Over one hundred thousand supporters of the left-leaning party Podemos demonstrated on Saturday in Madrid in a “March for Change”. Syriza and Podemos have the potential to channel indignation into constructive politics, some commentators write. Others fear a rise of left-wing populism.
How can independent media survive across Europe? EurActiv releases six recommendations in January 2015 for a more effective EU strategy towards media and the fourth estate.
In Belarus, smuggling is a fine art, and, unlike stealing, morally acceptable.
It is Belarus’s fate to be located between two economic blocs – Russia and the EU. While the country’s eastern border is largely symbolic – all the more so since the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) treaty came into force on 1 January – the absence of any integration projects, and the failure of Minsk to establish strong ties with the EU has ensured that its border to the west remains very much intact.
Cast your mind back to November.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the new European Commission president,was being pummeled by the European Parliament after a leak revealed widespread tax avoidance in Luxembourg while he was prime minister of the Grand Duchy.
A look at Yanis Varoufakis’ journey from maverick economist to Greece’s finance minister – as told through his contributions to openDemocracy.
The goals and interests of the European Union and the defence industry are increasingly converging. Why?
The EU might have predicted Syriza’s overwhelming victory. After all, wasn’t this the great unlearned lesson from the experience of east-central Europe over the last 25 years?
The radical right has already moved from the margins to the front stage of national politics. Europe’s future depends on whether it will be allowed to remain and thrive in the mainstream.
– Forget economics, politics is key to understanding the Eurozone
The cries of the Grexit criers lately have mostly been a repetition of an earlier discourse: in February 2012 Citi’s economists Willem Buiters and Ebrahim Rahbari coined the term “Grexit,” by July 2012 estimating its likelihood to 90%. Cheered on by the media, economists have taken over the debate of the Eurozone which is why much of it has been such a futile exercise: it is not economics, which ties the Eurozone together but the political determination of its leaders to make the euro work. With political will likelihood of any exit is 0. Ergo, Grexit is as unlikely now as it has always been in spite of the EU brinkmanship. One route Greece seems to be exploring is a tried and tested one: the “bisque clause” from 1946.
Britain’s clout in the European Union is weakening, just when plans for a capital markets union present a “golden opportunity” for London’s financial sector, UK lawmakers said on Monday (2 February).