One of the very few benefits of Brexit was the end of these BRUSSELS GONNA DO THIS ONE THING THAT WILL ENRAGE DAILY MAIL READERS stories. Now we get Brexit *and* the bendy bananas bullshit. Worst of both worlds. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Aya-Toll come-in-ye

There is a final favour Macron could do for France—to resign early. Leaving the Elysée a few months short of his mandate would reset France’s awkward electoral calendar. The aim: to avoid new presidents starting their rule at the height of summer. My Charlemagne: www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

10/10, no notes www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Without wanting to make Trump's speech sound like a Deliveroo order, as far as Europe is concerned the main takeaway is TACO.

There is a final favour Macron could do for France—to resign early. Leaving the Elysée a few months short of his mandate would reset France’s awkward electoral calendar. The aim: to avoid new presidents starting their rule at the height of summer. My Charlemagne: www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Curious story of censorship in China, where something terrible seems to have happened in a Beijing market but you'll never know about it www.economist.com/china/2026/0...

Another punchy The Economist cover this week

Today in how not to do economic policy: The French govt leaned on TotalEnergies to cap petrol prices under €2. This caused a rush to their filling stations Which caused some filling stations to run out of petrol Now everyone is worried there is a general shortage www.franceinfo.fr/economie/aut...

Son: Papa, what were YOU like in the 1990s? Italy: I used to play in FIFA World Cups, you know?

Mamma Mia!

Son: Papa, what were YOU like in the 1990s? Italy: I used to play in FIFA World Cups, you know?

Europe's regulation of business leaves much to be desired. But its strict competition rules are not among the problem. Weakening them to allow for "European champions" to emerge would be a step in the wrong direction.

In an egregious case of cultural appropriation, Americans are now replicating the shit event genre that is integral to the folk identity of British celebrants of Winter Wonderland in a Luton carpark.

83% of cars sold in Uzbekistan are... Chevrolets? When industrial policy goes gonzo. www.economist.com/asia/2026/03...

Bosh!

Lars Løkke Rasmussen as described by global media: FT: Dane who lit up outside White House [with picture of him puffing a pipe] Politico: Denmark’s kingmaker is a man who brushes his teeth with soap [also features pipe-smoking]

Wondering what leverage in negotiations looks like? Australia's new FTA with the EU provides 16,830 tonnes of tariff free access for beef. Australia's FTA with the UK, completed with a desperate Johnson administration, provided 35,000 tonnes tariff free, rising to unlimited over 15 years.

A notable feature of this op-ed from a Danish journalist on the state of affairs in Denmark ahead of elections: it does not feature the word "immigration" once. What non-Danes is assumed to be an endless topic of discourse in Denmark is far less contentious within www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/o...

$500k family income in NYC and you live in 75 square metres, with parents sharing a room with their kid. This is why you have to treat GDP figures showing US is much richer than Europe with a pinch of salt. I know Upper West Side is not America, but still telling. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I wonder if the "Iranian official" conducting negotiations with America is the same person as the "former president" Trump says he spoke to last week.

Damn, Gerry Baker. 👀

Prediction market fanboys will need to explain why the implied odds of the Italy referendum passing crept up to 75% before standing now at 6%.

It's Tehran TACOs time!

Lionel Jospin, former French prime minister, has died. Beyond his time in office he will be remember for a picture in which he does not feature: the 2002 presidential election runoff, one of the great political shocks in post-war France.

A friend went round to his neighbours’ for Eid last night and apparently the wife slightly panicked about hosting white people because she disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back with half a pint of whisky for him. This, to me, is multiculturalism

We are about two news cycles from the US imposing sanctions on itself.

My Charlemagne this week: there is strife between Ukraine and its European allies. It is not divorce, but it looks like a geopolitical lovers' tiff. www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Remarkable story from Denmark's nat'l broadcaster. "When Danish soldiers were flown to Greenland in January...they brought explosives so they could destroy, among other things, the runways in Nuuk & Kangerlussuaq [to] prevent US mil aircraft from landing" www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...

Viktor Orban’s “proudly illiberal” regime has exported its brand of conservative agitprop beyond its borders. Europeans be warned: the Budapest Megaphone is blaring at you

Rail Baltica, a cross-border project first mooted in 1994 and that got formal state backing in 2017, now looks like it will be operating fully only in 2040. www.ft.com/content/0fe9...

Tell you who's not winning

Magyar is now at 66% of winning the Hungarian elections, per betting markets, back to around his best-ever odds. I'm not entirely sure I trust these markets (at all) but hey.

Trump argues in FT interview that “people who are the beneficiaries" of the Strait of Hormuz should help keep it open That's not a crazy point, until you remember why the Strait is closed in the first place. It wasn't Europe or Asia that did this. www.ft.com/content/1ca6...

Ramos President!! 🍾🍾🇫🇷🥖🏉🏉🏉

The Budapest Megaphone blares populism to the world. or how Viktor Orban has built an illiberal intellectual patronage system of think-tanks, media, conferences and institutes to sway politics beyond just Hungary. My Charlemagne this week (free if you register) www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

The Budapest Megaphone blares populism to the world. or how Viktor Orban has built an illiberal intellectual patronage system of think-tanks, media, conferences and institutes to sway politics beyond just Hungary. My Charlemagne this week (free if you register) www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

I knew that the Department of War shot a missile into a school & killed 175 civilians, mostly children. This is learned today: Secretary of War Hegseth had cut the teams assigned to prevent such tragedies by 90%. www.npr.org/2026/03/11/n...

It's hard to tell which US adversary Trump is helping most of all. Is it Putin's Russia, by giving it an oil-price bump and depriving Ukraine of interceptors? Is it China, the main beneficiary of America's shattered credibility? Or perhaps Iran, whose regime has shown it can withstand attack?

Never change, How To Spend It

Emmanuel Macron drinks *twenty* cups of "ristretto" coffee a day, which is functionally equivalent to having a permanent intravenous cocaine drip. (From Ania Nussbaum's "Accréditée")

No consolation is so sweet for a French rugby fan nursing defeat than to have England lose—to Italy!—on the same day.

My Charlemagne on luxury goods, Europe's global tax on vanity. How did Europe, an egalitarian continent with a slumping share of global GDP, come to host an industry that thrives on bombastic money-making? Features a $15,000 Louis Vuitton bone-shaped leather trunk www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Being more predictable than America, less revanchist than Russia or less autocratic than China is a low bar. But with chaos becoming the norm, Europe’s attachment to rules is a kind of defiance

Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas -- what a job title

This kind of thing always ends well

ChatGPT can't serve up old quotes from Churchill because... something?

How every Charlemagne column starts. 25 hours to deadline!