In March 2021, a 1,300ft container ship rammed into the side of the Suez Canal, blocking one of the world’s most important trade routes. What followed was a week of chaos, as hundreds of cargo ships, carrying billions of dollars’ worth of goods, were forced to wait for the blockage to be removed. Some companies […]
On the May 28, 1987, a light aircraft piloted by German citizen Mathias Rust took off from Helsinki airport. In his last radio communication, he told Finnish air traffic control that he was flying to Stockholm, yet not long after take-off he was spotted heading south across the Baltic before disappearing from radar. Finnish authorities […]
There is a quote often attributed to the leader of the Russian Revolution Vladimir Ilyich Lenin which goes. ‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’ Following that logic, 2022 feels as though it lasted a century – as the UK contended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, political instability at […]
Free trade was once at the centre of the European project. Indeed, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and many other northern European nations joined the European Community for that very reason. The vision of a stronger together trading block that would open to the world was widely accepted. However, liberal economists and political Eurosceptics have long […]
Across Europe, a rather under-reported trend has been gathering pace: parliament after parliament have been declaring the Russian Federation a ‘terrorist state’. It started in August when the Latvian Parliament passed a resolution, swiftly followed by Estonia in October and, by the start of this month the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had joined […]
The arguments over Mikhail Gorbachev’s legacy generally coalesce around two rather simplistic poles: on the one hand, Westerners who view him as a noble, democratising force who peacefully dissolved a malign super-power; on the other, Russians who view him as a traitor who hobbled their country and ushered in the chaos of the 1990s. Largely […]
What a difference a decade makes. When David Cameron entered Downing Street for the first time in 2010, Russia seemed like a mere nuisance on the edge of Europe, the Arab Spring had not yet rocked the Middle East, and boosting relations with China was seen as the future. The UK was still a member […]
Three-hour queues at security in Stockholm, long delays at Heathrow, cancelled flights at Amsterdam, and an entire day’s worth of departures scrapped at Brussels – Europe’s aviation sector is in chaos. Most strikingly, in each different country passengers have a different scapegoat, be it Brexit, labour unions, or simply too many other travellers. The reality, […]
Since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, most of Europe has rallied round the Zelensky government, with a combination of sanctions, military support and help resettling millions of refugees. The response of Germany’s SDP-led government, however, has been at best ambivalent, if not outright obstructive. Few countries have done more to facilitate Putin’s […]
Since the beginning of the current conflict, thousands of Western Europeans have opened their homes and their hearts to Ukrainians who have been forced from their cities by the Russian aggressor. Across the continent supplies have been gathered and brought to Polish-Ukrainian border to support those fleeing the unjust conflict in their homeland. This altruistic […]
Of the steps the UK has taken to rebuff the Putin regime, the recent decision to scrap so-called ‘golden passports’ is among the most welcome. Since 2008, wealthy foreigners have been offered fast-track residency in exchange for investing £2m in the UK – essentially a less expansive version of the heavily criticised cash-for-passports’ schemes offered […]
News that the UK is sending anti-tank missiles and other equipment to help shore up the defence of Ukraine’s borders is as welcome as it is unsurprising. While too many Western countries have vacillated and offered excuses in the face of clear Russian aggression, Britain has been a steadfast partner to Ukraine. It was no […]
The 1970s Soviet film White Sun of the Desert – set on the steppes of Central Asia during the Russian revolution – popularised a phrase in Russian; ‘The Orient is a delicate matter’. This expression, often used as a throwaway remark to dismiss a problem as too difficult, is perhaps now more relevant than ever. […]
When David Cameron announced his intention to renegotiate the UK’s position inside the European Union, Poland was one of the first countries to express its support. While those negotiations didn’t go as planned, the calls for EU reform haven’t gone away. Today, Poland continues to be at the front of the debate over national sovereignty […]
The debate about what has been lost in Afghanistan has, quite rightly, focused on the people that remain stranded. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans who supported allied forces, from high-level liaison officers, to interpreters, right down to cleaners and gardeners, have been abandoned in a country now governed by the people that they were determined […]
For many in the West it’s hard to credit that Iran was responsible for the recent incident in the Gulf in which a British oil tanker struck by a drone. The unprovoked attack on the vessel, which resulted in the death of one British seaman, and his Romanian colleague, is seen by many as tantamount […]
