There’s a letter in today’s (UK-based) Daily Telegraph by that famous KGB-defector and media-darling, Oleg Gordiesvsky:
Sir - France always had a cult of revolution. The French public fully supported extremist political parties, Communists and Trotskyists, which had political violence as an integral part of their programmes.
Now they are reaping the fruits of it.
Oleg Gordievsky, [...]

At 75 million, France is projected to have the largest population in the EU (of current members) by 2050, according to French government figures. France’s baby-friendly policies, plus reasonably large immigration seems behind the projected increase (the country’s population is now just over 60 million). By contrast Germany’s population is set to fall to 72m, [...]

There’s a long article on Ukraine by two Tims, Garton Ash and Synder, in the New York Review of Books.
Regular readers of this site and Garton Ash’s Guardian column may not find anything revelatory, though I found this rather startling:
…the very large sums poured into Yanukovych’s campaign by Russian sources, which have been estimated [...]

Ever since the UK government unveiled the question it intends to ask in a referendum on the EU constitution opinion polls which use that question have shown a marked swing in favour of the Treaty.

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?Europe? has not had a good press in recent years, coming under criticism for things as diverse as its moribund economy, its lack of military might, its squabbling governments or even the return of anti-semitism.

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European economies appear on the mend. French business confidence has reached its highest levels since spring 2001 whilst German business confidence is rising quickly, with GDP growth in Q2 a (for Germany) spirited 2%. Looking over the longer-term there is increasing evidence that Europe?s economic inferiority complex with the US is misplaced.

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Although there are potentially looming problems of overcapacity and concerns about subsidies, it’s hard to deny that the emergence of budget airlines over the last decade has revolutionised travel among European countries, not only through cheap fares but also by allowing more flexible travelling arrangements, with a greater choice of flight departures and destinations. [...]

As the rest of Europe wonders if the French elections prove the old adage that in all countries the government lies to the electorate, but in France the electorate lies to the government, John Kay in the today’s FT offers reasons why the French voted as they did. Basically France is a nice country to [...]

Remember this debate about the relative living standards of Sweden and Alabama? One little commented result of the euro, krona and pound?s rise against the US dollar over the last two years is that measured in current exchange rates European countries? income per head now compares rather more favourably against the United States.

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Say hello to another 1,276,000 inhabitants of the EU in 2003, bringing the total to 380.8 million people on January 1st 2004. Most of them were immigrants, out of the total increase of 3.4 people for every 1000 inhabitants, 2.6 was down to net migration while only 0.8 was accounted for by natural increase (births [...]