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Merkel, Germany and Europe: Sixteen Years of Missed Opportunities
Anyone assessing Angela Merkel’s sixteen years in office cannot avoid three concepts: Merkel, Germany and Europe. From 2005 to 2021, Merkel was regarded as the calm, rational leader who safely guided her country through every crisis. But behind that façade of stability, structural problems continued to accumulate. Merkel, Germany and, by extension, Europe too often chose delay over reform, cheap energy over geopolitical security, and crisis management over a vision for the fu
Redactie / Editors
Aug 176 min read
Illegal Migration, Ceuta and Morocco – Europe Allows Itself to Be Blackmailed Again
Illegal migration, Ceuta and migration from Morocco are once again dominating the European news this week. The events in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta show not only that Europe is losing control of its external borders, but above all that countries such as Morocco are deliberately using migration as a means of political pressure. Europe’s response has been the same for years: lots of words, lots of money, and hardly any consequences for the countries putting Europe under press
Redactie / Editors
Aug 76 min read
Ceuta Exposes Europe's Toothless Politics
It has been impossible to ignore. Over the past week, Ceuta dominated headlines after what can scarcely be described as anything other than a mass influx of illegal migrants. Tens of thousands of people, primarily from Morocco, entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, once again putting Europe Politics and border security under intense scrutiny.
Daniël de Liever
Aug 56 min read
Belgium-Israel Boycott: West Bank Israeli Settlements and Double Standards
The Belgium Israel Boycott of West Bank Israeli Settlements – Why Does International Law Apparently Not Apply Equally?
Belgium has taken another step in its policy toward Israel. Under a new government measure, products originating from West Bank Israeli settlements may no longer be imported into Belgium. According to the Belgian government, this is a principled decision based on international law.
Redactie / Editors
Aug 46 min read
Open Borders, Closed Eyes
Europe cannot preserve compassion by abandoning the borders, laws and civic confidence that make compassion politically possible
Tamas Vajda
Aug 26 min read
Belgian Budget Deficit—Why Spending Cuts in Belgium Can No Longer Be Delayed
The Belgian budget deficit, the need for spending cuts in Belgium, and the growing burden of Belgium government debt have become some of the country's most pressing political and economic challenges. Successive governments largely failed to address the structural imbalance in public finances. The current government led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) now faces increasingly difficult decisions.
Redactie / Editors
Aug 15 min read
European Climate Policy - Why Europe Discourages Air Conditioning. The Climate Caliphate Explained
European climate policy and energy policy have produced a long list of unintended consequences. These include higher mortality during heatwaves, rising social costs, increasing administrative burdens, more bureaucracy, a weaker economy, and an ever-growing body of regulations that many European citizens can no longer make sense of.
It is a political system that bears strong similarities to what can only be described as a climate caliphate. There was no direct democratic manda
Redactie / Editors
Jul 83 min read
Europe Deindustrialisation and European Energy Policy - Is Industry Being Sacrificed?
The pace of Europe deindustrialisation is accelerating at a rate that would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago. Across Germany and the Netherlands, industrial activities are increasingly being reduced, relocated, or permanently shut down. Regions such as Wallonia, the United Kingdom, France, and large parts of Italy have already lost significant portions of their industrial base. Now, even Europe's strongest industrial regions are coming under severe pressure.
Redactie / Editors
Jun 235 min read
Health Insurance Funds — Healthcare Costs, Social Benefits, and Government Oversight
Health insurance funds under fire - Billions for healthcare costs and social benefits with limited government oversight
Belgium's Health Insurance Funds play a central role in the distribution of Healthcare Costs reimbursements and Social Benefits. Every year, these organisations manage billions of euros in public funds on behalf of the federal government. However, criticism of the system continues to grow. While taxpayers provide the funding, the Health Insurance Funds are
Redactie / Editors
Jun 174 min read
Brussels riots - Vlaams Belang demands tough crackdown after chaos over French-language education reform Belgium
The Brussels riots of June 4, 2026, left a city shaken. What began as a peaceful demonstration against the controversial education reform Belgium had put forward descended into arson, vandalism and violent clashes with police near Central Station. Vlaams Belang responded immediately, demanding a firm and uncompromising crackdown. Meanwhile, French-language education, already gripped by weeks of strikes, once again found itself at the centre of a broader political debate about
Redactie / Editors
Jun 54 min read
Belgian state reform - a confederation like Switzerland with lower taxes
Belgian state reform needs a clear next step: transform Belgium into a confederation inspired by Switzerland, with more autonomy, stronger responsibility and lower taxes. The current federal system has become too complex, with overlapping powers, too many political layers and an increasingly expensive state. A confederal model could make Belgium simpler, more efficient and more democratic. This is what the biggest coalition party the NV-A already prefers to obtain for the las
Redactie / Editors
Jun 35 min read
Democracy vs. Dictatorship - The free world must form one united front
The battle between democracy vs dictatorship is no abstract ideological debate, it is an existential confrontation unfolding daily on the borders of Ukraine, in the Taiwan Strait, and around Israel. Free world cooperation is not merely a political choice but a matter of survival. Without peace through strength and without fundamental NATO reforms and expansion to include like-minded democratic nations, the West will fall one by one under the pressure of autocratic aggression.
