Marie Vincent

How can the trend of “Euro-estrangement” that seems to be affecting most citizens today be reversed? For all the progress achieved with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, European decision-making has appeared ever more obscure, with a confusion of roles between the Presidents of the European Council and Commission, a chaotic start [...]

Article by Mircea Cărtărescu published on Press Europe, 28 August 2011
In recent weeks, Romanian President Traian Băsescu has repeatedly spoken of the need to create a United States of Europe: an initiative that will only be possible if participating countries agree, in a context of economic and financial necessity prompted by the ongoing crisis, that they [...]

Article by James Petras published on Eurasia Review on August 28, 2011

The deepening economic crises in Europe and the United States are provoking contrasting socio-political responses from the working and middle classes. In Europe, especially among the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy) unemployed youth, workers and lower middle class public employees have organized [...]

Article by Judy Dempsey  published on The New York Times, 22 August 2011

BERLIN — When the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas says something about Europe and his country, Germans take special note. As a passionate European with a big following in the United States, Mr. Habermas, 82, comments when he senses that things are going very wrong.
So [...]

Article by Paul Hannon published on The Wall Street Journal, 23 August 2011

If German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy get their way—and they almost always do—the 17 nations that use the euro will more closely coordinate their economic policies, and in particular their budgets.
This is a long overdue effort to mirror and [...]

Article by  Ulrike Guérot punlished on ECFR’s blog , 19 August 2011

George Soros wrote in Handelsblatt this week that the fate of Europe depends on Germany.That sentence resonates heavily if you are a German. Yet the political willingness of Germany to boost the economic integration of Europe through the introduction of Eurobonds also depends on the good [...]

EUI Working Paper MWP 2011/16 by Kyriaki Nanou
It is commonplace to assume that what determines the coverage of issues in parties’ political agendas are domestic factors such as their own issue priorities and those of their political rivals, the attention devoted by the mass media and the importance of issues to the wider electorate. However, [...]

Review by Tony Barber  published on the Financial Times, 19 August 2011 
Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe, by Jan-Werner Müller, Yale University Press,  304 pages

Before the first world war large numbers of Europeans had a fundamentally optimistic outlook on life. It seemed that they lived in a golden age of imperial prestige, rising prosperity and [...]

Yuksel Alper Ecevit

‘Who has the right to vote?’ is an essential question for democracy. The history of democratic regimes provides a complexity. Gender, class, age and citizenship status have been the primary barriers for voting qualification over time across regions. Suffragist movements seem to have partially succeeded in abolishing these barriers. However, increasing mobility [...]

Article by James Jupp published on August 2, 2011 on The Conversation.
The recent massacres by Anders Breivik in Norway drew the attention of the world to a growing reactionary element in Europe who resent the three Ms – Muslims, multiculturalism and Marxism.
So how do these attacks relate to multiculturalism in Europe? If multiculturalism is deemed [...]