The rules say politics has no place in the Eurovision Song Contest. But for the past 20 years messages protesting Russia's actions have snuck in, and it may be impossible to keep them out of this week’s contest.

The rot of EU dysfunction has one origin: the European Council—the most powerful political institution in Europe unknown to most citizens. National governments like it that way, but democracy campaigners do not.

For the first time, the transatlantic alliance has lost a war. The trauma of that experience—and the sidelining of its European members—has big implications for NATO's future.

Within a few weeks the EU will have vaccinated the same share of its population as the United States and the United Kingdom. But Brussels will not forget the vaccine-hoarding behavior of the EU’s Western allies.