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  • But how is Britain? Let me quote the columnist Simon Kuper of the Financial Times, an absolute quality paper but to put it mildly, not pro-Brexit. ‘There has been lots of talk lately about how unhappy the UK is. The vote for Brexit is often described as a cry of pain from suffering people’, he wrote. But he was stunned by research done by the independent Resolution Foundation think-tank. About 93 per cent of Britons now say they are ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ satisfied with their lives; a very marked upward turn since 2000.

    Brits, Boris and Brexit

    ‘Brussels’ politicians, eurocrats and the unconditionally pro-EU media (almost all) are telling us, time after time, how bad Brexit is for the British people. Much, much worse than for those left behind

    Read more

Merkel’s choice for the function of President of the European Commission remains Manfred Weber, the ‘Spitzenkandidat’ of the centre-right EPP.  But Macron, and many of the leaders with him, see Weber as a too light weight, with insufficient experience for this job. He has never achieved a more important function than leader of the EPP group in the European Parliament.

EU leaders struggle over EU top jobs

Last week, when the EU leaders left a summit without a decision about the EU top jobs for the second time, Dutch PM Mark Rutte said to reporters, ‘we got nowhere’. Therefore, next Sunday, the EU leaders must reconvene during a dinner

There is only one clear route to survival for the Conservatives and that is to be unequivocally the party of Leave, they will lose support of the Remain-supporting Tories, but they have discovered now, to great costs, that trying to find a path in the middle has proved pointless.

Great Britain: what next?

In the UK, the elections to the European Parliament that were never supposed to happen, delivered an outcome many had expected; but it was no less a traumatic moment.

Pro-EU parties can no longer prevaricate and must expedite their attempts to think beyond traditional political families in the way they battle for seats in the EP, according the ECFR. Listening at the mainstream political parties, you can hear they share seriously the ECFR concerns, but looking at them, you see that they are exclusively busy with tackling each other in the race for delivering the President of the European Commission.

EU mainstream political parties feel cornered

According to a recent report* published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), there is a distinct possibility that anti-EU parties could form the second-largest group in the European Parliament after the elections the end of May

It is true, the experiment has helped to undercut the ‘gilets jaunes’, but this movement remains volatile and could erupt again if people are disappointed by what Macron is going to do with the demands for tax cuts and better public services. But also for more measures to protect the environment and a system of government that allows for direct participation by citizens.The government announced already to put cash in the pockets of everyday French citizens, including a boost to minimum-wage earners and cuts in taxes for some pensioners. The decree to freeze the state pensions for a period of two years has been reversed.

President Macron wants a change, the French people tax cuts

After months of town hall debates across France, it is clear: the French people demands for tax cuts and better public services

Orban and his party, Fidesz, should leave the EPP, he added. But a day later Juncker called, totally surprising his audience, the Hungarian PM still ‘my friend’. Anyhow, Angela Merkel offered Juncker immediately her “full solidarity”, what is not surprising, the German chancellor is another of Orban’s favorite targets. But she didn’t say anything about Fidesz should leave the EPP.

Victor Orban, the ‘thorn in the flesh’ of the EPP

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, asked about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent anti-EU poster campaign against him, declared, “enough is enough.”

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Editor’s Column

Brits, Boris and Brexit

By: N. Peter Kramer

‘Brussels’ politicians, eurocrats and the unconditionally pro-EU media (almost all) are telling us, time after time, how bad Brexit is for the British people. Much, much worse than for those left behind

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