Pirate Parties:?In a last-minute visibility boost, The Pirate Bay is providing front-page exposure to the European Pirate Parties in this European Election. Offline-borns would tend to scoff at this; however, the net generation understands that this is an enormous amount of exposure, corresponding to buying the full cover of every newspaper, every day of the campaign, in the respective countries. This is The Pirate Bay lending a hand to the political arm of the movement.
The European Union is providing urgent assistance to Serbia and to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two Western Balkan countries being hit by the worst floods in the last 120 years. In addition, Serbia, in its capacity as an EU candidate country, qualifies for financial assistance, Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said.
What role does money play in European elections, and how is it regulated? Such questions need to be addressed to ensure the integrity of Europe’s democratic processes, says Samuel Jones.
Last year, it was revealed that the Swedish state indexed all Roma living in Sweden and that its secret services were actively cooperating with GCHQ and the NSA. Why has nobody drawn a connection between these two facets of mass surveillance?
open Democracy News Analysis – by Etienne Balibar
A vicious circle must be broken, but this can arise only from inside the European perspective,through a mounting pressure of the Union?s citizens, who must at the same time avoid ?sovereign? fallacies and “cosmopolitan” illusions.
Google cannot be broken up without new legislation, says EU Competition Commissioner
Google cannot be broken up into smaller companies without new EU legislation, the European Commission said today (20 May), after detailing two potential new antitrust investigations into the internet giant.
In pictures: Flooding sweeps Balkans
Serbia and Bosnia struggle with devastating floods
Tens of Thousands Stranded, Serbians Take Flood Relief Into Their Own Hands
Global Voices Online by Danica Radisic
Monithon and Monitorial Citizenship in Italy
My heart’s in Accra
Three years into my time at MIT, I?m trying to get back into the habit of blogging, something that was a near-daily habit for me during the years I was at Berkman. For me, blogging is a fairly selfish activity. If I write something helpful for you, that?s a happy accident. I write because it allows me to get ideas straight in my head, and because it helps me find other people working on similar problems.
Greek Re-entry (or Grentry) Not The Game Changer Many Think It Is
» A Fistful Of Euros by Edward Hugh
There is no doubt that Greece?s recent bond sale was an exciting and even invigorating moment for many people. The WSJ?s Simon Nixon, for example, called it ?a symbolically important moment for the euro crisis?. Reuters? Marius Zaharia suggested the speed of the come back could even be a game-changer for the heavily indebted southern European country. Certainly there can be little doubt that, as Nixon puts it, the turn round in market fortunes was a remarkable achievement, illustrative of just ?how far market sentiment toward Southern Europe has changed?
The EU’s active fight for digital rights
open Democracy News Analysis – by Jef Huysmans and Amandine Scherrer
Protecting personal data is high on the EU agenda, and Snowden?s revelations undoubtedly triggered reactions and actions in Europe and across EU Member States, the significance of which should not be underestimated.
Far-right exploits Austrian unease
What is striking is that this success has been achieved in one of Europe?s strongest economies, where unemployment is among the lowest in the EU
Is Alexis Tsipras the saviour of the Italian left?
open Democracy News Analysis – by Michele Barbero
The oft-divided Italian radical left has united behind the star of the Greek left, Alexis Tsipras, in the European elections. Will this be enough to avoid yet another electoral failure? Euro elections landscape, 2014.
open Democracy News Analysis – by Robert Menasse and Ulrike Guerot
Old Europe is disaggregating. The new Europe, which has long been a reality in the mind of many European citizens, is waiting for its constitution, one that will effectively take us into the future.
What happens next after the European elections? Get ready for a royal punch-up…
With the European elections taking place on Thursday through to Sunday this week, it is worth considering what happens next. The proposed Spitzenkandidaten or European Parliamentary families? candidates for European Commission President is set to make the post-election horse-trading and politicking more fraught than usual. As we warn into today?s Times this could have huge implications for the future of the EU and David Cameron?s reform agenda.And it will be nothing short of a royal punch-up.
| MAIN FOCUS: Western Balkans fight flooding | 19/05/2014 euro|topics After days of heavy rainfall, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are battling a major flooding disaster. Several dozen people have died and tens of thousands have had to be evacuated. But in this hour of need the erstwhile enemies are now helping each other, commentators remark, surprised at this show of solidarity. |
BBC News | Europe | World
Euro election pits protectionists against liberals
A Fistful Of Euros » A Fistful Of Euros by Edward Hugh
Looking for trends and correlations in that landslide of economic data which arrives, day in and day out, on our desks is normally something akin to trying to find a needle in a very large and raggedy haystack. From time to time, however, some things are just to obvious not to be noticed, like the ever rising levels of debt on the EU periphery and the growing demand from political leaders there for some kind of QE type initiative from the European central bank, for example. Sure, there is no obvious causal connecting here ? the missing ?middle term? linking the two would probably be all that ongoing deflation risk ? but the inability of governments to contain their debt levels is a consequence of having low growth and low inflation, as is the wish being ever more insistently expressed by Southern Europe?s political leaders that the ECB were more like the Bank of Japan
Is Alexis Tsipras the saviour of the Italian left?
open Democracy News Analysis – by Michele Barbero
The oft-divided Italian radical left has united behind the star of the Greek left, Alexis Tsipras, in the European elections. Will this be enough to avoid yet another electoral failure? Euro elections landscape, 2014.
VIDEO: Europe vote: growth of anti-EU parties
BBC News | Europe | World Edition
Ben Wright visits two towns in Britain and France to see how support has grown for political parties that oppose the EU
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