Redactie / Editors
Jun 25 min read
Gazalighting, hostages, accountability and double standards - On the selective outrage dominating our society, media and politics
There is a word that captures precisely what has been happening in our media and politics for the past two years: gazalighting. Just like gaslighting, the psychological manipulation of someone's grip on reality, gazalighting inverts the facts and turns perpetrators into victims. The starting point of this conflict, the bloody terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,200 innocent civilians were murdered and over 250 people taken as hostage
Redactie / Editors
May 304 min read
The asylum crisis demonstrations are a warning to the governing class and democratic legitimacy - Playing with fire in the asylum and migration failure policy in Netherlands
The recent asylum demonstrations protest in Loosdrecht, IJsselstein, Uithoorn, and Apeldoorn are revealing something the Netherlands can no longer ignore. Demonstrators across the country are sounding the alarm: mass migration must stop, and public support has reached its limit. The asylum crisis Netherlands is making the country - along with the rest of Europe - increasingly unrecognisable and less safe. That deserves acknowledgment. More importantly, it demands governmental
Daniël de Liever
May 296 min read
The Double Standard of Belgian Justice - Two Measures, Two justices
Something is profoundly wrong with the Belgian justice system when it comes to freedom of speech. The double standard applied by Belgian justice can no longer be ignored. Two cases, two verdicts, one conclusion: selective justice determines who may speak with impunity in Belgium, and who may not. Freedom of speech, it turns out, is not equal for everyone in practice.
Redactie / Editors
May 283 min read
When the Platform Outgrows the Knowledge - Expertise overreach media responsibility
Marc van Ranst is an expert on viruses. Anuna de Wever has certain knowledge about the climate. Greta Thunberg has CO₂ graphs memorised. That is important knowledge, each of them in their own fields, they deserve attention, recognition, sometimes even admiration. But somewhere between the platform and the microphone, something has gone wrong. Because today those same figures, with that same confidence, are offering their opinions on the Middle East, one of the most complex ge
Redactie / Editors
May 273 min read
Nationality, Citizenship, Democracy, and Integration - Belgium Should No Longer Grant Belgian Nationality to Migrants So Readily
Nationality, citizenship, democracy, and integration require a careful distinction between residence and full membership of the political community. Nationality is more than an administrative document. In a democracy, citizenship means access to political rights, public office, and lasting participation in the community. That is why integration must be central to every policy concerning nationality.
Redactie / Editors
May 234 min read
First Tehran, then Moscow, and soon Brussels
In July 2025, the Online Safety Act came into force in the United Kingdom, a law designed to keep children away from pornography and other "harmful content." Websites were required to verify "robustly" whether a visitor was of legal age. One of the permitted methods seemed both clever and privacy-friendly: instead of uploading your passport, you simply held your face up to the webcam, after which an AI estimated your age from your facial features. No documents, no hassle. Jus
Thijs Jansen
May 219 min read
BeNews Podcast: U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White
BeNews Podcast: U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White
Sigal Rabinovitz
May 181 min read
Subsidyland Belgium: mutuality’s, transparency and taxpayer money
Subsidyland, mutuality’s, transparency and tax money are four words that go to the heart of Belgium’s subsidy problem. Belgium has become a subsidyland in which mutuality’s (healthcare insurance organisations), NGOs and countless civil-society organisations no longer stand at the edge of government, but have become almost financially fused with it. The problem is not that solidarity costs money. The problem is that tax money flows through a forest of structures, while transpa
Redactie / Editors
May 185 min read
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
— Ayn Rand
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