The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has rejected a proposal by the Commission which gives Member States the power to restrict or prohibit imported genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), and asked the Commission to drop the plan altogether. For the time being, the plan already enjoys the support of fourteen nations which have rejected GMOs…
By Deniz Torcu
When I was working for a UNESCO Commission in Turkey a couple of years ago, we had started receiving dozens of phone calls from the Southern Turkish border with Syria, from refugees desperately trying to get in touch with some authority that could help them get settled in a camp or help them get to the EU
By David Yarrow and Sean McDaniel
Jeremy Corbyn, a rebellious left-wing MP who remained on the fringes of the UK’s Labour Party for over thirty years, has stormed onto the political scene and won the party’s recent election by a landslide. Winning an enormous 59.5% of the vote in a four-way contest, Corbyn’s victory gives him an unprecedented mandate from the Labour Party’s members and affiliated supporters.
By Deniz Torcu
Hosting nearly 2 million Syrian refugees and serving as the crossing point into the European Union for many other hundreds of thousands, with unfortunate tragedies occurring on a daily basis, Turkey’s domestic unrest has been out of the spotlight for the past few weeks. Recently, the conflict with the PKK has brought Turkey’s domestic situation back to the spotlight, namely in the city of Cizre in recent days. As strategically important as ever, the current disarray in the country is even more relevant to the rest of the European Union. In the general elections earlier this June, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was dealt some harsh blows. Having lost the absolute…
By Sara Vilà Galan.
Our political stream combines different leftist parties, such as ICV, EUiA, Podem i Equo and many independents who come from a background of social struggle throughout Catalonia.
By Pau Guix.
To talk about Catalonia today is, unfortunately, to talk about nationalism. And to talk about Catalan nationalism is to talk about manipulation, indoctrination and propaganda. Talking of nationalism is talking of feelings not reason, because there are no objective historical, economic or social arguments that could underpin this ideology. Talking of nationalism is talking about those who have taken their authority…
By Oriol Martínez
The Catalonian process towards independence has come of age with the elections this Sunday. Given Madrid’s repeated prohibition over agreeing to a referendum, and even though these are official elections for the Catalonian parliament, they have been interpreted as a de facto plebiscite by a majority of players: the seven parties with a right to representation, the media, political circles in Madrid, and the international press.
By Juan Milián Querol
Feelings can be respected but not lies or manipulating reality. The spectre of populism has swept across Europe over these years of economic crisis, adapting in each region to its particular cultural background in order to identify an enemy and promise its own particular paradise. In some countries populism blames the European Union itself for all its ills; in others, immigrants; and in others, the southern regions. Some of that is happening now in Catalonia, where independence-based populism has kidnapped classic Catalanism (regenerationist, but not separatist) to make social suffering its electoral business.
Ce lundi (7/09) les producteurs de lait étaient en colère et l’ont clairement démontré dans le quartier européen, à Bruxelles. Au même moment les ministres de l’Agriculture se réunissaient en conseil extraordinaire pour décider du futur de la production laitière européenne. Selon Véronique Lefolch, présidente de l’Organisation des Producteurs Laitiers, section laitière de la Coordination Rurale, vu les profits des industriels, le lait pourrait arriver quasiment gratuitement dans les supermarchés.
By Christos Mouzeviris
For the past few weeks we have witnessed an unprecedented humanitarian crisis overwhelming Europe. Thousands of refugees are arriving wave upon wave on European shores in the Mediterranean. People fleeing from war torn regions, mainly from the Middle East, are trying to find shelter in rich European nations. For these migrants, it is either flee or die. Their sheer numbers are challenging our continent’s ability to respond, plus it poses a hot topic for a debate.
