The World Today: April & May 2016: The EU dream is slipping away

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Any prescription for the European Union’s future must take account of the political nature of the project, Nicholas Dungan asserts. Only a renewed French-German partnership can spearhead this effort

The first freely elected president of the Maldives tells Alan Philps about a life of political activism that has led him from jail to high office and back to jail.

As the European Union lurches from financial meltdown to refugee crisis, the UK is about to hold a vote on pulling out. Most Europeans will have no say in the British referendum. A few niggles aside, Thomas Raines finds that the majority want the UK to remain.

For now, London and Berlin are allies, but this won’t last, writes Almut Möller

Concerns about EU dinosaurs in the Netherlands, an increasing Russian influence in Eastern Europe and the repercussions for Greece of Brexit

Jose Ignacio-Torreblanca on why Spain thinks the UK already has a good deal

Of Europe’s many problems, one of the clearest is its geography: no clear border in the east, easily navigable inland sea to the south and multiple offshore islands.

Articles

Israel may end up paying for Palestinians if the EU stops footing the bill, writes Phyllis Starkey

Merkel’s voters desert her over refugees policy, writes Hans Kundnani

A historic meeting between the heads of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox can be interpreted in many ways, says Konstantin von Eggert

It’s the EU outsider everyone says has all the advantages. Daniel Hannan argues that a Britain freed from the shackles of the EU could get a far better deal

It’s the EU outsider everyone says has all the advantages. Kristin Clemet argues that her country still has to pay but has no say when it comes to crucial decisions

Rape and violence have reached war-zone levels, writes Ray Cavanaugh

Also in this issue

The antics of Trump and co should worry America’s allies, argues Xenia Wickett

Xi Jinping will need to manage expectations as economic growth falters, argues Kerry Brown

The message of Islam must be reinterpreted as a code for humanism, writes Asma Lamrabet

War has not gone away and a modern state needs to have plans in place for conscription, writes Jill Sargent Russell

Robert Fox looks at two books on the rise of Islamism

Masha Karp enjoys the writings of a satirist shaken by the Red terror

The directors of the documentary film ‘Among the Believers’ discuss a five-year project to capture the divisions in Pakistani society through education

Leaders campaign in poetry and govern in prose, said Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York. All very well for him to say because most politicians campaign in cliché. Goodness but the EU referendum campaign is a festival of worn-out phrases.