costs. “A barge with rock salt from Heilbronn usually carries 2,200 tonnes, but at the moment they arrive with 280 tonnes,” says Christian Lorenz of Häfen und Güterverkehr Köln, a logistics firm in Cologne. That is still ten times what a lorry can handle, so companies continue to use them. The Rhine is especially crucial for Germany, Europe’s biggest economy. Some 600 vessels cross the German-Dutch border every day, many carrying goods to be exported from Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest port. Bulk goods such as coal, steel, crude oil, chemicals and minerals are cheaper (and greener) to transport by barge than by lorry or train. Factory clusters were built along the Rhine in the 19th century to access barge transport and water for industrial processes, and they have remained there ever since, says Carsten Brzeski of iNG, a Dutch bank. Bayer, a German pharma giant, is headquartered in Leverkusen, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. BASF, the world’s largest maker of chemicals, is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, a bit south on its namesake river. Over the past decade businesses have started to adapt to recurrent low-water crises, holding bigger inventories and using ships built for shallower rivers. Many have switched from river to road or rail. In 2017 4.7% of all goods in Germany were transported by inland waterways; in 2024 that had fallen to 4.1%. But the drought has largely halted the thriving cruise-ship industry on both rivers. Farmers are worried about their harvests, and fishermen fear for their livelihoods. How big will the economic hit be? The dry spell in 2018 reduced Germany’s GDP by around 0.4% according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a think-tank. This year’s water levels have been lower, so the damage may be worse. Mr Brzeski reckons that if they persist until October, that could shave 0.5% off German GDP. But as with the rest of central Europe, it is too early to quantify the impact. Europe’s record-breaking drought is still in full swing. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/13/europes-dry-rivers-are-exposing- mammoths-and-nazi-warships
Europe’s true architects of integration The nominees for the Charlemagne column prize are… Aug 13th 2026 What does it take to forge ever-closer union among Europeans? Ask a Eurocrat in Brussels and they will point to a torrent of harmonising edicts agreed over decades of all-night summits. By standardising chemicals regulations, mobile-phone chargers, bottle-cap design and so on, the European Union is pushing towards a federal state. The founding fathers of the EU championed this approach. For their troubles many went on to receive the Charlemagne prize, a gong bestowed by worthies in Aachen, the German city from which your columnist’s namesake once ruled. These days the honour mostly goes to sitting presidents of EU institutions and other continental grandees.
Yet surely European integration is about more than summits and regulation (right?). Those who make Europe feel like a single continent not just in theory but in day-to-day life get too little recognition. A bauble is needed for those who knit Europeans together without ever having attended a summit or negotiated a directive. One might call it the Charlemagne column prize, or “Charlie” for short. The nominees for the inaugural award are… Michael O’Leary. The EU is keen on free movement. Mr O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair since 1994, has enabled the next best thing: very cheap movement indeed. Fancy a weekend in a fourth-tier Romanian city? If you don’t mind waking up before dawn and dragging yourself to a “secondary airport” far removed from human civilisation, you can get there for the price of a sandwich lunch. The cantankerous Irishman annoys EU-wallahs by railing against regulation—while having benefited from their drive to allow low-cost airlines to compete against staid flag-carriers. Sofia Corradi. In 1969 this Italian academic conceived a system whereby university students could complete part of their degrees in another European country. Many jumped at the chance of an Erasmus year, a scheme now run by the EU. Given the number of pan-European romances—and the more than 1m “Erasmus babies” credited to the scheme—it is unclear how much studying actually goes on. “Mamma Erasmus”, as Prof Corradi became known, passed away in October 2025. Her contribution to ever-closer union has brought some Europeans very close indeed. Mads Mikkelsen. What do an Albanian terrorist financier with James Bond in his sights, a Nazi scientist vying against Indiana Jones, a blood-soaked Norse warrior and a scheming French count all have in common? All were played by this brooding repository of continental dastardliness. For decades Brits had a monopoly on playing Hollywood baddies. It took one cheekboned Dane to wrest the villainy crown back for the European mainland. Slavoj Zizek. Hundreds of millions of Europeans are collectively baffled by the pronouncements made by this Slovenian philosopher. The Lacanian- Hegelian theory of ideological subjectivity is as incomprehensible in Lapland as it is in Liguria.
