Europe Explained

The pitch

I roughly know French political parties. But what is the equivalent of the RN, LR or the PS in Germany, Belgium or Poland? What is the difference between the European Council and the Council of Europe? The site I was looking for did not exist, so I built it: an independent reference to understand Europe, in English and French, neither pro- nor anti-EU.

What's inside

• 50 European countries, with their EU status, euro, Schengen, Eurostat figures and key dates, each with its source.
• History from 1958 to today: an animated map going from 6 to 27 members, and a timeline you can filter.
• Parties: 204 parties with their logo, their current group in the European Parliament and their left-right position from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Pick a party you know, see its equivalents country by country.
• Elections: the 2027 French presidential election, using only polls filed with the Commission des sondages, with no averages or projections; the calendar for all 27 countries; and who has governed Europe since 1995.
• AI and Europe: the AI Act by risk level, its timeline after the 2026 Omnibus, investment, and AI use by country.
• A kids version for ages 8 to 12, to read with a parent: simple words, quizzes and a game to find countries on the map.
• News from official feeds, hand-picked documentaries, a glossary, light and dark modes.

How it's made

The starting rule: no invented numbers. Every figure has a source, a date and a unit, and partisan positions are attributed to their authors. Data comes from Eurostat, the European Parliament, ParlGov and Chapel Hill.

Built with Claude Code: a static Astro site, a Cloudflare Worker and a D1 database for news, synced hourly. No CMS, everything is maintained from the repository.

An independent, non-commercial site, with no ads.