debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Europe returns from the summer vacation and a busy schedule starts in Brussels. The most important issue is the election of the President of the next Commission: who will it be and how will he be appointed? The two questions are, of course, related. For the moment only the incumbent José Manuel Barroso is an [...]
Social democracy, in any meaningful sense of the word, has been in crisis for decades. Even amongst the Nordics the game for years has been accommodation to capital and not leadership of it. In the immediate post-war years social democracy set the agenda, next came a period of capital accommodating itself to our social agenda [...]
The FSA Chairman Lord Turner has fuelled the debate about how to deal with the City of London and its financial services industry in an interview with Prospect Magazine. City figures and London mayor Boris Johnson are hitting back. One of the ideas Turner floated is a Tobin tax on financial transactions. I thought it [...]
On Sunday, there are state elections (Landtagswahlen) in the German state I grew up in (Saarland). And there is currently a big row about the governing Christian Democrats (CDU) using the ballot paper for stealth campaigning. The background: It is almost certain that the CDU will lose their absolute majority and there is a neck [...]
As I write this post the convicted Lockerbie bomber Al-Megrahi is boarding a plane at Glasgow airport that will take him back to his native country Lybia. Earlier today he was released by the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. MacAskill issued the following statement: “Scotland will forever remember the crime that has been perpetrated against our [...]
Euractiv reports about the political struggle in Iceland of how to deal with the country’s overwhelming exposure to the financial crisis and its debt to the UK and the Netherlands in particular: The plan calls for Iceland to make payments over 15 years, with an initial 7-year grace period. Some 2.3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) [...]
It might well be that e-government will get an additional meaning very soon. If this happens the word would not just describe how we use technology for government purposes but also how we govern technology. There are currently issues cropping up all over Europe and the traditional theoretical foundations of political parties do not provide [...]
I know a few of my fellow bloggers here on SEJ are preparing posts on the frankly ridiculous debate about health care in the US. Especially the attacks on the British NHS are just nuts. Even though it is certainly not a perfect system it is miles ahead of what is the current state of [...]
In the silly season, when not much is going on in day-to-day politics, you get the time to think ahead and ponder what might happen in the second half of the year. What I have been wondering about recently is what is going to happen with the Party of European Socialists (PES). If I am [...]
My colleague Maurice Glasman has written an article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free on behalf of London Citizens about the new anti-usury campaign that is trying to stop lending at irresponsible interest rates: “Following the financial crash of last year, a new issue emerged and a new campaign was forged. Our members experienced an [...]
I am making a bit of a habit now of writing the ‘News behind the News’ in reaction to articles in the mainstream media. Here comes another one! The current issue of the Economist includes an article on Germany’s unbalanced economy. The article contains several good points but leaves some other crucial connections unmentioned. Apart [...]
SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Kenya, Oil and Populism: Learning from Germany http://t.co/7lQ1UfWb SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: European Monetary Union: Doomed to fail or just another Stepping Stone? http://t.co/pMuqDvkA SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: German State Elections send Merkel an Economic Message http://t.co/yVG4Xr5n SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Public Finances in France: There are Alternatives (TAA not TINA) http://t.co/B0QL31d1 SocialEurope Journal: New column: "Finding a Way out of the Crisis – Growth and Employment in Europe" by Sigmar… http://t.co/OOskY0EH SocialEurope Journal: SEJ Article: Creating Jobs in recession-hit Communities in Europe: Why Microcredit will not help http://t.co/zJb4XxJl SocialEurope Journal: New column: "European Monetary Union: Doomed to fail or just another Stepping Stone?" by Tom… http://t.co/MeegaiJR 
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