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DECEMBER 2017

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4 POLITICO 28

ON THE COVER: ILLUSTRATION BY PETER STRAIN FOR POLITICO “28” LOGO BY POST TYPOGRAPHY

ILLUSTRATED PORTRAITS: PORTRAITS OF ALL 28 HONOREES DRAWN BY JAYA NICELY FOR POLITICO

MEET THE 28

DATa POInTS

The doers and dreamers who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe. Starting with No. 1 on Page 10

Comparing European countries’ appetites — for eating, drinking, smoking and caffeinating. Page 94

How many of us go to the gym? Page 9

How much time do we spend watching TV? Page 37

How much time do we spend eating? Page 61

FEaTURESTracking the man Turkey says was the mastermind of 2016’s attempted coup. Page 20

Italy has turned Euroskeptic. Now its ‘crisis generation’ prepares to vote. Page 38

EUSA: Photographing American visions of Europe — and vice-versa. Page 62

Where are they now? Checking in with POLITICO 28 alumni from prior years. Page 93

6 PHOTOGRAPH OF BANKSY MURAL BY DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS FOR AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

EXECUTIVE

John F. HarrisEDITOR IN CHIEF

Matthew KaminskiEXECUTIVE EDITOR

Sheherazade Semsar-de Boisséson

MANAGING DIRECTOR

POLITICO SPRLA JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN

POLITICO AND AXEL SPRINGER

ENTERPRISE EDITOR STEPHAN FARISCREATIVE DIRECTOR TIM BALLCOPY EDITOR ESTHER KINGCOPY EDITOR SANYA KHETANI-SHAH

MAGAZINE

It’s impossible to know what the coming year holds for the European Union. But one thing is certain: The bloc’s leaders will spend much of the next 12 months wrestling with its future.

That’s why Christian Lindner tops our list of the 28 people who will shape Europe in 2018. The pugnacious liberal leader occu-pies a key place in Germany’s politics: at the head of a conservative, Euro-cautious segment of the electorate. By pulling the plug on coalition talks in November, Lind-ner cast his country into political turmoil and ensured his place at the center of the ensuing debate.

In a year in which the Franco-German motor is likely to drive the discussion on Europe’s direction, that puts him in a position to act as the brake. More than any other politician, it’s Lindner — whether in or out of government — who will define just how far things can go.

This is the third installment of our guide to the people to watch in the year ahead: 18 men and 10 women from 28 different coun-tries — politicians, business leaders, artists, writers — you can expect to find in the thick of the action in the coming months.

As in previous years, we cast a wide net across the Continent, soliciting suggestions from readers and members of previous edi-tions of our list. Then, in several rounds of debate, we hashed out a ranking in order of impact. Our goal: to find those who are truly — and sometimes unexpectedly — shaping their countries or the EU. Simply holding a powerful office (sorry, fans of French President Emmanuel Macron) isn’t enough to automatically qualify.

Lindner’s first-place finish follows two years in which the top of our list was defined by the growing wave of populism (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

in 2016) or the reaction to it (London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2017). It’s a change that reflects a feeling in Europe that, while populism may not have receded, it has likely crested — at least for now — leaving the Continent’s leaders free to address the underlying causes of the phenomenon.

Politics is back in Europe, which is why eight out of the top 10 people on our list are practitioners of, with apologies to Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, “war by other means.” They include: the brain behind Brexit, U.K. Environment Secretary Michael Gove (No. 2); French Labor Minis-ter and Macron’s iron fist Muriel Pénicaud

(No. 3); Laura Boldrini, president of Italy’s lower house of parliament and a crusader against misogynistic online abuse (No. 5); and the European Parliament’s Brexit rapporteur Guy Verhofstadt (No. 10).

Of course, politicians aren’t alone in driving the European debate. Many a pol will suffer shivers of fear if they fall into the crosshairs of Austrian television host Armin Wolf (No. 11); Swiss populist-bust-er Flavia Kleiner (No. 17); or Slovenian investigative journalist Anuška Delić (No. 6). And, from the world of culture, René Redzepi, the Danish chef and owner of the illustrious Noma restaurant (No. 26), is sure to leave his mark. As is Mirga Tyla, the Lithuanian conductor of the U.K.’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (No. 27).

In our feature well, Naomi O’Leary looks ahead to the election in Italy next year, profiling the country’s “crisis gener-ation” to ask how one of the Continent’s most Europhilic countries became one of its most disaffected. Zia Weise searches for Turkey’s “runaway imam” — the man the government believes holds the evidence proving who was behind the 2016 attempt-ed coup. And photographer Naomi Harris visits American-themed attractions in Europe and Europe-themed attractions in the U.S., discovering that what was meant to honor the “other” has in nearly every case turned into caricature.

We hope you’ll enjoy reading and look forward to hearing what you think of this year’s POLITICO 28.

STEPHAN FARIS AND MATTHEW KAMINSKI

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

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9POLITICO 28

DaTa POInT: LIFE In EUROPEHealth club memberships per 1,000 people (in 2014)

Source: IHRSA Global Report, UN

Denmark

Spain

Portugal

Czech Republic

Slovakia

148.9

142.8

61.1

14.7

6.7

MEET THE 28

12345678

Zia Weise searches for Turkey’s ‘runaway imam’ — the man the government believes holds the evidence proving who was behind the 2016 attempted coup. Page 20

InSIDE

Christian Lindner

Michael Gove

Muriel Pénicaud

Jyrki Katainen

Anuška Delić

Laura Boldrini

Mark Rutte

Galina Timchenko

11

1

to study where the party went wrong in its last coalition with the longtime Chancellor. His conclusion: The liberals put power before principle, allowing Merkel to back them against a wall on core issues like tax reform. It’s a mistake he won’t make again.

Lindner’s decision to walk away allows him to claim to have done the opposite. If Merkel is put in charge of a minority gov-ernment (or in the unlikely event of another grand coalition between the Chancellor’s Christian Democrats and the Social Dem-ocrats), the liberal leader’s one-man band and its conservative, free-market message will be one of the loudest voices in opposi-tion, stockpiling every government misstep as electoral ammunition for the next race.

Should Germans instead return to the polls, Lindner will have a chance to build on his electoral success, pursuing a strategy

onfidence has never been an issue for Christian Lindner. Even as an 18-year-old high school senior, the future leader of Germany’s Free Democrats radiated bravado — dis-missing problems as little more than

thorny opportunities. “There are those who wait for change and those who take matters into their own hands,” Lindner, who ran a small PR firm in between classes, told a television interviewer back in 1997.

Twenty years later, Lindner, now 38, is clearly not afraid to take the initiative. In November, he brought Germany’s three-way coalition talks to a crashing end, putting the country on the path to new elections or a minority government headed by wounded German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“It’s better not to govern, than to govern badly,” Linder said, in a carefully calibrated soundbite that encapsulates the philosophy with which he has resurrected his Free Democrats (FDP) from the ashes, transform-ing the party into the most dynamic force in Germany’s moribund political landscape. After being voted out of parliament in 2013 for the first time since World War II, the FDP roared back in September, grabbing nearly 11 percent of the vote.

However German politics unfolds, Lindner is certain to find himself at its center. During the FDP’s four years in the wilderness, Lindner has had ample time

It’s better not to govern, than to govern badly.”

THE RADICAL

C

CHRISTIan LInDnER

GERMANY

PHOTOGRAPH BY HANS CHRISTIAN PLAMBECK FOR LAIF

“

Lindner is in a unique position to determine the future of the EU.

driver, Lindner is the passenger with his hand on the emergency brake. Whatever form efforts to retool the EU and eurozone take in the coming years, his fingerprints will be all over the final product.

The biggest question about Lindner is how he will use his newfound influence. Whether on refugees or Greece, the pugna-cious liberal plotted his own course, often cushioning hardline positions with a more conciliatory message.

He has called for “all” war refugees to be sent back home once it was safe, for ex-ample, while adding that anyone who had acquired the necessary professional qual-ifications should be encouraged to apply for a normal work visa. Europe shouldn’t grant Greece debt relief, Lindner has ar-gued. It should kick the country out of the eurozone. But Athens should be allowed to remain in the EU and be given generous subsidies to rebuild the economy.

Critics say Lindner’s iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove brand of liberalism is little more than repackaged populism, ultimately unwork-able and corrosive to Germany’s political culture. His political adversaries on the left

similar to Austria’s Sebastian Kurz who is on track to become Chancellor after tacking his party hard to the right to engage the coun-try’s populists on their own ground. Berlin’s chancellery is almost certain to remain out of Lindner’s reach, but he’d probably settle for kingmaker, restoring the FDP’s status as an indispensable partner.

The tactic could well backfire. Many German elites were counting on the three-way coalition. Voters might punish the FDP for bringing the talks to an end.

Lindner is gambling they’ll take his side instead. If he’s right, his place at the pivot point of German politics could put him in a position to determine — arguably as much as any other politician — the course of the European Union.

Lindner’s rapid rise has unnerved cap-itals across Europe, from Paris to Athens. According to Le Monde, Macron told a con-fidante before the German election that if the FDP gets into government, “I’m dead.” He might be right. In an interview with POLITICO before the election, Lindner compared the French president’s propos-als for pooling eurozone debt to “a Soviet Union-style system, in which at some point the systematic losers will turn against the European Union and the euro.”

If Macron is the engine propelling the European train forward and Merkel is the

Lindner was among the first to sense a shift in the public’s mood on the refugee crisis in the fall of 2015, and quickly seized the moment.

“

12 PHOTOGRAPHS BY HANS CHRISTIAN PLAMBECK FOR LAIF (THIS PAGE) AND SEAN GALLUP FOR GETTY IMAGES (OPPOSITE)

“Frau Merkel has made promises she can’t keep,” says Lindner of refugees, pictured opposite in a container park.

cruise around in his vintage Porsche.Merkel’s personal views notwith-

standing, even she can’t help but respect Lindner’s political accomplishments. He joined the FDP as a teenager and won a seat in the regional parliament in his home state of North Rhine Westphalia at just 21. His youth in a party dominated by old men earned him the nickname “Bambi.”

In the decade that followed, he became a central figure in the FDP’s top ranks — while keeping a safe distance from the missteps that led to the FDP’s collapse. As Merkel’s junior coalition partner from 2009 to 2013, the party had tried to be all things to all people. It failed to make good on a cam-paign promise to cut taxes. Infighting led to a series of leadership resignations.

When Lindner took the reins of the FDP in 2013, the party had been left for dead. Many believed its time had simply passed. A pro-American, pro-business liberal party was a hard sell in an already crowded political field. Lindner was convinced the opposite was true. Instead of abandoning the FDP’s core message, he doubled down.

More importantly, he rebuilt the party in his own image — literally. No decision in the FDP was made without his blessing. That focus became apparent during the German campaign. The FDP’s posters featured photographs of Lindner in his daily routine, eating dinner, sitting at home in an undershirt on his iPhone, or giving interviews. While Germany’s other parties, whether the Left or the Greens, often ap-peared to be run by committees, the FDP’s leadership was clear.

Now, the question is, what direction will Lindner take his party?

Even in opposition, he will be a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to European reform. He knows that most Germans are instinctively skeptical of further integration and, unlike the Greens, isn’t trying to convince them otherwise.

At the same time, Lindner accepts that Europe needs to change and has said he is encouraged that France elected a pro-EU president. He acknowledged during the co-alition talks that as a small party, the FDP can’t “dictate Europe’s path,” adding that he could live with the eurozone’s bailout fund if it became “an instrument for more discipline.” After a recent meeting with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Lindner reported broad agreement on many fronts and a “lively discussion” on the future of the eurozone.

So, will Lindner be an enabler, tackling the “thorny opportunities” that emerge to champion reform in Germany and Europe? Or will he act as an obstacle, watering down moves to refashion Europe’s infra-structure and insisting Germany keep its purse close to its breast? If the recent cam-paign is any indication, the likely answer is “all of the above.”

even accuse him of “competing with Alter-native für Deutschland,” the far-right party that ran a hard campaign against Chancel-lor Merkel’s migration policies and finished third — ahead of the Free Democrats — in September’s election.

If Lindner’s strategy was to present the FDP as a kinder, gentler AfD — something he vigorously denies — it worked. In the months leading up to the election, Lindner traveled up and down Germany, peddling the FDP’s traditional message of individ-ual responsibility, personal freedom and smaller government. He was also tireless in stressing the need for Germany to invest more in digitalization. But it was another issue that resonated with voters: migration.

Lindner was among the first to sense a shift in the public’s mood on the refugee crisis in the fall of 2015 and quickly seized the moment. He called Merkel’s handling of the crisis “chaotic,” emerging as one of her harshest critics. “By telling anyone looking for a new life that they can find it in Germany, Frau Merkel has made prom-ises she can’t keep,” he said. The message hit a nerve, especially among conservatives in Merkel’s own party who felt she had gone too far.

Lindner was hardly alone in criticiz-ing Merkel, but his prominence on an issue that has come to define her tenure does raise questions about how well the pair would work together, should they in some way have to govern together. Even without that history, Lindner personifies the kind of politician Merkel has always had difficulty getting along with: flashy, outspoken and vain. In contrast to Merkel, who takes hiking vacations in the Alps and spends weekends at her dacha outside Ber-lin making potato soup, Lindner prefers the beaches of Ibiza. To relax, he likes to

Lindner rebuilt the party in his own image — literally. No decision in the FDP is made without his blessing.

“

14 PHOTOGRAPH BY JENS SCHLUETER FOR GETTY IMAGES

Lindner waves to supporters after results were announced in the September election.

2

carry through with that ambition is a re-markable turnaround for a man who less than a year ago could open the morning paper and count on reading some version of his political obituary.

As the brains behind Brexit, the former Times of London columnist brought the intellectual ballast to then Mayor of Lon-don Boris Johnson’s celebrity stardust. His side’s victory in the 2016 referen-dum buoyed Gove’s prospects — until a calamitous run to succeed Cameron left him battered and wounded, exiled to the political wilderness.

In the battle for the top job following Cameron’s resignation, Gove first threw his weight behind Johnson, only to with-draw his support on the morning his ally was formally due to enter the race.

The stunning political assassination proved too bloody even for the Con-servative Party and cemented Gove’s reputation as a Tory Brutus. Theresa May

nly a true Brexit believer like Michael Gove would ask to become Britain’s environment and agricul-ture secretary.

For decades, the job was one of the least important in the British government. After all, most environmental policy was decided in Brussels — making it a ministe-rial position with no real power.

But with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, Gove’s portfolio puts him in a position to radically reshape the British landscape — literally.

Gove, 50, a man whom former Prime Minister David Cameron once described as “a bit of a Maoist,” made his name with a controversial overhaul of Britain’s edu-cation system that infuriated teachers.

