Spaniards return to the polls on Sunday for their fourth general election in as many years. The outcome may not be very different from the election in April. Read more
Everything You Need to Know About the Election in Spain
Explainer
The Unrest in Catalonia, Explained
Protests continue in Catalonia against the imprisonment of nine of the region’s separatist leaders.
Tuesday night was quiet, probably because it rained heavily, but I don’t expect this to peter out soon.
In case you haven’t been following the news, or don’t know much about Catalonia to begin with, here is an explainer to get you up to speed. Read more
Why Pelosi Changed Her Mind About Impeachment
That didn’t age well.
Just a few days ago, I wrote that House speaker Nancy Pelosi was dragging her heels on impeaching Donald Trump and cautioned against assuming that the most successful woman in American politics was making a mistake.
Now Pelosi has come around and only the third impeachment of a president in American history will soon be underway.
What has changed? Read more
Turkey’s Purchase of a Russian Missile System, Explained
Russia sent Turkey a seventh batch of components for the S-400 missile defense system over the weekend. According to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, all S-400 missiles will be deployed by April 2020.
Erdoğan has also said he is planning to send specialists to Russia for training on how to operate the S-400s.
The deal has met stiff resistance from NATO allies, who are threatening to kick Turkey out of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. So why is it going ahead with the purchase? Read more
How Close Are Western Balkan States to Joining the EU?
Leaders of the six Western Balkan countries that remain outside the EU are meeting in Poland this week to discuss their possible accession to the bloc. Four — Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are candidates to become member states.
Last year, a similar summit was held where the existing member states expressed their concerns about corruption, weak governance and unfree markets in the region. What has changed since then? Read more
The European Protests You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Large demonstrations have been taking place in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, every week since the end of November against the government of Aleksandar Vučić.
Vučić has been in power since 2014, first as prime minister and for the last two years as president. He leads the Serbian Progressive Party, which, despite its name, is right-wing. He started his career in the far-right Serbian Radical Party, which was founded by the convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj in 1991. Read more
Joe Biden Is a Stronger Candidate Than You Might Think
Joe Biden might look out of sync with today’s Democratic Party. 76 years old, Biden is a Third Way-style liberal who used to be “tough on crime”, voted for the Iraq War and now faces his own #MeToo accusations.
Yet he is the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination.
RealClearPolitics has Biden’s support at 39 percent, 23 points ahead of the runner-up, Bernie Sanders.
We’re still almost a year away from the first primaries. Polls are not usually predictive at this point in the contest and say more about name recognition. But Biden is also ahead in the endorsement primary, as measured by FiveThirtyEight. The former vice president has already convinced eighty prominent Democrats to support him against 55 for California senator Kamala Harris. (Who I think is actually the second strongest candidate at this point. Read Frank Bruni’s column about her in The New York Times.)
What explains Biden’s popularity? Read more