Tag: Europe

  • Europe’s Far-right Parties

    Yesterday we looked at the rise of the far-right in Sweden based on their electoral gains in this past weekend’s election. Today, the Economist has a piece detailing their strength throughout Europe and they claim that this type of nationalist party may have peaked. The graphic fascinates me because it appears to be a twist…

  • The Meaning of Macron and Le Pen.

    Well there you have it. Macron and Le Pen are moving on to round two of the French presidential election. Now, I have two things I want to address regarding the election. Today’s post looks at the meaning of the result and tomorrow’s will be about how that result was displayed. Quartz did a really…

  • Populism Marches on in Europe

    By just a hair under 20 percentage points, Italian voters—with a 70% turnout rate—voted down the reform package of soon-to-be-former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. While the election was focused narrowly on a set of political reforms for Italian government, e.g. reducing the number of senators, the vote was unofficially seen by many as a test…

  • European Interconnectedness

    The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Kind of a big deal, right? After the vote, the New York Times put together a piece on just how connected Europe remains. For example, European defence can largely be considered guaranteed through NATO, to which the United Kingdom remains. The screenshot below details which European countries participate…

  • Europe’s Far-right Parties

    On Sunday, Austria narrowly elected a former Green Party leader as president over the leader of the Freedom Party, a far-right party that surged in part because of the impact of Europe’s migrant and refugee crisis. The New York Times took a look at just how often and by how much far-right parties have succeeded…

  • The EU’s Migrant Problem

    Last week we looked at a map produced by the Washington Post, which detailed the routes chosen by migrants and refugees desiring to reach the European Union. This week, I want to compare that to one from the BBC—there are others, even from the BBC, but we will examine them later—that details the differences in…

  • Greek Referendum Results

    So when I initially planned to do this post for today, I thought the results would be a lot closer and the data display more interesting. But, I was wrong. It turns out the Greeks voted overwhelmingly against the European Union’s offer in a greater than 60–40 result. But, here we go anyways, a whole…

  • The Perception vs Reality of Islam in Europe

    Last week’s terror attacks in Paris highlight the tension in Europe between secular Europe and those believing in Islamist values. The Economist looked at some of the available data and noted the gap between Europe’s perception of Islam and its reality. A quick figure called out for France, French respondents thought 31% of the French…

  • The Reforestation of Europe

    We hear a lot about deforestation around the world. But, in this piece from the Washington Post, we see how over the last century, Europe has actually managed to reverse that trend and reforest parts of the continent. Credit for the piece goes to Rock Noack.

  • Europe Votes

    Sunday (and a few days preceding it) was election day in the European Union for the European Parliament. Unfortunately it was also a banner day for the far-right parties. In France the National Front (FN) took the top slot and in the United Kingdom that went to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). This graphic from…