Dialogue

“Elections and democracy: one and the same thing?”

By Jasmina Dimitrieva

Are elections and democracy one and the same thing? Not only voters, but also elected officials sometimes confuse democracy with elections. Such mental attitude sees the internationally guaranteed right to public participation in decision-making reduced to elections. The inherent risk is that public participation in the formulation and implementation of public polices for common good, as enunciated in the constitutions of Europe, remains a philosophical concept, with the elections as a sole manifestation of democracy on the physical plan. While looking at the other side of the coin, it seems beyond imagination nowadays to have in place a democratic system of governance without first holding elections, and without a meaningful parliamentary opposition.

Modernizing Greece: which structural reforms?

Greece’s problem is not a lack of liberalization, deregulation and privatizations but rather the weakness of its public institutions, underpinned by a chronic revenue shortage. In effect, you may liberalize and deregulate as much as you want but this is not going to make things better for Greece. A progressive agenda aiming to cure the Greek malaise would have to address the competitiveness deficit, low productivity, an overextended and inefficient public sector, an unjust tax system and a couple more core challenges…

Jamie Dornan eats himself

During The Graham Norton Show, Fifty Shades of Grey star, Jamie Dornan, ate a part of himself… No need to read it again. The Irish actor tasted a part of his real-life size Christian Grey cake. The baker, who was sitting in the audience, couldn’t resist laughing at what she was witnessing. Jamie said he…

Four things to know about Podemos

1. Podemos has become the preferred political option in Spain.
Podemos (“We can”) is the only party in recent history to rise at the top of national electorate preferences in less than a year. If elections were held in Spain tomorrow, Podemos would win a decent, although probably not absolute majority in the country’s parliament (a poll published in January by EL País ranked Podemos first, with 28% of the vote). The party was officially founded in 2014, and was born out of the Indignados movement, an heterogeneous platform created in Spain in 2012 to lead protests against the established political system. In less than a year, Podemos gained over 300,000 members and the potential support of almost 3.5 million voters through the set-up of an Internet-based network. The party already won five seats out of Spain’s 54 in the European Parliament at the May 2014 elections.

Stereotypes

By Driss
from Casablanca, Morocco
Usually, when we go to a country for an Erasmus, we arrive with our very own bundle of stereotypes, and sometimes, if not often, we take them back with us…
At the end, the only way to leave your bundle beside the road is to keep your experience forever with you, no matter where you are, and this is not the task of your memory, but that of your friends, and that’s what Erasmus is all about.

Interview with Yves Pascouau

“If you give people more opportunities to move, then you decrease the pressure on irregular migration”.
Yves Pascouau is Director of Migration and Mobility Policies at the European Policy Centre. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Pau in France and he worked extensively on migration management. Beside his current position at EPC, he is the editor of the online legal website European Migration Law www.europeanmigrationlaw.eu.

 

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