business

When it comes to best-practice examples in the housing debate, Vienna is a common reference. Indeed, the Austrian capital features prominently in narratives about successful housing policies. An article in the Observer concluded that Vienna shows “decent homes for all” is not an impossible dream. And the New York Times even declared it “a renters’ … Read more

Three years ago, in Zurich for the first time, I crossed a bridge over the Limmat River and saw people floating down it in rubber rings on their way home from work, some casually holding beers. The Limmat is so clear that it almost begs you not only to jump in, but to drink it. … Read more

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/jul/08/ella-baron-emmanuel-macron-state-visit-uk-cartoon

Britain and France are so close that there’s a saying in Wimereux, a seafront resort on the north French coast, that if you can see England it’s going to rain, and if you can’t, it’s because it’s already raining. Despite – or perhaps because of – that geographical proximity, Europe’s two nuclear powers have historically … Read more

When Emmanuel Macron rides in a horse-drawn carriage to Windsor Castle this week, it will be to celebrate the return of close political relations between London and Paris, drawing a line under the damaging spats of the Brexit years. The French president’s office said the “shared interests” of the two countries were what mattered now, … Read more

It could have been a Mitchell and Webb sketch – a man with a very German accent and a distinguished Nazi grandfather complaining: “These foreigners, coming over here, importing their antisemitism.” Only this was not a comedy. The man was Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and he was making his complaint last month in an interview … Read more

In the years after the Brexit referendum, the deterioration of Anglo-French relations became one measure of the sorry disconnect between a radicalised, reckless Conservative party and any sane notion of the national interest. In 2021, a bellicose Boris Johnson sent Royal Navy frigates to patrol off the coast of Jersey in response to a dispute with … Read more

Shahin Vallée Joseph de Weck European governments are once again haunted by a tough choice between financing the military or spending on social programmes. That, at any rate, is the narrative that has taken hold since Donald Trump’s retreat from the postwar global security order and the urgent pressure to rearm Europe. But to frame … Read more

“The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,” Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. “We’re running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.” It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. … Read more