Europe
November 30, 2023 — John Hinderaker
An Irish author has just won the Booker prize: Irish author Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize on Sunday. His novel, Prophet Song, imagines an Ireland that has fallen under Right-wing totalitarian control, and begins with members of the new secret police rapping on the door of a union leader to interrogate him for “sowing discord and unrest” against the government. The reality, of course, is precisely the opposite: The
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November 26, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I have been in Paris for the last week, my first visit to this city. This is a fun time of the year to be in Europe, as the Europeans generally make a bigger deal out of Christmas than we do. Before we left, friends warned us against two things: pro-genocide demonstrators, and bedbugs. So far we have seen the same number of each: zero. Yesterday we visited one of
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October 21, 2023 — Steven Hayward
An unusual experience on the train from Salzburg to Munich yesterday. The train stopped at the German border, whereupon eight police officers, well armed and wearing full body armor, boarded the train and asked to see passports. I haven’t had a passport check on a European train in years, and I thought they were obsolete in the era of the Schengen Zone that allows visa-free travel throughout the European Union.
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October 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward
SALZBURG, Austria, October 19—Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I don’t now recall,
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September 26, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of Europeans have drunk the global warming kool-aid, at least in theory. But things change when they are confronted with “green” realities. The Wall Street Journal reports: For years, Europe has been at the forefront of the global drive to curb carbon emissions and slow climate change, pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Overwhelming numbers of Europeans say they like the
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September 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Everyone knows that Germany was the “first mover” on the net-zero bandwagon, spending more than a trillion Euros over the last 15 years on its “energiewende” (“energy revolution”) only to see their greenhouse gas emissions begin rising again, and last year reviving coal-power to keep the lights on. One thing they did achieve was causing consumer energy prices to roughly double. I guess that “wind-and-solar-are-cheaper” isn’t working out according to
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September 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
In Europe in general, and Denmark in particular. Mark Steyn recalls the Mohammed cartoon crisis of 2005 and the sequels that have played out over the ensuing years: In 2005 Jyllands-Posten, one of the biggest-selling newspapers in Denmark, as part of an exploration of the state of free speech, was willing to publish a dozen cartoons of Mohammed by prominent cartoonists. In 2010, on the fifth anniversary, I was given
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August 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It is hard to believe, but Germany is on its way to becoming a post-industrial country. What its economy will look like at that point is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be pretty. The Telegraph interviews Monika Schnitzer, who heads Germany’s Council of Economic Experts. She leads off by talking about the need to distance Germany from China: Berlin outlined a plan to “de-risk” the relationship with China last month.
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August 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Breitbart reviews polling on next year’s EU parliamentary elections, which suggests significant conservative gains across the continent: Polling has projected populist and conservative-leaning blocs to make significant gains in the next European Union parliamentary elections, as support for centrist parties wanes in the wake of growing discontent over failures on immigration and the green agenda. Those are the two issues that dominate European politics: both wide-open immigration and “green” energy
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August 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The following story was related to me by a former Governor of Minnesota, who was of Norwegian descent. A number of years ago, a Norwegian dignitary (the Prime Minister, I think) visited Minnesota. Talking to our governor, the Prime Minister tut-tutted about Minnesota’s crime rate, saying that there was much less crime in Norway. Minnesota’s governor replied, “We don’t have a crime problem with our Norwegians, either.” That anecdote came
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July 29, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Politics in the Netherlands have been increasingly contentious of late. The most recent coalition government fell earlier this month, and now Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag has not only resigned her post, but says she might be leaving the country. This article in the London Times illustrates how liberal elites see themselves and their opponents. But if you read between the lines, reality begins to glimmer through. Just two years ago,
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July 24, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The Spanish election ended in a stalemate, and not much may change. But the AP seems to be worried that Spain is very close to re-establishing Francoist fascism, at least going from this chart showing the breakdown of the parties. Notice an asymmetry? For the media, the right is always “right & far right.” The left is always “left & center-left.” No such thing as a far-left, or center-right, exists
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July 23, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Spain is holding a national election today, and polls indicate right of center parties are in the lead. We should start getting results fairly soon. We’ll update this post as we get some actual vote counts and exit polls. In the meantime, cosmopolitan election-watcher extraordinaire Henry Olsen has a handy guide on Twitter to Spain’s political landscape you may wish to take in: Happy Spanish Election Day! Yes, today Spain
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July 22, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I suppose America’s work ethic peaked in the late 19th century and has declined somewhat since then. Still, compared with Europeans, Americans are considered hard-working. Thus the Telegraph headlines: “How hard-working US is getting rich while the UK struggles on benefits.” The world’s biggest economy has pulled ahead of the UK and the rest of Europe on an array of economic measures since the financial crisis of 2008. What began
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July 15, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Telegraph reports on Spain, where a right-wing coalition is expected to take power in the upcoming election. Among the conservatives’ leaders is Isabel Díaz Ayuso, whom we wrote about here. But it isn’t just Spain: As Brexit Britain veers to the Left, weighing up voting for Sir Keir in the next election, the EU appears to be heading in the opposite direction. Italy, Finland and Greece have all recently
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June 28, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Let’s go with a couple of maps today instead of charts and graphs or tables. First up, while Britain’s Tory Party appears heading for an electoral wipeout at the next general election—the first since their historic sweep in 2019—chiefly because the Tories have governed as though their cabinet positions were inhabited by alien body snatchers from Planet Labour, over on the continent, right- or populist-leaning parties continue to gain ground
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May 15, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Thirty-two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Poland is fast becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in Europe. Daniel Johnson reports in the Telegraph: On a visit to Wrocław a fortnight ago, the zloty dropped: Poland is rapidly becoming the new central European superpower. *** [N]owhere else in the Soviet empire did people’s power prevail so triumphantly as in Poland. The land of lost causes
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