Can either host score in their opener? Can the Germans live up to their high expectations? Is it a replay of Slavic Europe vs Germanic Europe, or is it just a game with a ball?
All this and more in Sunday’s games…

Switzerland’s roster for their opening game (loss to the Czech Republic) contained a reminder of one of the wonderful ways I misspent my youth.

Read more… or Read more right here… »

Number 14.

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There I was thinking that the Euro 2008 opening ceremony was the usual bizarre interpretative dance performance to which UEFA seems addicted — not even good on TV, for which the visuals seem designed — when a singer (must figure out her name) and the Basel crowd did a great job on the Swiss national [...]

The paradox is that countries attempting to screen immigrants by skill level, so that they only get the more skilled ones, end up with an immigrant mix that is less skill-intensive than countries with open immigration.  This apparently is a consensus message from the Munich Economic Summit: countries like Ireland, the UK, and Spain, which [...]

A warm welcome to guest poster Joanna Walsh.
I’m reading the guide notes on the walls of the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. They’re annoying me. I’m seeing the exhibition with a friend. It’s always good to have someone to complain to.
“Look, here it says about how miserable she is again: ‘depression, [...]

Boy, this will certainly help ease dependence on oil.

The release of a recent poll showing that most Hungarians preferred life under communism caused a mild shock in the foreign community, but provoked little more than a characteristic shrug from Hungarians. After all, under János Kádár Hungary was one of the least repressive regimes in the Soviet bloc, the “Goulash Communism” of the 1980s [...]

To Desmond McGrath, adding his expertise, wit and wisdom to the AFOE mix as a guest writer for the next three weeks. Desmond is based in Budapest, Hungary, so we are getting a few forints’ worth along with all of our euros. If we’re really lucky, he’ll explain the wonders of the double-long vowel and [...]

Only a couple of days before the big European sporting event of 2008 kicks off in Austria and Switzerland. Who will be crowned European football champion of 2008 in Vienna on June 26th?
For my own country The Netherlands, which finds itself in a Group of Death with France, Italy and Romania, the odds do [...]

It is reading time again here at AFOE. I am happy to invite you to read The politics of Chaos in the Middle East by Olivier Roy. If you like the world to be simple and easy to understand then you will hate The Politics of Chaos.
Olivier Roy offers his readers a descriptive overview of [...]