This week was a week of ‘no’s. No to Trump’s “retaliatory” tariffs, no to Catalan becoming an official EU language, and no to President von der Leyen’s commissioners attending the illegal Budapest Pride on 28 June.
Dave Keating from Gulf Stream Blues (in Barcelona) and Julien Hoez from The French Dispatch (in Brussels) talked about the week that was, and what’s coming next (including Sunday’s presidential election in Poland). Here are some of the Substack posts that were mentioned during the broadcast:
Sanchez shot down on request to make Catalan an official EU language
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wanted to show he is deadly serious about his request to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official EU languages this week, reportedly even threatening Eastern EU countries that Spain will not support them militarily if they don’t support his quest. The Spanish government is denying that they made any such threats, b…
Caught flat-footed: a timeline of EU reaction to Trump's tariffs
There’s been a lot of confusion today about what exactly just happened with Trump’s trade war, which is understandable given the lurching policy coming out of Washington. A lot of the headlines this morning have left people with the impression that both the US and EU have called off their tariffs. That is not the case.
A rainbow curtain has descended across Europe
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, a rainbow curtain has descended across the European Continent. While the division used to separate Communist countries from Capitalist ones, today it separates countries with gay marriage from those without.
Von der Leyen is unlikely to defend Europeans from Trump
As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House again today, he’s facing a world that looks dramatically different from the one he encountered on January 20th 2017. At that time the world was reacting to the shock victory of Donald Trump, who himself seemed surprised by the win, by closing ranks. The Republican establishment moved quickly to surround …
Nationalists ousted in Poland: a game-changer for the EU
At first glance, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. After all, according to exit polls the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party came first in yesterday’s Polish election with 200 seats. But, as so often happens in multi-party parliamentary democracies, first place doesn’t mean you won. 200 seats is not enough to form a government, and the ultranationalist Confederation party, their possible coalition partner, only got 12 seats - together not enough for the 231 out of 460 seats needed. The centre-right Civic Platform, led by former
