EU election needs to bring out the best of Europe — not the worst

David Miliband is the pres­i­dent and CEO of the Inter­na­tion­al Res­cue Com­mit­tee. Any polit­i­cal con­sul­tant will tell you that all pol­i­tics is local. How­ev­er, this year’s Euro­pean elec­tion will test that propo­si­tion. Indeed, there’s plen­ty of local dis­sent against gov­ern­ing par­ties, but from Gaza to Ukraine and migra­tion to food and ener­gy prices, it’s a…

What Europe wants from Biden’s State of the Union

LONDON — For­eign pol­i­cy nev­er wins elec­tions, as the old polit­i­cal max­im goes. So eight months out from polling day in Amer­i­ca, it’s hard­ly sur­pris­ing that domes­tic reac­tion to Thursday’s State of the Union speech will be dom­i­nat­ed by argu­ments over the econ­o­my, drug prices and the frailty of U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, 82 this November.…

Macron: The grand master of grandstanding

Ivo Daalder, for­mer U.S. ambas­sador to NATO, is CEO of the Chica­go Coun­cil on Glob­al Affairs and host of the week­ly pod­cast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” There he goes again, anoth­er head­­­line-grab­bing state­ment from French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron. “Noth­ing should be ruled out,” he said last week , respond­ing to a ques­tion about whether…

A federalized Europe isn’t in America’s interest

Andrew A. Mich­ta is senior fel­low and direc­tor of the Scow­croft Strat­e­gy Ini­tia­tive at the Atlantic Coun­cil of the Unit­ed States. Views expressed here are his own. There’s a sea change com­ing to Europe, and its con­se­quences for America’s rela­tions with key allies haven’t yet reg­is­tered in Wash­ing­ton. Pre­dom­i­nant­ly dri­ven by pres­sure from Berlin and Paris,…

The rise and fall of geopolitical Europe

Nathalie Toc­ci is direc­tor of the Isti­tu­to Affari Inter­nazion­ali, a part-time pro­fes­sor at the Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty Insti­tute and a Europe’s Futures fel­low at the Insti­tute for Human Sci­ences. Her lat­est book, “A Green and Glob­al Europe,” is out with Poli­ty. As the Euro­pean Union’s lead­er­ship enters its last lap, with the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment elec­tions scheduled…

Wagner and Russia are here to stay in Africa, says Lavrov

PARIS – Russia’s For­eign Min­is­ter Sergey Lavrov has vowed Wagner’s oper­a­tions in Mali and the Cen­tral African Repub­lic “will con­tin­ue” despite the failed rebel­lion led by Yevge­ny Prigozhin, leader of the mer­ce­nary Wag­n­er Group. The para­mil­i­tary group has expand­ed its reach across Latin Amer­i­ca, the Mid­dle East and Africa in recent years and it has been…

The old guard: Joe Biden seems like a spring chicken compared to some of these guys

When the U.S. pres­i­dent on Tues­day announced that he would seek reelec­tion in 2024, atten­tion quick­ly turned to his advanced age.  If elect­ed, Joe Biden would be 82 on inau­gu­ra­tion day in 2025, and 86 on leav­ing the White House in Jan­u­ary 2029.  POLITICO took a look around the globe and back through his­to­ry to meet…

‘Keep your head down’ — Americans in Russia tread carefully after arrest of US journalist

MOSCOW — If Amer­i­cans in Rus­sia were wor­ried before, they now have an extra rea­son to be con­cerned.  The arrest of the Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Evan Ger­shkovich has sent rip­ples of alarm through the com­mu­ni­ty of Amer­i­can jour­nal­ists in Rus­sia, leav­ing many in the coun­try won­der­ing who, if any­one, might be next.  Ger­shkovich was seized by FSB security…

Relations with Africa, Asia are on brink of collapse — to Russia’s benefit

Jérémy Lis­sou­ba is a mem­ber of parlia­ment for the main oppo­si­tion par­ty in the Repub­lic of Con­go. He’s also a deputy judge in the country’s High Court of Jus­tice and an alum­nus of the Oba­ma Foundation’s 2018 Africa Lead­ers Pro­gram. Over a year since the war in Ukraine began, the world remains caught in the…