Understanding politics across borders and divides
Canada and the EU launched an Alliance for the Future in Montreal on October 30, with deals on digital trade and minerals but no associate membership label.
Published: September 6, 2026 Icelanders voted 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent against resuming European Union accession negotiations in an August 29, 2026 referendum, with turnout at 82.5 percent, one of the highest of any recent Icelandic vote. The question was whether to restart the membership talks Iceland shelved in 2013. Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir’s centre-left … Read more
Published: August 1, 2026 Beginning August 2, 2026, companies operating in the EU must disclose when someone is interacting with an AI chatbot and label AI-generated content and deepfakes, under Article 50 of the EU AI Act. For over a year, that date was expected to be when the Act’s much larger obligations, covering “high-risk” … Read more
Last Updated: July 2026 Overview Three European countries have legalized adult cannabis use since 2021, and none of them created a shop you can buy it from. Malta, Germany and Czechia all permit possession and home cultivation, and all route supply through non-profit associations or personal growing rather than retail. That design is not a … Read more
Last Updated: July 2026 Overview Europe is the only region in the world where an international body can withhold large sums of money from a member state over how it appoints judges, and the past decade has been a test of whether that works. The European Union suspended around 19 billion euros in funding to … Read more
Published: July 23, 2026 Overview Switzerland spends 2026 negotiating, in its uniquely deliberate way, the biggest question in its foreign relations: how closely to bind itself to the European Union. In March the government signed a landmark Bilaterals III package that overhauls Swiss-EU ties, and it is now moving toward a popular vote on the … Read more
Published: July 23, 2026 Overview Georgia enters 2026 in the deepest political crisis of its post-Soviet history, split between a governing party consolidating power and a street movement that has not gone home since late 2024. The ruling Georgian Dream party has effectively frozen the country’s European Union accession bid until at least 2028, … Read more
Published: July 23, 2026 Overview Czechia starts 2026 under a new government that pulls the country toward the Eurosceptic, Ukraine-skeptical camp of Hungary and Slovakia, while its directly elected president remains firmly pro-Western. Billionaire Andrej Babis returned as prime minister on December 9, 2025, after his ANO movement won October’s election, and his coalition took … Read more
Published: July 22, 2026 Overview Romania is stuck. A center-left and center-right coalition that governed for less than a year collapsed in May 2026 over deeply unpopular austerity, and by mid-July President Nicusor Dan still had not been able to seat a replacement. Parliament rejected one prime minister-designate outright, and the sticking point is … Read more
Published: July 22, 2026 Overview Two years after Geert Wilders shocked Europe by winning a Dutch election, the Netherlands has swung back toward the center, and into an unusual arrangement. Wilders blew up his own coalition in mid-2025 over asylum, a snap election in October left his party tied for first but with no path … Read more