Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat at the hands of French Socialist leader Francois Hollande has sent shock waves throughout Europe, and will significantly challenge the fragile austerity consensus across the EU. Jean-Marc Ayrault, the likely next prime minister of France, puts it in uncompromising terms: We must get out of this austerity in Europe and tonight all our partners in governments around Europe have understood that was the choice of François Hollande to re-orient Europe. Hollande’s victory spells trouble ahead for both Angela Merkel and David Cameron, who face general elections in …
Never one to shy away from a Left-wing cause, either at home or abroad, Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn has adopted the Falklands dispute as his latest liberal pet project. On a visit to Argentina to meet with Cristina Kirchner, Penn accused Britain of ‘colonialism’ over the Falklands, and urged UN-brokered negotiations over the sovereignty of the Islands. The Daily Telegraph reported Penn as saying: “The world today is not going to tolerate any ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology,” he said during the meeting in Buenos Aires. “I know I came in …
In yet another display of disdain for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, the Obama administration has weighed in on the mounting tensions between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Just two days after Prime Minister David Cameron issued a robust statement in the House of Commons vowing to defend the sovereignty of the Falklands, the US State Department has undercut Britain yet again with a deeply unhelpful statement that plays into Argentina’s hands. In response to a question on the Falklands at Thursday’s State Department press briefing, a US government spokesman supported direct …
Philip H Gordon, US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, has just delivered a speech in Berlin outlining “the state of transatlantic relations”. His remarks, given at the Korber Foundation on January 11, are a scene-setter for the Obama administration’s European policy in “its final year in office before elections this November.” Like most pronouncements on Europe coming from the Obama presidency, it is fixated on Washington’s dealings with the European Union, as well as with Hillary Clinton’s “reset” of relations with Moscow. This is hardly surprising coming from a …
It is gratifying to see President Barack Obama condemn the disgraceful storming of the British Embassy in Tehran by thugs acting at the behest of the Iranian regime. After all, Obama has been notoriously slow in the past to criticise the brutal actions of the Iranian government after initially extending the hand of friendship to it. But did he really need to make another embarrassing foreign policy gaffe while doing so? In a press conference this evening, the president referred in stumbling fashion to the “English Embassy” in Iran instead …
American readers looking for a sweeping and superbly written study of the British Conservative Party should look no further than Robin Harris’s The Conservatives: A History, just published by Bantam Press. Its more than 600 pages cover every Conservative prime minister from Robert Peel to David Cameron, with in-depth and lively analysis of the premierships of some of the great titans of modern Britain, including Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Salisbury, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. As Harris observes in his conclusion, the Conservative Party has for two centuries symbolized the greatness …
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced his resignation Tuesday after Italy’s ruling coalition lost its majority in the lower house. Although parliament voted to pass a key austerity budget bill demanded by the European Union, the government suffered a series of defections which made Berlusconi’s long-term position untenable. As the London Daily Telegraph reported: More than half of the members of the Italian lower house refused to take part in the vote, laying bare Mr Berlusconi’s lack of support in parliament as financial pressure from the eurozone debt crisis continued …
In his farewell address in Brussels, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates delivered a blunt warning to America’s European allies: there is the real possibility of “a dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance” unless NATO member states undertake a firm commitment to increase defence spending and make a bigger commitment to NATO operations. As Gates points out, only five members of the 28-member alliance currently spend the agreed minimum 2 percent of GDP on defence: the US, UK, France, Greece and Albania, and defence spending in Europe has declined …
Tony Blair’s interview in yesterday’s Times deserves to be widely read on both sides of the Atlantic. Why? Because it shows that the Eurofederalists’ delusions of grandeur are firmly alive and remain a huge threat not only to British national sovereignty but the future of the transatlantic alliance, especially the Special Relationship. It is also a further demonstration of just how far removed Tony Blair is from political reality and public opinion in the UK, but that’s never stopped him before. Blair has always been a European idealist at heart, …
The visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Washington has attracted little attention in the US media, perhaps further proof that Berlin barely ranks as a world power these days, and consistently punches under its weight in international affairs. Compared to both David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel is a remarkably low-key figure when it comes to global impact, despite the size of the German economy. Judging by the content of yesterday’s joint press conference in the White House East Room, which has to rank as among the most dull …
