While Greece continues to give nightmares to both European politicians and public, Portugal appears to have emerged from the worst difficulties in recent years and have swallowed the Troika’s bitter pill with prospects of soon overcoming its serious economic crisis. Its political leaders do not cease to emphasize that they have successfully…
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…
World’s export champion Germany knew but did nothing to question the integrity of one of their biggest producers. The revelations cast a dark shadow on the entire auto industry. What is worse, Germany-led Europe in its entirety now appears shrouded in a foul smell. The Union that seemed the bastion of environmentalism and of regulations protecting the rights and health of consumers is now being openly ridiculed by US neoliberals in the media.
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…
The current refugee crisis facing Europe has proven to be more than just a humanitarian tragedy; it has become a huge test for the EU’s capability in dealing with such crises.
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.
The refugee crisis is holding up a mirror to the European Union which reflects a troubling image— an image that cannot be talked away by morality rhetoric. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” famously claimed the Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke.
