Future of Europe

The recent attacks in Brussels have left everyone in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe in shock. People feel more and more helpless in the face of what seems to be, after the attacks in Paris last November and in January 2015, an increasingly destructive threat.

The famous wit Mary McCarthy once remarked, ‘If someone tells you he is going to make a “realistic decision”, you immediately understand he has resolved to do something bad.’

It was once quipped to me that you can tell a lot about the state of a country by the effusiveness of its name ─ compare the ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ with the dictatorial ‘German Democratic Republic’, or the ‘Republic of Korea’ with the autocratic, dynastical ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’.

The Empire is in Peril? No, don't you worry, Star Wars Episode VII will hit cinemas near you in December. However, will yeasterday's ‪general election in the UK mark the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom? Read Alex Brianson's reflections on the morning after.

Confronted with a different external and internal environment than its predecessors, the new external leadership trio Juncker-Mogherini-Tusk should however constructively strengthen and contribute to the practices of shared leadership and coopetition between EU Member States.

Where did UKIP come from, who is supporting it, and what does its rise reveal about British and also European politics?

The Swiss referendum on establishing immigration quotas seen throught the prisms of EU-Swiss relations, that of the debate on freedon of movement and that of the proliferation of referenda.