William Nattrass

How lockdowns for the unvaccinated swept across central Europe

21 November 2021 4:43 pm

What began in Austria has spread to Germany, then the Czech Republic and now Slovakia. Lockdowns for the unvaccinated are…

Poland’s Belarusian border conflict is becoming violent

10 November 2021 1:59 am

The EU’s conflict with Belarus is heating up. The simmering migrant crisis on the Polish border with Belarus exploded into…

The problem with the EU’s messianic treatment of Poland

21 October 2021 5:00 pm

Mateusz Morawiecki insists his government does not want to take Poland out of the EU. ‘Eighty-eight per cent of Poles…

Is the European centre collapsing?

17 October 2021 8:00 pm

There’s a growing tension in the European bloc between those unhappy with Brussels’s increasing interventionism and by those who feel the…

The EU was the big winner in the Czech election

12 October 2021 12:20 am

Eurosceptics in central Europe suffered a blow this weekend, as pro-EU coalitions won a slender majority in the Czech parliament.…

Czexit could be closer than we think

3 October 2021 4:12 pm

Is Czexit closer than we think? Ahead of the Czech general elections in October, the rise of an anti-EU party…

Donald Tusk is playing a dangerous game in dismissing Polexit

13 September 2021 9:42 pm

‘The British showed that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them and turned around and left.’ That’s…

The battle for Eastern Europe’s energy sector

31 August 2021 6:39 am

The fight to power eastern Europe is heating up. As Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky prepares to meet Joe Biden at the…

Fortress Europe is dreading the Afghan migrant crisis

25 August 2021 6:03 pm

Fortress Europe is pulling up the drawbridge. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban is likely to being about a…

Belarusians in exile aren't safe from the iron grip of Lukashenko

8 August 2021 4:00 pm

This week has laid bare the terrifying situation faced by Belarusians in their home country and abroad. From Tokyo’s Olympic…

The EU is failing to stand up for eastern Europe

29 July 2021 8:42 am

Will the EU stand up for eastern Europe? This question is now being asked by Ukraine following the announcement of…

The EU is stoking the culture war between East and West

30 June 2021 4:21 pm

Other EU countries ‘should not interfere in the affairs of Hungary,’ Czech president Miloš Zeman said on Sunday in support of…

Viktor Orbán goes to war on the European parliament

23 June 2021 7:42 pm

‘Times have changed, and whereas thirty years ago we believed Europe was our future, today we understand that we are…

How a Polish coal mine risks derailing the EU's climate strategy

6 June 2021 4:59 pm

Cracks are appearing in the EU’s climate strategy. An international dispute over the court-ordered closure of a coal mine on…

Two spies, an explosion, and the new Czech rift with Russia

20 April 2021 12:28 am

‘Putin is a murderer,’ read the signs carried by protestors outside the Russian Embassy in Prague on Sunday. On Saturday…

Orban and Salvini's plan to ‘make Europe great again’

14 April 2021 3:00 pm

Change is coming in the European Parliament. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki, and Italian Lega party…

Russia's Sputnik vaccine is causing political chaos in Central Europe

8 April 2021 11:35 pm

A joke is doing the rounds in the Czech Republic that the world’s highest Covid mortality rate can, in actual…

How the Sputnik vaccine brought down Slovakia’s Prime Minister

31 March 2021 1:26 am

March was a dark month for Slovakia. Covid cases and deaths in the country were among the highest in Europe,…

The growing alliance between Central Europe and Israel

20 March 2021 1:19 am

In 2018, the Czech President Miloš Zeman promised in a speech on the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel…

Vaccines are testing Central Europe’s loyalties to the EU

10 March 2021 5:00 pm

In a fresh embarrassment for the EU in its vaccine rollout, breakaway member Hungary is now at the top of…

The remarkable rise of the Czech Pirate party

23 February 2021 9:50 pm

A new party is riding high in the Czech Republic, with the wind of change in its sails. Polls now…

Why Eastern Europe is looking to Russia and China for vaccines

18 February 2021 6:00 pm

With Central and Eastern European countries still gripped by Covid-19, the EU’s slow vaccine rollout has offered little solace in…

Central Europe’s vaccine scepticism problem

3 February 2021 3:47 am

Countries around the world are in a race against time to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19. But there is one…

The Visegrád bloc are threatening to tear apart the EU

28 November 2020 7:00 pm

The bad boys of Europe are at it again. The EU has been attempting to tie budget funds to members…