Germany and France have long been regarded as the twin engines of Europe. While France has to deal with its own slate of problems, in Germany many important issues are on the back burner while the country waits for a new government. Can hard-nosed conservative Friedrich Merz be the fresh pair of hands the country needs?
The European Union enters 2025 facing a set of challenges: maintaining unity amid geopolitical tensions, improving its economic competitiveness and grappling with political uncertainty in key member states. With political turmoil in Germany and France, a new European Commission and Donald Trump returning to the White House, the year will likely put the EU’s resilience under serious strain.
In a remarkable year for elections, nearly half of the world’s population has been called to the polls, including in eight out of the ten most populous countries. In Europe, the elections for the European Parliament took place in June and a number of national elections have been held across the continent.
The European Parliament has awarded Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González the Sakharov Prize, an award for human rights and freedom of thought created in 1988.
Heavily contested parliamentary elections in Georgia, presidential elections and a referendum on European Union membership in Moldova: both countries were closely watched by the EU with an eye to enlargement, but took different turns towards that goal. At the same time, the votes were allegedly stained by Russian interference.