Geert Wilders, leader of the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), is about start his career at the European Parliament by being as awkward as possible. Wilders, who will be allied in Brussels and Strasbourg with Marine Le Pen’s Front
In response to the shooting on May 24 at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, has said there will be closer cooperation between European Union states against fighters returning from Syria, after the suspected
Jean-Claude Juncker, the frontrunner to take the top job at the European Commission, has been complaining about the amount of scrutiny he is now under by the British press. He has warned his supporters that they must be ready for
In a move that raises doubts whether some feminists understand their target, a bare-breasted female protestor attacked a statue of Vladimir Putin at a wax museum in Paris on Thursday, stabbing its face and straddling the flattened figure of the
In the first four months of this year so many illegal immigrants crossed the Mediterranean and entered one of the EU member states that the number is already close to the 2013 total and is likely to rise as summer
Conservative MEPs have succeeded in poaching enough of Nigel Farage’s old Continental allies at the European Parliament to be able to brag that they are going to belong to a bigger group in the assembly than UKIP. But other than
A Chechen Imam was arrested in the Austrian city of Graz on Monday under suspicion of terrorism. The 41-year old cleric, whose name has been withheld by police, is thought to have radicalised eight young Chechen men living in Styria,
Tonight eurosceptics at the European Parliament are in turmoil as reports circulate that Beppe Grillo, leader of the Italian Five Star Movement with 17 MEPs, may be back-peddling on a deal to join Nigel Farage and UKIP in a political
Members of right-wing Austria student fraternities known as Burschenschaften will march in Vienna this evening. Although they say they are politically neutral, the Burschenschaften have ties with the eurosceptic Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), which took almost 20 per cent of
Hundreds of migrants in Calais have written to the French authorities demanding to be allowed to travel to Britain “as soon as possible.” Until they are allowed into the UK, they say, they should be given houses in Calais and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has approached French President François Hollande privately to ask if he would be willing to put forward Christine Lagarde, the former French cabinet minister who is now head of the IMF, as president of the European
France is preparing to train hundreds of Russian naval crew to operate a powerful French-made warship this month, defying calls from the U.S. and other Western allies to keep the vessel out of the Kremlin’s hands, according to a report
Details of Britain’s “above top secret” covert surveillance programme – including the location of a clandestine British base tapping undersea cables in the Middle East – have been disclosed by veteran British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell writing in the Register.
Vladimir Putin and his allies in eastern Ukraine must think all their birthdays have come at once: Ursula von der Leyen, the German defence minister, has announced that from now on the German army will be more family-friendly, with increased
While investigators in France continue to hold suspected terrorist Mehdi Nemmouche, arrested in Marseille on Friday in connection with the shootings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24, four more people were arrested by French police on Monday
Father Frédéric Lequin, a parish priest in the south-eastern French town of Notre-Dame de Bellecombe, is offering an unusual service to his congregation: blessings for their smartphones, according to a report in the Local. The ceremony of the smartphones will
In the latest round of economic advice from Brussels bureaucrats, staff at the European Commission have told the Government it should increase council tax on more expensive houses, cut back the Chancellor’s Help to Buy loan guarantee scheme and increase
Three men thought to be Islamists have defaced an art exhibition in Frankfurt, seizing a copy of the Koran which was part of a work valued at €150,000 (£120,000) called “God is Great (no.4)” by the late British conceptual artist
US Congressmen have urged France to cancel the sale of two advanced helicopter carrier ships to Russia and suggested that NATO buy or lease them instead. “The purchase would send a strong signal to President Putin that the NATO allies
A Frenchman with suspected ties to Islamic radicals in Syria has been arrested over last week’s fatal shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, investigation sources told AFP on Sunday. The 29-year-old was arrested in the southern French city of
Tony Blair may now be looking for a top unelected position among the lushly-paid euro-elite. The former prime minister, who is said to be worth £70m from the business interests he has taken on since leaving Number 10, “offered his
They thirst for vengeance – or at least, for a large Coke and an order of fries -in Northern France, where the citizens of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise have been ready to demonstrate in the streets because local bureaucrats are delaying construction of
David Cameron’s Conservatives have been so weakened by their losses in the European Parliament that Tory MEPs may now be forced to sit in a political group with some of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s German opponents – leaving Cameron embarrassed after
In a little-publicised move, the European Commission is trying to seize control over the accreditation of higher education institutions across the EU by bringing a legal test-case against Slovenia. The action, if successful, will establish that national authorities in member
On Tuesday night at a European Council meeting in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not keen on the idea of Jean-Claude Juncker, former prime minister of Luxembourg and leading eurofanatic, becoming the next president of the European Commission. This
France is the terror capital of Europe, suffering 63 of the 152 terrorist attacks in the European Union in 2013. Three people were killed in the attacks and 225 arrests were made for terrorism-related offences. A Europol report published on
The EU’s chief scientific advisor has admitted that eurocrats twist the way scientific evidence is gathered in order to meet their “political imperative.” Prof Anne Glover, appointed in 2011 to provide the European Commission with independent scientific advice, said in
Despite David Cameron’s bragging last year that he had forced the EU to contain its budget, the European Commission yesterday was back demanding a further €4.7bn (£3.8bn) of which Britain will have to pay around £500m. And while the demand
Brussels veterans are doing some eye-rolling at David Cameron’s claim he will be the one to stop the European Parliament’s favourite, Jean-Claude Juncker, from becoming the next president of the European Commission. Juncker may well be stopped – indeed, as
More than a thousand African migrants charged a 20-feet (6m) high barbed-wire border fence in Spain’s North African coastal enclave of Melilla on Wednesday, with many managing to scale the barrier and cross. Dozens of others were beaten back by
Conservative Party Leader David Cameron is trying to sabotage UKIP’s influence at the European Parliament, just days after trying to appear sympathetic to euroscepticism by telling the British people that their message at the polls was “received and understood.” Instead
LONDON, United Kingdom – In an extraordinary intervention in British politics, former US President Bill Clinton today called for Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom – and then insulted the EU and members of the European Parliament by calling
In an outburst somewhere between petulance and delusion, France’s economy and industry minister has said his country would be ready to “roll out the red carpet” for British investors if the UK voted to leave the EU. The socialist minister
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told a conference in London today that progress in the reform of banking regulation was still too slow and blamed “fierce industry pushback.” “The [global financial] crisis has prompted a
Russian organised crime may have been behind the failure of Salzburg’s bid to play host to the 2014 Winter Olympics. German news reports suggest the director of the Salzburg Olympic Bid Committee, Fedor Radmann, may have been blackmailed by Russian
The reaction by the two establishment parties in Spain to the showing by the hard-left Podemos party is much like the reaction of a Lexus driver after being blind-sided by a Suzuki Bandit: “Where the hell did that come from?”
Charles de Gaulle once said: “Europe is France and Germany. Everything else is just the garnishes.” Last night it looked like Europe’s meat and potatoes might be heading in different directions. While France rocked the Continent with a triumph for
