Our man in Rome knows the Cardinals, from the eminent to the creeps
There have been many articles about the coming Conclave, and mine has no claim to be more perspicacious than the rest;
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
Kashmir twinned with Sarajevo: another ‘multi-ethnic paradise’ triggers war?
Is the Islamist massacre of Indian tourists in Kashmir a prelude to major hostilities between Pakistan and India?
The next pope must be a warrior for Christ, not a surrendered soul
As the Catholic Church stands at a crossroads, its throne vacant and its flock besieged, the next pope will not merely shepherd 1.4 billion souls.
Civilisation needs revival, not a pope who wants Thunberg and a keffiyeh on Jesus
There have been many thoughtful comments about the recently deceased Pope Francis in the pages of Brussels Signal, all of them by people who are better versed in…
How the Right can win the world: Taking nationalism international
It does not take a political scientist to understand that the Western populist-right has been on a roll lately.
Northern elites panic: Will Greece, Italy, and Spain become their human wastelands?
The EU’s southern frontier - Greece, Italy, and Spain - teeters on the edge of collapse, battered by a migration crisis that Brussels aggravates.
Europeans have only two months left to keep the Americans in and the Russians out
The annual NATO summit in Brussels on June 24 and 25 is likely to be the most consequential in decades.
Persecution, interrogation, arrest: How Tusk runs the Polish presidential election
In May and June 2025, Poland will face a decisive moment in its modern history.
Calm down: the ‘geopolitical crisis’ narrative is overblown
It has become cliché to say that the advent of the second Trump administration has thrown the world into chaos.
EU is no match for China or US, Europe can only play for time
In hindsight, what makes the 1990s appear to be worthy of nostalgia is the fact that almost everything ran on autopilot.
Francis: Despite his political lapses, ‘he was surely a good man’
It always seems to me, as a mere but faithful communicant in the vast mass of the Pope’s adherents, a bit presumptuous to critique a pope or a papacy.
Francis, an admirer of Peron — and the most culpably heretical pope in history?
The death of any public figure is usually the occasion for setting aside party feelings and paying tribute to the deceased.
Reform party shakes Westminster, poll shows Nigel Farage could be PM
In a political landscape increasingly defined by fragmentation and voter discontent, a recent survey by More in Common MRP on April 20 has delivered a jolt to the…
Evil in unexpected places, even among wartime allies
An old Irish proverb describes how a stranger asks an elderly countryman for directions to a certain place: “If that’s where you want to go,” comes the reply,…
Men at war, praise them all: strong backs, high skills, comradeship, courage
Have you seen the trailer for the new Hollywood film, Warfare? I’ve been watching it for three days now, on repeat.
The Feast of Feasts: Why Easter remains Europe’s beating heart
Europe, that ancient cradle of civilisation, has long been a Christian continent.
Trump will deal with European countries as sovereign nations, not as part of the EU
The transatlantic relationship, long a cornerstone of global stability, is undergoing a profound shift.
Russia’s vision of a ‘single European security architecture’
For all the vast amounts of analysis and the constant discussion dedicated to the Ukraine war across Western media and specialist centres, there is still considerable…
French political ambition, accessorized with nuclear bombs
The French have been trying to be the main player in Europe for centuries, with varying success.
European leadership was once strong and admired, but no longer
Europe was accustomed for so long to an alliance with the United States where the contributions and benefits were so uneven in Europe's favour that the Europeans…
‘I was there in 1962’: a reader remembers the start of the German economic miracle
In the early 1960s I had a stroke of luck. Through a Fulbright scholarship in mathematics, I was given the opportunity to study at the University of Freiburg.
An American finally acts against the Chinese and their outlaw state
Mao Zedong gazed admiringly at page three of his special edition of The Peking People’s Daily Sun. Such exquisiteness, he thought: pert, pink, pretty.
Defeated West is pretending victory in Ukraine, but outsourced the bleeding to Kyiv
Here we go again. The liberal West, that self-anointed guardian of liberty, is dusting off its cape for a grand Ukrainian encore.
Merz will learn from Bismarck, firewall against the AfD may actually be political fuel
Europe pays regular obeisance to remembering “the lessons of the past.
Can Europe buy all its energy from the USA? Trump’s pitch meets reality
In the greater picture of his trade wars, Donald Trump pushed a bold idea: Europe should buy all its oil, gas and coal from the USA. It is a loud, daring proposal.
High tax + high welfare + low defence = European good life threatened by Trump
When one looks at Europe’s responses to the threats which have faced it in the past few years – the Trump administration demanding they defend themselves, Russia’s…
Would Trump defend Taiwan?
President Trump’s tariff bombshell is more than simply a historic economic decision with geopolitical consequences on the side, as second-order effects.
Trump’s tariffs: Europe must realise quality not just price can win US customers
I always found the story behind the “Made in Germany” label interesting.
Trump works a political miracle in Downing Street
Obscured by the deafening cacophony of incomprehension about a number of the policy innovations of the Trump administration, there are some refreshing signs of progress.
Devilish? EU-China relations after Trump’s tariffs surrender Europe to the despot Xi
Donald Trump has unleashed a trade tempest that has got the EU scrambling.