Articles about:
Citizens
Globalisation has been the whipping boy for all that is going wrong in these times of political uncertainty. In Europe and beyond, too many people feel that greater economic openness and interconnectedness has cost them a lot and brought few rewards. They feel unheard, do not know where to look...
The Social Democratic parties are the leading political force in the fight against the enemies of democracy because the success of a political system is measured by its capacity to meet the expectations of its citizens, by its capacity to improve the living standards of its people. Let there...
After the SPD’s historically low result in the November 2017 federal elections, the German Social Democrats entrusted the analysis of the defeat to a commission of 5 experts, who presented their more than 100 pages strong report Aus Fehlern lernen (‘learning from errors’) to the public in June 2018. Amongst...
My mother, a refugee. Should the judgement of a crowd prevail once again? A few weeks ago while I was in Vienna for a series of meetings with European health Ministers, I visited an exhibition in Vienna’s city museum called: “What Remains: Traces of Refugees” and where objects of...
In the federal election of 2017, German citizens refused in numbers to follow the governmental narrative of the need to open up EU and German borders to refugees. While an open migration policy was officially maintained, radical populism with xenophobic undertones becomes a constant pattern of domestic politics and electoral...
In its inability to find a shared strategy to confront the problem of immigration, Europe is experiencing an extremely worrisome crisis. The reaction of fear and insecurity brings the continent’s inhabitants is putting our national and European institutions at risk and bringing to the political stage xenophobic, sovereigntist, and populist...
Interview by Alain Bloëdt editor-in-chief of the Progressive Post with the Mayor of Brussels Philippe Close The Progressive Post: How do you explain the increase in public trust in local politics vis a vis national politics? Philippe Close: The question is difficult to answer in a country like Belgium...
The European Commission has been spurred into action and published proposals on a so-called “European Pillar of Social Rights”, as well as a discussion piece on possible scenarios for the EU’s future. Laudable attempts to launch a broad and all-encompassing debate on where we want this Union to go. The...
Citizens of Catalonia, We are here because we have summoned ourselves to defend coexistence, pluralism and solidarity. And we must defend them. Because coexistence has been ruptured in this country. And we need to rebuild it. Political pluralism must be defended because it is not being recognised. When a...
