Weekly opinion articles interpreting current political and social developments in Europe and the wider world from a progressive perspective
Four years have passed already since an informal gathering of European leaders in the Swedish city of Gothenburg proclaimed the “European Pillar of Social Rights”. Some, including leaders of the host country of the 2017 conference, still believe that the EU itself does not need to do much for its actual implementation. The notion that […]
One of the obstacles in tackling gender-based violence is that it is still not fully understood as a societal problem, with a significant part of the European population continuing to believe that it is predominantly a domestic issue. This has a knock-on effect on victims who may either choose to not speak up and report […]
Disappointment is almost inevitable at these meetings. Let’s face it: we will need more than COP meetings to get things done. We need more ambition, credible and concrete transition plans that integrate the multifaceted social dimensions from day one and novel approaches that connect with ordinary citizens and show how climate action will reshape their […]
Digitalisation and climate change are the two global challenges of our time. Megatrends, tasks of a generation, top-level priorities – there is no shortage of buzz words to describe them. The next German government will be judged by how successfully it tackles these two challenges. Germany plans to be climate neutral by 2045. The German […]
The international community seems to be moving towards a historic agreement on the taxation of multinational corporations, hoping to end the race to the bottom by imposing a global minimum tax. At their meeting in Rome, the G20 leaders endorsed the underlying framework created under the auspices of the OECD. The current 100-year-old system was […]
“The Constitutional Tribunal is an integral part of the system which is the rule of law (…) I do not think that anything will stand in the way”, the tragically deceased president of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, symbolic patron of the Law and Justice party (PiS), said in 2006. If only he knew that only a […]
