As Hollande marks one year in office, would Dominique Strauss-Kahn have been better for France?

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Today is the one-year anniversary of François Hollande’s inauguration as the new president of France, having swept to the Elysée Palace with a mandate for a more subdued presidential administration and a leftward turn after the ‘bling bling’ administration of center-right president Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande won’t face voters again for four more years, and by 2017, [...]

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What Iceland’s election tells us about post-crisis European politics

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Iceland was supposed to be different. In allowing its banks to fail, neo-Keynesian economists have argued, Iceland avoided the fate of Ireland, which nationalized its banks and now faces a future with a very large public debt.  By devaluing its currency, the krónur, Iceland avoided the fate of countries like Estonia and others in southern Europe [...]

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What comes next for Cyprus and the EU following Friday’s haircut ‘bail-in’?

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Kevin Lees

So much for ‘nice Nic’ — it’s not that he’s reverted back to ‘nasty Nic’ so much as ‘nonessential Nic.’ Fifteen days after his inauguration as Cyprus’s new president, Nicos Anastasiades (pictured above, bottom), was forced into what’s now become a growing domestic, eurozone and international crisis when European Union and International Monetary Fund leaders presented Anastasiades [...]

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Where Italy goes from today’s elections: a look at four potential outcomes

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Although we still don’t know exactly how the results of the weekend’s Italian election will turn out entirely, we know enough to say that Italy’s short-term future will be beset with gridlock. We know that, unless there’s a major change among the final results (very unlikely at this point, but still a possibility — La Repubblica‘s [...]

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Making sense of today’s Italian election results

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Kevin Lees

UPDATE, 7:30 p.m.: Here’s an additional piece on where Italy goes from here — a look at four potential outcomes to watch for in the days ahead. * * * * * The election results from Italy’s general election have largely been counted, and they’re backing up the exit polls (not the initial instant polls [...]

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Anastasiades, Malas head to Cypriot presidential runoff next Sunday

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Center-right presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades (pictured above) overwhelmingly triumphed in Sunday’s presidential election in Cyprus, outpacing his nearest rivals by nearly 20%.  Nonetheless, he fell about 4.5% short of the 50% absolutely majority he would have needed to win the election outright and avoiding a runoff that will now take place next Sunday on February [...]

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‘La bataille des chiffres’: EU leaders agree new budget deal

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Guest post by Michael J. Geary European Union leaders reached agreement Friday on the EU budget (the multi-annual financial framework or ‘MFF’) for the period from 2014 to 2020.  After months of bickering, the 27 member states signed off on a deal totaling €908.4 billion, and the European Parliament will vote on the budget in March. [...]

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Can Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy survive the kickback scandal?

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Kevin Lees

It’s hard not to feel some compassion for Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s government, which limped to its one-year anniversary only in December 2012. In that time, Rajoy’s government has weathered all of the following: the passage of four budget cut packages and painful tax increases — income tax rates have increased, tax breaks for [...]

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Clarke’s pro-Europe tone highlights referendum risk to UK Tories from the center

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Longtime senior Conservative Party grandee — and former chancellor of the exchequer — Kenneth Clarke (pictured above) in no uncertain terms yesterday said that a British exit from the European Union would be a disaster. That Clarke is pro-Europe is certainly not a surprise. As former prime minister John Major’s chancellor from 1993 until the fall [...]

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From Heath to Wilson to Thatcher to Cameron: continuity in EU-UK relations

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Kevin Lees

My friend and colleague, Dr. Michael J. Geary, and I, are in The National Interest today with a even-further revised piece on the history of relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union (pictured above are former prime ministers Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher). In particular, we continue to argue that British participation in the [...]

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Taking a deeper look at Cameron’s EU speech and UK relations with Europe

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Over at EurActiv, Dr. Michael J. Geary, a friend and colleague at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and I have written a piece placing UK prime minister David Cameron’s speech from Wednesday in greater context in respect of existing European Union structures and the longstanding 40-year history of the United Kingdom’s tumultuous relationship with [...]

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Tsipras predicts Greek debt haircut after German elections

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Kevin Lees

The great thing about Washington, D.C. is the flow of visitors we see from throughout the world and the relative access to top officials through top-notch organizations such as the Brookings Institution, which hosted Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras for a 90-minute session Tuesday. The beleaguered Greek economy has receded from headlines somewhat since the [...]

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Merkel shouldn’t despair over center-right’s Lower Saxony loss

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Kevin Lees

Voters in Germany’s fourth-most populous state, Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), have elected popular Hannover mayor Stephan Weil (pictured above) its new minister-president after an incredibly narrow victory for the center-left coalition, according to official provisional results. The predicted victory would mean that the center-right coalition headed by minister-president David McAllister, a high-profile (and half-Scottish!) politician within the ruling Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian [...]

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Lower Saxony state elections also a mild barometer for Merkel’s federal CDU

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Kevin Lees

State elections in Lower Saxony later this month are to Germany’s center-right what elections last year in North-Rhine Westphalia were to Germany’s center-left.  Last year, state elections in North-Rhine Westphalia were somewhat of a barometer of German federal politics, and the incumbent minister-president Hannelore Kraft’s win in May 2012, extending the strength of her Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD, [...]

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Time names Barack Obama Person of the Year. Is that too US-centric?

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Kevin Lees

So Time Magazine’s decision to anoint a Person of the Year since 1927, for reasons unknown, holds a rapt audience among folks in the United States, myself included. This year (oh the suspense!), Time chose U.S. president Barack Obama.  In those 85 years, of course, Time has chosen every U.S. president (except Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and poor Gerald [...]

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