europe
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Wroeten in de achtertuin
Politiek in de EU wordt steeds Europeser, zo laten de verkiezingen voor het Europese Parlement zien. Maar even buiten de grens van de EU wordt politiek juist minder Europees. Landen op de westelijke Balkan en de Caucasus lijken zich van de EU af te wenden, concludeert Dimitar Bechev van Carnegie Europe. Afgelopen weekend won de…
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D-Day: Les uns et les autres
Today in The Soul of Europe, we reflect on the 80th anniversary of “D-Day,” the Allied landing in Normandy that became the turning point in the war against Nazi Germany. Countless stories have been created about World War II in Europe that are historically based on truth, either in whole or in part, or that…
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EU lacks compelling stories
Union needs compelling folk tale The best way to do something against rising populism in European Union is to popularize Europe. The EU suffers from unpopularity because it lacks an inspiring story in which everyone can identify. But how do you create such a story? When the journalist Frans Nypels took me on in 1980…
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Matter of Worldview
That, as Urgant and Pozner claim in the attached piece, “the West” would have promised at the breakup of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward is a myth. Simply because NATO or “the West” has nothing to say about it. Individual member states unanimously decide who can and cannot join NATO, and…
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The Underwater Cabaret (May 5)
From Engelsberg Ideas: On August 22, 1943, the first issue of a strange new magazine appeared in Enschede. The Underwater Cabaret took the form of a small booklet measuring about 13.5 x 10.5 cm. The cover was a collage of photographs cut from newspapers and magazines; the contents consisted of 18 hand-stitched pages of handwritten…
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Prewar times
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned (Politico, March 29) that Europe is in a “pre-war era” but still has a “long way to go” before it is ready to face the threat ahead. “I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept of the past,” Tusk said in an interview with…
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Europe’s grand strategy
From: Engelsberg Ideas. Featured image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/2017-04-02_Pulse_of_Europe_Cologne_-1597.jpg In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower had just been inaugurated as the 34th president of the United States when, in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s 29-year rule ended with his death on March 5. Eisenhower strongly believed in the illuminating qualities of energetic debates. He wanted the brightest minds in the United…
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EU: A marriage of convenience
NOS News Survey: EU useful but not loved The Dutch see the added value of the European Union in addressing a number of cross-border problems. Only 18 percent favor a “nexit,” a departure from the EU. But there is no love for the Union, partly because of a lack of trust in the integrity of…
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Orbanizing = contradicting yourself
I read this below in De Standaard’s newsletter: I think then: If Putin-Russia conquers/russifies Ukraine/adds it to its sphere of influence, then Russia de facto borders Hungary, right? And that is precisely what Orban does not want. At least, he says. So how can this war NOT also be a war of Hungary? Indeed, if…
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Europe, without America
With Trump’s possible return to power, the Europeans are reconsidering their strategic autonomy. Could a “Weimar triangle” be the solution? Europeans eagerly watched the Republican primaries in the United States, hoping and looking for signs that Donald Trump would not become the next GOP presidential candidate, let alone the next president. But with each primary…
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Help, Europe is aging!
From: EU Observer. Europe is aging and the EU is not ready for this radical demographic change, said Dubravka Šuica, the EU’s first demography commissioner, in Brussels on March 25. “This [verandering] requires a thorough rethinking of institutional, political, economic and cultural frameworks, we have to change the mindset,” she told a conference in Brussels.…
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Why this website
The new text of the mission statement of The Soul of Europe; in this short essay, based on many conversations with my faithful, I describe what motivated me to start this initiative. Wonder what you guys think about it. Europe is under attack. We can only avert this threat if Europe is united. As long…