Free Republic

This month, the doors will open at the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP) in Lyon, France’s third-biggest city. It will, its high-profile backers hope, become a breeding ground for the country’s next generation of conservative thinkers and leaders. It also marks the return to public life of Marion Maréchal, once the great hope of the French far right, who is the college’s director. She said the idea was to train a new crop of politicians and officials to replace the “visionless” Parisian elite. She was the youngest member of France’s parliament before stepping away from politics in...

Theresa May's proposed new economic partnership with the EU "will not work", the head of the European Council has said. Donald Tusk said the plans risked undermining the EU's single market. He was speaking at the end of an EU summit in Salzburg where leaders of the 27 remaining member states discussed Brexit.

South Korean president Moon Jae In has raised government spending...and implemented a traditional left wing economic program. Yet Moon marries left-wing economics with the social conservatism that is still de rigueur in South Korea. During the country’s presidential campaign last year, he came out against gay soldiers and even went to so far as to state that he “ opposes” homosexuality in general. And unlike other left-wing leaders across the globe, Moon evinces hostility to immigration. For the past two months, the picturesque, subtropical South Korean island of Jeju has been home to a bizarre migration crisis. Jeju is a...

The EU declares war on the World Wide Web. An explanation of Article 13 and what it portends for the future of the Internet.

The European Parliment has passed a controversial copyright directive that contains provisions which force tech giants to install content filters and sets in place a potential tax on hyperlinking. The bill was passed in a final vote of 438 – 226 and will need to be implemented by individual EU member states. Critics of the directive have been laser-focused on two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13, which they have dubbed the “link tax” and “upload filter.” "The most important parts of this are Articles 11 and 13. Article 11 is intended to give publishers and papers a way to...

Mr Farage spoke highly about the country’s leader Viktor Orban and urged him to not stand to be lectured by the EU but instead follow the UK’s lead and simply leave the bloc. The comments come a day before MEPs are set to vote on whether to trigger Article 7, which is an EU law drafted to ensure respect for democracy and the rule of law as they are worried Hungary is becoming a dictatorship. Mr Orban has said that triggering Article 7 would be an “abuse of power” of the EU. Brussels is concerned with Mr Orban's attitude towards...

The European Parliament has voted to pursue unprecedented disciplinary action against Hungary over alleged breaches of the EU's core values. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities, and the rule of law - charges which he denies.

The European Parliament has voted to pursue unprecedented disciplinary action against Hungary over alleged breaches of the EU's core values. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities, and the rule of law - charges which he denies. More than two-thirds of MEPs backed the censure motion - the first such vote against a member state under EU rules. If also approved by national leaders, Hungary could face punitive measures. The ultimate sanction, the suspension of Hungary's voting rights, is unlikely as Poland is likely to veto any such move

Video at link.

Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has begun the final day of the general election campaign by warning about extremism and fascism. Neither his centre-left Social Democrats nor the main centre-right party is likely to win a majority. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) is expected to win around 20% of the vote, becoming the second biggest party in parliament. Mr Lofven said an SD vote was "dangerous" and "counterproductive". He said it was "like trying to quench fire with alcohol", according to the Omni news site. Immigration has been a central issue of the election campaigns. The nationalist SD doubled its...

In Magyar Idők, Zoltán Kottász contends that the 2019 European Parliament election campaign will be the first EP election in which real European issues will dominate. While in the past, EP elections in all member states were determined by domestic issues, in 2019, EU voters will decide about the future and identity of Europe, the pro-government commentator suspects. Kottász predicts that the campaign will be fought between what he calls ‘globalist multculturalist parties’ led by French President Macron, and ‘forces which champion national sovereignty’ that oppose migration. Kottász thinks that PM Orbán’s anti-multiculturalist and anti-immigration vision are becoming increasingly popular...

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...

Currently, Argentina uses up more than half of the 45,000 metric tons of high-end beef the EU can import yearly at a zero tariff rate. The U.S. and Canada had exported a total of 2,351.37 tons to the European Union this year by the end of July, according to the commission, the EU’s executive arm. That marks a considerable increase compared with the previous two years, when the U.S. and Canada combined exported fewer than 500 tons a year. The negotiations would discuss earmarking as much as 35,000 tons of that quota for U.S. producers, according to an EU diplomat...

The war hero who masterminded victory in the Battle of Britain later warned of a new 'terrible menace' the country faced before the UK joined the EU, it was revealed today. RAF supremo Sir Hugh Dowding claimed in 1961 that 'all the unemployables' of Europe would 'invade' Britain if the country were to join the then European Economic Community. Sir Hugh, nicknamed 'Stuffy' by pilots because he was so aloof, added that in doing so, the newly-formed organisation would 'succeed where Hitler failed'

Will “spring forward, fall back” shortly become an anachronism in Europe? The EU asked its citizens what they thought of daylight saving time after several member states objected to the mandatory imposition of the time change. In a six-week response period, 84% of those commenting wanted to see it relegated to the past — and they may get their wish: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday that he will bring forward proposals to scrap daylight saving time across the 28-nation European Union.It follows a six-week E.U.-wide public consultation on scrapping the practice. Preliminary results from the survey reveal...

America's NSA intelligence service allegedly targeted the European Union with its spying activities. According to SPIEGEL information, the US placed bugs in the EU representation in Washington and infiltrated its computer network. Cyber attacks were also perpetrated against Brussels in New York and Washington. Information obtained by SPIEGEL shows that America's National Security Agency (NSA) not only conducted online surveillance of European citizens, but also appears to have specifically targeted buildings housing European Union institutions. The information appears in secret documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden that SPIEGEL has in part seen. A "top secret" 2010 document describes how the...

President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said preserving European Union unity was more important than forging a close relationship with post-Brexit Britain, and hit out at what he called U.S. President Donald Trump’s “aggressive” isolationism. As pressure mounts on Prime Minister Theresa May to agree terms for Britain’s divorce from the EU and the shape of their future trade relationship, Macron showed no sign of breaking ranks with other EU capitals. “France wants to maintain a strong, special relationship with London but not if the cost is the European Union’s unraveling,” he told a gathering of French ambassadors. Brexit, Macron said,...

The national Sweden Democrats are predicted to become the largest political party in the country following elections on September 9. Their only problem is that none of the socialist parties that have ruled Sweden for more than 100 years will work with them. The situation is similar to what it is for other nationalist, eurosceptic parties in Germany, France, Holland, and other Western countries. The people support the nationalist agenda but other politicians refuse to have anything to do with them. There is no doubt that the roots of the Sweden Democrats can be found in the far right. Nazi...

Let me now begin with a striking passage from Niall Ferguson's recent book, Civilization. In it he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. "But in the past 20 years, we have realised...

Journalists who cover the regular gatherings of the leaders of European Union countries got a rude surprise this week from the Belgian government: Most of them will have to pay for the right to do their jobs. Before they are allowed to cover European Council summit meetings in Brussels, journalists have to undergo background checks conducted by the countries where they live. Naturally, the largest number of them, about 1,000, live in Belgium, where the European Union is headquartered, and a new law there requires the journalists to reimburse the government for the cost of the checks — 50 euros,...