Jean-Claude Juncker’s 70th birthday last month went largely unnoticed. If not quite a forgotten figure now, Juncker has largely faded from international view having for many years been the leading politician in his home country of Luxembourg, and a key player in EU affairs, especially in regard to crafting the Maastricht Treaty, later crowning his…
When US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, on the occasion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) 75th anniversary meetings in Washington DC last week, wrote an article for the New York Times entitled ‘You Can Count on a Strong NATO’ my alarm bell started to ring. If NATO were as ‘rock solid’ as the…
Readers familiar with the Irish actor and comedian Jimmy O’Dea might recall his monologue: “Thank heavens, we are living in Rathgar.” When I was a diplomat in Portugal some years ago, I used to say to myself, “Thank heavens that I live in Estoril”. It’s a very beautiful place about 25km from Lisbon. Driving home…