The next four years may prove to be the most transformative period in German politics for some time.

Joint freedom of navigation patrols by the UK and France would be more convincing to a regional audience.

A boost to defence spending is a signal France is prepared to lead on major European and global security challenges.

Should Italy turn a shade of populist or nationalist, will we see yet another crisis in Europe?

The coming days and weeks will be a period of great uncertainty in Berlin and, by extension, Europe.

The UK’s decline is no more pronounced than that of any Western nation.

Austria has always be seen as a bridge builder between East and West in Europe.

China has become an increasingly important player in the heart of post-communist Europe.

As German leaders mull new elections or minority government, French President Emmanuel Macron waits impatiently.

The EU was built to prevent what destroyed the continent twice in the first half of the 20th century and kept half of it prisoner until 1990.

Hard questions must be asked about the future of the Royal Navy and the totality of Britain’s force structure.

Only the EU is in a position to pick up the banner of the Western world.

For Merkel, this was a hollow victory. The results will prompt introspection among the old parties.

When it comes to Germany and Russia, pragmatic economic interests run up against a philosophical commitment to human rights and a liberal European order, and adherence to the positions of NATO and the EU.

There is a counter-narrative emerging in Europe’s approach to irregular migration, even as EU governments seek ways to discourage desperate journeys to Italy.

Poland's politics seems to have come full circle, with ever lower levels of incivility and cleavages cutting ever deeper across society.

Johnson was quick to quote his political idol Winston Churchill in lauding the 'special genius of the English-speaking peoples'.

France's President Emmanuel Macron is striking a pragmatic and self-confident tone in the country's foreign policy.

In three European cities, we've witnessed a variety of reactions to a US president unlike any the world has seen before.

The G20 riots in Hamburg have raised a number of pertinent political questions about domestic security and political extremism in Germany.

Barring some ‘parliamentary incident’ there will be no national elections in Italy until next year, probably in March.

The shock created by Macron’s election is on a par with that of Barack Obama in 2008. The expectations are as high – which means he is bound to disappoint.

Rather than going under, the EU under German and French leadership will likely move forward again.

Trump is clearly making things worse, but the fraying of the US-Germany partnership is a story as long as the post-Cold War era.

In recent years China has demonstrated its ability to divide Europeans by creating new entities such as the 16+1 mechanism.

Renzi has assured party loyalists that after his primary win, PD will return to first place in the polls by the end of May.

Macron's future will be determined not only by his win, but by his margin of victory.

The auguries could not be better for Theresa May to smash a divided Labour and put Tory troglodytes back in their cave.

The bomb attacks on Coptic churches in Egypt highlights the occasional focus by Islamist groups on Christian targets in the Middle East.

Perhaps most telling - and for Swedes, the most heartening - response is the attitude displayed toward police in the wake of the attack.

Sturgeon has sought a second poll for Scotland, and the idea of Ireland reuniting has been raised again – but none of this is quite as it seems.

Three major recent developments appear to indicate that the EU, at long last, is on the up again.

Le Pen says France could be a 'grande nation' again if it left the EU. Economists say it could send France bankrupt and may spark another financial crisis.

If Merkel believes she can employ soft power, diplomacy and compromise to reverse Erdogan’s tide, she is sadly mistaken.

Many in the Socialist party feel bitter about Hamon's victory in the presidential primaries.

Perhaps no country has a greater stake in how Theresa May pursues her vision for Brexit than Ireland.

2017 will pose more sharply than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall the question of what Russia wants from the United States and the world system more broadly.

After the election of Donald Trump I argued that populism may not be the right lens through which to view recent political trends in Western democracies.

‘No’, she said, in words which many still struggle to believe, ‘the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.’ And with that May upended more than four decades of British foreign and economic policy.

The EU’s prestige, normative standards and soft power have been relentlessly eroded by the Turkish government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Merkel has vowed to deport many new arrivals and a bill to open deportation camps has just been passed.

The major challenges facing Europe and the rest of the world are of a nature and scale beyond the means of the nation state.

With Fillon, French conservatism is back, at once old-fashioned and acutely contemporary.

A Trump association risks squandering hard-earned respectability.

The one upside of Trump and his isolationist tendencies could be that at long last Europe will be prompted to do more for the continent’s security.

Like much of the world, Germans watched the election of Donald Trump with surprise and dismay.