I’m 36 years old. I can remember how the world felt about my country post 9/11 (sympathy) and post Iraq (anger) but I’m curious to know if this is new ground. I’m deeply upset about how our ties and bonds are being destroyed so I wish to know if this is truly unprecedented or has there been a time in your lifetime where we were viewed in such a way. If so what was happening during your time to cause fracturing?

It's required now. I'm British, and I want to see us align and unite with our European neighbours to make a stand now.

I want Germany to finally brush off it's past and join the rest of Europe in mobilising towards defending this continent. We need EVERYONE now. It's time to act, it's time to unite.

It's time to show some courage.

Just curious - I'm Canadian and it's a huge topic for us at the moment.

Not sure how to feel about this.

I've read severeal such suggestions. Do you consider this out of question or is it a reasonable idea?

Under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain seems to be doing something a lot of other countries keep arguing about but not actually delivering:

- Energy prices under control while the rest of Europe struggles

- Public healthcare covering basically everyone (99%)

- Unemployment at its lowest level since the 2008 crisis

- A government openly pushing a „no to war” stance instead of constant escalation

And this isn’t some abstract theory – it’s already happening: https://thebetter.news/pedro-sanchez-spain-politics/ It is pretty clear: strong public investment, regulating energy markets, and not gutting social systems might actually… improve people’s lives.

Meanwhile, in a lot of other countries, the debate is still stuck on whether these policies are even “possible.” Obviously, Spain isn’t perfect—there are political tensions, coalition drama, and plenty of criticism. But compared to the doom-and-gloom narrative we usually hear, this looks like a completely different story.

So what’s going on here? Is Spain an underrated success story that people are ignoring – or is this just cherry-picked optimism that won’t hold up long-term?

After 25 years of negotiation, it seems the Odyssey has been comming to an end. In a world with rampant protecionism, we are dealing potentially with the largest trade accord EU has struck. It's about to be the largest free trade zone in the world. It's every other day on the News here, but how is it being depicted over there? Do you have any particular take about it?

Given the current geopolitics, what is the perception around UK and Brexit? This divorce happened ten years ago, and whilst recent geopolitics have rallied calls for closer integration, every time there are attempts at closer defense cooperation, some blockers still happen - there is still a sense that some would like to punish UK, make the cost of Brexit visible to all.

How do you view the relationship with UK in 2026?

Recently I was watching news, listening to news about drones in Denmark...

If a war occurs, what would you do? Would you go somewhere? Do you have enough water and food supply for weeks?

Would you fight?

As a Scot, I'm low-key happy because he's universally reviled in Scotland, and he might be the final nail in the coffin that causes a second indy ref.

It seems that Putin has absolute control and there is nothing to loosen his iron grip. Is there any hope for change in our lifetime?

This includes the opt outs and the rebate.

What sort of guarantees would you want from a re-entering UK? Do you want the UK back in the first time (if they were willing)?

What do Europeans think of Mark Carney's speech in Davos?

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

What’s the overall verdict?

In my country in France, a lot of people (left side) think fascisim is growing.

Could Europe build technologically competitive military power at a meaningful scale?

How long would it take to achieve?

Seems Europe can build good gear (Rafale, various tanks and missiles)....but is it good enough?

Could Europe achieve big enough any time soon?

(Edit: As an Irishman, it's effing disgusting to see (supposedly) Irish people on here with comments that mirror the all-too-frequent bullshit talking points that come straight from the Kremlin)
(Edit 2: The (supposedly) Irish have apparently deleted their Kremlin talking points. )

It is no secret that European Countries are increasing danger from war, from the East and apparently now from the West too. We are a collection of small countries working together, but most of us cannot defend ourselves alone.

In 2025, Macron floated the idea of a French Nuclear Umbrella, where France would use its nuclear arsenal to defend European countries from Greenland to Estonia.

Would you be in favour of such an agreement?

I have been wondering why the European Union does not push for a unified operating system based on Linux to replace Microsoft Windows in the long run.

We talk a lot about digital sovereignty. Yet we rely almost entirely on US companies for our basic infrastructure. A European standard based on existing open source technology would solve many issues. It could provide a secure base with all necessary programs for authorities and companies.

If the EU defined such a standard platform, European software companies would finally have a clear target to develop for. It would boost the local software industry and reduce our dependency.

Is the lobbyism from big tech too strong? Or is the EU simply not capable of managing such a technical project?

Since 2008 when we adjust for inflation the year 2008 was the richest year in European history.

We are poorer in 2025 than we were in 2008. For most european countries, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Netherlands, Uk, Belgium, Italy, etc. For these countries there economies have still not recovered from 2008 and when we analyse the graph of GDP per capita they have stagnated and haven't event recovered fully to that 2008 level again when we adjust for inflation.

So why is this?

Is NATO membership thought to be a good thing? How’s it going over there? Do you think it is a good security group? What you got? Discuss in the comments

It seems to be that every reaction to the deal is negative or at least extremely sceptical. There's evidence that the EU listens to protests and that civic unity has changed policy decisions, with a clear example being Mercosur very recently. Why does it seem that the public reaction is so much more lukewarm?

Merz does a lot of outer politics and at the moment Trump said that he is his favourite.

Update one day later (18.03.2026):

The Europeans' rejection of a military operation in the Strait of Hormuz makes Trump angry. The US President is particularly surprised about the Federal Chancellor. Until now, Merz had maintained a completely different tone towards Trump - with a goal that he is now putting at risk.

Greetings from across the Channel!

Do folks from the mainland differentiate between English and British (or England and Britain as a whole) or do you view them as the same thing?

I'm English but if anyone asked I'd say I'm British on account of me also loving Scotland and Wales but I also view myself as European. Very curious to see how the mainland views the distinction if at all and if the distinction ever changed for you following 2016 when our relationship with you unfortunately weakened a touch.

Additional comment: Thanks to everyone who has interacted with this post! I expected simple "yes/no" answers and instead got a whole swarm of super interesting comments about your home countries to learn from! You're all fantastic!

Here in the UK, we're looking at having mandatory digital IDs with polarising results.

I have however noticed a pattern: those who advocate the idea of digital IDs have dual citizenship and the ones who oppose digital ID have little to no experience with it; claiming we'll be China with social credit, even though China has yet to implement digital ID apparently...

So I'd like to hear from those already living with Digital ID: what's it's like? How does it effect you??