On Sunday, October 4th, Portugal had national elections. Seventeen parties entered the fight. Following the social crisis outcry, expectations and predictions reflected the general sentiment that the Socialists would be the next winners. How can we explain, then, that the voters rewarded the parties (PSD and CDS) that had made their lives so miserable with austerity measures?
The last world survey on the strength of democracy went totally ignored, except for the New York Times, which did publish a special report. And yet the World Values Survey, a respected research association with the United Nations, conducted the survey and the data of the 2015 survey are extremely worrying.
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…
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.
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.
Por Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde
Why is the strategy against Jihadist terrorism failing? A review of the major mistakes being made.
Neither does the West speak with one voice nor is radical Islam a monolithic movement. Consequently, there cannot be only one single interpretation of the interaction between the two players.
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.
The Greek crisis has considerably widened the gap between the EU Member States and this is likely to continue. As was stressed after the bitter “commitment” on the morning of 13 July, only France and Italy, as well as Cyprus, strove to “save Greece”, preventing the “Grexit” which Germany and others, possibly fed up with endless European summits, more or less openly encouraged. The cracks are not, therefore, only “north-south” or “east-west”, but also dangerously affect the fundamental basis of the EU itself.
Europe and Germany cannot be an island of contentment, because cross-border crises do not simply disappear by building walls, looking away and failing to act.
By Alicia Cebada Romero
The European Union (EU) has got it wrong in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and in the face of evidence that the police and the army continue to commit serious abuses and violations of human rights, it has decided to radically change its involvement to now implement reform of the country’s security sector.