Now, he has set his sights on the country’s agriculture policy, delighting left-wing environmentalists and alarming many Brexit-backing farmers with proposals that would redirect subsidies away from large landowners toward holdings that take measures — such as banning certain common types of pesticides — to improve biodiversity and soil fertility.

That Gove finds himself in a position to

Gove’s portfolio puts him in a position to radically reshape the British landscape — literally.

THE TRUE BELIEVER

O

MICHAEL GOVE

UNITED KINGDOM

“

15POLITICO 28

any fond feelings he had for Gove. The two men no longer speak.

Despite May’s pointed criticism, Gove could not be further from the popular car-icature of a top Tory: an amateur gentle-man treating politics as an amusing game.

The roots of his politics run deep. Gove was adopted when he was just four months old; his birth mother — a young, unmarried student in Edinburgh who called him Graham — was unable to cope.

He was renamed Michael by his adoptive parents, Ernest and Christine, a work-ing-class couple from Aberdeen who could not have children themselves. Gove admits to thinking about his adoption often. “I wonder what my birth mother thinks,” he once told an interviewer, in what some saw as a message for her to reach out without hurting his adoptive parents, whom he holds dear. “The peo-ple who brought me up are my mum and dad,” he said.

His father ran a fish-sorting business in Aberdeen, but sold it amid the general decline in the British fishing industry — something Gove would later blame on Brussels. During the referendum cam-paign, he described the EU as a “job-de-stroying machine” that caused misery to communities it had “hollowed out.”

In the debate raging in government be-tween the “hard” and “soft” Brexiteers, there’s no doubting on which side Gove has planted his flag. Around the Cabi-net table, he has reportedly called for weekly updates on the preparations for a “no-deal” scenario with the EU and sided with Johnson against Treasury attempts to tie Britain close to Brussels’ economic model after Brexit. He is also pushing for a speedy repatriation of Britain’s fishing grounds.

Gove’s vision for Britain after Brexit and his intellectual force in government have sparked rumors that he is being lined up to take over from Philip Hammond as chancellor of the exchequer.

“Everyone is correcting for mistakes of the past,” says one close ally. “Whatever his colleagues think of him, they respect his intellect. Many of them now realize they need a reformer in the Treasury and a PM with more character, and they’ve got neither at the moment.”

What’s clear is that Gove is back in the game. “He’s a force again, but his big im-pact might come later,” his ally says. “He is the kingmaker for the next PM.” May will be watching him carefully.

emerged as the winner, and Gove was dispatched to the backbenches. When the newly minted prime minister warned her Cabinet that “politics is not a game,” few doubted that he was among those foremost on her mind.

It was only after last summer’s general election, when a humiliated May needed to shore up her power by rebalancing the Cabinet, that Gove was admitted back into the heart of British power — having made it known his preferred place in govern-ment was crafting environmental policy.

Gove 2.0 is playing the game differently, his allies say, but his radicalism burns just as brightly. The environment secretary is a Tory, but he is no conservative. He has a portrait of Lenin in his office.

Despite being the godfather to one of Cameron’s children, he felt so passionate about leaving the EU that he campaigned against his old friend during the referen-dum — a decision that ultimately deprived the prime minister of his job and certainly

[His colleagues] now realize they need a reformer in the Treasury and a PM with more character, and they’ve got neither at the moment.”A close ally of Gove’s

“

16 PHOTOGRAPH BY ELLIOTT FRANKS FOR I-IMAGES

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3

turn protests against labor reform into a national movement against Macron, whom he branded the “president of the rich.” In-stead, the decrees were signed into law in October with so little fanfare that the world at large barely took notice.

So how did Pénicaud, a 62-year-old native of Versailles, pull it off? By dividing the once-mighty unions, swearing them to se-crecy and holding intensive talks to ensure no issue was left unaddressed. “Instead of short-circuiting negotiations, we held more than is normal,” she says. Over two months, Pénicaud and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe spent more than 300 hours huddled with the five major unions separately for dozens of hours. In the end, only the hard-line CGT union called for protests, which drew scant crowds.

rench Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud will go down in history as the woman who subdued France’s unions, even if she did so in far less spectacular fashion than Marga-ret Thatcher did in 1980s Britain.

The former chief of human resources at Danone — who picked up a $1.1 million windfall there after axing 900 employ-ees — presided in September over a major overhaul of France’s famously protective labor code, following months of closed-door negotiations.

Now being enacted via a series of executive decrees, Pénicaud’s reform curtails the power of French unions by limiting the scope of collective bargaining and cap-ping the amount of damages firms have to pay for wrongful dismissals. In a country known for the rebelliousness of its working class, there will be a “before” and “after” Pénicaud’s reforms — with the “after” de-fined by less rancorous labor relations.

And yet, what French President Emmanuel Macron had described during the cam-paign as a “Copernican revolution” came about with surprisingly little fracas. There were protests, but on such a small scale that they never threatened the reform — or Macron’s authority. Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon tried, and failed, to

What Macron had described as a ‘Copernican revolution’ came about with surprisingly little fracas.

MACRON’S IRON FIST

F

MURIEL PEnICaUD

FRANCE

Muriel Pénicaud, a 62-year-old native of Versailles, opposite, at her office in Paris.

“

19

could yet be derailed by legal troubles dating back to a stint as the head of state body Business France, over her role at a lavish event promoting French tech startups, at which Macron — then economy minister — was a star speaker. At issue is a $300,000 no-bid contract for organizing the event that was awarded to the Havas PR agency.

Magistrates are questioning witnesses and could call in Pénicaud. If placed under formal investigation, she will have to step down immediately. And Macron will need another iron fist to carry out his agenda. In the meantime, Pénicaud is pressing ahead. Asked whether she expects to be running a marathon or a sprint in coming months, she answers: “A marathon at the pace of a sprint.”

“We combined speed with intensity for the negotiations,” she says. “Our aim was to transform reality, not have endless debates on principle.” Two factors played in her favor: good timing and meticulous preparation. “Macron had clearly an-nounced changes to the labor code when he was a candidate,” she says. “That gave him strength and legitimacy.” Macron’s presidential campaign had also queried thousands of potential voters on the state of the country.

Now Macron wants to use Pénicaud’s negotiating skills again to overhaul the country’s deeply indebted unemployment insurance system and its inefficient job training programs. Both efforts will require delicate management of unions. But while organized labor is in disarray, Pénicaud

Our aim was to transform reality, not have endless debates on principle.”Muriel Pénicaud on labor reform under French President Emmanuel Macron

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SAGET FOR AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

“

Illustration by Mike McQuade

IS

WHERE

IN

ADIL

ÖKSÜZ?

THE

WORLDTurkey believes capturing the man

they call ‘the runaway imam’ will provewho was behind last year’s attempted coup

By Zia Weise

22 PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY IMAGES

be convinced that Gülen was personally involved. The United States government says it has not received enough evidence to warrant the 76-year-old preacher’s extradition.

“We know Adil Öksüz had an important role in the coup attempt of July 15, we know he is a key name,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım told reporters in March. “But unfortunately he is on the run.”

IT’S VERY LIKELY THAT ÖKSÜZ IS A GÜLENIST, as the cleric’s followers are known. Gülen told France 24 in July 2017 that Öksüz belonged to one of the movement’s study groups when he was a student “around 30 years ago,” and he had come to his compound in Pennsylvania “a few years ago,” but did “not know” if he had returned the July before the coup. Gülen did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

On the surface, Öksüz, 50, lived an unremarkable life: Born in a village in the

dil Öksüz first came to the attention of Turkish authorities when a shep-herd called local officials to report a suspicious sight.

It was the morning after Tur-key’s failed coup in July 2016. The

shepherd was tending his flock by the crater-lined runway of Akıncı Air Base, northwest of Ankara. Throughout the night, departing rebel jets had roared off as they raced toward the capital. Their airstrikes killed dozens of people in Ankara, and stopped only when government forces bombed the tarmac two hours after sunrise.

So the shepherd was alarmed when, not long after the dust had settled, he spotted a man in civilian dress, accompanied by several soldiers, attempting to slip past the wire fence surrounding the base and into the wheat fields beyond.

The gendarmerie swooped in and arrested the group before it could reach the road. Öksüz, the man in civilian cloth-ing, was a theology professor at Sakarya University near Istanbul. The explanation he offered for being near the air base was scarcely believable: He said he had been looking at land to purchase.

Other details in his story also raised suspicion. No taxi driver would corrobo-rate Öksüz’s claim that he had taken a cab to the air base that morning. The addresses he listed in his statements to the court would later be found to be abandoned.

State prosecutors asked that the pro-fessor be placed in custody. Instead, two days after he was picked up, Öksüz was set free. The judge who signed the order would later admit to being a follower of Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric the Turkish government blames for the attempt to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The soldiers detained with him — like hundreds of other officers captured across the country — remained in custody.

Weeks later, the Turkish government would name Öksüz as the man who orga-nized the failed takeover on Gülen’s behalf. By then, he had long disappeared — slipped out of the country, authorities believe, pos-sibly to Germany or elsewhere in Europe.

Dubbed by the Turkish press as the “runaway imam,” Öksüz ranks among Turkey’s most-wanted men. And with good reason. Should he be captured and brought to testify, he could provide the government with its most solid evidence yet that Gülen masterminded the failed coup.

Ankara maintains that Öksüz served as the main liaison between Gülen and those that carried out the attempt, shuttling back and forth between Turkey and Pennsylva-nia to receive and transmit orders from the cleric.

He is the government’s best chance at proving its claims — and a chance to win over key Western allies that have yet to

Turkish prosecutors say Öksüz (pictured above) used a religious holiday to finalize plans to stage the coup.

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— an accusation that rests on the testimony of two dismissed officers codenamed Şap-ka (“hat”) and Kuzgun (“raven”), who say they witnessed the meeting.

The statements are crucial to the government’s case against Öksüz, but there are reasons to doubt their reliability: Gareth Jenkins, an independent analyst in Istanbul who has written extensively on the coup attempt, notes the information Şapka divulged was already circulating in the public domain by the time he appeared in court. Kuzgun, too, had little to add.

Shortly after this meeting allegedly took place, Öksüz made yet another trip to the U.S. On July 11, four days before parts of the Turkish military rose up against Erdoğan, he boarded a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul Atatürk Airport to New York JFK.

He was seated in business class. Busi-nessman Kemal Batmaz — another prom-inent Gülenist who would also later be caught near Akıncı Air Base — sat several rows behind him in economy.

The government claims it was during this trip that Öksüz received Gülen’s final approval for the coup. It was a whirlwind visit: On July 13, both Batmaz and Öksüz returned to Turkey, once again aboard the same flight.

Two days later, tanks blocked Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge, soldiers surrounded Taksim Square, and from Akıncı Air Base, fighter jets took off to bombard Turkey’s parliament.

THE AIR BASE WHERE ÖKSÜZ WAS PICKED UP lay at the heart of the attempt-ed coup. Loyalist generals taken hostage that night — including Hulusi Akar, the chief of general staff — were brought there to be held. Several civilians with ties to Gülen were arrested nearby the next day.

Öksüz seems to have taken an interest in Akıncı long before the coup attempt. According to phone signal data obtained by state prosecutors, the theologian visited the area a dozen times between December 2015 and June 2016.

This, state prosecutors say, is proof that he was the Gülenist movement’s “imam of the air force” — the group bestows the title “imam” on those responsible for organiz-ing its followers in a country, profession or other group.

And yet, evidence placing Öksüz at the base at the time of the coup is scarce. Doz-ens of officers were present at the base that night, but in subsequent court appearances, only three people said they had seen him.

None offered much detail. Base Com-mander Hakan Evrim testified that he had spotted Öksüz at some point during the night. Müslim Macit, a pilot who had dropped bombs on Ankara’s presidential complex, told a court last year: “I saw a person who looked like Öksüz.” A third of-ficer, helicopter pilot Uğur Kapan, retract-

Taurus Mountains, he studied theology and rose to become an assistant professor at Sakarya University, a two-hour drive from Istanbul. He married, had two chil-dren and published nothing but his disser-tation. His mugshot, taken on the morning he was detained at the air base, shows a balding man with a faint mustache.

Yet, Öksüz’s travel history appears ex-travagant for the modest income of a pro-vincial academic. In the past decade and a half, Öksüz reportedly traveled abroad more than 100 times, often to the U.S. By the end of June 2016, less than three weeks before the failed coup, he had already jetted stateside twice that year.

At the beginning of July, the government gave all public sector employees nine days off work to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

State prosecutors say Öksüz used this time to summon his military co-conspira-tors to a villa in Ankara to finalize the plot

Soliders involved in last year’s military coup attempt to surrender on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. More than 300 people on both sides were killed before the government regained control.

2424 PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANADOLU (THIS PAGE) AND SASHA MASLOV FOR REDUX (OPPOSITE)

doubt Gülen masterminded the coup.A report by the EU Intelligence Anal-

ysis Centre, which analyzes information provided by EU countries’ intelligence and security services, leaked to the Times of London, posits that the conspirators are not all Gülenists. Instead, the report con-cludes, the plotters are likely a loose coa-lition of dissatisfied officers that includes Gülenists but also secularists, opportunists and government opponents of all stripes.

“It is unlikely that Gülen himself played a role in the attempt,” says the August 2016 report. (Turkey called the report “biased.”)

Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany’s intelligence service BND, says he does not believe Gülen was involved in the coup attempt. “Turkey has tried to convince us of that at every level but so far it has not

ed his statement in a court appearance this summer, saying that his earlier testimony had been extracted under torture.

In any case, by the time Öksüz was captured near the base’s perimeter, the coup had failed. Thousands of citizens had taken to the streets in protest, facing off against tanks and guns. Some 250 people had been killed, plus an unknown number of soldiers on the plotters’ side.

Erdoğan was quick to name a culprit: the Gülen movement. To most Turks, the group seemed the most likely candidate; after all, the cleric’s followers were known to have infiltrated state institutions before and after Erdoğan’s rise to power. Tur-key’s quasi-official Anadolu news agency informed its readers that the man who had led the coup attempt was Muharrem Köse, a colonel who had been dismissed months earlier. A manhunt began.

Öksüz was not yet on the government’s radar. Released on July 18, he walked out of the courthouse and made a beeline for the airport, boarding a plane to Istanbul. The next day, state investigators later found out, a cell tower located Öksüz’s phone in Sakarya, where he lived and taught.

That same day, Muharrem Köse was detained. “Coup planner arrested!” the headlines read.

In the following weeks, the government would conclude that Köse was probably not the ringleader and turn its attention on Öksüz. It offered no explanation for the shift. In any case, by then the theologian was long gone.

ÖKSÜZ’S MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE unleashed wild speculation in Turkey over his allegiances and whereabouts. He has been supposedly spotted across all of Eu-rope, from Georgia’s Black Sea resort town Batumi to London’s Portobello Market. (The latter was a lookalike.)

