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Tony Barber

European affairs commentator

Tony Barber is Europe Editor of the Financial Times. He is a former foreign correspondent in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, the former Soviet Union, the US and the former Yugoslavia.

Email Tony Barber @TonyBarber8  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
Email Tony Barber @TonyBarber8  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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  • Monday, 6 September, 2021
    German election
    An awkward path to power opens for Germany’s Social Democrats

    Even if the SPD wins the Bundestag elections, it will probably have to cobble together a three-party coalition

  • Wednesday, 1 September, 2021
    Vienna
    My Vienna: a haven of tranquillity and tradition

    After three decades of urban renewal, Austria’s capital is attracting a growing number of foreign residents

  • Wednesday, 25 August, 2021
    European Union
    Protecting the EU against fraud is a vital priority

    The new public prosecutor’s office is off to a good start but severe tests lie ahead

  • Wednesday, 18 August, 2021
    Russian politics
    Russia’s elections are an exercise in repression and empty ritual

    A crackdown on dissent makes next month’s parliamentary contest the least free of Vladimir Putin’s 21-year rule

  • Monday, 2 August, 2021
    EU eastern tensions
    The EU must be tougher with Poland on the rule of law

    Brussels searches for ways to reverse the Warsaw government’s assault on judicial independence

  • Sunday, 25 July, 2021
    German election
    German floods increase pressure for a break with the Merkel era

    The next government will face demands to do more on climate change and economic modernisation

  • Wednesday, 14 July, 2021
    EU immigration
    Asylum pushbacks shame the EU and the UK

    Harsh measures are part of the fallout from the 2015-16 Mediterranean crisis

  • Wednesday, 30 June, 2021
    ReviewHistory books
    Time’s Witness by Rosemary Hill — the antiquaries’ amazing achievements

    An impressive social history of the enthusiasts who helped preserve and elucidate British history

  • Wednesday, 23 June, 2021
    Spanish politics
    Catalonia pardons are a gamble that Spain’s divisions can be settled

    Pedro Sánchez has stirred a rightwing outcry with his olive branch to jailed separatists

  • Promoted Content
  • Wednesday, 23 June, 2021
    FT SeriesSummer books 2021
    Summer books of 2021: History

    Tony Barber selects his best mid-year reads

  • Wednesday, 9 June, 2021
    EU foreign policy
    EU policy towards Russia is in disrepair

    Central and eastern European countries are taking a harder line than France and Germany

  • Sunday, 6 June, 2021
    Instant InsightGerman politics
    Germany’s CDU enjoys much-needed boost with eastern poll triumph

    Victory in Saxony-Anhalt lifts the confidence of Armin Laschet’s party ahead of Bundestag vote

  • Wednesday, 19 May, 2021
    Geopolitics
    Arctic rivalry heats up among the great powers

    Friction in other parts of the globe as well as climate change are fuelling tensions in the high north

  • Tuesday, 4 May, 2021
    ReviewNon-Fiction
    Hitler’s Cosmopolitan Bastard — a pioneer of European unification

    The first English-language biography of Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi marvels at how many of his ideas have come to fruition

  • Sunday, 2 May, 2021
    Napoleon Bonaparte
    Napoleon’s legend is alive and as divisive as ever

    Two hundred years after his death, debate continues over whether he was a tyrant or reformer

  • Friday, 30 April, 2021
    FT SeriesFantasy dinner parties
    Tony Barber’s fantasy dinner: a 15th-century feast in Sardinia

    The FT’s European comment editor assembles a Russian poet, an atheist priest and Shakespeare’s Rosalind for a night of sparkling debate

  • Monday, 26 April, 2021
    EU enlargement
    The baleful phantom of border changes haunts the Balkans

    Instability and antagonisms pervade the region a quarter of a century after the Yugoslav wars

  • Tuesday, 13 April, 2021
    German election
    German politics is greening in unpredictable ways

    September’s elections may bring the Greens and fresh thinking to Berlin’s foreign and economic policies

  • Friday, 9 April, 2021
    Northern Ireland
    Peace in Northern Ireland needs its guarantors

    All sides have a responsibility to ease tensions but the biggest, post-Brexit, rests with the UK and EU

  • Monday, 22 March, 2021
    European Union
    Europe’s Covid response risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

    Vaccination setbacks and uncertainty over post-pandemic recovery fund bode ill for the bloc

  • Sunday, 14 March, 2021
    Instant InsightGerman politics
    CDU stumbles as the Merkel era draws to its close

    Germany’s centre-right is in trouble six months before Bundestag elections

  • Monday, 8 March, 2021
    EU eastern tensions
    Europe’s patience with Viktor Orban starts to wear thin

    Hungarian leader may struggle to continue playing off Moscow and Beijing against the west

  • Wednesday, 3 March, 2021
    Geopolitics
    The first task of democracies is to put their own house in order

    Joe Biden’s planned summit and Boris Johnson’s ‘D10’ must not turn into anti-Chinese fronts

  • Tuesday, 16 February, 2021
    Special ReportLuxembourg: Data and Innovation
    Luxembourg’s grand plan for an advanced digital society

    One of Europe’s smallest states has big ambitions to back private-sector innovation with government-led research. Can it succeed?

  • Monday, 15 February, 2021
    Geopolitics
    Germany’s bridges to Russia split open Europe

    Outreach to Moscow risks ignoring the concerns of central and eastern EU countries

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