Europe’s crisis is a crisis of democracy. The ‘democracy of the experts’ cannot deliver: representative democracy is incapable of channelling demands in the political system. More participatory and deliberative democracy is needed, as argued in Europe’s public spaces by the movements of ‘ indignad
What do the mountains of debt of a west that used to be rich have in common? Were errors made in the construction and constitution of the European Union? If so, how do we mend them?
Yes, European leaders could all agree when it came to imposing austerity on Athens, Dublin, Lisbon and Rome, ‘reassuring’ financial markets, saving creditor banks, increasing countries’ financial burdens and putting public enterprises on the market at sale prices. But such policies make exiting th
This report is dedicated to the memory of Amy Winehouse, who tragically passed away yesterday. As we mourn the loss of so talented a musician, let us also pay tribute to and remember the many millions of vulnerable, marginalised and stigmatised people who have died drug related deaths; and human c
A retreat from the present unsatisfactory half-way house to a Gaullist ‘Europe des Patries’ would be an act of reactionary vandalism.
The EU has a choice to make: does it want to assert itself as a normative power, or does it want to stay an inconclusive and erratic political dwarf?
José Ignacio Torreblanca accuses Europe’s politicians of having comprehensively failed in speaking to or for Europe. But there is a deeper reason for this failure, shared by politicians and people alike, which is an inability to see beyond a hopelessly outmoded West-East dichotomy
If we are to articulate a ‘politics of hope’ in contemporary Europe, then we must revisit such problematic concepts as ‘populism’, ‘democracy’ and ‘Europe’, formulating a new language that can register the fact that the coexistence of an antidemocratic Europe, and an anti-European exploitation of
Centre-right parties across Europe are announcing the failure of multiculturalism. We are witnessing a co-ordinated revival of Enoch Powell's idea of the aggressive outsider out to dominate the rest; only now race and immigration are being played out on the terrain of culture and religion
Historically, internal divisions have caused the EU to be flat-footed in responding to foreign policy crises. But by learning from the EU’s successes and failures, it should be possible to plan coordinated approaches for future crises, argue Hans Kundnani and Justin Vaïsse.
A wave of student protest animated Britain’s political scene in late 2010 and highlighted wider concerns about the future of universities. There is already a decade of European experience of student engagement in this area where the movement can find allies and exert influence in 2011, says Anne C
