#varadkar

LGBTQ+ rights in Europe are caught in a “chill wind” from east and west as Vladimir Putin’s Russia exports its conservative agenda and the “Americans are off the pitch” under Donald Trump, Ireland’s former taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said. Varadkar, who in 2017 became Ireland’s first out gay prime minister, said Europe needed to “step up” to avoid the continent becoming further squeezed by global forces seeking to chip away at recent progress. “I’m afraid of where things are going,” he said. “Europe is still the light when it comes to human rights and democracy and freedom of expression, given what else is going on in the world – but it’s a flickering light.” Varadkar, who unexpectedly stepped down in 2024, said his role as a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights had given him a frontline view of global efforts to reshape LGBTQ+ rights. “It’s clear that Russia has decided that this is one of the issues that they’re taking an interest in. Putin has embraced … a particularly conservative form of Christianity, and they’re spreading that message into Europe,” he said. Russia’s efforts had long been countered by the US, particularly in central and eastern Europe, he added. But now, as anti-diversity rhetoric surges across the US, boosted by the introduction of more than 600 bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights, Varadkar said he had been told of US corporations pulling back from sponsoring events such as Pride, and US diplomats declining to attend events once a mainstay on their calendars. “So in many ways they had a kind of liberal influence from America pushing one way and very conservative forces from Russia pushing the other way. And now the Americans are off the pitch,” he said. “There’s a chill wind coming in from the west as well as from the east – and that’s where Europe is now caught.”

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I made the ties

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will tell European Union leaders today that it is his view that the EU has “lost credibility” because of its “inability to take a stronger and more united position on Israel and Palestine”. Speaking ahead of the summit in Brussels, the Taoiseach said he thinks the position of EU countries has been evolving, but said it needs to go further. “The center of gravity within the European Union is moving closer to the position that Ireland has just taken for some time, but still needs to move further in my view,” he told reporters. He said he will be telling leaders today that his view is that the EU has lost credibility because of its position to date.

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Simon, Leo, Katherine, Dog-Washing and the Americanization/Corporatization of Irish Politics

And the new season kicked off with the reopening of the Zappone controversy, resurrected by what appears to be an internal Fine Gael leadership contest, with Varadkar one-upping Coveney by releasing text messages which his department had earlier refused to journalists under the Freedom of Information act. Labour TD Brendan Howlin, who was instrumental in drafting the Freedom of Information act,…