‘Everyone thinks that the US is benefitting from the war. I simply would not say that. The US has higher budget expenditures, the US is sending munitions to Ukraine, which they are going to have to replenish. That’s going to be costly, this is all going to be costly.’

While Russians are desperately trying to flee their country to escape mobilisation, their struggle for life and personal freedom receives little empathy from the West with the Baltic countries bordering Russia gradually closing their borders.

It seems that it is only Europe that wants cheap energy in the markets—everyone else, including Russia and Middle Eastern energy exporters, are interested in the exact opposite.

While member countries agree that there is a need to curb energy prices, differences have surfaced as to the details of the intervention.

Cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) was established in 2012. While at its peak, the initiative comprised 17 CEE states, that number has shrunk to 14, as a result of disillusionment with Beijing over its silence on the Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as its unkept investment promises.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced most NATO members to reckon with the poor shape of their military and left them searching for quick fixes. Countless procurement programmes have been signed for new weaponry, but we’re still short of manpower. Compulsory service, perhaps even for women, may prove to be the only answer.

While many countries struggle fighting the crises that are running rampant in Europe, the Hungarian response has managed to shield people from the worst effects of the war.

According to Gertrud Traud, a senior economist at Landesbank, the punitive measures are harming the world more than the nation they are intended to target.

As EU member states revert to coal due to the energy crisis, it is now apparent that coal will soon be in short supply for some countries.

Southern-European countries expect a large influx of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. As food insecurity grows due to the war and climate change, many will attempt to flee their crisis-stricken countries.

Due to the multifaceted crisis the continent is dealing with, the probability of recession is rising.

Climate change is reducing output and raising safety concerns at nuclear facilities from France to the US. But experts say adapting is possible—and necessary.

European consumers may face the prospect of energy rationing in the winter, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden has warned.

A new deal with Azerbaijan to increase natural gas imports may bring Europe back from the brink of catastrophe.

The energy-intensive sections of France’s industry are converting their boilers from gas to oil-based ones, in order to prevent any outages due to gas-shortages.

2021 and 2022 saw record breaking numbers for forcibly displaced individuals, as 100 million people were forced to abandon their homes and seek shelter elsewhere or had to leave their country altogether. Forecasts do not seem to paint a favourable picture for the future, as these numbers are just the beginning.

In order to restart the economy, Macron is proposing measures with both social and economic dimensions, including an EU-level fuel tax and EU standards to be enforced in trade agreements, and he is a strong proponent of the directives on minimum wage and gender equality.

In the wake of a global pandemic, Western democracies have become hugely indebted, weak, self-loathing riven by incessant migration and beset by an identity crisis. What went wrong?

The possibility was unnoticed or at least underrated, that the AUKUS agreement was a strange victory, not only for AUKUS members, but also for another region, usually chastised by the world’s political elite: Central and Eastern Europe.

The rise of political and spiritual disunity in early modern Europe coincides with what Patočka calls
the desire to “project […] the division of Europe upon a division of the world” — in a word, colonialism.

Hirsi Ali establishes a link between immigration and increasing sexual violence against women, and traces back the root of the problem to the cultural differences between Christian Europe and Muslim-majority countries.

If both elites (those of the West and of Central Europe, respectively) are ready to follow a more pragmatic political action plan, and rely on a less exclusive and lecturing linguistic regime, we can avoid the worst case scenario, which is the split and break-up of the Union, and a potential internal conflict within Europe.

Some experts warned European countries more than a decade ago that their energy supply was based on ‘thin ice’ which could make the European Union vulnerable in a situation of geopolitical tension. But the EU has still not woken up from her “sleeping beauty” dream, and this mistake could be a serious blow to green hopes.

While the initial European position on the Russian energy threats seemed like a unanimous ‘No’, now – without no apparent short-term alternatives – more and more countries prepare to pay in roubles which will likely create tensions with those who still refuse.

I think Prime Minister Orbán has actually done a very reasonable job of keeping those lines open and saying, “look, you know, we’re not interested in conflating the issue of energy with some of these broader strategic issues.”

Conservative forces in Europe and outside the continent need to work together because the values we hold dear are under global attack. These are the values that underpin
the greatness and prosperity of our civilization.

Spain’s civil war has been widely considered as the ‘dress rehearsal’ of the Second World War, a sort of test-run for the global conflict that followed shortly. Now, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war is becoming increasingly similar to it in many of its aspects, but does that mean we’re heading in the same direction?

The worst-case scenario is nuclear strikes by nuclear world powers, with consequences beyond our imagination. Now is the time to stop. To take two steps back. To understand what this war is about. To decide on what we want.

‘I have been able to see a distinct feature in Europe: a complete lack of solidarity among Europeans. Part of this dichotomy stems from a lack of Christian leadership.’

Churchill’s historical example shows the necessary difference between the realpolitican and the idealist.