debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Out of all the visits to my homeland during the crisis, the trip at the end of summer of 2011 was the one that gave me the sense that Greece’s social fabric was close to tearing point. In June of that summer, the protests of thousands of Greeks outside Parliament were met with extensive repression [...]
Excessive social imbalances in the EU are a matter of common concern and imply reciprocity in reform. The EU decided to apply a strict surveillance mechanism to fight excessive macroeconomic imbalances. However, Europe is also characterized by excessive social imbalances: social problems that affect Member States very differently and create a pattern of divergence. These [...]
The United States Supreme Court recently began deliberations in a case that highlights a deeply problematic issue concerning intellectual-property rights. The Court must answer the following question: Can human genes – your genes – be patented? Put another way, should someone essentially be permitted to own the right, say, to test whether you have a set of genes that imply a [...]
The downfall of communism in Poland cried for the rebirth of entrepreneurship, believed to be one of the tools for rebuilding civil society. With time passing by faith in entrepreneurship has brought it to schools as a subject taught to young people on the threshold of adulthood. Accession to the EU mainstreamed the term, which [...]
This is so absolutely brilliant and important: “One thing that experts know, and that non-experts do not, is that they know less than non-experts think they do.” It comes from Kaushik Basu, currently chief economist at the World Bank and one of the world’s most thoughtful expert-economists. Economists would be so much more honest (with themselves [...]
Ireland’s economic crisis has its roots in a housing bubble that collapsed in 2007. Commentators have pointed to a number of bankers, politicians, developers and builders who share part of the responsibility for the orgy of lending and borrowing that preceded the crash, but the key role of the media has not yet been systematically [...]
We all know that global wealth in very unequally distributed but it is really difficult to show HOW unequal the planet we live on is and why this cannot be sustainable. In the video below, the campaigning group The Rules does a very good job in doing just this.
The biggest economic debate is between Keynesians (who want more government spending and lower interest rates in order to fuel demand) and supply-side “austerics” (who want lower taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to boost incentives to hire and invest, and who see government deficits crowding out private investment). But both approaches have problems. [...]
A recent ECB household-wealth survey was interpreted by the media as evidence that poor Germans shouldn’t have to pay for southern Europe. This column takes a look at the numbers. Whilst it’s true that median German households are poor compared to their southern European counterparts, Germany itself is wealthy. Importantly, this wealth is very unequally [...]
Last week the ECB published a report containing an incredible revelation: Cypriot and Spanish households are wealthier than German households.[1] How is this possible? We are dealing with an accounting fiction. Spain and Cyprus have a much higher rate of home ownership than Germany, and most household wealth consists of real estate. Both countries saw [...]
ECFR’s Europe at the crossroads project aims at examining the state of the debate on the euro crisis and the future of the UK’s relationship with Europe. This is a guest blog post by John Palmer, the former European Editor of The Guardian and founder of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. The British capacity to be unhappy [...]
According to new research undertaken by the Open Society Foundations there still is: Despite the different challenges facing European nations, the large majority of Europeans believe that standing in solidarity and working together is the best way of getting out of the current crises facing the continent. Two thirds (67 percent) of Europeans surveyed say [...]
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