A crisis averted or a crisis deferred? This is the question posed by the decision of Italian President Sergio Mattarella to agree to the new list of ministers presented to him by Prime Minister-designate Giuseppe Conte of the Eurosceptic Lega and Five Star Movement coalition, after the coalition’s original choice for finance minister, Paulo Salvona, was rejected, deepening a political crisis that has engulfed Italy…
It came out as a sort of minor scandal – considering the ’24/7 post-truth news cycle.’ Of the 28 EU ambassadors in Beijing, 27, with the exception of Hungary’s, signed an internal report criticizing the New Silk Roads as a non-transparent threat to free trade, allegedly favoring unfair competition by Chinese conglomerates. The report was…
The Chinese economy is bound to surpass the 19-nation eurozone before the end of the year. You don’t need to be an analyst in China to know that. Common knowledge from Guangdong to Gansu is that China’s economy was bigger than Europe’s up to the mid-19th century. Then came a bad spell – unleashed by Brit…
A triumph of “populism.” A hung parliament. “Ungovernable” Italy. Berlusconi’s demise. The latest chapter in a European saga. The “end of socialist parties.” Italy’s latest elections were a roller coaster featuring plenty of thrills. Yet the top political nugget is unmistakable: Only one coalition may aspire to an absolute majority, an – unlikely – alliance…
The African Migrant Crisis has triggered an Italian military response in Libya and Niger, the two main transit states en route to the jackboot-shaped European country, and risks embroiling Rome even deeper in the continent’s affairs as it resorts to military means to proactively stem the tidal wave of “Weapons of Mass Migration” crashing onto…
Yesterday’s election victory for Catalan separatists, including humiliating losses for the ruling center-right Partido Popular, denotes yet another setback for the grand project of European unification and a challenge for a continent divided between a strong north and a lagging south. The Catalan separatists won a thin majority in the regional parliament, leaving them precisely…