Pro-government columnists quickly labeled the theologian a CIA agent and felt vindicated after local media reported that the U.S. Embassy in Ankara had called Öksüz on July 21, two days after his vanish-ing act. He never picked up.

The U.S. Embassy says it made a routine call to inform Öksüz that his visa had been canceled. But to conspiracy theorists, it was proof enough — especially when, a month after the coup attempt, USA Today reported that a company registered by Öksüz had donated $5,000 to a Hillary Clinton campaign group in 2014.

Newspapers have dubbed Öksüz the “black box” of the coup attempt, the man holding all information on the plot. Colum-nists and analysts close to the government have speculated that he may have been not just the Gülenists’ leader in the air force, but the “imam of the entire army.”

Turkey’s Western allies are unim-pressed. European intelligence agencies

Dozens of officers were present at the base that night, but in subsequent appearances, only three said they had seen him.

The Turkish government alleges that this CCTV footage shows the arrest of Adil Öksüz (top) and Kemal Batmaz at Ankara’s Akıncı Air Base on July 16, 2016.

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Fethullah Gülen lives in a compound in Pennsylvania.

26 PHOTOGRAPH BY UMIT TURHAN COSKUN FOR AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

succeeded,” he told Der Spiegel in March. The U.S. too, remains unconvinced

by Ankara’s evidence. “We haven’t seen [proof] yet,” National Intelligence Director James Clapper said shortly after the coup. “We certainly haven’t seen it in intel.”

Asked about Turkey’s extradition request in September, a U.S. State Depart-ment spokesperson said, “We continue to evaluate it, take a look at the materials that the Turkish Government has provided us. I don’t have anything new for you on the subject of that.”

SKEPTICISM FROM ABROAD HAS ADD-ED URGENCY to Turkey’s attempts to locate Öksüz. This summer, the country’s newspapers became fixated on the idea that he was living in Germany. Reported sightings in Hanover, Frankfurt and Ulm eventually prompted the Turkish govern-ment to take action.

In August, Ankara handed Germany a diplomatic note demanding the theolo-gian’s extradition. Erdoğan said he expect-ed Berlin to “take the necessary steps” regarding Öksüz.

Martin Schäfer, a German foreign min-istry spokesman, told reporters in August that the government would look into it, adding there was no proof of Öksüz’s pres-ence in Germany.

If the fugitive theologian were to resur-face in Germany, it would put yet another dent in strained Turkish-German relations. The Turkish government defines Gülen’s

movement as a terror group, and Germany granted asylum to hundreds of suspected Gülenists this year.

The Öksüz case has also damaged U.S.-Turkish ties. In October, Turkey arrest-ed a local employee of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, accusing him of espionage and threatening the constitutional order.

Erdoğan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters: “The arrested U.S. consul-ate worker was found to have had frequent communication with the Gülenist suspect Adil Öksüz.”

Washington condemned the allegations as baseless, and in retaliation U.S. diplo-matic missions in Turkey have suspended the processing of non-immigrant visas. Ankara responded in kind, halting visa processing in its embassy and consulates in the U.S. and shutting down e-visa services for American citizens.

In its pursuit of suspected Gülenists, An-kara is evidently prepared to risk foreign relations and its economy. (The Turkish lira has taken a nosedive against the dollar since the beginning of the diplomatic spat with the U.S.) The Turkish government is desperate to prove its version of the events, and Öksüz’s involvement lies at the heart of its argument.

After all, the post-coup purge, in which tens of thousands have been arrested for alleged links to Gülen, relies on the assumption that the cleric’s movement is solely responsible.

And yet, Öksüz aside, the government’s case against the Pennsylvania-based cleric rests largely on a statement by Chief of General Staff Akar, who claimed a rebel officer offered to put him in touch with Gülen. The officer denied the accusation.

Without testimony from Öksüz, the evidence tying Gülen to those who carried out the coup is weak. The purpose of the theologian’s trip to the U.S. in July 2016 is unknown. There is no evidence he visited Gülen in Pennsylvania ahead of the coup, and there’s little proof he was the “imam” of the air force.

As long as Öksüz remains missing, Ankara’s claims are hard to prove — and to disprove. “It’s very easy to say he was ab-solutely central,” says Jenkins, the analyst. “Because you can’t question him.”

Erdoğan should be careful what he wishes for. Öksüz’s capture would not be without risk. If the government fails to pin down his participation in the attempted coup, its case against Gülen might start to unravel.

“If he wasn’t involved, if there is some innocent explanation — it’s difficult to think, but if there is — the whole government narrative just collapses,” says Jenkins.

It’s very easy to say he was absolutely central.Because you can’t question him.”Gareth Jenkins, an independent analyst in Istanbul who has written extensively on the coup attempt, on Öksüz

A week after the coup attempt, Turks celebrate its defeat in Istanbul.

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4

Berlin’s push for economic and political integration, or whether he will take on the blocking role historically played by the United Kingdom. The answer, according to those who know him best, is: both.

Rutte maintains voters are swayed less by lofty words than concrete deliverables, and he has pushed his fellow leaders to focus less on the next big thing and more on the bloc’s unfinished to-do list — specifically issues like migration, security and unem-ployment that have fueled populist parties across the Continent. “Complaining to our voters that they should not vote for these parties is not a solution,” he says. “The solution is taking care of legitimate worries of our populations.”

he Franco-German axis is back. But if Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron aim to pilot the jumbo jet that is Europe toward tighter inte-gration, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte plans to be in the control

tower calling them back down to earth. “I am a politician so I am not against talking,” says Rutte. “But I am also very practical. There is always risk in general that we like more to think about next steps instead of ‘Hey guys, there is still a lot to be done.’”

Credited with breaking the populist wave by fending off his far-right challenger Geert Wilders in the national election last spring, Rutte, 50, has emerged as the most promi-nent liberal voice on the European Council — and a top contender to replace Donald Tusk as its president in 2019.

A political Goldilocks who believes his Dutch-style not-too-hot, not-too-cold temperament offers the best path forward for Europe, Rutte has moved to fill the void caused by Brexit, assembling a coalition of like-minded nations to serve as a coun-terweight — or third pole — to French and German dominance.

What remains to be seen is whether Rutte will throw his weight behind Paris and

I am a politician so I am not against talking.”Mark Rutte

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE

T

MaRK RUTTE

THE NETHERLANDS

He’s emerged as the most prominent liberal voice on the European Council.

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started laughing then,” she recalls with a smile.  “But, really, there was nothing to laugh about.”

Boldrini has also championed legislation addressing an epidemic of violence against women and pushed the fight against online hate speech to the top of the political agen-da. “A lot remains to be done, especially if we consider the surging numbers of abus-es, rapes and murders perpetrated against women,” she says. “I was expecting Italian men and politicians to raise their voice loudly against that. But I’m still waiting.”

o judge by the torrent of online abuse directed at her, Laura Bol-drini is Italy’s most hated woman. Since her election as president of the lower house of parliament in 2013, she’s become a target of

misogynistic insults, sexualized attacks and death threats. Her crime: using her usually ceremonial office to raise the visibility of women in politics in a country in which they all too often remain outside the con-fines of power.

Boldrini’s welcoming stance toward mi-grants — her past work as spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR put her on the frontlines of the crisis — was never going to make her popular among some slices of the political spectrum. But it’s her campaign to change the way women in power are talked about that has caused the most vitriol.

On taking office, Boldrini, 56, objected to how many Italian political titles, includ-ing her own, assume a masculine form, implying its bearer is a man: il presidente, il ministro, il senatore, il sindaco (the mayor). She demanded to be called “la presidente,” and when (male) members of parliament insisted on using the masculine form, she used a feminized version of their title — la deputata — to address them. “Everybody

LA PRESIDENTE

T

LaURa BOLDRInI

ITALY

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGELO CARCONI FOR EPA

Laura Boldrini hangs a red flag outside her office window to denounce violence against women; Actual hate speech (opposite) directed toward her online.

IN HER WORDSYou can change one thing about the EU. What is it? Most urgent are economic policies, which should focus on growth instead of austerity. That would give hope to young people and would make it possible for them to trust Europe.

“Europe.” Pick three words that first spring to mind.Peace, freedom and challenge.

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Those requests too were all denied, so Delić and her colleagues have been prying out information with direct requests to parliamentarians. A report published in May revealed the lack of transparency in how parliamentarians spend the €4,342 a month they are given to maintain a constit-uency office in their home country.

Delić acknowledges her work could indi-rectly aid anti-EU politics. She is keen to emphasize that her problem isn’t the EU but “the opacity of the system.”

In any case, she says, she’s just getting started. In October, the European Court of Justice held its first hearing in an attempt by Delić to force Parliament to comply with her requests. A victory would set a precedent that could be applied to other institutions, forcing them to open the accounts of European commissioners and judges. Anybody working for the European institutions, she says, will be “fair game.”

nuška Delić wants to blow a hole in the walls of the European Parliament. Her frustration? The institution’s refusal to disclose how its MEPs spend some €450 million a year in taxpayer money.

When the Slovenian investigative journalist first asked the Parliament for spending data in 2014, her request was denied on the grounds that it would undermine the privacy of the institution’s 751 members. “In Slovenia, I could get this information literally in a minute,” says Delić, 40, who was also part of the team of journalists that reported on the Panama Papers scandal, and faced legal action in Slovenia for uncovering links between the ruling cen-ter-right party and neo-Nazi groups.

“How can this be private data?” she says, speaking of Parliament spending. “This is directly opposite to all principles of public spending. We have a big, big problem.”

Delić’s response was to pull together the MEPs Project, a loose network of journalists representing all 28 EU countries. Together, she and her compatriots bombarded the Parliament with freedom of information re-quests, demanding documentation detailing how MEPs spend the professional allowanc-es they receive on top of their paychecks.

THE LEAD INVESTIGATOR

A

anUSKa DELIC

SLOVENIA

IN HER WORDSWho are your heroes?My grandmother Anđelka taught me how to persevere and be strong. Leonard Cohen’s songs taught me how to love.

What’s the most important issue nobody talks about?We need to figure out how to leave our children a society, a country and a planet that is not in utter shambles. We also haven’t spent enough time reckoning with the unsustainable, unhealthy and often cruel ways of breeding animals for consumption.

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It’s not clear he wants the job, but his party may well try to draft him. Katainen is among the most prominent of a new generation of leaders in the European Peo-ple’s Party — the center-right family that dominates European politics (some have also floated him as a potential president of the European Council).

Katainen has instant credibility when he talks about Europe’s future: As the father of daughters, aged 12 and 8, he has skin in the game. An avid chef, he enjoys cooking Finnish cuisine, especially venison roasts and pan-fried game birds. His recipe for the future of Europe: National capitals — what he calls the “owners” of the EU — must drive the agenda, not Brussels. “I would like to see that our member states take the leadership of Europe again,” he says.

n a list of people shaking and stirring Europe, Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen is the ice in the glass: solid and essential. That may not sound exciting. But in an era when voters are hollering at governments

to pour more and faster, when many other public officials are fumbling their cups or can’t hold their liquor, rock-square, cool-headed steadiness is a power on its own.

Katainen, 46, is a former Finnish prime minister and finance minister, and his portfolio at the European Commission includes real stuff that real people care about: jobs; security and defense financ-ing; trade; a rather grandiose social policy effort called “harnessing globalization” and — one of his favorites — the financial reuse-and-recycle strategy known as “cir-cular economy.”

In 2018, he will have a crucial role in two concrete agenda items: pushing to complete the European monetary union and deepening EU military cooperation. That makes him key to making the final stretch of President Jean-Claude Juncker’s Commission a success, delivering on the promises that have so far gone unfulfilled. It also makes him a contender to replace Juncker when his term comes to an end.

His recipe for the future of Europe: National capitals must drive the agenda, not Brussels.

THE STEADY HAND

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JYRKI KaTaInEn

FINLAND

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARKUS PENTIKÄINEN FOR OTAVAMEDIA VIA LEHTIKUVA

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33PHOTOGRAPH FROM BELGA ARCHIVES

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rare coup for a Russian website.

“Everything that’s happened to me and to Meduza in the past three years feels like a miracle,” gushes Timchenko. “Three years ago I had no hope and no thoughts. Now I feel as if I’m 35 years old again.”

Timchenko has reason to pat herself on the back: She, along with the tens of former Lenta.ru journalists who resigned along with her in solidarity, have proved that independent Russian media can thrive in exile. And as Russians head into a presi-dential election year in 2018 — with upstart Alexei Navalny hoping to be allowed to challenge an entrenched Putin — Meduza has become an indispensable source of impartial news for the Russian public. With its English-language articles, Meduza is also turning into the go-to portal for those interested in Russia, yet suspicious

alina Timchenko, the 55-year-old founder and CEO of the influential dissident Russian news website Me-duza, is an unlikely Putin-buster.

She’s bespectacled and soft-spo-ken, and gentler in person than the fierce, snake-haired she-monster that inspired the name of her provocative publication. Yet in the three years since she was ousted from her 10-year tenure as editor-in-chief of the leading Russian news portal Lenta.ru for her “anti-patriotic” Ukraine coverage, she’s shown a steely, Medusa-like determination in fighting back against attempts to gag the Russian press.

Her exiled media startup, based out of reach from the Kremlin’s grasp in NATO member country Latvia, clocked over 8 million unique visitors in the summer. It’s now one of the top 10 quoted sites in the Russian media. Unlike other Russian news sites that fear retribution for their anti-Kremlin stories, Meduza can criticize with relative impunity from its base in Riga. It’s free to pursue its investigations into hot-button topics like corruption in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and U.S. election hacking. Meduza recently partnered with popular American site Buzzfeed to share content and pool their journalistic resources together in a

Three years ago I had no hope and no thoughts. Now I feel as if I’m 35 years old again.”Galina Timchenko (who is 55 years old)

THE WATCHDOG ÉMIGR É

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GaLIna TIMCHEnKO

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of Kremlin-controlled media outlets like Sputnik and RT.

Having become a grandmother this past summer, Timchenko has yet another rea-son to be cheerful. Despite having family in Russia, she has no plans to relocate back anytime soon. “Being in exile is part of our DNA now,” she says with conviction. “We can only return when Russia is ready for a free and independent press.”

Being in exile is part of our DNA now.”Galina Timchenko

PHOTOGRAPH BY INTS KALNINS FOR REUTERS

“

WHAT WORRIES YOU ABOUT RUSSIA IN 2018?1. The presidential electionThe idea of “Putin forever” really scares me.

2. Strengthening of Orthodox fundamentalistsRadicals are trying to interfere in every aspect of our cultural and social life.

3. Ramzan Kadyrov and his troopsChechnya is a state within a state and absolutely outside the Russian legislative and justice system.

