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Opinion
As the European Union’s leaders gather in Brussels this week to take stock of the bloc’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the feel-good narrative is gathering steam.The shambolic start to vaccine distribution is a distant memory, with about half the EU’s population having receive...
When the Biden administration took the unprecedented step earlier this year of floating a global minimum business tax rate of 21%, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and his team took a dim view. The Brits saw the rate as too high — despite Sunak’s own plans to lift U.K. corpor...
The European Union’s Covid-19 vaccination roll-out had looked like a cross between a bad joke and a bad dream. Almost everything that could go wrong did: Logistical failures, supply delays, the odd diplomatic incident and an ugly bust-up with AstraZeneca. The Euro-area economy, battered by suc...
Europe’s vaccination campaign is a mess, failing to outpace a fresh wave of covid-19 infections that’s straining hospitals and triggering more stay-at-home curbs. The European Union’s tally of average doses administered per 100 people stands at 11.8, well behind the US and the UK a...
The scientist in charge of France’s vaccine rollout, Alain Fischer, must sometimes feel like Sisyphus forever rolling his boulder up the hill. After months of patiently working to win over a doubting public’s acceptance of the groundbreaking mRNA vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc...
The European Union has had a dire Covid-19 vaccination campaign so far, and there’s been plenty of buck-passing as a result. Slow regulatory approvals, contractual spats with drugmakers and doubts over vaccine efficacy have all been blamed. But the bloc is running out of excuses, and its ...
The defining image of Britain’s Christmas Eve trade deal with the European Union was a beaming Boris Johnson with his thumbs up in the air. There were no celebratory pictures from any of his continental counterparts.Getting to this point is a win in itself for the UK. An end to Brexit’s ...
Europeans seem more sanguine about Brexit than the British. More French column inches were filled with the death of former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing last week than with the risks of a messy end to decades of unfettered trade between the U.K. and the European Union.The late president&r...
The European Union has a history of muddling through crises at the eleventh hour, preferring a fudged compromise to anything that might definitively drive a wedge between its members. With not one but two deadlocked negotiations facing cliff-edge scenarios, that’s likely what the bloc’s ...
It’s easy to feel that there’s no light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. Europe’s intensive care wards are filling up again, pushing France and Germany into a fresh round of stay-at-home restrictions and lockdowns -- albeit ones designed to be softer than the first. Even countrie...
This isn’t just about sole, but sovereignty. European diplomats are awkwardly shuffling their feet in anticipation of a headstrong, unpopular leader crashing Brexit trade talks just as a tentative deal looks in sight. No, not U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson — France’s Emmanuel Ma...
The brutal experience of Covid-19’s first wave humbled many rich countries where even generous health care systems were overwhelmed by an unfamiliar virus. Just as past outbreaks taught Asia hard truths about how to deal with pandemics, lessons from this novel coronavirus abound in the West: I...
The history of epidemics is rife with examples of society rebelling against tough public-health edicts, such as the breach of plague quarantine in 18th-century Marseille or protests against face masks during the 1918 influenza pandemic. The grim consequence is a fresh wave of deadly infections. ...
If the number of lily pads on a pond doubles every day, and it takes 29 days for them to cover the entire pond, on what day is the pond half-covered? This brainteaser is how Martin Hirsch, head of the Paris region’s hospital network, describes the brutal first wave of Covid-19 that trigge...
Picking the high point of Juan Carlos I’s reign is easy. In 1981, just a few years after Spain had restored democracy and monarchy in the wake of Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, the king used his authority as commander-in-chief of the armed forces to crush an attempted coup d&rsquo...
Last week’s 750 billion-euro ($877 billion) Covid-19 rescue fund marked a high point in the European Union’s plan to tackle the economic fallout of the virus.But a new flare-up in infections on the continent is a grim reminder of the more immediate epidemiological threat. While it’...
After days of bad-tempered talks, the European Union’s 27 members have agreed a 750 billion-euro ($859 billion) Covid-19 recovery fund that looks like a historic step toward more joint stimulus across the bloc “even if it’s not yet a “Hamilton moment.”While the unusuall...
“Remember when we all believed in Emmanuel Macron?” The question comes not from an angry trade unionist but a stand-up comedian in central Paris, facing a crowd of 30-something urbanites cut from the same cloth as France’s 42-year-old president. A collective groan of “yes&rdq...
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