Articles

This year’s United Nations climate conference wrapped up this month in Katowice, Poland with just enough progress to make the Paris Agreement operational. Yet too few countries stepped up in response to a year of extremes and a slew of reports, all highlighting the widening gap between what science demands and what is actually being acted upon.

What if... the Eurozone became a real transfer union to reduce economic inequality and increasing social unrest between and within Member States? Read our last post on the Reconnecting Europe blog and find more topics that shaped the EU in 2018.

Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders, explains the vision of how to secure the public space of communication.

Generally, the reconciliation processes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in most other Balkan countries seem to retrograde. Economic and political situations are still unstable and a brutal plunder of state and social property left devastating consequences. The EU's interference in the region doesn't help stabilising the 'black mosaic'.

Obviously, the destiny of sustainable transition of Western Balkan and Eastern European economies is above all in control of the respective countries themselves. Still, the EU is in a decisive position to create conditions for a dynamic of change and a successful modernisation.

In the early days of his mandate Erdoğan presented himself as one of the main defenders of women’s rights. However, after 2010 the government focused predominantly on religious themes and defined gender roles more and more traditionally and restrictive. According to surveys, nearly 50% of all Turkish women have experienced domestic violence and the political climate is increasingly discriminating against women.

The Central European University (CEU) announced that it is forced to launch all degree programs in a new location in Vienna in September 2019. The Hungarian Government has made it impossible for the university to ensure its operations in Budapest on the long run.

Every European country has its semi-fictional national story, typically manufactured sometime in the 19th Century by a group of romantic intellectuals keen to impress a sense of cultural pride on their compatriots. In the case of my own country, Britain, that story has been used to devastating effect in recent years to splinter us off from the rest of the EU.

In a Europe threatened with rising nationalism, trans-European media could present an ambitious project to transcend borders and language barriers, connecting citizens. 

While the European Commission is supporting restrictive measures to tackle the spread of false news online, independent and critical media are being left to survive on their own in the face of hostility.