Articles

The European Commission's Fit-for-55 package proposal to go to 100% zero emission car sales from 2035 shows a serious commitment for reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, and will put European industry in the driving seat to dominate the new global electric vehicle (EV) market. While this move could democratise the purchase of EVs, policy-makers need to take a small extra step to ensure early build up of EVs to drive cost reductions and fully guarantee that chargers are available in the right locations.

Ros Taylor presents a critique of the new law that allows the English police to crack down on protest and seize the vehicles of Roma, Gypsies and Travellers who stop on private ground. The public do not seem to be particularly bothered – though that may change as the scope of the legislation becomes apparent.

In her 2021 State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appealed to Europe’s soul, which, she said, has been tested to the core in times of multiple crises. The team of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union did its own soul-searching, pointing at the good, the not-so-good and the missing in von der Leyen’s speech.

While the EU's Fit-for-55 Package includes many important files, the European Commission postponed legislation on methane a particularly potent greenhouse gas to December 2021. This article summarises the issues at stake and argues that without stringent regulation on this gas, the Fit-for-55 Package will fail to reach climate goals.

Those most affected by the negative consequences of large-scale industrialized food production must play a vital part in discussing how to transform it. The world therefore needs a people’s Food Systems Summit that aims to end hunger and malnutrition, protect ecosystems, and provide small farmers with a decent livelihood.

In regulating online spaces, if we treat the problems of harmful content as separate from the problems of harmful systems, we risk not solving either. Addressing disinformation and online violence against women requires a holistic regulatory response. 

In the run-up to the German federal election of 26 September 2021 (BTW21), we take a look at the nuts and bolts of the German political and electoral system.

The proposal for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is likely the most contentious element of the Fit for 55 package, with significant ramifications not only internally in the EU but beyond its borders. It is a long-discussed idea whose time has finally come as part of European Commission President von der Leyen’s European Green Deal grand bargain.

Tax systems across the EU are currently neither fair nor green. The burden of taxation has been steadily shifting in recent decades from corporate profits and personal wealth to labour income, especially of lower-income earners, helping to drive growing inequality across the EU. And with men disproportionately represented among the EU’s wealthiest citizens, the system helps underpin gender inequality too.

From Sweden to Mexico, an avant-garde of countries is pioneering feminist foreign policy. The European Union has made progress in promoting gender equality in its external action, but much remains to be done before it will deliver structural change. Juliane Schmidt calls for a green feminist foreign policy rooted in intersectionality that will enable the EU to live up to its values of freedom and equality.