Social Europe articles on politics

The European Union has just had a taste of Polish politics. The country’s internal political divisions burst onto the European scene, when the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) attempted to block the re-election of its compatriot Donald Tusk as President of the European Council. The Polish government not only failed in this endeavour, but […]

Henrik Enderlein has granted me the privilege of making a couple of introductory remarks on the topic of the conversation between our illustrious guest Emmanuel Macron and Sigmar Gabriel, our Foreign Minister who recently rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Both men’s names are associated with courageous responses to a challenging situation. Emmanuel Macron […]

With ongoing hyper-globalisation, but especially since the beginning of Europe’s migration crisis, European society as a whole, including the Left, has seen the emergence of two extreme camps engaging in a philosophical trench warfare. The ultra-liberals and the ultra-conservatives. Socialist concerns have been suppressed. And that is a mistake. A culture war has erupted in […]

Large parts of the western working class now seem to congregate around right-wing populists, demagogues and racists. They vote for reactionary and fascistic political parties. They helped to vote the UK out of the EU, to make Trump US president, and they give such massive backing to far-right political parties that these have power in […]

The European Commission’s White Book on the future of Europe provides a modest and confused contribution to the discussion which should lead to the Statement of Rome on 25 March. Modest because there is no serious reflection on the causes of the European crisis, a crisis which has even led to the secession of an […]

The European Union  is in deep need of a restructuring. The EU is either reconstructed – or the crisis continues. EU will not, however, collapse; it will probably, on the other hand, lose decision-making power and support. The reconstruction concerns the nature of the EU: its form (flexibility), its content (“de-federalisation”), and its actors’ attitude […]

The conclusions of the informal Valetta Summit on 3 February reaffirmed the EU’s move toward a ‘real’ fortress Europe. The focus of the meeting was on a new third country agreement with Libya that would strengthen the Libyan coastguard’s ability to police its borders and combat people smuggling. EU governments, which see the Central Mediterranean […]

The European Commission’s new white paper ‘On the Future of Europe’ recognises how serious the EU’s crisis of legitimacy is. Perhaps for the first time from the Commission itself, there is an acknowledgement that the Union faces a number of options for its future, not merely involving greater integration but potentially a reigning in of regulatory competences […]

In the wake of the Brexit referendum and with the Greek government once more facing the possibility of a forced Grexit, the limitations of EU governance loom large. Rather than bidding Britain a sad and reluctant adieu, “wayward sister go in peace”, some EU leaders seem intent on making the separation as expensive and unpleasant […]