4. Online restrictionsThe Kremlin is tightening its control on the internet.

5. IsolationThe possibility Russia could be excluded from European processes and become an “outlaw.”

SIX MORE QUESTIONS

You can change one thing about the EU. What is it?Free Wi-Fi. It’s a real problem to get online in some European countries. Who are your heroes?Steve Jobs for his brilliant mind and brave heart; Angela Merkel for her diligence and self-control; Mikhail Baryshnikov for his talent, passion and success. What’s the most important issue nobody talks about?What is real tolerance? Where is the limit? Should we be tolerant of ignorance and hatred, be understanding when it comes to denying freedom of speech? Tells us something surprising about yourself.I studied medicine and all my friends ask me for advice not about journalism, but about their health. “Europe.” Pick three words that first spring to mind.Culture, balance, open borders. [That’s four, but who’s counting?] Where is the EU in 10 years?I hate prognoses. They never come true.

Timchenko, above, at the Meduza office in Latvia — outside the reach of Putin.

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37POLITICO 28

DaTa POInT: LIFE In EUROPEAverage time spent watching TV daily, in minutes (in 2016)

Sources: Statista, RTL

Romania

Greece

Germany

Ireland

Sweden

329

258

223

179

149

MEET THE 28

91011121314151617

Naomi O’Leary looks ahead to the Italian election, asking the country’s ‘crisis generation’ how such a Europhilic country could become one of its most disaffected. Page 38

InSIDE

António Costa

Guy Verhofstadt

Armin Wolf

Simon Harris

Zbigniew Ziobro

Meral Akşener

Etienne Schneider

Ana Botín

Flavia Kleiner

HOW ITALY TURNED EUROSKEPTICThe country’s crisis generation prepares to vote for the first time

By Naomi O’LearyIllustrations by Zoë van Dijk

40 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZOË VAN DIJK FOR POLITICO; PHOTOGRAPH BY FILIPPO MONTEFORTE FOR AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

perhaps it might get better, but I suppose it’s something that happens slowly,” she adds. “I can’t remember a time when the situation of Italy was good.”

IN COUNTRIES LIKE FRANCE, THE U.K., Germany and the Netherlands, polls show a notable generational difference in atti-tudes toward the EU. Young people tend to feel more positively toward the bloc, while older people tend to hold less favorable opinions.

In Italy, the trend is reversed. Voters aged under 45 are significantly more likely to think Italy is on the wrong track (71 percent, compared to half of voters over 45), according to a study conducted by Benenson Strategy Group in October.

The study found that if Italy were to hold a referendum on EU membership, 51 percent of voters under 45 would vote to leave, while 46 percent would vote to remain. In contrast, respondents over 45

avide Ruggeri, an 18-year-old high school student in Rome, first began to notice the effects of the migra-tion crisis in his early teens. It was a time when North Africa was in turmoil. Thousands of people were

fleeing in makeshift boats to Italy’s coasts and moving up through the rail network, in search of better lives in the wealthier countries of Northern Europe. Some made it to Ruggeri’s neighborhood on the east-ern outskirts of Rome, where they eked out a living in squats and the black economy.

The son of a teacher and an IT techni-cian, Ruggeri holds the view — widespread in Italy — that the country has been aban-doned by the European Union and forced to deal with the crisis alone: bearing the brunt without adequate funds to deal with it, disadvantaged by EU rules that asylum seekers must claim refuge in the country they first arrive in, irrespective of wheth-er they hoped to travel on to another EU country.

Asked whether he feels European, he hesitates.

“It’s a really good question,” Ruggeri pauses. “Yes. I feel like a European citizen because we are in the EU, and we are one of the founding members. But at this mo-ment I don’t see good things from Europe, because of the problems with immigration. They are helping us very little. There’s an emergency, and it seems like the only thing that’s important to them is money.”

Ruggeri is a member of an Italian gener-ation that has known only economic stag-nation, and which will head to the ballot box for the first time in a general election next spring. They were born around the same time as the euro — 1999 — and are now old enough to vote. They’ve seen nothing but political and economic crises since their childhoods, and politicians apparently unable to fix them.

The experiences of this euro gener-ation are one of the reasons behind the widespread public disillusionment with Italian politics. They also help explain why Italy has gone from being one of the most enthusiastic members of the EU to one of its most disaffected — and why the country stands a not-so-little risk of handing the reins of government over to a Euroskeptic leader.

This outcome would upturn the EU’s political order and possibly reignite the fi-nancial bonfire that the Continent’s leaders have only recently managed to bring back under control.

“In my life, it seems that it has always been like this,” says 19-year-old Marialuce Giardini, a Milan native who has finished school but is not yet in work or university. “As long as I can remember there has been talk of crisis, and about how Italy needs to fix its economy.”

“A couple of years ago it seemed like

D

Davide Ruggeri, 18, says Italy has been

abandoned by the EU to deal with the migration

crisis on its own.

41POLITICO 28

old from the Aosta valley who recently began studying at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “Young people definitely believe they are cut off from politics.”

Asked what major events he recalls living through, Borre reels off the prime ministers the country has churned through in the last six years. “Berlusconi, Monti, Letta, Renzi ...” he says. “No one was able to have a full mandate. The governments were changing rapidly.”

Borre’s generation is the most educated in Italy, but it also has the EU’s highest per-centage of young people not in education, training or work — almost a third, accord-ing to Eurostat. Youth unemployment is the highest after Greece and Spain. For those with jobs, conditions are highly lop-sided: a young army of precarious workers that can only dream of one day being granted the iron-clad contracts, pensions and protections of their older colleagues.

It’s a generation that thinks it will be worse off than their parents. Eight in 10, according to a survey of 16- to 30-year-olds conducted by the European Commission, believe young people have been excluded from a good economic and social life by the economic crisis.

These conditions have led to a long-run-ning brain drain that has accelerated in recent years as young people — often the most ambitious and talented — seek better prospects abroad: a loss of Italy’s most cosmopolitan voices that further reduces the group that could introduce generation-al change.

Borre, the son of a teacher and a retired health worker, describes the EU in posi-tive terms as an institution that allowed him to travel and learn English, and that invested in infrastructure in his region.

But like many internationally minded Italians, Borre does not see a future for himself in Italy.

“At the moment I have no plans to go back,” he says. “I’m more interested in the wider world.”

ALMOST AS SOON AS THE FIRST EURO NOTES and coins began changing hands in Italy in 2002, the currency became the focus of generalized economic grievance. Ordinary Italians began grumbling that prices had gone up while wages stayed the same. Politicians tapped into this early: The Northern League called for a referen-dum on the return of the lira as early as 2005. As prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi used international events to play up fric-tion with Germany and appeal to Italian pride.

Fast forward to 2017, and the euro and the EU have been turned into rhetorical punching bags by politicians of all stripes — from left to right, regionalist to neo-fascist. Conveniently, they shift blame for Italy’s problems outside the country.

supported staying in the bloc by 68 per-cent to 26 percent.

Younger voters’ unhappiness with the EU came from a sense that what’s good for the bloc comes at Italy’s expense. Strong majorities among the young said that the migrant crisis showed the EU could not be counted on to help Italy with its biggest challenges. What it showed, they conclud-ed, is that the EU only cared about itself.

There’s one thing young Italian voters have in common with their peers in other European countries: Less likely to vote, they are rarely courted by politicians, making them less interested in politics. But even then, in Italy the problem is exacer-bated by demography. With nearly half of the Italian population older than 45, the young are outnumbered.

“For sure, the people who are in power now are really old. They are very removed from what we need now, and the needs of the future,” says Federico Borre, a 19-year-

Federico Borre, 19, feels a generation gap

in Italian politics. Nearly half the population is

older than 45.

42 PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCO BERTORELLO FOR AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

as excessively punitive.“I absolutely don’t feel like a European

citizen,” Dedi said.There is some evidence that the euro

has benefited stronger economies like Ger-many while making Italy less competitive. Eurostat data shows Italians have become steadily poorer in terms of what they can buy since 2005.

But the reasons for that are not clear-cut: There was already economic stag-nation before the euro, and indigenous structural problems are also at least partly responsible. Even if the euro has damaged Italy, it is not clear that leaving the curren-cy — almost certain to be an economically traumatic event — would fix matters.

Yet politically, these nuances may not matter. Criticism of the euro and the EU re-liably resonates with part of the electorate.

It is unclear what policies Euroskeptics would adopt if their rhetoric helps elevate them into positions of power. Even the most anti-EU parties have been inconstant in their messaging, dialing back demands to exit the EU outright to mere calls for reforms, as Brexit tests out what ending membership really means.

In recent months, the 5Stars, the Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia have all settled on the idea of calling for an alternative, parallel currency to the euro. As a policy, it’s economically dubious and potentially destabilizing, but it taps into the national unhappiness while skirting the radicalism of dumping the currency altogether.

What is clear is that dissatisfaction with the EU and the euro will feature prominent-ly in Italy’s election, and potentially in many elections to come, as the country’s long economic stagnation drags on and Italy’s crisis generation continues to grow.

Overall, just 39 percent of Italians be-lieve the country has benefited on balance from being in the EU: the lowest level in the bloc, according to a recent Kantar sur-vey by the European Parliament.

It’s a striking turnaround for a country that was once among the most enthusiastic about integration: the birthplace of EU founding father Altiero Spinelli and of the EU’s precursor, the European Economic Community.

The shift is reflected in the platforms and promises of the political parties that will compete in the next election, due before May 20, 2018. The 5Star Move-ment, which wants a referendum on euro membership, is forecast to win a quarter of the votes or more. The anti-immigrant, Eu-roskeptic Northern League has the support of another 16 percent.

It’s also reflected in how young people are casting their ballots.

In a vote last year that was widely seen in Italy as a blow against the establishment, Italians aged 18-34 voted in large numbers against center-left former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s electoral reform, siding with a No campaign championed by the 5Star Movement and the Northern League.

DARIO DEDI, A 20-YEAR-OLD FIRST-YEAR politics student at the University of Trieste, dreams of one day entering par-liament. Born to a seamstress and a truck driver, his first taste of public service was as a student representative on the council of his school in Portogruaro, a town in northeast Italy.

The position meant he could read his school’s financial accounts.

“The cuts to education were clear,” Dedi says. “The school wasn’t able to cover its expenses.” It introduced a voluntary tax for parents to be able to keep going. Ex-pected funds from the central government did not arrive.

“I think that my generation has been failed in many respects,” Dedi says.

Asked what the most pressing issue should be for the next government, Dedi re-plies “immigration.” He describes attitudes to immigrants changing among the people he knows in Veneto, in Italy’s northeast, and said politicians needed to take action or the results could be dangerous.

“Politics isn’t just what political parties talk about,” Dedi says. “It’s what you hear between people when they speak about politics in the bar.”

“I believe that immigration could endanger Italian democracy, because it is causing revolutionary and even violent feelings in the working-class areas, in the stomach of the country,” he said.

A supporter of the 5Star Movement, Dedi views Italy’s adoption of the euro as a historic mistake that shackled the Italian economy. He views EU rules on spending

Dario Dede, a 20-year-old politics

student, hopes to one day be a member of

parliament. “I think my generation has been

failed in many respects,” he says.

Beppe Grillo’s 5Star Movement is forecast to win a quarter of the votes or more.

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Next year, Costa will have to continue his economic balancing act, face down a new opposition leader and deploy his political skills to manage a tricky relationship with the two far-left parties that prop up his minority government. The goal is securing an absolute majority in the next parliamen-tary elections, due in 2019.

Europe’s Socialists have beaten a path to Costa’s door. “What’s happening in Por-tugal is an example … of what you can do with a government action program that is both credible and true to your values,” for-mer French President François Hollande told the Lisbon weekly Expresso.

Those hoping that Portugal will lead a European center-left resurgence, howev-er, are likely to be disappointed. As Costa admits, Portugal’s model is hard to export. “There are no prêt-à-porter reforms,” he says. “They must be tailored to the specific needs of each country.”

ntónio Costa is a rare thing in to-day’s Europe: a successful Socialist. After guiding his party to a record victory in October’s municipal elections, the Portuguese prime minister heads into the new year

hoping to do even better.

Although his popularity was dented by criticism of the government’s handling of deadly forest fires in June and Octo-ber, Costa’s supporters hope Portugal’s fast-paced economic recovery will quickly restore the PM’s standing.

Unlike other Socialists tainted by associ-ation with tough times, Costa — a tough political streetfighter behind a ready campaign smile — has managed to present himself as a champion of change, able to “turn the page on austerity.” He’s displayed a remarkable ability to balance leftist de-mands to reverse recession-era belt-tight-ening with a cautious thrift that’s pleased foreign investors and Portugal’s partners in the eurozone.

“If there is one thing all commentators agree on, it’s António Costa’s political sav-vy,” says André Azevedo Alves, a political expert at Lisbon’s Catholic University and St. Mary’s University in London. “There’s near unanimity on his political skills.”

What’s happening in Portugal is an example of a government true to your values.”Former French President François Hollande

THE SUCCESSFUL LEFTIST

a

aNTÓnIO COSTa

PORTUGAL

“

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IN HIS WORDSVerhofstadt in an interview on October 18:

“I got into politics because when I was young — 12, 13, 14 years old — at home, we’d sit around the table discussing politics. We talked Kennedy and things like that. For us, talking politics was part of the family. When I went to university, I went into a political movement of liberal students. In reality, I’ve done nothing else in my life but politics.

“I was elected as leader of my party at 28. It was a record at that time. I became, at 32, the deputy prime minister and budget minister in a government with the Chris-tian Democrats. At that time Belgium was the ‘sick man of Europe’ in terms of public finances — a little bit the same situation as Greece or Italy today. Our debt was 138 percent of GDP. We launched the first plan

ew in the European Parliament can match Guy Verhofstadt’s oratorical firepower. But while the former Belgian prime minis-ter is always sure to be found in

the thick of Europe’s political action, he has more often than not been the bridesmaid in the European Union’s real power games.

Now with Brexit, the lion is set to roar again, perhaps for the last time. Peeved at the sidelining of liber-als like him from major EU leadership posts, Verhofstadt, 64, maneuvered to create the role of Parliament Brexit coordinator, and then fill it. With Parliament wielding a veto power over any final Brexit deal, that makes him EU Brexit chief negotiator Michel Bar-nier’s closer and, potentially, the U.K.’s worst nightmare.

One thing about Verhofstadt: While he’s always ready to do a deal, there’s always a price tag attached. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned about negotiations so far, Britain doesn’t like Brexit price tags.

