to…

There is no doubt the winds of change are continuing to blow across Europe. Established political parties of the center-right and center-left suffered large losses during European parliamentary elections, which took place in 28 nations from May 23 to May 26. Across the European Union there were significant gains for nationalist and populist movements, on…

The European Union Parliament elections this week provided a shock to the system for the center-right and center-left coalition in European politics: The big winners were nationalist movements. In France, Marine Le Pen’s immigration-restrictionist National Front defeated the party of the current president, Emmanuel Macron. In Italy, Matteo Salvini’s similarly anti-immigration League Party won big….

In about six weeks, from May 23 to 26, European Parliament elections will take place across Europe. Those elections could be a defining moment. The most recent prior EU Parliament elections took place in May 2014. Just a few months before, the borders of a European country were changed by force. Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed…