Free Republic

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked. The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said. It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves...

France and Germany have agreed to abandon plans to jointly develop a next-generation fighter aircraft, effectively ending the central element of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, according to Reuters.The decision was reportedly reached during discussions between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of a summit in Montenegro last week.Reuters cited German officials as saying the two leaders concluded there was no realistic path to resolving longstanding disagreements between the industrial partners involved in the project.Launched in 2017 by France and Germany, and later joined by Spain, FCAS was intended to become Europe's...

In a joint letter signed by former ministers and all of the Labour chairs of Westminster select committees, the UK Government has been told there is an “urgent need for accountability and concrete consequences in response to Israel’s violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are spiralling by the day”. The letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was co-ordinated by Melanie Ward, the Labour MP for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy and the former chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). It comes as Israel launches air strikes on Iran despite a so-called ceasefire, closes all...

... nations failed to establish or effectively enforce comprehensive legal prohibitions against importing goods produced wholly or partly through forced labour.While a subset of countries — including Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the European Union — will see 10% tariffs imposed due to specific enforcement failures, Australia has been grouped with jurisdictions like China and India under the higher 12.5% tariff bracket...

Europe’s EU project has reached its limits: a centralized bureaucracy replacing politics itself, draining legitimacy, and pointing back toward sovereign, competitive states. Europe has reached the end of an era. Not the end of its history, but the end of its false form. For decades, the European Union served as the great substitute project of a continent that no longer dared to think politically. It promised peace without power, order without a people, unity without roots, and prosperity without cost. That was its founding lie, and it was a lie from the very beginning. Political order does not grow out...

The European Commission has taken Ireland to Europe’s highest court over the alleged lack of enforcement of EU rules when it comes to peat cutting. Following years of friction between the Government and the Commission on the issue, the EU’s executive body today referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failure to comply with EU rules on environmental impact assessments. In a statement, the Commission said Ireland had failed to comply with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. The statement claimed there was still “significant peat cutting activity” which was not subject to planning permission or environmental impact...

MEP Charlie Weimers told Euronews’ flagship morning show Europe Today that an “era of deportations” has begun in the EU, following a deal on what is described as the strictest-ever migration law, which includes return hubs outside the bloc. The “era of deportations” has begun in the European Union, according to Charlie Weimers, a Swedish conservative MEP and one of the negotiators of the bloc’s strictest-ever migration law, which was agreed on Monday and marked the most significant shift in the EU’s migration policy in decades. Speaking to Euronews's Europe Today show, Weimers — who is a member of the...

In an interview with Handelsblatt, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel dismissed criticism and concerns surrounding the digital euro. The possibility that the project could ultimately evolve into a form of capital control appears to play virtually no role either in banking circles or in government-aligned media. The digital euro ranks among the most ambitious projects within the political architecture of the European Union. As the Eurosystem and the EU increasingly merge into identical and integrated political spaces, it can no longer be denied that this CBDC project is primarily a geopolitical power play by Brussels. Yet the euro-CBDC -- shorthand for...

A survey has found that over seven in ten people in France believe that crime is “out of control”, with fears that the country is sliding towards a “Mexinization” in which public authority is destroyed. According to a poll this week from CSA for Le Journal du Dimanche, 72 percent of French people believe that crime is out of control. This belief is firmest among supporters of the center-right Républicains at 92 percent, followed by 83 percent of National Rally, and 62 percent of supporters of President Emmanuel Macron’s neo-liberal bloc. The sentiment was also held by a majority of...

When Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed in December 2024, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa declared that he would embrace a “zero problems” foreign policy, in the hopes that would help break the country’s isolation and solve some of its economic problems. The prospect of a stable Syria enticed at least $28 billion in investment deals from Middle Eastern countries in 2025, and even more has been secured so far in 2026. The continuation of that trend amid the current war with Iran has amplified Syria’s central geopolitical and economic pitch—that it can be a potentially transformational corridor for energy flows, commercial...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced a sweeping agreement with Hungary’s new government led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, including the release of more than €16 billion in previously frozen EU funds, Hungary’s decision to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO)... The Commission president emphasized that the European Union and the Hungarian government had already established an intensive joint working structure... The European Commission president also announced that Brussels would release €10 billion from previously frozen EU funds following progress in negotiations and reforms. In addition, she revealed that €4.2 billion in cohesion funds tied to...

[Translated from German] Since Thursday morning, a major police operation has been underway at Winterthur train station. Several areas and stairways around the new pedestrian and bicycle underpass are cordoned off. An eyewitness, who works across from the cordoned-off area, tells this editorial office that a man of middle age shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) around 8:30 a.m. and stabbed four men with a knife. At that very moment, a school class also passed the scene. The teacher then positioned herself protectively in front of the children. Another witness, a taxi driver, confirms that a man had been running...

Israel's foreign ministry has mocked the activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla online, alleging that injuries were "staged" for the cameras after an activist pictured in a neck brace displayed a "miraculous recovery" when returning home without it. This comes as many activists have returned to their home countries after being detained and deported from Israeli custody. Multiple activists have accused Israeli forces of abuse, torture and even sexual violence and rape whilst they were held in detention. The provocative posts sparked a rebuttal from the Global Sumud Flotilla online, which said activist Nesrin Zeaiter had "experienced a concussion and...

Israel detained flotilla activists and fed them sandwiches. Spain met similar activists with clubs and riot police. Guess which country the world condemned.

“Trump has done so much damage to libtardery that the Democrats will need a decade of uninterrupted power to undo it, which they're not going to get.” —Matt Forney on X. If you learned anything from this week’s extravaganza in Beijing, it is that Donald Trump is aggressively re-aligning world relations so that the USA does not end up one of the losers in the global resource scramble that lurks darkly behind all current events. China does not intend to be an eventual loser, either, though it has lost a lot of traction lately. The Eurolands are certainly the main...

The European Commission found the treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists shown in a video released by Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is "completely unacceptable", a spokesperson said on Wednesday. "Every detained person must be treated with safety, dignity and according to international law," spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said in a post on X. "We call on the Israeli government to ensure the protection and dignified treatment of these activists, including several EU citizens," he added. Israeli police forced activists who were aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to kneel on the ground in rows with their hands tied behind...

On Monday, the European Union announced sanctions on Israelis, including Daniella Weiss, the 80-year-old former mayor of a Jewish community in Judea and Samaria, and on Tuesday, it invited the Taliban, an Islamic terrorist group allied with Al Qaeda, to come to Brussels for talks. “Extremisms and violence carry consequences,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned Israel. Obviously. And the consequence of extremism and violence is an invite to Brussels.At least if you’re a Muslim terrorist. Over the last decade, Islamic terrorists associated with ISIS, an Al Qaeda splinter group, have killed over 34 people in two bombing, four...

THIS is the shocking moment a UK phone shop worker offered to take £3,000 in cash in exchange for a small boat migrant crossing. Criminals are using a network of UK-registered businesses to receive payments for smuggling, a BBC Local documentary has found. The Smuggling Business: Undercover, available on BBC iPlayer from tonight, has exposed a network dealing with illegal Channel crossings. These businesses included a mobile phone shop in South-East London, alongside firms in Newcastle upon Tyne and Cambridgeshire. Going undercover to film staff at the shop in Woolwich, the BBC found that nearly £3,000 in cash could be...

The Ministry of the Interior and Administration said the planned changes would end what it called “automatism” in granting Polish citizenship and replace it with a model based on a foreigner’s real connection to Polish society, culture and the state. Under the proposal, foreigners seeking Polish citizenship would have to meet stricter conditions. The ministry said the aim was to avoid “the mistakes made in the past by other countries handing out citizenships.” One of the main changes would extend the required period of legal residence to eight years. This would include three years of temporary residence followed by five...

A post moving fast across X on Saturday claimed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “has announced he is standing down.” That is not the confirmed position. No official resignation announcement has been verified from Downing Street. But the reports underneath the viral claim tell a story that is almost as dramatic. According to a Daily Mail report from columnist Dan Hodges now circulating widely on the platform, Starmer has “told friends he intends to stand down and set out an orderly timetable for his departure.” That language is sourced to private conversations, not to a formal public statement from the...