In a reversal of the long-standing primacy of Western Europe, Hungary’s president set the tone when he put up barbed wire fences to keep African and Middle Eastern immigrants from entering his ‘Christian country’, followed by his Eastern European neighbours, Poland and (the former) Czechoslovakia.
As one French commentator on France 24 pointed out, Macron doesn’t want to cut ties with the US, but he does want to modify them. Pointing out that France will chair next year’s G7, to be followed by the US the year after, meaning that the two countries must work closely, the French president’s casual remark masked a bombshell: France will emphasise dialogue with China India Russia — maybe even invite them to attend on the second day.
It will be remembered that last year, president Trump was roundly chastised for suggesting that Russia be reinstated into the G7, making it once again the G8. If Macron has his way, Europe will do what the American president was not permitted to do — never mind that at the time, they obediently followed America’s hawks rather than its president.
Most surprising perhaps to lovers of Italy’s specific Mediterranean charm has been the meteoric rise of the far-right League (formerly the Northern League) which, while accepting as its junior partner the Five Star Movement created by a comic actor, increasingly reads from the Mussolini playbook. The new minister of the interior, Matteo Salvini, also speaks as Deputy Prime Minister when he declares that African migrants stranded on rescue ships in the Mediterranean will only see Italy on the back of a post-card, unless other European countries step up to their responsibilities by sharing the burden.