Is Berlin about to go from conservative to hard-left?
A Red-Green-Red coalition is looking the most likely outcome of September’s election in Berlin, Europe’s so-called capital of cool.
Matt Tempest
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Brexit: A stormy night in Brussels 10 years ago – and a failure of journalismIn 2016, I had had a very uneasy feeling for many months that Leave, under the joint leadership of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, was going to win. Not a single other British journalist in Brussels agreed with me.
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As EU leaders dine, 70,000 voters in the north of England pick a new UK PMOn Thursday (18 June), as the 27 EU leaders meet in Brussels, Britain will elect its next prime minister.
Not strictly true, but don’t panic – you haven’t missed some snap general election on the Brexit island.
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Germany’s Nazi family search app explains (some of) the guilt behind Berlin’s soft line on IsraelWith the release of the ‘Find Out What Your Family Did Under Hitler’ app by Der Spiegel, Germans can now find shocking details of their grandparents lives one tap away on their smartphones.
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Goodbye, Keir Starmer?By the time you read this, Sir Keir Starmer will … still be prime minister of the UK. But only just. And not for long.
Probably until this autumn, in fact. But that’s only because his enemies (by which I mean his own Labour MPs and cabinet ministers, not the opposition Conservatives) have nobody lined up to replace him.
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‘Hormuz crisis shows need for new nuclear power’. Does it really, though?
One nuclear expert told me he didn’t want to write an op-ed on the possible dangers of a meltdown of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. He then added he’d stocked up on iodine tablets.
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Scottish and Welsh elections will reveal pro-EU feeling in UKNext month two elections take place on the far north-western fringe of Europe that may, in a small way, shape the future size of the EU. Both countries are, currently, non-EU members. Both have populations keen on membership. Both would fit the accession criteria, with very few teething problems.
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To be or not to be (involved) — that is the questionIs the UK involved in the US-Israeli attack on Iran – or is the UK *not* involved in the US-Israeli attack? The answer (apologies to Shakespeare’s Hamlet) seems to be: depends upon who you ask?
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Led By Donkeys — How four blokes with a ladder took on Brexit
Hatched over drinks in a London pub, and anger over the lies fuelling the UK’s exit from the EU, four friends took on Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson armed only with a ladder and some posters. Their guerilla ad campaign didn’t ultimately work — but it had more cut through than most mainstream media coverage.
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80 percent said no — so let’s stop pretending the AfD speaks for ‘The People’
There are two takeaways from Sunday’s election in Germany — it was the highest turnout in two generations, and four-in-five Germans refused to vote for the racist far-right.
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EUobserver’s Top 10 stories of 2024
Allow us at EUobserver to blow our own trumpet as 2024 draws to a close, with a look back at the best of the journalistic path we follow — less frothy personality-driven politics, more policy, research and investigations.
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World leaders swift to congratulate victorious Trump
Despite most of Europe, according to opinion polls, hoping for a Kamala Harris presidency, European leaders were extremely quick off the mark to congratulate Donald Trump on his return to the White House.
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EUobserver’s Top 10 stories of 2023
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
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Germany as a laboratory of ‘communism vs capitalism’
A new exhibition at the Deutsches Historiches Musuem in Berlin unveils industrial photography of Germany’s steel, coal, car, chemical and textile industries from the 1950s to 1980s — some in East Germany, some in West. But which was which?
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Conservatives ‘win’ Berlin — but may not get to govern
The Conservatives scored a stunning upset in Berlin, coming top and increasing their vote by ten percent — but it may not be enough to dislodge the existing red/red/green coalition in the lefwing capital.
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Is EU’s most leftwing capital about to go Conservative?
Could Berlin, the European capital city still synonymous with anarchists and squats, dump its natural red/red/green coalition for the Conservative CDU?
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Legalising cannabis: Germany first, Europe next?
The German coalition government promised in 2021 to fully legalise cannabis, making it the first country in Europe, and the third in the world to do so. How is that going, and what are the likely knock-on effects for Europe?
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How NOT to write an op-ed
EUobserver receives tens of thousands of words of unsolicited opinion pieces every day — for one daily slot. So, how do you differentiate your piece from the crowd of others, and actually get published?
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Johnson quits, leaving Brexit headaches to successor
British prime minister Boris Johnson has resigned as Conservative party leader, starting a race among Conservative MPs to replace him as prime minister but leaving a range of issues — Brexit, Northern Ireland, and Scottish independence — for his successor.
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How Nato’s Bucharest summit came back to bite in Ukraine
Was Bush right, to want to offer Ukraine immediate Nato membership? Or was Europe right, to offer it as a distant prospect? There were certainly no answers on offer in that hall of mirrors in Bucharest.