Ewald Engelen is professor of financial geography at the University of Amsterdam and a feature writer for De Groene Amsterdammer. He is working on a book about the farmer protests in Europe.
NATO members across Europe have embraced Donald Trump’s call to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. Many social democrats argue that this shouldn’t come at the cost of welfare cuts, but they refuse to challenge the military spending plan itself.
Many of Europe’s Green parties have pacifist roots — but now support hurried rearmament. The plan to boost defense spending to 5 percent of GDP is turning Europe away from green investment and plowing cash into the vastly polluting arms industry.
J. D. Vance offended European colleagues on Friday by publicly doubting that they are champions of democracy. Some of the examples he cited were spurious — but the EU establishment’s shocked reaction itself spoke to their unreflective groupthink.
Wolfgang Streeck’s new book Taking Back Control? argues that the neoliberal era of free trade and trickle-down rhetoric lies in the past. He spoke to Jacobin about the political shocks this might bring.
In his maiden speech as NATO secretary-general, Mark Rutte ominously warned that peacetime is over as he delivered a cocktail of half-truths to demand ever-increased military spending.
Two writers, Thomas Frank and Joan Williams, provided sharp insight into the Democrats’ hemorrhaging of working-class voters eight years ago. The Democratic Party ignored their perspectives. We asked them to explain how we ended up here — again.