Free Republic

France does not want to finance a populist Europe, the country’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has indicated, just as the fight over the EU’s new long-term budget begins in earnest. These strong words were said in Paris on Wednesday during the annual conference of French ambassadors, a meeting at which the French head of diplomacy officially indicates the most important directions of the country’s foreign policy. 71-year-old Le Drian, who after the victory of French President Emmanuel Macron took the helm of French diplomacy, said that France and Germany intend to work out a common position on migration before...

The break over the Iran deal follows the break over the climate change agreement and the prospect of a trade war between the European Union and the United States. It raises the specter of a much deeper and wider break with the U.S. For the first time in 70 years, Germany’s role in the world is uncertain. Its allegiance is up for grabs. Where will it turn? German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s overseas trips have revealed her response to this dilemma. She has turned to Russia and China. An Eastern alliance—or Ostpolitik as it is known in Germany—has long been the...

Europe's new Ostpolitik: a Polish echo Ivan Krastev 21 - 12 - 2006 Germany assumes the presidency of the European Union at a time of tension in the EU's relations with Russia. But are Germany's and Europe's interests identical? Ivan Krastev finds the Polish experience of martial law in December 1981 a sobering precedent. Anna Politkovskaya, the renowned Russian journalist and critic of the Kremlin, was assassinated in Moscow on 7 October 2006. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent and another foe of the Kremlin, was poisoned in London on 1 November and died twenty-two days later. Russia's defence minister...

In 1964, the first accord between the Holy See and a communist government was signed. And the myth of dialogue was born. A book by Cardinal Casaroli, published after his death, dismantles it. The same dilemma arises today: resistance, or surrender? ROMA - One September morning forty years ago, a prelate left the Vatican for Budapest. On the 15th of that month in 1964, he signed in the capital of Hungary the first in a series of accords between the Holy See and the communist regimes of the East. The man was Agostino Casaroli (in the photo with Ronald Reagan),...