Katoikos World, autor en Katoikos

Europe was built on political courage

Every year, the 9th of May is celebrated across Europe by young and old, by cities and schools, by Europeans and by their non-European friends. They organize competitions, concerts, flash mobs, or activities with a more educational component such as identifying EU member states on a map or associating them with their national flags. Europe Day plays the role of a unifying European symbol, but it is also an important historic day that teaches the lesson of political foresight. On this day, 65 years ago, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman gathered international correspondents at Quai d’Orsay on the shores of river Seine to announce his famous Declaration, which would lay down the European Union’s foundations.

Echoes of 1992 in the UK (or, Reasons to be Cheerful for the UK Left)

By David Yarrow

The polls got it wrong – support for the Conservative Party was under-reported. The election produced a slim Tory majority. This majority was delivered by a moderate leader much closer to the centre ground than his backbenchers. Britain’s relationship with Europe subsequently becomes the defining issue of the Parliament, bitterly dividing the right. And five years down the road the Conservatives suffer their biggest electoral defeat since 1945. This is a description of the 1992 United Kingdom general election, but it could well prove a fairly good approximation of the outcome of the 2015 election too.

UK: Tories get absolute majority

Big win for UK Prime Minister David Cameron. His Conservative Party controls 331 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons and can govern on its own. Huge losses for the former government coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, and disappointing results for Labour. The Scottish Nationalists establish unquestionable predominance North of “the Border”. UKIP hopes do…

The EU’s migration challenge

The recent tragedies in the Mediterranean, with the loss in a few days of hundreds of lives of people desperately trying to reach the EU shores, brought starkly to the fore the issue of migration, both of the asylum-seeking and the economic kind. In a typical fashion, EU ministers and heads of government reacted with half-baked measures, trying to respond to the emergency at hand but failing to put forward a comprehensive strategy or vision for addressing the issue and its root causes in the long run.

EU’s Migration Stragedy…

It is not a misspelling; “stragedy” is a new word we are coining to describe what is happening with the EU and its migration strategy, which is failing to prevent more and more tragedies in the Mediterranean… In the latest news, some 700 people are feared dead after a boat that was carrying them capsized in Libyan…

Understanding Romania’s anticorruption hunt

By Vlad Stoicescu

To get a glimpse of what is happening one should understand first the legal mechanisms that put in motion Romania’s anti-corruption framework. The National Anticorruption Directorate was set up in 2002. Back then it was a step towards judicial reform and compliance with European standards in a period in which Bucharest was negotiating the country’s accession to the EU. For a couple of years it was just a “showcase institution”, formally highlighting the political will to combat Romania’s pervasive corruption.

Historic nuclear deal with Iran

Talks between the “six powers” (US, Russia, China, UK, France, Germany plus the EU) and Iran successfully concluded in Lausanne, Switzerland with agreement on key parameters to draft a of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to be drafted by 30 June 2015. Joint Statement by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad…

France – Germany announce Federation

Katoikos.eu EXCLUSIVE! At the joint Franco-German cabinet meeting in Berlin on 31 March 2015, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande announced concrete steps for the establishment of a Franco-German Federation at the heart of Europe. This will be the catalyst for an eventual United States of Europe to replace the EU in the coming years. The…

Strange EU member silence on Yemen

As the Saudi-led air strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen were starting on 26 March 2015, Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, issued a statement saying that she was convinced that military action was not a solution. Did anybody listen? Apparently not the UK and France, who along with the US are providing support to the Saudi-led coalition. In view, though, of the risks and inconsistencies involved, Europe should be taking the lead in bringing armed hostilities to a halt and convening the international community and the Yemeni parties for immediate negotiations within fair parameters.

More democracy, not technocracy, Mr. Draghi

By Clément Fontan

On 16 March 2015, ECB chairman Mario Draghi delivered a speech at the Süddeutsche Zeitung Finance Day. Eurozone economic governance reforms were the topic of the day. The structural reforms proposed by Mr. Draghi are ideologically loaded and the creation of new institutions might worsen the democratic troubles in Europe rather than solve them. The ECB and other EU institutions have already been exploiting the financial crisis as an opportunity to implement structural reforms in a coercive manner for more than four years. The results have been worrying, to say the least.