Eurosphere agenda: “Thousands across Europe protest against TTIP…”Another refugee tragedy in the Mediterranean…

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Europe on Saturday (18 April) to oppose what could be the world’s biggest free trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and European Union.

What is possibly the worst refugee tragedy in recent times occurred off the Libyan coast on Saturday night. According to eyewitnesses, more than 900 people may have drowned. Only stabilising war-torn Syria and Libya will prevent people from fleeing, some commentators write. Others call on Fortress Europe to open its doors wide.

 

The Sun columnist’s violent words about the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean are indefensible. They should be condemned as hate speech.

 

Europe’s war on migrants

The unending series of mass drownings in the Mediterranean of migrants and refugees are not unfortunate tragedies: they are the dread outworking of the occluding of humanitarian concern by the rhetoric of border control.

The latest refugee deaths in the Mediterranean—up to 700 people drowned when the overcrowded fishing vessel in which they were travelling from north Africa capsized of the coast of Libya—follows a similar tragedy last week in which 400 people perished.

 

A millionaire former telecoms executive, touted as a technocrat capable of rescuing Finland from its economic slump, won Sunday’s parliamentary election, but he will likely need coalition support from a second-placed eurosceptic party critical of any more Greek bailouts.

Europe’s far right goes mainstream

Many far right parties across the continent are shifting their agendas.
VIDEO: Greece turning to commune life

As Greece’s talks with the EU drag on, communes are springing up across the country as people take matters into their own hands.
Britain’s Parliament does a poor job of examining EU business. Some simple reforms would improve the way that it scrutinises European legislation.The British prime minister, David Cameron, wants to make the EU more democratic. National parliamentarians, in his view, understand citizens’ concerns better than MEPs who deliberate in far-away Brussels and Strasbourg; national parliaments should therefore play a greater role in EU decision-making. However, Cameron’s argument would carry more weight if UK parliamentary scrutiny were improved.

ECB chief hit by confetti protest

A confetti-throwing protester disrupts the European Central Bank’s news conference, jumping on stage and screaming “end ECB dictatorship”.
Protester crashes ECB growth update

A protester crashes a press briefing as the European Central Bank explains how its 1.1 trn euro bond buying plan is reviving the eurozone economy.

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