I have a clear goal: to bring forward Europe. It doesn’t work now.”Guy Verhofstadt

THE LIBERAL LION

F

GUY VERHOFSTaDT

BELGIUM

“

47

“With Brexit, both sides have an interest to have an agreement and a deal, and we cannot be too nervous about the fact that after the first negotiation round we didn’t find the final agreement. I don’t know how many negotiation rounds there will be, but ultimately I think we’re going to find an agreement.

“I have a clear goal: to bring forward Europe. It doesn’t work now, and this has been the cause of the success of populists and nationalists. In everything that I do now, that is the main thing, to use my skills for the pro-European reform agenda. Oth-erwise, this EU is doomed. I have learned from the past. When you feel a little bit of resistance, don’t stop. If you hammer on the same nail, even on concrete, if you keep hammering, you will get in with your nail in the end. We need to be ready in 2019 with a clear plan, a map of reform, for the EU.

“The problems of the EU didn’t start with Brexit. It’s a failure when a country leaves. It’s not a sign of success, it’s a sign of a problem. But let’s be honest. The State of the Union speech by [European Commis-sion President Jean-Claude] Juncker, with that content, was it possible before Brexit? [French President Emmannuel] Macron winning with that program, was it possible before Brexit? I don’t think so. We need to grasp that opportunity. If we fail, it will be the return of populists and nationalists. Not with 12 or 13 percent, but 25 or 35 percent.

“I have been told I am dreaming, it is not possible and so on. But you will see. Look at defense: [Greater cooperation] was unthink-able a few years ago, like the banking union was unthinkable a few years ago. I think the only way of survival for the EU is to make it a federal union. All the rest will not work. It will collapse in one crisis or other.

“Something has been shaken by the crisis and Brexit. That doesn’t mean that we have won the battle for that agenda. We must still agree everything, reform everything. But the spirit has changed completely now. This morning I was working on the exit-entry system we will finally have at the EU border. How many years after the Schengen agreement is it? Thirty-two years. No one is resisting anymore.”

to reduce the expenditures, and it gave me later the name ‘Baby Thatcher.’ We succeeded. When I started, we had a fiscal deficit of 13 percent and we reduced it in two years to 7.8 percent, and then created a fiscal surplus.

“A center-left government kicked me out, and I went 12 years in opposition. I found-ed a new party, the Open VLD. We had the aim to undertake a 100-percent reform of Belgium. We had a new program in which the citizen was the center: The subtitle of the party was ‘the party of the citizen.’ If you look today at Ciudadanos and [French President Emmanuel] Macron it was a little bit like that. We became the biggest party in 1999.

“Belgian politics is always looking for a consensus, not only ideologically but also between communities, because it’s a country of different cultures, communities, languages. In the beginning, you think it’s impossible to find the solution. But nevertheless, you will find the solution. I have never seen a negotiation go another way. Every time, I got the impression that it would be difficult, that I will not find it. And yet you find it.

PHOTOGRAPH FROM BELGA ARCHIVES

When you feel a little bit of resistance, don’t stop. If you hammer on the same nail, even on concrete, if you keep hammering, you will get in with your nail in the end. We need to be ready in 2019 with a clear plan, a map of reform, for the EU.”“

Guy Verhofstadt (center) is joined by Herman De Croo, left, and Patrick Dewael at the Flemish Liberal Party (PVV) congress in 1980. Just two years later, Verhofstadt would become the party’s president at the age of 28.

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is its undisputed star. The centerpiece of the program is a six-minute live interview, usually opposite Wolf in the studio. When far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache downplayed the FPÖ’s ties with Vladimir Putin’s political party early this year, rejecting characterizations of the rela-tionship as a formal “partnership,” Wolf offered him a final chance to set the record straight.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Wolf asked. “Yes, of course,” Strache replied, object-ing to the term “partnership.” Wolf then played a promotional video put out by the FPÖ in which Strache calls the Putin arrangement a “partnership agreement” and a “very important step.”

Wolf insists such live interviews are “the fairest form of journalism” because the in-terviewee has the opportunity to respond directly and unfiltered. For untested pol-iticians, surviving Wolf’s scrutiny has be-come a rite of passage. When Kurz — then a 24-year-old state secretary for integration — sat down opposite Wolf in 2011, few took

f good journalism is democracy’s last line of defense, Austrians can rest easy that Armin Wolf is man-ning the ramparts. With meticulous preparation and stubborn persever-ance, Wolf has established himself as

one of Europe’s most skilled (and feared) political journalists, making everyone from prime ministers to local politicos sweat under the lights in his television studio. For 15 years, the blunt Tyrolean has chided question-dodgers with a sharp “You didn’t answer my question.”

Those instincts will come in handy in the coming months and years, with Austria’s far-right, populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) poised to join the next government along-side conservative boy wonder Sebastian Kurz. The last time the FPÖ came to power, back in 2000, party operatives targeted Wolf, then the moderator of a midnight public television news program. “Wouldn’t you like to do something else?” a network boss asked him at the time. Wolf eventually agreed to take another post only to land back in the interviewer’s chair — thanks mostly to happenstance — a year later.

Pushing him out this time won’t be so easy. ZiB2, a 10 p.m. daily news program on Austrian public television, is required viewing for much of the country, and Wolf

Wolf insists live interviews are “the fairest form of journalism.” For untested polititicans, surviving has become a rite of passage.

THE INTERROGATOR

I

ARMIn WOLF

AUSTRIA

“

49

humiliates them. That is also true on social media (Wolf has even more Twitter followers than Kurz), where he has proved more than happy to engage his critics. At 50, Wolf, who grew up a world away from Vienna’s political salons in an Innsbruck housing project, says he’s unlikely to change what he acknowledges is a “polar-izing” style.

“I have a particular affinity for debate,” he says. “I’m not on TV because I’m so hand-some, but because I like dispute.”

him seriously. After he held his own in the interview, worries about Kurz’s youth and inexperience faded.

Still, in a society that places a high premi-um on observing formal conventions of politeness, many consider Wolf’s no-holds-barred approach rude. He once asked a far-right politician who called the Proph-et Muhammad a child molester “what someone like you is doing in parliament.” A prominent Green compared the inter-view to a lynching.

In fact, even as he tests the boundaries, Wolf is careful never to overstep them. He might prod his subjects, but he never

I have a particular affinity for debate.”Armin Wolf

PHOTOGRAPH BY HERBERT NEUBAUER FOR APA PICTUREDESK

“Armin Wolf accepts a Romy, an Austrian television award, in 2012.

50 POLITICO 28

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zerland, Portugal and the UAE as countries sympathetic to his view of a harmonious orbital order. Talks, he adds, are ongoing with Japan, Russia and China.

To date, some 400 kilograms of lunar rock have been brought down to earth, but in the future, enterprising miners could ex-ploit passing asteroids to support missions across the cosmos, in addition to bringing home precious metals like platinum and potentially even water.

That’s at least a decade away. In the mean-time, Schneider is pushing to secure the right for companies to use space resourc-es to do things like fuel satellites owned by Luxembourg-based communications company SES. “We are the smallest country, but we are in the driving seat,” he says.

tienne Schneider wants to turn tiny Luxembourg into an outer space powerhouse. As the grand duchy’s deputy prime minister and economy minister, he has worked to establish the country as a leader

in off-Earth mining — attracting compa-nies aiming to harvest asteroids for their minerals. “I tell my European colleagues, we cannot leave this to the United States again and to Asia,” he says. “Europe has to play a role.”

Schneider, 46, first developed an interest in the subject shortly after he first became a minister in 2012, following a meeting with NASA researchers. “I was wondering what they smoked before meeting me,” he said. “[But] from that point on I dug deep-er and deeper into the topic.”

Fast forward to last July, when Luxem-bourg passed draft legislation giving companies the right to keep space junk from near-Earth objects such as asteroids. Up next: Schneider wants to get the U.N.’s Outer Space Treaty, first signed in 1967, updated to better specify who has the right to mined resources.

Space, says Schneider, should be like the international waters — no country owns the sea, but anyone can fish. He lists Swit-

We cannot leave this to the United States again and to Asia. Europe has to play a role.”Etienne Schneider on off-Earth mining

THE SPACE MINER

E

ETIEnnE SCHnEIDER

LUXEMBOURG

“

SOLAR SYSTEM DEBRISNear-Earth objects have been nudged closer to Earth by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets. They’re categorized based on their distances from the sun:

Jupiter

Mars

Earth

Sun

Mercury

Venus

AMOR ASTEROIDSOrbits approach but do not cross Earth’s orbit.

APOLLO ASTEROIDSOrbits cross Earth’s orbit.

ATEN ASTEROIDSOrbits cross Earth’s orbit.

WHAT’S IN AN ASTEROID?Asteroids — like planets — are lumps of metals, rock and dust, sometimes laced with ices and tar — the cosmic “leftovers” from the solar system’s formation about 4.5 billion years ago. There are hundreds of thousands of them, ranging in size from a few meters to hundreds of miles across. Even a small, house- sized asteroid could contain metals worth millions of dollars.

There are different kinds of asteroids: Dark, carbon-rich, “C- type” asteroids have high abundances of water bound up as hydrated clay minerals. Although these asteroids currently have little economic value since water is so abundant on Earth, they will be extremely important if we decide we want to expand the human presence throughout the solar system.

“S-type” asteroids have a stony composition with very little water but they are more attractive invest- ments, since they contain a significant fraction of metal: mostly iron, nickel and cobalt, but also trace amounts of valuable elements like gold and platinum.

The rarest of all are them “M-class” asteroids, which have about ten times more metal in them.

Sources: NASA, Planetary Resrouces Reuters and POLITICO

Ş

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opportunity to win over the conservative and religious voters that make up Er-doğan’s base. There are signs her party will become popular: In spring, a survey found that a majority of voters thought the time was right for a new center-right party, and various polling firms have put support for Akşener firmly above the 10-percent hurdle to enter parliament — more than enough to upset Turkey’s political landscape.

Akşener’s potential to put Erdogan’s major-ity in serious jeopardy clearly worries the pro-government press, which has set out to smear her reputation. Erdoğan has so far refrained from commenting on Akşener, but it’s unlikely he will remain silent for long.

s Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan makes ever greater strides toward autocracy, the country’s opposition appears powerless to stop him. The secularists can’t win over his voters. The leaders of the

Kurdish-liberal coalition sit in prison. And the ultranationalists have taken his side.

Enter Meral Akşener. The veteran politi-cian’s new party, İyi Parti (“Good Party”), is set to reinvigorate Turkey’s opposition — and present a genuine threat to the president’s political dominance. A long-time member of the hard-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Akşener, 61, broke away earlier this year when its leadership decided to support constitutional reforms designed to expand Erdoğan’s powers. And since then, her popularity has surged.

The reforms passed in a controversial ref-erendum in April. But to cement his hold on power, Erdoğan needs to clear one final hurdle: He and his ruling party must win a majority in the presidential and parlia-mentary elections set for 2019, when the changes will come into effect.

Akşener has vowed not to let this happen — and she might stand a chance. Unlike the remaining opposition, she has positioned herself on the center right, giving her the

Akşener has vowed not to let Erdoğan and his ruling party win a majority in 2019 elections — and she might stand a chance.

THE ARCH NATIONALIST

A

MERaL aKSEnER

TURKEY

Positioned on the center right, she’s appealing to Erdoğan’s base.

“

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backtrack under withering fire. In an Octo-ber interview with Polish public television, Ziobro reminded Duda that he stands little chance of reelection in 2020 without the party’s backing, adding condescendingly that the president “has many positive characteristics and great opportunities before him.”

Ziobro, 47, is also one of the few politicians in the country who has crossed Kaczyński and managed to survive politically. During PiS’ previous brief stint in power from 2005-2007, Ziobro was nicknamed the dauphin — a reference to the French royal heir. But impatient for power, he staged a failed challenge to Kaczyński in 2011 and, in 2012, launched his own Catholic and nationalist party, United Poland. After several electoral humiliations, Kaczyński brought Ziobro back into the fold ahead of the 2015 election, ensuring that the right-wing vote wasn’t splintered among a host of smaller parties.

Ziobro and his supporters are waiting to be officially readmitted to PiS — a privilege that Kaczyński hasn’t yet granted. Should that happen, the signal will be clear: Ziobro is back as Poland’s right-wing crown prince.

s Poland’s justice minister, Zbig-niew Ziobro is in charge of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s most important political effort: the overhaul of what the party describes as a corrupt and ineffective judicial

system. That puts him on the sharp edge of Warsaw’s fight with the EU, which sees his effort as a thinly disguised attempt to place the judiciary under political control.

It also makes him the second-most pow-erful politician in Poland, ahead of the president and prime minister, behind only the country’s de facto ruler, former Prime Minister and current PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

Behind Ziobro’s cherubic face lies a sharp-elbowed political warrior whose main concern is his standing with Kaczyńs-ki, not criticism from Brussels. And on that front he’s been undisputedly successful, cementing his position as one of the party chief’s key lieutenants in July, after a bruis-ing fight with President Andrzej Duda.

In an unexpected show of independence following massive anti-government street protests, Duda vetoed two Ziobro-backed bills revamping the Supreme Court and the body that names new judges. Since then, however, the president has been forced to

THE CROWN PRINCE

A

ZBIGnIEW ZIOBRO

POLAND

Ziobro is one of the few politicians in the country who has crossed Kaczyński and managed to survive.

“

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heightened political tensions. Harris will be the point man on a referendum to re-write the Irish constitution to end Ireland’s near-total ban on abortions in 2018, reviv-ing the traditional clash between rising secularism and Ireland’s deeply religious traditions.

On the European stage, Harris has emerged as an advocate for countries to collectively bargain with drug companies for better deals on medicines, a strategy he describes as a “no-brainer.” He brings experience to the task, having successfully negotiated a deal this year on drugs to treat cystic fibro-sis, a disorder that is relatively prevalent in Ireland. “When you are younger you do work a little bit harder, and exceed perhaps what people expect of you based on their stereotypes,” Harris says. “I think there can be advantages to that.”

imon Harris is nothing if not precocious. The 31-year-old Irish health minister was briefly tipped as a contender for the leadership of his center-right Fine Gael party earlier this year before he ruled

himself out, saying he didn’t have enough experience.

But Harris is no political ingénue: He was the only minister not to back the winner, now-Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and still keep his job. “It’s not for me to guess why he did that,” Harris, a slight figure with a rapid-fire delivery, says with a laugh. “There’s a very exciting dynamic now in Irish politics.”

Unlike many among the older generation of Irish politicians, Harris does not come from a political family. He began his career in politics as a teenager on a quest for better facilities for his brother, who has a condition on the autism spectrum. Now at the top of national politics, Harris is known for being the man who gets sent out to face tough questions when the government is on the back foot.

His task for the coming year: to steer the health ministry — an infamously treacher-ous portfolio noted for churning through money and triggering crises — at a time of

THE BOY WONDER

S

SIMOn HaRRIS

IRELAND

PHOTOGRAPH BY COLIN O’RIORDAN FOR THE IRISH INDEPENDENT

Simon Harris at the announcement of New Childrens Hospital Projects in April.

