Showing 1 - 10 of 30
The year of the woeful world leaders
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 28/12/2018
» The dictionaries have decided on their 2018 words of the year. Oxford picked "toxic". Merriam-Webster went for "justice". Collins chose "single-use". However, I'd zero in on "misgovernment". Surely, 2018 saw a number of countries misruled by the worst crop of world leaders in recent memory.
How to stick it to Europe: scrap Brexit
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 06/12/2018
» The top European court now is highly likely to rule that the UK can cancel Brexit unilaterally. For all the domestic political hurdles such a move would face, it's intriguing to ponder how Europe would take it if the UK did cancel Brexit, and what the consequences would be for the European Union.
Merkel tries not to go out with a bang
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 16/11/2018
» It could have been a call for decisive action by a leader no longer tethered by domestic politics. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel's appearance at the European Parliament on Tuesday was nothing of the sort: Ms Merkel unbound is the same cautious, gradualist Merkel.
Don't write off Merkel prematurely
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 31/10/2018
» I have warned repeatedly against writing off German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she faced challenge after challenge in recent years. I'm going to issue another such warning now, even though it might seem counter-intuitive given her announcement on Monday that she will give up the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December and not run for a parliamentary seat in 2021.
Merkel joins US on trade 'low road'
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 15/06/2018
» After failing to persuade President Donald Trump that punitive tariffs on European imports aren't a good idea, Chancellor Angela Merkel has apparently decided to fight back by taking a page from his playbook and manipulating facts.
EU privacy rules risk giving Google even more power
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 03/05/2018
» The disingenuous way companies are attempting to comply with the letter, not the spirit, of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is only part of the problem with the new privacy rule, which goes into effect on May 25. For publishers already forced to accept Google's near monopoly on programmatic advertising on their sites, the new regulation could make things worse.
US-EU trade imbalance does need fix
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 08/03/2018
» In response to US President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs on European imports such as steel, aluminium and cars, the European Union (EU) is threatening to slap a 25% duty on jeans, cosmetics, bourbon and Harley Davidson motorcycles. This is an intentionally cartoonish list of US staples designed to portray Mr Trump's attempt at a trade war as a farce.
Journalist murders are a major problem in the EU
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 01/03/2018
» The time has come to ask whether membership in the European Union (EU) is still a quality assurance seal for democracy and the rule of law among member states. The bloc has clearly failed to enforce its stated values on its periphery. Any additional expansion can only dilute them further.
Outrage is no tool to bring change
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 29/11/2017
» Tony Hovater, the Ohio man whose profile in The New York Times caused much indignation last weekend, would have been in jail or at least under close police surveillance if he lived in Germany. In the US, Mr Hovater is free to keep posting swastika-filled pictures on Facebook -- but the writer and editors who published a piece about him that was bleakly neutral in tone face ferocious anger for "normalising" the Nazi sympathiser.
No, separatism isn't the continent's next major crisis
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 03/11/2017
» Those who are always on the lookout for the next European crisis -- Brexiters not least among them -- have latched on to Catalonia's symbolic "secession" as another sign that Europe isn't working well. The Catalan events, however, merely confirm that today, Western European countries are secession-proof -- too fat to fail. Belgium, the country where ousted Catalan First Minister Carles Puigdemont is hiding out from prosecution (or, to Catalan secessionists, leading a government in exile) is another example.