Plamen Ralchev, University of National and World Economy
As part of our series on Russia’s relations with its European neighbours, we put the spotlight on Bulgaria. The country’s old tensions over commitments to East or West have come to the fore over the Ukraine…
On the lash in Germany, 500 years ago.
Barthel Beham, ‘Village Fair’ (German single-leaf woodcut, c. 1530).
Autumn is awash with alcohol, and not just because of the new vintage. Oktoberfest plays a part, too, the 16-day festival in Munich that we associate with massive beer mugs and plenty of debauchery. Its…
Angela Merkel has thus far closed her eyes to the need for more spending, at her country’s peril.
Reuters
There’s growing pressure on Germany to spend more to support Europe – and for good reason. But it’s proving to be a hard sell to the country’s leaders. Germany’s budget is balanced and the government insists…
Romanian president welcoming NATO secretary general to Bucharest earlier this year.
EPA
In this fifth part of our series on the countries along Russia’s borders, we turn to south-east Europe. As Romania specialist Tom Gallagher explains, the Ukraine affair has made Bucharest distinctly uneasy…
Originally, to be honourable meant very different things for men and for women.
Simon
Ideas about personal honour are a major key to understanding violence. This is so today, when “honour” is often replaced by terms such as respect - with “dissing” as its opposite. It was even more true…
Few competitions pitch the whole of Europe against the United States. The Ryder Cup began formally in 1927 as a contest between Great Britain and the US. It was expanded to include first Ireland and then…
Every year, the UN celebrates its International Day of Democracy, even if it often feels like there is little to smile about on this front. Research to be presented at the Italian parliament to mark the…
The EU 28 are being sent a message from above.
EPA
Jean-Claude Juncker, the newly elected president of the European Commission, announced his nominated team of commissioners this week. Each represents one of the 28 members states and will take charge of…
Counting your blessings. A worker at a chocolate factory in Germany.
Jan Woitas/EPA
Germany’s strategy for export-led growth has set the Eurozone up for a fall. Plans to introduce minimum wages in 2015 might be too little too late for European countries locked in a futile game of beggar-thy-workforce…
Draghi and Merkel, in happier times.
Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
We are in a new phase of the post-crisis world. Growth is disappointing with Italy in recession, France close to it, and even Germany lagging. It is a useful reminder that recovery in a debt-overhang economy…
With France remaining economically stagnant, Italy falling back into recession, and Greece and Portugal still struggling to stand on their feet, the international community often looks to Germany, not…
The argument that strong employment rights are incompatible with economic growth has long exerted a strong influence on the minds of politicians. The relentless economic difficulties in the EU since 2008…
Ready, but not necessarily equipped.
Phillip Capper
How prepared were the Great Powers for war in 1914? Too often, this question has been answered by pointing to expectations of a short war, and to muddle and inefficiency in its opening stages. The realities…
‘Memorial diplomacy’, on display in June’s D-Day commemorations, is a mode of symbolic soft power politics which uses sites of memory and commemorative events to boost relations.
AAP
When French president François Hollande rose to deliver the keynote address for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings earlier this year, he set in motion an unprecedented five-year cycle of commemoration…
Germans today have little appetite for constructing new national myths about the Great War, or reclaiming old ones, because of painful associations with the more recent past.
Robert Scarth/Flickr
There is not much of a question of who controls the national myth of the Great War in Germany today. Nobody in particular seems to want to claim it. More interesting, however, is considering who has sought…
Teresa Marques, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
Every five years, the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) reviews its research institutes from Astronomy to Zoology. But this year, for the first time, the FCT contracted the European Science…
Power broker. Vladimir Putin.
Fernando Bizerra Jr/EPA
It remains to be seen precisely how and why the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed over the territory of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine on Thursday. But whatever…
A tourist train from Sheringham to Holt steams past an offshore wind farm, one of many that have sprung up along the UK coast.
Gerry Balding/Flickr
Australia’s carbon price has gone – but a UK review released this week shows that to lay the foundations for a low-carbon economy, pricing carbon is far from the whole story. Over recent months, as Australia’s…
Italian striker Mario Balotelli is a pioneer in a society that still struggles to accept its multiethnic composition.
EPA/Kai Foersterling
Mario Balotelli is already an international football star and has the potential to become one of Italy’s greatest ever strikers. But is Italy ready to accept a black player as its next football hero? Balotelli…
Level playing field? Raheem Sterling attacks.
Rhona Wise/EPA
Like football, globalisation creates winners and losers. For now, the England football team is one of the back markers. By globalisation we mean free movement: it is the increase in mobility across national…