Vladimir Putin has few allies in his war against Ukraine. The democracies of East Asia, Europe and North America are against him, and have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions. Almost the entire rest of the world has condemned the invasion.
A few countries are reluctant, or have outright refused, to take a stand. I asked the Atlantic Sentinel‘s China, India, Israel and South America experts to explain why. (more…)
Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and the United States have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine, banning Russian airlines and state media, cutting off Russian banks from the SWIFT financial system and freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs and the Russian Central Bank.
The one step European countries haven’t taken is blocking Russian oil and gas. They can’t.
Oil and gas account for 60 percent of Russia’s exports and 39 percent of its tax revenues. Cutting off either or both would seriously hamper Vladimir Putin’s ability to make war. But Europe is just as dependent on Russian imports as Russia is on exports.
This is not a new problem. After Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, the European Commission tried to get member states behind a common energy strategy that would make the EU more self-reliant. Member states prioritized their individual interests.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD (of which I am a member) has completed negotiations with the left-liberal D66 and two Christian parties to form his fourth government in the Netherlands.
At 47 pages, the coalition agreement is short by Dutch standards. In some cases, the parties define the outlines of a compromise but leave it to the next cabinet to fill in the blanks. Rutte has to find nineteen ministers and ten junior ministers.
Yesterday, I listed the key policies at a high level, which was based on Dutch media reports and the draft of an agreement Christian Union leader Gert-Jan Segers forgot on a train in November. Now that I’ve read the full text, I can give you the details. (more…)
Nine months after parliamentary elections, parties in the Netherlands are finally ready to form a government.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD (of which I am a member) has completed negotiations with the left-liberal D66, the Christian democratic CDA and the Christian Union (CU). The same four parties formed his last government.
At 271 days, this was the longest government formation in postwar Dutch history.
Why did it take so long? And what’s next? I’ll explain. (more…)
French Republicans choose their presidential candidate this week, who will challenge Emmanuel Macron in the spring.
Like all French elections, the primary is held in two rounds. Five candidates have qualified.
Here’s what you need to know. (more…)
Germany’s Social Democrats, Greens and liberal Free Democrats are ready to govern. Two months after the federal election almost to the day, they unveiled a 177-page coalition agreement that lays out their program for the next four years.
Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Olaf Scholz, who would succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, described the deal as the “biggest industrial modernization of Germany in more than 100 years.” It calls for major investments in decarbonization and digitalization.
Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader Christian Lindner would succeed Scholz at the Finance Ministry, despite his party being the smallest in the “traffic light” coalition (named after the parties’ colors).
The Greens get climate and foreign policy, and the right to nominate Germany’s next EU commissioner. (Unless the conservative Ursula von der Leyen is reelected as commission president.)
Here are the highlights. (more…)
Poland has escalated its rule-of-law dispute with the rest of the European Union by arguing its own laws supersede the EU’s, and indeed some EU laws are incompatible with the Polish Constitution.
The decision of the Constitutional Tribunal caps six years of legal battle that began when Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party returned to power in 2015.
Here is a timeline of events and a look at what could happen next. (more…)
Germans returned at least six parties to parliament on Sunday (counting the “Union” of Christian Democrats as one). The fate of The Left still hangs in the balance. Projections give the former communists exactly the 5 percent support they need to meet the electoral threshold.
The most likely outcome is a three-party government including the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens. The question is whether the Social Democrats (SPD) or Union will lead it.
If you haven’t been reading our live election blog, this explainer will get you up to speed on the results, takeaways and next steps. (more…)
Electricity prices are hitting records across Europe. In Portugal and Spain, wholesale energy prices have tripled from half a year ago to €178 per megawatt-hour. Italy is not far behind at €176. Dutch households without a fixed-price contract could end up paying €500 more this year. In the UK, prices peaked at €247 per megawatt-hour earlier this week.
The main culprit is the high price of natural gas, up 440 percent from a year ago. But Europe is facing something of a perfect storm involving accidents, depleted reserves and a higher carbon price.
Here are all the reasons prices are up — and what governments are doing about it. (more…)
Germans elect a new Bundestag on Sunday, which will elect Angela Merkel’s successor. It is the first time in postwar German history that a sitting chancellor isn’t seeking reelection.
If the polls are right, Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats will lose power to the center-left Social Democrats for the first time since 2005.
Here is everything you need to know. (more…)
Five months after parliamentary elections, parties haven’t even begun substantive coalition talks in the Netherlands, already making this the third-longest government formation in postwar Dutch history.
Mark Rutte remains in office as caretaker prime minister, but his government can’t make major decisions on such issues as climate policy, reform of child benefits, labor law and taxes.
Those issues are one reason it’s taking so long: whatever choices the next government makes could reverberate for years. (more…)
Germans elect a new Bundestag on September 26. Outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel is not seeking reelection after serving four terms. Her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is polling in first place, but the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens are not far behind.
Three more parties (counting the union of Merkel’s CDU and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union as one) are expected to win seats: the center-right Free Democrats (FDP), the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the far-left Die Linke.
The outgoing “grand coalition” of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats may not defend its majority. More importantly, neither wants to form another two-party government after sharing power for twelve of the last sixteen years.
All other parties rule out pacts with the AfD. The Greens, who are projected to be the biggest winners of the election, would be needed in all possible coalitions:
Here’s where the four mainstream parties stand on ten of the issues at stake in this election. (more…)
The United States Senate is expected to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill this week with funding for everything from broadband Internet to road safety.
The bill, which is believed to have the support of enough Republicans to overcome a forty-senator filibuster, falls short of the $2 trillion President Joe Biden had proposed to spend on (green) infrastructure over four years.
The compromise bill has $550 billion in new spending. The rest consists of existing infrastructure funds which are either being diverted or renewed.
Unlike Biden’s $2 trillion proposal, which would have been funded by corporate tax increases, the compromise version draws money from various sources, including around $200 billion left over from COVID-19 relief programs. (more…)
French lawmakers adopted a far-reaching climate law this week that puts the country on track to meet its Paris commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
That is short of the 55-percent cut the European Commission has proposed in its “Green Deal”, which has yet to be approved by member states.
The French measures do align with the EU’s new Common Agricultural Policy, which sets aside 20 to 25 percent of funding for “eco-schemes”, which can range from organic farms to forests and wetlands being retained for carbon sequestration.
Some of the policies flow from the citizen consultations President Emmanuel Macron held across France in the wake of the 2018 Yellow Vests protests, which were sparked by a rise in gasoline tax.
Here is an overview. (more…)
Nobody is happy with the EU’s new farms policy. Greens argue ambitions for biodiversity and sustainability are too low. Agricultural groups complain they are too high, and farmers will receive lower subsidies to boot.
Which suggests the compromise — the outcome of two years of negotiations — may not be unreasonable.
Here are the most important things to know. (more…)