AGE 15Founded the North Wicklow Triple A Alliance to campaign for better facilities for families dealing with autism.

IN HIS WORDSYou can change one thing about the EU. What is it?Its relatability to citizens. I think it does so much that is so good, but the awareness levels of this across the EU and how it communicates its message is not good. I think we saw some of that in relation to Brexit. What’s the most important issue nobody talks about?Climate change is still getting nowhere near the amount of attention it needs. “Europe.” Pick three words that first spring to mind.Solidarity. Collegiality. Peace.

AGE 22Became a local councillor.

AGE 24Elected the youngest member of Dáil Éireann, the Irish lower house of parliament.

AGE 27Appointed junior minister in the department of finance.

AGE 29Appointed minister of health.

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of unemployment — the gravest economic problem facing the country, according to Botín. The EU, she adds, should “finish what it has begun” and move forward on a banking union.

Having weathered the country’s economic turbulence, Botín now has to navigate her bank through the Catalan crisis, Spain’s greatest political test in decades. She will also be keeping a watchful eye on Brexit, and making sure Madrid does too. Santander makes 20 percent of its profits in the U.K. and only 12 percent in Spain. “In the U.K., we are a British bank … and will consider the implications once the outcome of the process is known,” she says.

f economic power has a face in Spain, it’s Ana Botín’s. Born into one of the country’s wealthiest families, a poly-glot, a golf fan and proudly Spanish, Botín was appointed executive chair-man of Santander after the death of

her father Emilio in 2014. That made her the country’s most important business leader, the fourth generation in her family to rule what is now Spain’s biggest bank — and the glamorous face of the Spanish business elite as it reemerges on the Euro-pean stage after a decade in the economic doldrums.

Santander close to tripled its profits from 2012 to 2016 as Spain carried out a €41 billion bank bailout — in which Botín’s company didn’t take part. Over the same period, the country’s unemployment rate descended from a peak of 27 percent in 2013 to 17 percent today. Spain has posted over-EU average growth for three years in a row, allowing Madrid to hold up its painful reforms as an example others should follow.

Botín, 57, says Spain experienced a “turn-ing point” when it joined the bloc in 1986, which “led to a period of growth and mod-ernization that completely changed” the country. She also expresses “confidence” that Spain can deal with still-high levels

THE STAR BANKER

I

ana BOTÍn

SPAIN

Santander nearly tripled its profits from 2012 to 2016 as Spain’s economy lagged.

IN HER WORDSYou can change one thing about the EU. What is it?Make things happen faster. Who are your heroes?People who build companies, from the smallest self-employed entrepreneur to the biggest, they are all heroes. With their work they are making the world a better place and helping others — from their families to their employees and customers — prosper. “Europe.” Pick three words that first spring to mind.Fair. Diverse. Welcoming.

58 POLITICO 28

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says Kleiner, but it has been co-opted as a “marketing tool” by the SVP. Raking in 30 percent of the vote, the media-savvy pop-ulist party is the country’s largest political force. It has relied heavily on grassroots campaigning to gather signatures to push Switzerland to the right.

Direct democracy — hailed by populists such as the far-right Alternative for Germa-ny (AfD) as an ideal model of governance — also requires near constant political campaigning. The competition for people’s attention, not to mention their hearts and minds, is fierce. Kleiner’s first major success came in 2016, when Operation Libero led the charge to defeat a bill that would have given the government license to deport for-eigners for breaking the law — including for a simple speeding ticket. From across the political spectrum, Kleiner had been told it would be impossible to win on a platform of

opulism is like lead,” says 26-year-old Flavia Kleiner. “It suffocates society and blocks out the light.” As the face of the political movement Operation Libero, the blonde, blue-eyed

history student has led a small army of vol-unteers to push back against her country’s swing toward the far right.

The group’s success in rallying voters against “popular initiatives” spearheaded by the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has changed the conversation in Switzerland. Its methods could also be a blueprint for how to rebrand — and rein-vigorate support for — the political center across Europe.

When a popular initiative to limit immigra-tion passed by a narrow margin in 2014, Kleiner was struck by how no political party had defended the country’s liberal values. She set out to remind voters of what was at stake: Switzerland could either remain a bastion of liberal values, or it could become “a museum for an imagined past.”

Switzerland’s model of direct democracy — any group can force a vote on an issue by gathering 100,000 signatures in 18 months — is a “brilliant idea at its basis,”

I understand people who are afraid of change. But we want to create a certain optimism about the future.”Flavia Kleiner

THE POPULIST BUSTER

“P

FLaVIa KLEInER

SWITZERLAND

“

defending “immigrant criminals.”

Kleiner — who grew up attending political events with her mother, a mayor — be-lieves in simple language. She chalks up the movement’s first successes to speaking with voters “at eye level” and reclaiming talk of “Swiss values,” the rule of law and respect for the constitution, from the SVP. She has retreated from Operation Libe-ro’s day-to-day operations to focus on its long-term strategy (and on finishing her university thesis). She says the group is set to graduate from being a watchdog to proactively setting the tone of debate.

In the meantime, the movement has its work cut out for it, as Switzerland heads for a Brexit-like vote next year on whether to “take back control” from foreign judges and international bodies. It’s by far “the most dangerous popular initiative” the country has seen, says Kleiner. A vote to limit freedom of movement is expected to take place in 2019, ahead of a national election, as is a vote on the so-called burqa ban.

The key, she says, is to upend the dooms-day narrative peddled by the SVP. “I can really understand people who are afraid of a changing world,” says Kleiner. “But we want to create a certain optimism about the future … We’re looking forward to the year 2050.”

WHAT WORKS WHEN FIGHTING POPULISM?1. Start with conviction.Believe you can change the debate. Populism is not inevitable. Populist parties have just done a good job of making the most noise.

2. Reframe the issue.Remind voters of what is at stake. Ask them to consider what they want their country to look like. Challenge the populists to defend themselves — bring them onto your battlefield.

3. Work with facts.Populists like to fudge the data. Fact-check every statement. Point out every mistake.

4. Use simple language.Speak to voters in the simplest language. Not because they’re stupid, but because they have other things to think about. To grab a headline, distill your message to one picture and five words. Social media is your friend here: Work with memes, gifs, social media, video, testimonials.

5. Become a fighter.Go far out of your comfort zone. Face the trolls. Engage with the people who yell at you in the street. Give yourself a bulletproof vest of arguments and anecdotes to answer any question, win any confrontation.

— Flavia Kleiner

SIX MORE QUESTIONSYou can change one thing about the EU. What is it?More women in leading positions. Who are your heroes?Muhammad Ali for being a crushing fighter and at the same time charming, polite and a sensitive thinker. He was just a poet in his own way. What’s the most important issue nobody talks about?Europe needs to find common ground on its future. Tell us something surprising about yourself.I love to stand at the edge of a building site and observe the machines and the construction going on. “Europe.” Pick three words that first spring to mind.Peace, peace and beauty. Where is the EU in 10 years?Better and stronger than ever.

Flavia Kleiner cheers for the defeat of a right-wing proposal to expel all delinquent foreigners from the country last year.

59PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKAS LEHMANN FOR EPA

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61POLITICO 28

DaTa POInT: LIFE In EUROPEAverage time spent eating in a day, in minutes (in 2009)

Source: OECD

France

Italy

Poland

United Kingdom

Finland

135

114

94

85

81

MEET THE 28

1819202122232425262728

Photographer Naomi Harris visits American-themed attractions in Europe and Europe-themed attractions in the US, discovering culture turned into caricature. Page 62

InSIDE

Olga Sehnalová

Lajos Simicska

Euclid Tsakalotos

Mina Andreeva

Eerik-Niiles Kross

Khalifa Haftar

Evgeny Morozov

Tino Sanandaji

René Redzepi

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Klitos Papastylianou

63POLITICO 28

Europe and America are still obsessed with one another. For “EUSA,” photographer Naomi Harris traveled across both continents, documenting American-themed places in Europe and European-themed placed in America. Whimsical and quaint, “Europe”-themed events and locations in the US can be lands of make-believe, like something out of a fairy tale, or homages to their residents’ anticedents. On the old Continent, the popularity of American-themed amusement parks and festivals reveals a persistent enthusiasm for the myth of “America” as a land of freedom and opportunity. The intent of these places was to honor the “other,” but over the years, that’s turned into a caricature. See if you can tell which photographs were taken on which continent.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NAOMI HARRIS

Left: PonyparkCity

in Collendoorn, the Netherlands.

Right:

WurstFest in New Braunfels,

Texas

EUSaEUSaEUSa

64 POLITICO 28

High Chaparral in Kulltorp, Sweden

Tulip Festival in Orange City, Iowa

Above: The Last

Indian Wars in Březno, Czech

Republic.

Far right: Karl-May-

Spiele in Bad Segeberg, Germany

Near right: Maifest in

Leavenworth, Washington.

IN HER WORDSThe first place I photographed for EUSA was High Chaparral, a Wild West theme park in Sweden. The campground was full of people in costume. There were Native Americans (though these were blond and blue-eyed), fur trappers, pioneers and American Civil War soldiers — both Confederates and Unionists. Not a single mobile phone, digital camera nor any other sort of technological gadget was in sight. The campsites were primitive, with everyone cooking over an open fire. There was authenticity: from the attire right down to the bedrolls, every detail of the period was meticulously captured. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought you were in 1860s Virginia, not Sweden in 2008.

— Naomi Harris

Far left: Gipsy Horses Ranch in Westerlo, Belgium.

Near left: Westernstadt Pullman City in Eging am See, Germany.

Below: Maifest in Leavenworth, Washington.

IN HER WORDSThe American

destinations I visited tended to celebrate

the heritage of those who settled

in the area, such as the Danish in

Solvang, California; or the Norwegians in

Petersburg, Alaska; or the Dutch in Orange City, Iowa; whereas the European sites

were more often about a fascination

with American culture — albeit a culture of

the past.

The question now is: How much longer

can events like these continue, in

an age of sensitivity about cultural

appropriation? If we still feel the need

to connect with our past — both real and

imagined — rituals like these will go on. These photos are about taking

a journey, but one where the destination is unclear. Are you in

America, or are you in Europe? And who

exactly are these people?

68 POLITICO 28

Rock & Roll and U.S. Car Weekend in Agárd, Hungary

Little Norway Festival in Petersburg, Alaska About the photographer Award-winning Canadian-born photographer Naomi Harris primarily focuses on portraiture, seeking out interesting cultural trends to document through her subjects. Her latest book, “EUSA,” from which these images are taken, was published in November by Kehrer-Verlag. You can see more of her work at naomiharris.com and order the book at kehrerverlag.com.

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driving the daily political conversation.

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71POLITICO 28

18

Sehnalová says. “That was always my goal.”

The Czech Republic is now at the forefront of a pack of Central and Eastern European countries — including Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia — demanding that the EU en-sure that food sold across the bloc contains the same ingredients wherever it is sold. In a sign of Sehnalová’s success, Juncker has taken on the issue: “Slovaks do not deserve less fish in their fish fingers, Hungarians less meat in their meals, Czechs less cacao in their chocolate,” he said in his State of the Union speech in September.

Brussels risks deepening a rift between East and West if it fails to put a stop to the practice. But there are limits to what it can do without drafting new legislation. While the Commission has hinted it will name and shame offending companies to change behavior, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for one, has said governments will act unilaterally if nothing changes.

lga Sehnalová has almost sin-gle-handedly shoved the issue of so-called dual foods onto European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s plate. The Czech mem-ber of the European Parliament is

leading a crusade against the widespread practice by food manufacturers of offering different ingredients under the same pack-aging in Eastern and Western Europe.

The bespectacled former doctor first stum-bled upon the issue in 2011, after a Slovak consumer association noted that Nescafé Gold recipes differed between East and West, and that packets of pepper sold in Bul-garia contained less pepper extract than an identical product sold in Austria. Sehnalová brought the results to the Commission, only to be told that there was nothing to be done since no laws had been broken. Instead of giving up, she doubled down.

She commissioned Czech universities to carry out more research, brought up the issue during TV appearances, held tasting events and organized public hearings in the Parliament. Finally, a 2015 study made big news in the Czech Republic, propelling Sehnalová, 49, into the orbit of then Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, whom she asked to exert pressure on Brussels. “I was always trying to bring the Commission to action,”

Slovaks do not deserve less fish in their fish fingers; Czechs less cacao in their chocolate.”European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in his state of the union address

THE KITCHEN CRUSADER

O

OLGa SEHnaLOVÁ

CZECH REPUBLIC

“

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“You work. They steal” and “They are the fear. We are the hope.” The government hit back by amending advertising and party financing rules as the prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into Jobbik.

Over the past few years, Jobbik has pre-sented itself as an anti-corruption alterna-tive to Fidesz and forced Orbán further to the right. Observers have gone so far as to say Hungary now has two far-right parties.

Jobbik remains a distant second in the polls. But many in Budapest believe Simicska may deploy his knowledge of Fidesz’s inner workings and the prime minister’s private life. A series of explosive disclosures could prevent Fidesz from winning a coveted two-thirds majority that gives it the ability to change the constitution. It might even create an opening for Hungary’s fragment-ed opposition to try to form a government.

If Orbán wins, all eyes will be on Simicska. He will have to make a decision: keep fight-ing the government or cut his losses and sell his media outlets. If he bows to pressure, it could spell the end of Hungary’s most signif-icant critical press, freeing Orbán to further consolidate power.

ew people outside of Hungary are familiar with the name Lajos Simicska. And for much of the past three decades, that’s exactly how the Hungarian oligarch and teenage friend of Prime Minister Viktor

Orbán wanted it.

A member of Orbán’s Fidesz party since its founding in 1988, Simicska, 57, has stayed largely behind the scenes, working with Machiavellian efficiency to erect the political and economic machine underpin-ning the prime minister’s power. By 2014, Simicska was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country — the owner of a Fidesz-friendly media empire and a host of businesses whose profits he put in service of the party.

More recently, however, the two men have fallen out, as festering private disagree-ments blossomed into an expletive-laden public quarrel. The upshot: As Hungary prepares for a national election next spring, Simicska has thrown his weight behind the far-right Jobbik party, Fidesz’s fiercest competitor.

The oligarch’s media outlets have been hammering at the government. His bill-board company has plastered the country’s highways and boulevards with slogans like

The police can come take him away, his empire could be dismantled.”Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute

ORBAN’S NIGHTMARE

F

LaJOS SIMICSKa

HUNGARY

“

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tics, Germany quietly hatched a plan to give Greece a “time out” from the eurozone, an outcome that would have almost certainly resulted in a permanent “Grexit.”

