The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union thanks all young bloggers who participated in the 2016 version of the blog ‘Young Voices of Europe’. The blog ‘Young Voices of Europe’ has (temporarily) ceased its activities.
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CC-BY-NC-ND Bearman2007 (FLICKR)
The Question of Free Speech Is Back on the Agenda
For our Swedish friends Blå Ögon (Blue Eyes) is probably old news, but the TV drama has just reached the UK’s Channel Four as the latest serving of ‘Scandi noir’ for British viewers. Set in a slightly reimagined version of present-day Sweden, the series follows an election campaign closely fought between the ruling Labour Party […]
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CC-BY Thomas Galvez (FLICKR)
Without a Political Alternative, the Panama Papers Change Nothing
Marx himself could not have written it: a secretive law firm, headquartered in a tiny Central American country, whose sole raison d’être is to help the world’s super-rich and super-powerful circumvent democratic oversight of their activities. Amongst Mossack Fonseca’s clients are several prominent Western politicians, the hit man cousin of Syria’s President Assad and the […]
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CC-BY-SA William Murphy (FLICKR)
The New Right and its Economic Policy – not so Right After All
The success of the parties of the New Right all across Europe in recent years has largely been ascribed to their strong anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric. With the current salience of immigration policy and the resulting momentum for inward-looking policies, this explanation certainly springs to mind. But the New Right challenges the political mainstream on […]
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CC-BY-SA Valentina Calà (FLICKR)
After Brussels: We Must Not Turn the Terrorist Threat into a ‘National Question’
At first, I just wanted to get out of Brussels as quickly as possible and never look back. The dreadful attacks at Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek metro station had filled me with deep sorrow and concern. So intense was my immediate reaction that my decision seemed to be final, irrevocable. Finding myself at the time […]
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CC-BY Jean Rebiffé (FLICKR)
Why the Brussels Attacks Call for More Europe
As every European, I am deeply shocked about the Brussels terror attacks that struck at the heart of Europe last Tuesday. This first major attack on European ground in 2016 and one of the sadly already numerous attacks worldwide this year has affected me all the more, as it’s not so long ago that I […]
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CC-BY-SA Miguel Discart (FLICKR)
After Brussels, We Must Be Vigilant of Our Liberty as Well as Our Security
It did not take long for the Eurosceptic Right to bend the tragic attacks on Brussels to its own advantage. Here in Britain, UKIP leader Nigel Farage came under fire from multiple sources after he referred to the Belgian capital as the ‘jihadi capital of Europe’ and the Schengen Agreement, which has eradicated border-checks between […]
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BY_NC info image seek (FLICKR)
Nationalism Needs More than Breaking down – It Needs Dissolving
In Response to ‘Breaking down the Term Nationalism‘ by Andreas Dafnos Last week, Andreas posted an article arguing that the blanket condemnation of nationalism found in pro-European thought is too heavy-handed. Instead, we should draw a distinction between an exclusionary holistic form of nationalism and an inclusionary liberal form. The former is expressed most clearly […]
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CC-BY-NC-ND thesaltr (FLICKR)
Reflex-Based Politics is Bad Politics
Do you know who is Prime Minister of the State Saxony? Probably not. Stanislaw Tillich was fairly unknown outside Germany until recently, and even within Germany very few people had ever heard of him. Saxony has recently hit the headlines as being a hotspot for German xenophobia with the highest number of xenophobic attacks on […]
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BY-NC-ND Carlo Pedersoli (FLICKR)
Xenophobia ─ How to Fight It
In our discussions in last year’s capacity building the subject of xenophobia came up. Xenophobia (here used in the sense of dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries) is part of the ideology of far right parties, directly or indirectly. An example of this is when Nigel Farage of UKIP claimed he would […]
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CC-BY-ND (Mick Baker)rooster (FLICKR)
Is UKIP Here to Stay?
Like radioactive particles, radical political movements are inherently unstable. Organisations on both the far-Right and far-Left have a reliable tendency to implode just as they seem to be reaching the apex of their popularity, ripped apart by the conflicting imperatives of pragmatism and ideological purity. This has certainly been the case for the British far-Right […]
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