Europe's New Divide

Germany’s domestic political limbo has subsided. Paris and Berlin are freshly committed to strengthening and revitalizing the European Union. And even the economic picture in Europe is rosier for the first time in years, according to the IMF. On the whole, you’d think things look pretty good for the continent.

But a deeper crisis is brewing. While the debt meltdowns that roiled the continent after 2008 revealed deep divisions between Europe’s wealthier North and poorer South, the European Union now faces a growing East-West split over political values as members from the former Eastern Bloc flout core EU principles of liberal democracy.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban — thirty years ago a fearless dissident who railed against Soviet power — has been building an avowedly “illiberal state” that looks as much towards Moscow as it does towards Brussels. In Poland, a more acute crisis is afoot as the right-wing government’s efforts to politicize the judiciary have raised the prospect of an unprecedented but risky move by Brussels to suspend Warsaw’s voting rights within the EU. But Orban has pledged to veto any such measure on behalf of the Poles, making it unlikely that Brussels ultimately delivers on this threat.

Hungary and Poland say that Eurocrats are stepping on their hard-won sovereignty. But Brussels now faces a tough challenge. It must impose a cost on the Eastern Europeans for failing to live up to EU principles — cutting EU funding to them is one option — but without deepening East-West antagonism in a way that could imperil broader Franco-German efforts to unify and revitalize the EU as a whole. And unlike the North-South divides which could ultimately be addressed with hard cash, disputes over values are much harder to resolve.

More from GZERO Media

A miniature statue of US President Donald Trump stands next to a model bunker-buster bomb, with the Iranian national flag in the background, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, on June 19, 2025.
STR/NurPhoto

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will decide whether to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities “in the next two weeks,” a move that re-opens the door to negotiations, but also gives the US more time to position military forces for an operation.

People ride motorcycles as South Korea's LGBTQ community and supporters attend a Pride parade, during the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, in Seoul, South Korea, June 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Kim Soo-hyeon

June is recognized in more than 100 countries in the world as “Pride Month,” marking 55 years since gay liberation marches began commemorating the Stonewall riots – a pivotal uprising against the police’s targeting of LGBTQ+ communities in New York.

Port of Nice, France, during the United Nations Oceans Conference in June 2025.
María José Valverde

Eurasia Group’s biodiversity and sustainability analyst María José Valverde sat down with Rebecca Hubbard, the director of the High Seas Alliance, to discuss the High Seas Treaty.

Housing shortages in the US and Canada have become a significant problem – and a contentious political issue – in recent years. New data on housing construction this week suggest neither country is making enough progress to solve the shortfalls. Here’s a snapshot of the situation on both sides of the border.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks during a meeting of northeastern U.S. Governors and Canadian Premiers, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 16, 2025.
REUTERS/Sophie Park

While the national level drama played out between Donald Trump and Mark Carney at the G7 in Kananaskis, a lot of important US-Canada work was going on with far less fanfare in Boston, where five Canadian premiers met with governors and delegations from seven US states.

- YouTube

What’s next for Iran’s regime? Ian Bremmer says, “It’s much more likely that the supreme leader ends up out, but the military… continues to run the country.”