Milda Mitkute. Different as they may be, all Europeans turn out to have a wardrobe full of unwanted clothes. Vinted, which Ms Mitkute co-founded in Vilnius in 2008, has created a single market in last season’s double-breasted blazers. The result is a rare European tech success. What Robert Schuman once did for coal and steel, the Lithuanian firm now does for the humble Zara cardigan. Aleksander Ceferin. The boss of UEFA is the world’s second-most powerful football administrator. Seen another way, he is the most powerful football administrator to have never given a peace prize to Donald Trump. Europeans far and wide lauded the Slovenian for boycotting the recent FIFA World Cup final. The UEFA Champions League, where Gulf-owned clubs vie for glory, is one of the rare fixtures that draw Europeans together. The Guetta family. Three French-born siblings together form an improbably complete portrait of modern Europe. Bernard is an MEP specialising in foreign affairs and human rights. Nathalie, a former circus performer, has become a star on Italian television. David, their half-brother, is a superstar DJ whose Ibiza hymns rival the croissant as Europe’s most successful cultural export. Pierre Coffin. The EU maintains 24 official languages. Mr Coffin has created a 25th, understood by children across the bloc: the patois of the Minions. The Frenchman voices the mumblings of the goggle-eyed yellow henchmen, which sound much the same in Finnish or French renderings. Europe has not possessed a dialect so readily understood across its borders since Latin. Viviane Reding. As an EU commissioner in the late 2000s she quashed the mobile-phone roaming fees Europeans paid when visiting other EU countries, an expensive bugbear. Alas she also pioneered the data-privacy rules that resulted in Europeans having to bat away the irksome “cookie pop- ups” every website now serves up. The Luxembourgish pol serves as a reminder the Eurocracy is capable of both the sublime and the inane. Perhaps the modern unifiers of Europe are not good Europeans at all. Nobody has riled the continent into a collective jolt so much as its foes. There is Vladimir Putin, the Russian president whose invasion of Ukraine
has revealed the EU’s previously unknown steely side. Mr Trump has goaded Europe’s defence efforts by threatening to ditch NATO. Viktor Orban tried his best to blackmail and derail the EU as Hungarian prime minister, but ultimately failed. The inaugural Charlie might thus go to someone who has strengthened Europe by opposing it—albeit more constructively than Mr Putin. Such a paradoxical laureate springs to mind. For demonstrating the value of remaining in the EU rather than enduring the chaos of leaving, and for turning Brexit into a continental cautionary tale, Nigel Farage, its ideological architect, is awarded the first Charlemagne column prize. The EU’s most famous basher has proved its most useful federalist. Glückwunsch!■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/13/europes-true-architects-of-integration
Andy Burnham’s chance to reset Labour’s relations with business British business has failed to make its voice heard Andy Burnham and the politics of accents The parlous state of Britain’s prisons is Burnham’s first test How to fix Scotland’s drugs disaster A ban on an ancient hunt exposes a divide in Scottish nationalism Britain has more cheeses than France. The whey ahead may be harder
Andy Burnham’s chance to reset Labour’s relations with business Mark his actions more than his words Aug 13th 2026 ThE MOST unlikely love affair in British politics recently was between big business and the Labour Party. Before the general election in 2024, the party launched what this newspaper called a “smoked-salmon offensive” to reassure bosses that it had sworn off socialism and would govern with economic growth as its “number-one mission”. It held long, detailed talks with different sectors, asking for ideas on how to boost growth. The plan worked. Fed up with the feckless Conservatives and charmed by Sir Keir Starmer, the party leader, and Rachel Reeves, his chancellor-to-be, firms swooned over Labour. But it did not last. The salmon sandwiches went first stale, then mouldy. By the time Sir Keir and Ms Reeves left office this
July, most business leaders, from FTSE 100 CEOs to scrappy startup founders, were sick of them. The government stopped listening to business, whacked it with hefty taxes and failed to implement many of the pro-growth reforms it had promised. Engagement with firms, previously undertaken by Ms Reeves herself, was outsourced to civil servants. Ministers at the Treasury and other economic departments continued to hold frequent meetings with bosses, but attendees say these were more “photo opportunities” than substantive discussions. The party’s boosterish tone quickly became discordant. Weeks after the election, Sir Keir shocked international investors with a speech in the garden of 10 Downing Street in which he moaned that “things will get worse before they get better.” Labour’s first budget imposed big tax rises on businesses, most painfully an increase in the national-insurance contributions paid by employers, a payroll tax. Even those who did not take too much of a direct hit were disturbed by the seesaw decision-making the announcement epitomised. Business and consumer confidence (see chart) continued to plunge. Promises to cut red tape and reduce the price of energy for businesses came to little,