European Union

Ukraine's Eurovision Victory Not the First Time Politics Has Been on Stage

by Tess Megginson

Since its beginnings in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest has been a stage for statements about the politics of the continent, from the Cold War to the growth of the EU to the invasion of Ukraine. 

Trump's Removal of Troops from Germany Follows a Trend

by Michael Creswell

While Trump's decision to halve the contingent of US troops in Germany has drawn bipartisan condemnation, critics should recognize that whether the decision is wise or foolish for today's context, it is in line with decades of efforts to shift the burdens of collective security onto NATO allies. 

The Death of the Central Bank Myth

by Adam Tooze

A financial historian argues that it's time to see institutions like the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve as political actors and question how and why they act.

What the Coronavirus Means for Europe’s Future

On March 13th the World Health Organization declared Europe to be “the epicenter of the pandemic,” and the shortfalls of isolated action became clear.

How Did the E.U. Get the Coronavirus So Wrong?

The truth is that when it comes to public health, the Union has done what its member nations wanted it to do: not much.

Virus Forces Europeans To Ask: How United Do We Want To Be?

The north-south divide that has dogged the European Union for years has resurfaced as the virus has galloped across the continent.

BBC Reporter Educated in U.S. Frames the “Brutal” Brexit Exit of Theresa May

by Esau Williams

Theresa May’s exit is not likely to change Britian's relationship with Europe much.

The Cost of Corruption in the Balkans

by Abrana Xharra and Alon Ben-Meir

And how it's impeding European Union membership. 

What Happened to the European Union?

by Michael Kimmage

William Drozdiak's new book charts the tensions that have divided a continent.

How’s Brexit Going?

by Luke Reader

It’s been 6 months since the British began the process of withdrawing from the EU. The signals thus far are not promising.

Britain, the European Union, and Why History Matters

by Luke Reader

Discussions about British withdrawal from the EU should really be considered part of an ongoing debate about history and national identity.   

'An anxious continent': Walter Laqueur on Europe's decline

British-American historian Walter Laqueur experienced the demise of the old Europe and the rise of the new. In a SPIEGEL interview, he shares his gloomy forecast for a European Union gripped by debt crisis. SPIEGEL: Mr. Laqueur, you experienced Europe and the Europeans in the best and the worst of times. Historical hot spots and the stations of your personal biography were closely and sometimes dramatically intertwined. Which conclusions have you reached today, at the advanced age of 92?Laqueur: I became a historian of the postwar era in Europe, but the Europe I knew no longer exists. My book "Out of the Ruins of Europe," published in 1970, ended with an optimistic assessment of the future. Later, in 2008, "The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent" was published. I returned to the subject in my latest book, "After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent." The sequence of titles probably says it all.SPIEGEL: The last two, at any rate, sound as if the demise of the Western world were imminent.

Croatia joins EU with history

Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union, capping a decade of judicial and economic overhaul to shed the remnants of communism and its wartime past.Tens of thousands celebrated the entry of the second former Yugoslav republic into the EU with fireworks, five-story projections of its history and technology, concerts, dance performances and street parties across Zagreb. European Commission President Jose Barroso and other EU officials gathered at the central square as Croatian and blue-and-yellow EU flags fluttered in the evening breeze above revelers’ heads.The Adriatic country, which emerged as an independent state in 1991 during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, is looking to EU membership to help solidify peace throughout the Balkan region as tensions still smolder in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Leaders are also counting on EU ties to lure foreign investors to the $63 billion economy and end four years of recession and stagnation....

Giles MacDonogh: What Happened to Europe?

Giles MacDonogh is the author of several books on European history, including “After the Reich.” He is currently working on “Hitler’s Germany: A Social History of the Third Reich.”It all looked like a pretty good idea in 1951: A world war had come to an end only six years earlier and a cold one followed in its wake. Old enemies were about to become new friends.The first step was barter. Instead of milking the defeated nation’s resources — the ancient way of war — they could be shared: You have coal, we have steel; we’ll swap. This fair trade was at the heart of the Treaty of Paris, the beginning of the European Coal and Steel Community, the seed that became the mighty European Union....It has now been 68 years since the end of World War II, and in Western and Central Europe at least, peace has reigned for the longest period in modern history — trouncing the calm that ran from Waterloo to the Crimean War by nearly two decades.It would be a pity to forget a century of good, hard work or the 60 years we have spent burying our differences and throw it all away at the toss of a coin.

Brendan Simms: The Ghosts of Europe Past

Brendan Simms is a professor of history at Cambridge University and the author, most recently, of “Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy From 1453 to the Present.”CAMBRIDGE, England — THE cheerleaders of the European Union like to think of it as an entirely new phenomenon, born of the horrors of two world wars. But in fact it closely resembles a formation that many Europeans thought they had long since left to the dustbin of history: the Holy Roman Empire, the political commonwealth under which the Germans lived for many hundreds of years.Some might take that as a compliment; after all, the empire lasted for almost a millennium. But they shouldn’t. If anything, today’s Europe still has to learn the lessons of the empire’s failures.

Timothy Garton Ash: The Euro Survives, But Where are the Europeans?

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist. His personal website is www.timothygartonash.com'We have made Italy, now we must make Italians" – thus the old saying. Today we have made the euro and the crisis of the euro is unmaking Europeans. People who felt enthusiastically European 10 years ago are reverting to angry national stereotypes.