Joel Schalit
Trans-Europe Express: Germany’s tolerance deficit
Asked to explain the AfD’s surge in the polls, Merkel offered a strictly economic analysis. The problem was that she was wrong.
Trans-Europe Express: Pre-war Europe blues
The cynicism of was undeniable. Just as the Commission announced it was taking the second step in an infringement procedure against Poland over the reform of its justice system, legal experts associated with the PiS government announced that the country could still demand reparations from Germany for its occupation during World War Two.
Trans-Europe Express: Lega Nord Means Berlusconi
The Lega Nord has won the election. Or so one would be inclined to believe, surveying the stories on Italian politics published since August in the (mostly) UK press. A bit of Brexit projection, perhaps? Not exactly, but it can’t be excluded either.
Trans-Europe Express: Erdogan is bad for everyone
He never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. So went the Abba Eban-penned 1973 slogan used to describe the late PLO chief, Yasser Arafat, who was routinely blamed for failing to secure peace with Israel.
Trans-Europe Express: Tanks against migrants
The rhetoric about sending troops to the Brenner Pass was especially reactionary. But Austrian Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil felt compelled to use it anyway.
Trans-Europe Express: Gay marriage and the German elections
Call it the Merkel tack. “For me, personally, marriage is a man and a woman living together. That is my concept, but I support civil partnerships,” she told YouTube vlogger Le Floid, AKA Florian Mundt, in July 2014.
Trans-Europe Express: 5 Star fails on immigration
It was a wipeout. Failing to win a single contest in 1,004 local elections in Italy on Sunday (11 June), Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star Movement was quickly assigned to the list of declining populist parties that began with Geert Wilders’ defeat in March’s Dutch poll.
Trans-Europe Express: Orbán’s Trump fetish backfires
Viktor Orbán must be feeling especially stupid right now. Following Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the Hungarian leader’s embrace of the US president’s 2016 victory appears increasingly misguided.
Trans-Europe Express: NATO summit to get a taste of ‘America First’
As NATO leaders prepare to meet next week in Brussels, US President Donald Trump will likely ruffle a few feathers if he brings the ‘America first’ dialectic into the meeting and wreaks havoc within the Alliance.
Trans-Europe Express: An EU view on World Press Freedom
In honour of World Press Freedom Day (2 May), Trans-Europe Express asked journalists from the EURACTIV Network to comment on Reporters Without Borders’ 2017 Press Freedom Index.
Trans-Europe Express: Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany
It isn’t exactly an official holiday. But, for Israeli expats who live in Germany, it often feels like Yom Ha Shoah (“Holocaust Remembrance Day”) is observed here, too.
Trans-Europe Express: Playing the proxy, St. Petersburg and the Syrian chemical attack
At first, the Russian approach was to admit to everything. Well, almost. Following the first reports of the Syrian chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday, the defence ministry appeared almost too willing to confirm what happened.
Trans-Europe Express: England’s dreaming
“EU policy at work.” Superimposed over a photograph of a hardhat-wearing worker sitting on the pavement, a begging cup placed in the foreground, the message could not be any clearer.
Trans-Europe Express: Terror and the Rome Declaration: Westminster and beyond
It’s as though Europe was at war. What kind of war, it’s hard to tell. On the one hand, there’s Russia and its hybrid conflicts in Ukraine, Georgia and just about everywhere else, in one form or another.
Trans-Europe Express: Erdogan finds religion: Hailing Europe’s Islamic community
His focus on fascism was suspicious. What experience did Turks, in the Netherlands and Germany, have with the Third Reich that could compare with what other minority groups experienced during WWII?
Trans-Europe Express: The charge of fascism – Erdogan vs Germany
Normally, the accusation is reversed. Erdogan undoubtedly knew that when he accused Germany on Sunday of "fascist actions" typical of the Nazi era, for cancelling rallies to drive support for an April referendum granting himself broad new powers.
Trans-Europe Express: Going Dutch – The Geert Wilders conundrum
Don’t let the numbers fool you. Following several months of predictions that the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) would win the 15 March elections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte's conservative VVD party this week pulled ahead, by less than 1% of the vote.
Trans-Europe Express | Soros: Return of the scapegoat
If his name were Bill Gates, he’d be treated differently. But, after decades of serving as a scapegoat for conspiracy theorists, the former György Schwartz, AKA Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros, must be used to it by now.
Trans-Europe Express: Polish democracy
The first news reports didn’t reveal much. The two governments had agreed to ‘mend fences’, and engage in closer cooperation. But otherwise, leaving the impression that the German chancellor’s visit to Warsaw on Tuesday hadn’t gone too well, and that spin control was in effect.
Trans-Europe Express: 1989 (Slight return)
Putin couldn’t have scripted it better. Twenty-seven years after the end of communism, Romanians had taken to the streets again, this time, to protest against a democratically elected government in the European Union.
Trans-Europe Express: Refugees forever
The refugee problem won’t go away. No matter how hard populists try to put up walls and seal off borders, they keep on coming.
A letter to Angela Merkel from a Berlin Jew
Alternative für Deutschland’s startling second-place in Sunday’s election in Mecklenburg-Pomerania (4 September) has sent shockwaves throughout Germany. The consequences are particularly concerning for the country’s minorities. Joel Schalit writes to Angela Merkel about how to repair the damage.
US moves nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania
EXCLUSIVE/ Two independent sources told EURACTIV.com that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, against the background of worsening relations between Washington and Ankara .