Tsakalotos, Greece’s eighth finance minister in just four years, was given the thankless task of keeping his country in. Just a month after taking office, he surprised many by clinching a deal for a third bailout total-ing €86 billion. His secret: convincing his Eurogroup colleagues that despite his com-munist past, he wasn’t interested in being another populist poster boy.

It wasn’t the first time Tsakalotos, 57, confounded expectations. He is the scion of a prominent Greek family that played an important role during the country’s civil war. A cousin, Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos, was one of the generals that led government forces to victory against the communists

f Greece exits its third bailout in August as planned, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos will deserve much of the credit. Not that many Greeks are likely to thank him. “You won’t see many happy faces in Athens,”

says political analyst Yannis Koutsomitis. That’s because the reforms Tsakalotos and his boss, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, have implemented took a deep toll on Greek society. The government has slashed pensions, raised taxes and pared down the public sector. More than 20 percent of the population is out of work.

“When push came to shove, he was able to push aside his ideological preconceptions,” said Yannis Palaiologos, a Greek journalist and author who has written extensively about the crisis. “He’s not someone who will put politics above the interests of the country.” 

When Tsakalotos took up his post in the summer of 2015, few expected big things. Yanis Varoufakis, his contumelious prede-cessor, had taken Greece to the brink of financial Armageddon, antagonizing Ath-ens’ creditors with a devil-may-care attitude toward its bailout obligations. Europe had little confidence that Tsakalotos, another tie-less economist with leftist views, would be much different. Fed up with Athens’ an-

He’s not someone who will put politics above the interest of the country.”Yannis Palaiologos, a Greek journalist and author who has written extensively about the crisis

THE PR AGMATIST

I

EUCLID TSaKaLOTOS

GREECE

“

finance minister” and masterful negotiator.

That’s not an endorsement Tsakalotos will likely want to take to the ballot box. Syriza, the leftist movement that Tsipras and Tsaka-latos rode to power in 2015, won support by promising to end the very austerity they’ve forced Greeks to endure. Many of their former supporters now feel betrayed.

That said, the next election isn’t scheduled until the fall of 2019 — a lifetime in politics. Whether Syriza can recover will depend in part on whether Tsakalatos can cash in his diplomatic credit and help convince Europe to grant Greece some kind of debt relief when its bailout ends. Greece may be responsible for many of its problems, he argues, but the forces that drove it to the brink are deeply rooted in the EU’s own architecture, a reality he says Europe has slowly woken up to.

“I believe that there is increased under-standing for the social and regional inequal-ities which are the main reason for the crisis … as well as for the general view that the eu-rozone and EU do not solve the problems,” he recently told a Greek interviewer. If he can bring others around to that view — and if the economy, which has started growing again, stays on track — Tsakalotos may be around longer than anyone bet on when he took over.

in 1949. Instead of embracing that legacy, Tsakalotos rejected it, convinced the wrong side had won.

What makes Tsakalotos’ political evolution even more surprising  is that he is a product of one of the most entitled circles in the world — the British establishment. The son of a Greek engineer who worked in the shipping industry, Tsakalotos left Greece at age five for the U.K. and was educated at an English public school and at Oxford. In the early 1990s, he returned to Greece to work as an academic and soon became involved in leftist politics. His sometimes fiery parliamentary speeches, delivered in En-glish-accented Greek, have become a guilty pleasure for watchers of Greek politics.

Though his privileged background has earned Tsakalotos an eccentric reputation in Greece, his high-born manners might explain how he won over his European col-leagues. Even Germany’s famously cantan-kerous finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, warmed to his Greek counterpart, recently describing Tsakalotos as an “excellent

Greece may be responsible for many of its problems, he argues, but the forces that drove it to the brink are deeply rooted in the EU.

“

Euclid Tsakalotos, left, chats with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, right, and European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici before a Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers.

74 PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE LECOCQ FOR EPA

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One of the reasons Morozov’s punches hurt when they land: He thinks big. The “Great Firewall of China” is not a tool to suppress free expression (though it does); it’s protectionism in its purest form, he says. Beijing’s path to tech dominance, helping China create massive companies like TenCent and Alibaba, has left Europe, with its digital floodgates wide open, remi-niscing about Skype and Nokia.

Morozov’s most far-reaching prediction is that the effects of the digital revolu-tion will one day feel similar to those of climate change. Cars, air-conditioners and mass-market goods shuttling across global supply chains are great to have. But “30 years later the bill arrives, and you don’t know what to do with it.”

on’t call Evgeny Morozov an early adopter — unless you’re talking about casting a skeptical eye on Sili-con Valley. Born in Belarus, raised in Bulgaria, and now living in Barcelo-na, the 33-year-old writer became so

annoying to the United States’ techno-elite that Hillary Clinton’s former top digital adviser called him a “neo-Luddite.”

Former Yahoo fellows and Stanford schol-ars like him are supposed to found Silicon Valley startups. Morozov tackles them to the ground instead. His mantra: There is “no digital paradise.”

Long before Brussels and other European capitals woke up to the dark side of digital, Morozov had turned his baleful gaze on the social, economic and privacy implications of recent technological breakthroughs. As the behavior and business models of Amer-ican tech giants come under ever harsher spotlights, Morozov — who most likely will have gotten there first — will be somebody to watch.

“They offer all sorts of services for free,” he says of the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter. But “we do not see the other end of the deal” — the thirst for clicks and likes, the concentration of so much private data in corporate hands.

There is no digital paradise.”Evgeny Morozov

TECH’S DARK PROPHET

D

EVGEnY MOROZOV

BELARUS

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waters and joined Macron in ignoring ever-louder allegations of Haftar’s respon-sibility for war crimes during his battle for control of eastern Libya.

For Haftar, the coming months are pregnant with promise. Elections, if they go ahead as planned, would offer him a path to the presidency. Failure to hold them, and the prospect of further cha-os, strengthens the argument that what the country really needs is a strongman in Tripoli and a blind eye from the EU. “Haftar has understood that migration for him is what the Islamic State is for the Kurds” — the key to international legitima-cy, says Mattia Toaldo, senior policy fellow at London’s European Council on Foreign Relations.

halifa Haftar’s emergence as a Libyan power player didn’t receive the warmest of welcomes from European leaders. A former general in Muammar Gaddafi’s army, Haftar fell out with the dictator in the

1980s and spent most of the intervening decades living in the United States. He re-turned only as the country was dissolving into civil war in 2011.

His consolidation of power since then — as head of the army in eastern Libya, where he backs the largest rival to the U.N.-sup-ported administration in Tripoli — did little to enamor him to those across the Mediterranean looking for stability and an end to the migration crisis. And yet, re-cently, the septuagenarian strongman has been finding himself ever more welcome in continental capitals.

In July, Haftar, 74, was hosted in Paris with U.N.-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj by French President Emmanuel Macron, who lauded the two Libyans for having displayed “historic courage” in striking a cease-fire and agreeing to elections early next year. And in September, Haftar was welcomed in Rome by Italian Defense Min-ister Roberta Pinotti. She proved willing to overlook his history of making threats against Italian naval ships entering Libyan

Haftar has understood that migration for him is the key to international legitimacy.”Mattia Toaldo, senior policy fellow at London’s European Council on Foreign Relations

THE STRONGMAN

K

KHaLIFa HaFTaR

LIBYA

Khalifa Haftar was welcomed with open arms in Paris and Rome this year.

“

78 PHOTOGRAPH BY KRISTJAN LEPP VIA SCANPIX

23

D.C. security circles say the ban is mystify-ing and unjustified.

No one — least of all Kross — denies that his work has required him to move in shad-ows and operate on the edge. “His back-ground is quite controversial,” says Urmas Paet, an Estonian member of the European Parliament and minister of foreign affairs from 2009-2014 who, like Kross, is in the liberal Reform Party. “He is often close to, or crossing the limits.”

In Kross’ version of his action-film existence, there is no doubt who is the super-villain: Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The core question for Putin is: ‘What can I get away with?’” Kross says. “He is constantly pushing the borders … Airspace violations. Massive media crazi-ness. Constant allegations that NATO and the West is to blame for everything.”

Kross is sitting at a table at the back of Frank, a stylish bistro and cocktail bar in

f Russia invades the Baltics, and many Estonians believe it’s only a matter of time, Eerik-Niiles Kross will be waiting, ready to fight. He’s been warning of the Russians’ potential return since they left the last time.

By day, Kross is a member of the Estonian parliament. But that’s like saying Bruce Wayne is a billionaire playboy or Bruce Banner is an atomic physicist. Kross, 50, is Estonia’s version of James Bond, with two differences: Kross drives a black two-seater Mercedes, not an Aston Martin; and 007 is a movie character while Kross is real. At times, that can be hard to believe.

A former chief of Estonia’s intelligence services, Kross owns a private security consulting firm called TRUSTCORP Ltd. He was in Iraq working for the U.S.-led Co-alition Provisional Authority, on contract with the British Foreign Office, after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. And he was in Georgia during its brief war with Russia in 2008, helping direct counter-propaganda operations.

The Kremlin wants him arrested and has accused him of masterminding the 2009 hijacking of a cargo ship carrying timber (and perhaps a large stash of weapons). The U.S. has barred him from traveling there, except on official diplo-matic business, for reasons that have never been explained. Kross and his friends in

The core question for Putin is: ‘What can I get away with?’ He is constantly pushing the borders.”Eerik Kross

THE BALTIC JAMES BOND

I

EERIK-nIILES KROSS

ESTONIA

“

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Tallinn’s Old Town that he co-owns with his wife, the Canadian-American filmmaker and artist Mary Jordan. Talking about the Russian leader both works up Kross’ appetite and prompts him to forget the food on his plate until it has gone cold. He speaks in perfect English but with one of those European accents that is impossible to place — educated, vaguely but then definitely not British, most assuredly not American.

As Kross sees it, Putin “is sort of expanding the space of crazy stuff he can do. It kind of proj-ects him as stronger ... So, he did Georgia, and he got away with it. Nice. Very nice. His math was clearly, with Crimea, that he could get away with it. He will see about east Ukraine.”

Kross believes the West underestimated Putin and had no plan to deal with his revanchist aggression, as became clear following the seizure of Crimea in 2014. “There was not even a good set of threats,” Kross says. “There was nothing there. Obama, of course, always said the military option is off the table.”

Kross has no trouble conjuring up what to his mind would have been a better, blunter ap-proach: “A strong Western response would have been this: The moment the first little Green Men arrived, the phone call to Putin, ‘Ok, Volodya, you have 24 hours to get the fuck out of there, my Sixth Fleet is on the way. You take your fleet, and you take your Sevastopol base, and you fuck off. That’s it. Otherwise, they’re coming. By the way, we’ll kick your ass.’”

The silver lining in Putin’s aggression was the wake-up call that the West couldn’t ignore. “The NATO border is a red line,” he says. “Now we have German tanks training in the Baltics. If you look at where they were before, that’s a dramatic change. It’s not that visible — they do not talk about it — but it’s really, really important.”

In Kross’ world — and Putin’s — it’s tank treads on the ground, not pretty words, that matter. “Putin’s not reading the speeches,” Kross says. “He’s reading the signs, and what is the action? He’s like a blatnoi [thug] in a prison cell. He wants to see this new guy, with food from home in his bag, can I take it from him or not? That’s his thing.”

Serving Estonia, and fighting Russia, is in Kross’ DNA. His paternal grandfather, Jaan Kross, was a member of the Tallinn City Council before World War II, arrested by occupying Russian forces as a “Nazi collaborator,” and killed in the Potma prison camp in 1946. His father, also Jaan Kross, who would later become Estonia’s most acclaimed author, was imprisoned in the gulag in northern Russia for eight years for “anti-Soviet activities.”

Following in their resistor footsteps, Kross was an anti-Soviet, pro-independence activist in college. He went directly from university into government service in 1991 when Estonia finally broke free of Moscow. He was a diplomat in London and Washington, headed Estonia’s intel-ligence services, and served as national security adviser to President Lennart Meri.

Kross was in a delegation that accompanied Meri in 1994 to Moscow, where a bit of flat-tery and a night of vodka drinking persuaded

80 PHOTOGRAPH BY DARRIN ZAMMIT LUPI FOR REUTERS

to avoid embarrassment or a govern-ment-sanctioned sale that Moscow was forced to call off by the West or maybe by Israel.

Whatever the truth is, Kross denies any involvement in the affair. If not sea piracy, he is certain the Kremlin would find some other excuse to come after him. Dermer, the retired Army colonel, says Russia’s out-size allegations, if unfounded, were none-theless worthy of Kross’s creative big-think-ing. “One of his bumper stickers is ‘Why are we not pushing back on the Russians?’” Dermer says. “It’s not important what it is: push back. They push and nothing hap-pens. Push back. Do what they do.”

Estonians generally regard Kross as a patriot, if a bit too larger than life. But they are also wary of talking about him publicly. Western friends and colleagues contacted by POLITICO say they would put their lives in his hands but are similarly discreet — hardly a surprise since many work in intelligence. “No one will want to talk pub-licly,” says one Westerner who considers Kross a friend. “They are all in the world of shadows.”

For Kross, the key thing — in the face of new cyber and hybrid threats, not to men-tion tanks on Russia’s western border and nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad — is continued resistance. “We haven’t won, no,” he says. “But we haven’t lost either.”

President Boris Yeltsin to finally sign an agreement withdrawing Russian troops from Estonia after more than a half-cen-tury of occupation. For Kross, it was a moment of deep personal triumph. He later wrote an article recalling phoning his father that night and proclaiming, “We did it!” and describing his father’s response after a long pause: “Well, well, I did live to see the day.”

Kross has been waiting ever since for the Russians to try to come back. “He, like a lot of Estonians, has been completely right about this,” says a friend. “They said Russia was going in the wrong direction when nobody had even heard of Putin. Those warnings were not heeded.”

In the interim, Kross’ deep connections to Western intelligence agencies led to security assignments, and adventures, out-side his small Baltic homeland. After the U.S. invasion that removed Saddam Hus-sein from power, Kross helped re-establish Iraq’s defense ministry and intelligence service. He retains contacts throughout the Middle East.

“His favorite saying was, ‘Let’s do it!’ and still is ‘Let’s do it!’” says P.J. Dermer, a retired U.S. Army colonel who worked with Kross in Iraq. “He doesn’t get all wrapped around the details. You give him a one-page brief, and he’s the guy who says ‘Let’s do it’ when everyone else is saying: ‘You’re crazy.’”

Kross also served as an adviser to then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili during the 2008 war with Russia. Officially, he was responsible for countering Russian propaganda — making him an expert in the disinformation tactics that only recently came to the attention of the West. But Kross hints that his role was quite a bit broader and less defined. “In a war, you do what needs to be done,” he says.

