From migration and NATO to tradwives and trade, The Parliament's back-to-school September edition explores the issues and trends animating the EU.
On the Normandy coast this spring, rescuers found an abandoned boat dashed against the rocks near Omonville-la-Rogue. Days later, authorities arrested two men accused of trying to smuggle a dozen migrants across the Channel aboard the same vessel — just seven metres long, unfit for open water and swept into one of the strongest currents in Europe.
The tragedy, as The Parliament’s Eloise Hardy reports in this edition’s cover story, lays bare a wider truth. Despite last year’s migration pact, the EU still has no coherent strategy. Member states continue to act individually, striking ad hoc deals with third countries with little co-ordination or long-term vision. The consequences are clear: illegal crossings persist, the humanitarian toll rises and anti-immigrant far-right parties grow stronger, destabilising politics across the bloc.
Migration is just one arena where the limits of European unity are being tested, and it comes as Ursula von der Leyen faces the biggest challenge to her leadership to date.
The European Commission president’s State of the Union address this week coincided with moves by the far right and far left to force a no-confidence vote in the European Parliament. Their motions were partly a response to the lopsided trade agreement Von der Leyen struck with Donald Trump over the summer — a deal that has also drawn fire from her centre-left governing partners.
The critique is familiar: the EU is still negotiating from a position of weakness, both at home and abroad.
The security landscape is equally fraught. Russia’s incursion into Polish airspace a day before Von der Leyen’s big speech underscored NATO’s — and the EU’s — eastern vulnerability. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine grinds on, with no peace deal in sight and US security guarantees as uncertain as ever, despite Europe’s repeated acquiescence to Trump’s demands.
As the EU struggles to summon the solidarity needed to confront an emboldened Vladimir Putin on its doorstep — while also navigating a mercurial US president fixated on tariffs and intent on unravelling Brussels’ tech regulations — many across the bloc appear to be questioning whether Von der Leyen is up to the job.
— Christopher Alessi, Editor-in-Chief