I was waiting for Yanis Varoufakis seated in an old Hamburg cafe while outside everything had turned gray. A light mist blanketed the roofs, trees, cars and the occasional passerby. It was the perfect day for snowfall although the weather forecast had given no hope for it. Inside the lights (...)
Did you know German carmakers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche and BMW have all provided free vehicles to the EU’s rotating presidencies since 2012 - just as the regulations on vehicle emissions were being negotiated?
When it comes to accountability and transparency at the EU, it will not come as a surprise to many that some Brussels institutions do not fare too well in terms of voters’ trust and confidence.
After all, the influence that lobbyists have on EU officials is (...)
Spain’s far right is enjoying its biggest breakthrough since the 1970s. But it grows from a reactionary swamp that has festered ever since Franco’s dictatorship.
At the start of the 1970s most Europeans thought that any rebirth of fascist organization would be built around the remains of the (...)
Sweden’s parliamentary election on 9 September 2018 resulted in the weakest performance for the Social Democrats since near-universal male suffrage was introduced in 1911. Then, the party got 28.5 per cent of the vote; this time, it managed 28.3 per cent. An entire century of electoral advance (...)
The language of “sovereignty” is corrupt. It is the language of the Right. It may be unavoidable, but it is preferable, where possible, to speak of democracy instead. Membership of multilateral organisations, from the EU to the WTO, does not weaken the “sovereignty” of any national state. That is (...)
Our EU leaders are currently discussing the next EU budgetary cycle that will run from 2021 to 2027. Among the proposals, one has so far caught little attention from the public and has been barely analysed in the EU media, let alone at national level.
Yet the recently set-up European Defence (...)
OVER THE PAST two years, European politics has seemed like an old-fashioned melodrama with a cliffhanger at the end of each episode. Virtually every election has kept observers on the edge of their seats asking, “Will a far right party be the biggest this time? Will it end up in government? (...)
Movement increasingly appeals to voters frustrated with traditional mainstream parties
In conservative Bavaria, Greens doubled their vote in state elections to become the second largest party. In local elections in Belgium, record scores of more than 30% won them several Brussels districts and (...)
Alexis Tsipras’s government promised to end austerity. Now it’s defending the banks against people evicted from their homes — and persecuting those who protest.
Many on the international left believe that things in Greece are slowly improving, and that the Syriza government remains a left-wing (...)
The Corbyn ally on how to defeat the far right, the EU’s flaws and what she’s learned from Labour.
In 1998, during New Labour’s imperial phase, Tony Blair and then German chancellor Gerhard Schröder were united in promoting the “Third Way” or “die neue mitte” (the new middle). Two decades later, a (...)
Two weeks passed since the German leftist movement “Aufstehen” was officially formed – and according to their own account, it already has more than 140,000 supporters. EURACTIV Germany spoke to Fabio De Masi, deputy chairman of Die Linke in the German Bundestag about the European ambitions of the (...)
The outcome of the Swedish parliamentary election on 9 September confirms a general European trend: rising rightwing populism and a weakening Social Democracy. The traditional picture of Sweden as the home of a progressive social democratic welfare state has been fading away for several (...)
The European Memoranda imposing austerity on Greece came to an end last week. But the country still has no way out of its crisis.
On August 21 Alexis Tsipras chose Ithaca as the place to announce Greece’s exit from the bailout programs imposed by the European Union in collaboration with the (...)
Punitive conditions attached to the ‘rescue’ package mean the Greek financial tragedy may never end
Over the past week, the world’s media have been proclaiming the successful completion of the Greek financial rescue programme mounted in 2010 by the European Union and the International Monetary (...)
Riot police in Bucharest use tear gas and water cannon on Friday night
Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied in cities across Romania against the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) government, with riot police in the capital, Bucharest, firing tear gas into the crowd and hundreds needing (...)
After years on the fringes of Italian politics, the populist leader of the Lega has stoked anti-immigrant panic and barged into power.
Matteo Salvini at the Lega’s annual meeting in Pontida in July. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty When Matteo Salvini – Italy’s interior minister and (...)
Move welcomed by parents but critics warn it will worsen problems such as underpaid carers and a lack of places
Pre-school Berliners are to be given free childcare in a move expected to make the German capital even more attractive to young families.
The city is the first of Germany’s 16 states (...)
The government has persistently allowed private interests in construction, industry and tourism to be prioritised over serious ecological and safety concerns.
It’s difficult to discuss natural disasters, even more so in the case where dozens of human lives have been lost in the most horrific (...)
Why all pay taxes, don’t we ? At least this is the theory but in reality billions of euros are lost every year in the European Union on tax avoidance and tax planning depriving public budgets of much-needed resources to fund education, health care, social services and public infrastructure. A (...)
Europe must increase efforts to investigate and control the ivory trade, say campaigners
Illegal ivory has been found on sale in 10 European countries, contravening international efforts to cut down on the trade which campaigners say encourages the poaching of elephants.
The campaigning group (...)
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