Poland’s historic election: democracy won
With the progressive bloc likely to replace the populists in power, the relics of the latter and a polarised society will remain challenging.
Politics
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on political issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
Israel-Palestine: a comparative perspective
An enduring refugee crisis, the conflict is unlike any similar episode from World War II and its aftermath.
Drawing the consequences from the Várhelyi affair
The European commissioner’s announcement of discontinuation of aid to Palestine, though countermanded, was hugely damaging.
‘Trigger points’ and the polarisation entrepreneurs
Progressives, Eszter Kováts writes, need to avoid the trap of a politics which only knows friends and foes.
Elections in Germany: the far right and the firewall
The Christian Democrats must not learn the wrong lessons from two state elections by adopting the rhetoric of the far right.
On the road to (no)where? The SDGs at half-time
In 2015 the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 but real change demands a green social contract.
Slovakia: could this be Fico’s last hurrah?
The populist’s party topped the poll once more in the elections in Slovakia. Yet green political shoots emerged too.
Nagorno-Karabakh: it’s not over yet
The EU should have seen this crisis coming and deployed sanctions against its 'reliable energy partner'.
Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishing
In the Ukraine war, mixed signals among Kyiv’s allies in Europe and the United States hint at growing conflict fatigue.
Social democracy versus the nativist right
If progressives are to defeat the populists, Jan Zielonka writes, they must offer a vision beyond the nation-state.
Ukraine: journalists in Russia’s sights
Reports suggest that Russia has been deliberately targeting journalists in Ukraine—which is a war crime.
EU enlargement—back to the future
How the European Union failed to deal with the collapse of Yugoslavia has lessons for the imperative of enlargement today.
Ursula von der Leyen—the accidental president
The State of the European Union address reflected a union buffeted by a series of crises.
Exchanging glances: Serbia seduces illiberal America
The government of Aleksandar Vučić is trying to clean up its image, Lily Lynch writes—without having to clean up its act.
Russia is winning the information war
In Europe the struggle by Ukraine has largely been seen as a defence of universal norms. But around the world that is far from universal.
Lachin corridor needs more than EU tunnel vision
If Europe does not wake up to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, it could be complicit in genocide.
Olaf Scholz, the improbable role model
A state that protects—and a bulwark for democracy and modernity. Is this, Robert Misik asks, the new paradigm of the democratic left?