How best to preserve the archaeological record of the past, which so often obtrudes on political objectives of the present? And what happens when nation states are effectively bankrupt?  Are its monuments to be allowed to collapse into decay?

Oskar Lafontaine, the former Die Linke chairman and a figure of the German left, has recently called for a return to national currencies. But while frustration with the euro is widespread, his solution doesn't make sense from an economic, political or even moral point of view.

On May 15 the EU will organise a donors’ conference on Mali. It should address the underlying causes of terrorism and instability, making investment in youth a priority 

A tax on financial transactions in Europe could reduce harmful speculation and help restore some political control over the markets. So why don't we have one yet?

Europe is increasingly unpopular, the recession hits the euro area and Angela Merkel is now facing a new populist party. So Brussels opens up to a timid change of season. But austerity has not yet been defeated politically, in elections and in the streets.

Three hundred years ago, Britain signed a peace treaty that concluded a quarter of a century of warfare, cemented her place as a world power and secured the constitutional monarchy. That the UK doesn't commemorate this speaks volumes about its relationship to Europe.

The extraordinary bounce-back of the banks reveals the most disturbing, but least obvious, largely invisible, feature of the unfinished European crisis: the transformation of democratic taxation states into post-democratic banking states.