So far, the European Health Union is largely focused on the necessary task of improving health security. A more comprehensive Health Union also needs to consider health promotion. But what does health promotion mean? Is it merely an instrument to nudge individual behaviours, or can it be more than that? A truly health-promoting Union requires […]
Austerity
Last March, Spain and Portugal reached a historic agreement: for the first time ever, two European countries could set a price cap on gas for power generation, for a period of twelve months. A period to seek agreements was opened in both countries, which ended on 9 June, when the European Commission gave the final approval to the mechanism. This undoubtedly proves that the current European Union is very different to the European Union we were living in during the financial crisis of the last decade.
It is now proverbial that the coronavirus recession was better managed from the point of view of macroeconomics than the previous major crisis in Europe: that of the eurozone. Austerity has been by and large avoided, and social cohesion has been better preserved through solidarity at all levels. Where the distinction has to be particularly […]
Europe would never again be the same. The Maastricht Treaty was a watershed event that transformed the lives for 500 million people. Signed thirty years ago, on 7 February 1992, by 12 member states, it opened the doors for enlarging the Union to 27 countries. It has created more economic stability, but left the system […]
Voting is an essential feature of democracy. People’s concerns, expectations and will are expressed and voiced through their votes. The Portuguese people went to the polls on 30 January 2022 and spoke loud and clear: they put their trust and hope in the hands of António Costa and of the Portuguese progressives. The unexpected results […]
The pandemic has reminded the public that the EU relies on migrants to fill so-called ‘low-skilled’ but essential jobs and services in healthcare, food production, childcare, elderly care, and critical utilities. Migrants make up, on average, 13 per cent of the EU’s key workers. This share is almost zero in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, but […]