Today's divides aren't between states, they're across them

In Europe and America, today's urban educated elites have more in common with their counterparts in other countries than their own compatriots. It is resulting in a new type of international nationalism.

I was in Belgrade last week moderating at the Belgrade Security Forum, an annual policy dialogue about Balkan and European issues. 

During a discussion on challenging inequality, one of the panelists made a point that stuck with me. Responding to a comment from former Greek prime minister George Papandreaou about the uneven benefits of globalization, Hakan Altinay from the Global Civics Academy noted that the benefits are being felt by a certain class in each country, and that is bringing them closer together across borders while they drift ever-further apart from their countrymen. 

People working in and around the European Union institutions in Brussels are often accused of living in a bubble, forming an international echo chamber in which they have more in common with each other than with people back home in their own countries. But in fact, this is a phenomenon that is linking national capitals across Europe - and it has little connection to the EU. The bubble isn't just in Brussels. It is spread across Europe's cities.

A few days later, I heard a very similar description of the situation in the US on NBC's Meet the Press, America's main public affairs program. During a 'data download' segment, host Chuck Todd described how NBC News had crunched the numbers. Despite the caricature of America being divided between red and blue states, the divide is really between red and blue people - and that split defies geography.

Three different Berlins

My journey from Schöneberg to Neukölln to Prenzlauerberg.

Ever since going freelance in March of 2015, I’ve lived an itinerant life. In addition to keeping apartments in Brussels and Berlin and traveling between them, I’ve also gone traveling in the Southern hemisphere over the winters.

It’s been a fantastic and enriching experience, but today I’m reining it in. I’m on the train from Berlin to Brussels now, having given up my Berlin apartment. The back-and-forth was just getting too exhausting - I had to pick one city or the other. Professionally, that city has to be Brussels - at least for the moment. But that’s a subject for another blog entry.

The future of Europe - Macron vs. Lindner

This week, Emmanuel Macron threw down the gauntlet for his vision of a stronger, more federal European Union. But his bold words were tempered by the election result in Germany two days earlier. And just a few days later, violence in Catalonia further undermined his vision of European unity.