Russia’s feelings about Kross are mu-tual. The Kremlin has repeatedly pressed Interpol to issue a red notice, declaring Kross an international fugitive for the 2009 hijacking of the MV Arctic Sea, a Mal-tese-flagged cargo ship that disappeared in the Baltic Sea, allegedly after being seized by a small band of pirates in a motorized rubber dinghy.

The ship was supposedly carrying a load of timber, yet Moscow has never ex-plained why the boat’s disappearance set off a massive hunt by the Russian navy. The Arctic Sea was ultimately found by a Rus-sian warship near Cape Verde, and though eight men were convicted of piracy, the true circumstances of what happened to the vessel remain unknown.

The Russian military’s intense interest has led to speculation that the ship was carrying weapons, perhaps missiles or anti-aircraft systems, in what might have been an unauthorized Russian smuggling operation that the Kremlin thwarted

You give him a one-page brief, and he’s the guy who says, ‘Let’s do it’ when everyone else is saying: ‘You’re crazy.’”P.J. Dermer, a retired U.S. Army colonel who worked with Kross in Iraq

“The

Kremlin has pressed

Interpol to declare

Kross a fugitive for

the 2009 hijacking of the MV

Arctic Sea, a Maltese-

flagged cargo ship

supposedly carrying

only a load of timber.

81POLITICO 28

24

Andreeva does more than any of her colleagues to convey Juncker’s thinking to the outside world; just without the gaffes. She easily gets annoyed when others, journalists included, can’t see her boss’ strengths as clearly as she does.

Her challenge in the coming year: to make the case that, while Emmanuel Macron may be rich in charisma, confidence and ambition for change, it’s Juncker’s plans for the EU that have the best chance of actually being implemented. The French president’s plans are bold, sure. But Juncker’s are more attainable, his spokeswoman will argue, not requiring changes to the EU treaties.

f — as the European Union’s founding documents have it — the European Commission is the “guardian of the treaties,” Mina Andreeva is the guardian of its president, Jean-Claude Juncker.

As the Commission’s deputy spokesperson, the 34-year-old Bulgarian and German national serves as Juncker’s voice — especially when it comes to speaking to the German press. That makes her key to Juncker’s effort to reach out to the wider German public, which will need to be won over if he’s to push through his reforms to the EU before Brexit day in 2019.

Born in Bulgaria behind the iron curtain, Andreeva was eight when her family was allowed to join her father, a journalist who worked for Germany’s Deutsche Welle TV station in Cologne. Until then, she remembers her Bulgarian mother talking to her in English to prepare her for the end of communism. “I’ve always wanted to become a spokesperson from when I was six years old,” she recalls. What she wanted was the chance to “stand on a stage and wear pretty clothes” and be the voice of something, or someone, that matters.

She got what she wished for. A loyal member of Juncker’s inner circle,

I’ve always wanted to become a spokesperson from when I was six years old.”Mina Andreeva

JUNCKER’S VOICE

I

MIna anDREEVa

BULGARIA

Speaking for Juncker, Andreeva must win over the German public for reform.

“

25

more concentrated in that part of the pop-ulation with an immigrant background.”

Despite his critical stance, Sanandaji, 37, has defied attempts to discount his views as those of a xenophobe. Helped by deep public policy expertise, he defends his positions with data — not anecdotes or generalizations. And he’s far more scathing about the far-right Sweden Democrats than he is about the government. As Swedes heading to the polls late next year strug-gle to make sense of competing claims on immigration, Sanandaji and his ideas are certain to gain ever greater promi-nence. “It isn’t too late, as long as there is a willingness to learn from the expensive mistakes of recent years,” he writes.

weden’s fiery immigration debate has divided the country into groups for and against. But one econo-mist’s writings are drawing readers from both sides of the debate. On his blog — and in “Mass Challenge,”

a bestselling book he self-published earlier this year — Tino Sanandaji mixes fierce criticism of government strategy with policy prescriptions and reasons to hope for the future. “He doesn’t tell scare stories, he talks about a reality few want to talk about,” is how Norwegian Migration Minister Sylvi Listhaug put it after a visit to Sweden, during which she met the Iran-born economist.

Make no mistake, Sanandaji, who arrived in Sweden when he was nine, is no fan of his adopted country’s historically open-door policies. But the target of his criticism is not so much Sweden’s immigrants as it is its inability to integrate large numbers of new arrivals. It’s a phenomenon, he argues, that’s turning the country into a class-based society, with non-native Swedes increasing-ly consigned to ethnic ghettos.

“Sweden’s experiment with large-scale im-migration from the third world to a welfare state has been unique in its scale but has in many ways failed,” he writes. “Sweden’s social problems are becoming more and

It isn’t too late, as long as there is a willingness to learn from the expensive mistakes of recent years.”Tino Sanandaji

THE COLD TRUTH-TELLER

S

TInO SananDAJI

SWEDEN

Arriving in Sweden when he was nine, Sanandaji is no fan of its open-door policy.

“

82 POLITICO 28

1999 2003 2007 2011 2015

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

The highest pointIn October 2015, 12,929 Syrians applied for asylum in Sweden.

SYRIAN ASYLUM APPLICATIONS IN SWEDENAfter a peak year in 2015 that saw 50,909 Syrians applying for asylum in Sweden, applications are back down to 2012 levels this year.

Source: Eurostat POLITICO

symposium in Copenhagen brings together like-minded chefs, farmers, entrepreneurs and foodies to tackle issues such as envi-ronmental sustainability and the well-being of overworked staff.

At its August 2018 event, the nonprofit will also launch Dispatches, a publication led by Chris Ying — co-founder of the late, great American food magazine Lucky Peach. Redzepi’s scope and ambition is evident in the subject of its first issue: migration. “Today’s world is struggling with — and curious about — questions of migration in a way we haven’t seen in generations,” says Melina Shannon DiPietro, MAD’s managing director. “Food wouldn’t be the great thing it is without the movement of people.”

t was René Redzepi’s obsession with local ingredients — from seaweed to insects and wildflowers — that pro-pelled Copenhagen onto the culinary map and his restaurant, Noma, to the top of best-in-the-world lists. Now the

39-year-old chef wants to export Noma’s Michelin-starred philosophy — that a rare, locally sourced mushroom can be more luxurious than the world’s most expensive caviar — to the wider public.

At the heart of MAD, a nonprofit Redzepi founded in 2011 to inspire and educate the global cooking community, is Vild Mad (Wild Food), a program that sets out to introduce a new generation to the culinary offerings of their immediate surround-ings. It includes a free mobile app that acts as a roadmap to the Nordic region’s wild plants and offers recipes, lessons on seasonality and foraging etiquette (only harvest as much as you can fit into a hat). Eventually, Redzepi says he hopes to make foraging lessons in schools as common as teaching children their ABCs.

Under Redzepi, Noma — set to reopen its doors in early 2018 after a brief hiatus during which it set up its own urban farm and revamped its menu — serves as the focal point of a movement reimagining the culinary industry. MAD’s annual culinary

Food wouldn’t be the great thing it is without the movement of people.”Melina Shannon DiPietro, MAD’s managing director

I

26

THE FORAGER

REnÉ REDZEPI

DENMARK

René Redzepi forages for produce on the Dragor Coast outside Copenhagen.

“

85PHOTOGRAPHS: THIS PAGE BY ALFREDO CALIZ FOR PANOS PICTURES; NEXT SPREAD BY MARK MAHANEY

87POLITICO 28

IN HIS WORDSRedzepi in recent interviews

On inspiration“The day when there is no more to do is the day when you are burned out. There are endless possibilities. It’s just whether you can see them or not.”(BBC Radio 4, Desert Island Discs) On local ingredients“When you see the world as your one big larder, then you can really start dreaming.” (BBC Radio 4, Desert Island Discs)

“It made me a happier person to understand the rhythms of nature and my connection to it and how we fit in in this ecosystem.” (MAD symposium) On food today“We eat so much better, but we eat so much of the same. We used to have a bigger appreciation for seasonality … and for using your senses … We are so disconnected with anything related to food, where it comes from.” (MAD symposium) On education“We should teach [kids] about food, how seasons work. We should teach our kids how our meat enters the plate; they shouldn’t grow up seeing it as just an ingredient. That’s the only way we can really get rid of this epidemic that is food waste.”(MAD symposium) Does the restaurant have a role to play? “That is the big question. Some say yes. Some say, go back to the basement, chef.”(MAD symposium) On community“You have to support the whole system, the whole community. That’s when things really take off. We’ve seen a really amazing transformation in Copenhagen.”(MAD symposium)

88 POLITICO 28

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ĖŽ

90

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good” in the “moving, changing and beau-tiful city full of air and water.”

Britain’s looming exit from the European Union adds an element of uncertainty to Gražinytė-Tyla’s ability to live and work in her adopted home — despite assurances from the U.K. government it wants EU citizens to stay, and welcomes the brightest and the best, a concrete deal has not yet been struck. Brexit could also mean young talent from Lithuania will have a harder time following in her footsteps.

Asked how she feels about the U.K. soon leaving the bloc, Gražinytė-Tyla skirts the question to strike a more hopeful note: She hopes “all of our future steps will bring us closer and to a deeper understanding of each other.”

f Brexit Britain wants to prove it remains open to the world, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla might be just the tick-et. The young, energetic Lithuanian conductor is the musical director of the City of Birmingham Sympho-

ny Orchestra, one of the country’s most prestigious musical institutions, which will embark on tours in Europe next year. She will also debut with the Orchestre Philhar-monique de Radio France in January, and makes her Carnegie Hall debut in May with the Met Opera Orchestra.

Born to a musical family in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, Gražinytė-Tyla left for the Austrian city of Graz aged 11 to master her trade. She later added the Lithuanian word “Tyla” — meaning silence — to create her artist’s name. “It is not necessary at all to use words in order to communicate through music,” she says. “Once you’ve experienced how this communication works you get addicted and cannot stop.” She was chosen to lead the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 2016 by its members, making her one of the world’s few top female conductors.

Gražinytė-Tyla, 31, describes her new home — the former manufacturing pow-erhouse in the center of England — as the “Venice of Great Britain.” She feels “very

It is not necessary at all to use words in order to communicate through music.”Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

THE FOREIGN TALENT

I

MIRGa GRaZInYTE-TYLa

LITHUANIA

PHOTOGRAPH ON PREVIOUS SPREAD BY CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU

“

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92 POLITICO 28

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repeatedly by a well-known poacher.

The issue is sure to heat up in the coming year, after the Cypriot parliament passed legislation last summer that activists say encourages the use of lime sticks by applying lighter sanctions to the practice than to other methods of bird trapping. The government disagrees, arguing that the new law will fight poaching through hard-hitting penalties. Brussels, already in a tussle with Malta over bird trapping, has warned Cyprus that it could face sanctions if birds are not adequately protected.

Meanwhile, Papastylianou, who is origi-nally from the Cypriot capital Nicosia, is gearing up for a campaign aimed at pro-tecting two nature reserves from develop-ment. “We have to challenge political and economic powers in order to foster social and ecological change,” he says.

t can be lonely being an environmental activist in Cyprus. Politics is a contact sport on the divided Mediterranean island, and campaigners can count on running up against business concerns,

criminal networks and deep-rooted cultural traditions. “You’re always messing around with political and economic interests,” says Klitos Papastylianou, who has done as much as anyone to fight the illegal trapping of wild birds in Cyprus. “This is the challenge.”

Cypriots kill some 1.5 million to 2 million birds every year during the migratory season in spring and fall, trapping them with fields of “lime sticks,” tall thin poles covered with glue or sap. “You have, actually, killing fields all over the island,” says the 35-year-old activist. It’s a lucra-tive business — the birds are expensive delicacies — involving everyone from local farmers to restaurant owners, politicians and organized crime.

“Mafia is deeply involved in this wildlife crime, and of course it’s a serious con-straint [in the fight against bird trapping],” he says. In February, members of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter, a local activist group, said they were “violently attacked,” when their car was rammed

You have killing fields all over the island.”Klitos Papastylianou

THE BIRDMAN

I

KLITOS PaPaSTYLIanOU

CYPRUS

“

93POLITICO 28

Á

WHERE aRE THEY nOW?SEBaSTIan KURZ

Tipped as its best hope for revival last year, the 31-year-old politician led his conservative Austrian People’s Party in a decisive victory in the polls in October and is on course to become the country’s youngest chancellor. His unlikely success marks a tectonic shift in Austrian politics, after more than a decade under a centrist coalition.

No. 12 in the Class of 2017

DaPHnE CaRUana GaLIZIaMalta’s most prominent investigative journalist stood up to power and crusaded against big money and shadowy politics. Her death in October by car bomb, which may have been politically motivated, is sure to prompt greater EU scrutiny of the tiny Mediterranean island.

No. 26 in the Class of 2017

VIKTOR ORBÁnWhen we picked Hungary’s prime minister for the top slot in 2016, we predicted his confrontational style of politics would become the new norm in Europe. Two years on, the Orbán way has caught on. Look closely at how EU leaders talk about migration policy, and it’s clear the Hungarian leader’s narrative is prevailing.

No. 1 in the Class of 2016

MaRGRETHE VESTaGEREurope’s competition czar hasn’t let up the pressure on corporate titans since she ranked No. 2 on our list in 2016. After slapping down Apple and Google since then, the Danish politician is gearing up for her next big fight: taking on Silicon Valley’s tech giants over the way companies collect and use personal data.

No. 2 in the Class of 2016

JaROSLaW KaCZYnSKIIf Kaczyński was on a collision course with the liberal establishment last year, the Law and Justice leader is now fully at war. The powerful Polish parliamentarian — his party riding high in the polls — has cracked down on civic freedoms, kept the country’s borders firmly shut and stared down rebukes from Brussels.

No. 4 in the Class of 2017

Catching up with POLITICO 28 alumni from the past two years

94 GRAPHICS BY GINGER HERVEY FOR POLITICO

The European Union is supposed to be a single market of goods — but within that single market, there are very different appetites. Here’s a look at how taste and consumption vary across the bloc.

DaTa POInT: EUROPEan aPPETITESEatingDaily calorie supply, per person, on average

Source: Eurostat

2,8003,0003,2003,4003,600

Highest: Belgium (3,793); Lowest: Cyprus (2,661)Source: World Health Organization

DrinkingLiters of pure alcohol consumed per adult, per year, on average

8101214

Highest: Lithuania (15.4); Lowest: Italy (6.7)

SmokingPercentage of the population that currently smokes

Source: Eurobarometer 458

101520253035

Highest: Greece (37 percent); Lowest: Sweden (7 percent)

CaffeinatingKilograms of coffee consumed per person, per year, on average

Source: International Coffee Organization

4681012

Highest: Finland (12); Lowest: Romania (2.3)

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