Give no respect, get no money. This seems to be the new and strongest stance so far adopted by EU institutions in the face of countries violating the rule of law. Yet, is this a true commitment or mere window dressing? It would appear that, in the hierarchy of EU issues, rule-of-law violations have been put aside by the Covid-19 pandemic, the following economic downturn and the impending climate crisis. […]
The European Citizens’ Initiatives is an instrument of participatory democracy that European citizens can use to submit a proposal to the Commission. In particular, the initiative named “We are a welcoming Europe, let us help” has been submitted by European citizens with the goal of asking the European Commission for a common and more comprehensive European law on immigration. […]
In 2007 Ethiopia launched the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” [GERD], a $4.5 billion project. Once completed, the project is supposed to be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa and the seventh largest in the world. With construction work almost completed, on 07th July 2020, the water reservoir was scheduled to start. […]
Some experts argue that European governments have played a central role in framing refugees’ and migrants’ arrivals to European countries as a crisis. This framing of the topic has often grabbed the headlines. This framing is strategically used by several right-wing parties to foster a stigmatized categorization of migrants […]
The new decade emerged with biblical proportions: fires swept across Australia, record breaking storms blew through Europe, swarms of locusts decimated crops in Africa, and now, a pandemic has plunged the world into the worst global recession since WWII. Unequivocally, the severity of these events was further mitigated by effects of climate change and human destruction of habitat. […]
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to unearth the fault lines in our global security, and not only in the countries already grappling with preexisting conditions. The security threats between nations are taking center stage as the world struggles to adapt to the new normal, causing mass instability in countries that until now did not appear wrought with fragility. […]
The collapse of Iceland’s banking system began the European sovereign debt crisis of 2008, which peaked in 2010 and continued till late 2012. This crisis caused significant political turmoil and an enormous economic recession within the European Union. The eurozone crisis of 2008 also initiated the debate on the issuance of bonds without borders called “Eurobonds”. […]
The impact of a Union-State between Russia and Belarus may not seem all that significant to Europeans at first glance. However, the secondary and tertiary effects could completely change the security dynamic on the Eastern flank of the EU – all of which are members of NATO. […]
Since taking office in December 2019, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen set out an ambitious programme to decarbonize the European Union: the European Green Deal (EGD). Presented on the 11th of December 2019, the EGD envisions a climate-neutral European Union by 2050 […]
Most Member States are experiencing migratory phenomena and are confronted with integration challenges. Today, there are around 22 million third country nationals legally residing in the EU. Evidence shows that they tend to be to disproportionally affected by unfavourable outcomes in terms of education, employment and access to basic services. […]