From imperial paternalism to genuine partnership
Europe’s relations with Africa and Asia are on the brink of collapse, and Russia is benefiting.
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.
Why is France unable to reach social compromises?
With a tenth general strike in France against the pension reform, an exit is needed from decrees and street clashes towards negotiated governance.
Suave Sunak cold comfort for impoverished Britons
Real incomes have been ravaged in the UK, Paul Mason writes. That’s why the strikes are popular.
Hungary’s ‘propaganda machine’ attacks women
Report highlights gendered disinformation online and calls for women-centred reform of ‘social media’ platforms.
Checking the populist tide—for now
Can the Czech Republic keep bucking the populist trend in central Europe affecting Poland, Slovakia and Hungary?
Moldova first domino in a Russian plan for escalation?
Events in Georgia represent a setback for Russia's meddling in the post-Soviet neighbourhood. But they are no sign it will end.
Disaster in Greece: when politics goes off the rails
The government’s efforts to deflect responsibility for the train disaster have failed to contain public outrage.
Germany trapped in an unavoidable change
Germany has made significant strides to transcend ordoliberal nostra. But huge obstacles still stand in the way of progress.
A conjured-up polarisation endangers democracy
European societies are less polarised than in the United States—and than we are led to believe.
Consultants and the crisis of capitalism
Growing reliance on big consultancies is stunting state capacity and undermining democratic accountability.
When radical zealotry meets the polarising populists
Some activist-scholars, Eszter Kováts writes, have turned social justice into a latter-day religion, with perverse effects.
How Putin’s narratives have survived reality checks
Over 12 months of conflict, the Kremlin has relied on its tried and tested disinformation playbook.
The only way to end the war
The EU must not only ensure that Ukraine can attain a just and lasting peace but support the embedding of universal norms.
The European Union at war
How can a civilian power such as the EU, Jan Zielonka asks, contend with uncivilised behaviour?
Asylum: the EU’s misplaced moral compass
The measures taken by the EU on asylum should be guided by a lawful and sincere humanitarianism.
‘You mean the prison?’: displaced people on Samos
The warehousing of asylum-seekers behind barbed wire encapsulates where ‘protecting borders’ leads.
Belarusian trade unionists take refuge in Germany
Exiled trade unionists continue their work, hoping to return to Belarus one day to rebuild their society.