Ilana Bet-El
Based in Brussels, Ilana Bet-El is a writer, historian and political analyst specialising in EU and international politics. Throughout the 1990s she worked with and for the UN both in New York and the Balkans, including a two and a half years period in Bosnia during and after the war. In 2002 she created the op-ed page of European Voice, a weekly paper that is part of the Economist group. She edited the page until December 2005, and now writes a regular column on defence and foreign affairs for the paper.
With Europe going through hard times, the right should be an easy target for socialists. June’s elections and the vote on the next president of the Commission being imminent, political commentator Ilana Bet-El wonders why in such favourable conditions the left remain apathetic, if not supine.