In his latest book, Is the EU Doomed?, Jan Zielonka, Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony's College, analyses the future of integration in a crisis-ridden Europe. He talks to Annamária Tóth about the crisis and the way out, European integration without the EU and why the Juncker Commission should step down.
A few weeks ago, Crimea was annexed by Russia. It followed a regional referendum closely watched by Russian troops on Ukrainian territory. Arnoldas Pranckevičius, External policies adviser of European Parliament President Martin Schultz, went to Ukraine many times on special missions before and during the crisis. In this interview, he sheds light on what it represents for the Europeans.
On the 19th and 20th of December 2013, for the first time since 2008, a European Council dedicated a significant part of its time to defence. This article analyses the decisions made at the Council meeting and aims to determine their impact on the future of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
One of the main points of contention of the European Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy is the relationship of the CSDP with the existing NATO framework. This article aims to present the current status of this complex relationship and the problems affecting their co-existence.
On the 19th and 20th of December the first European Council in six years dedicated to the theme of defence will take place in Brussels. This article looks at the objectives of the Council meeting and analyses the challenges facing Member States, which will have to choose before closer integration, or a steep decline in Europe’s defence capabilities.
MEP Leonidas Donskis is a Lithuanian philosopher, political commentator and one of the leading human rights and civil liberties advocates at the European Parliament. A member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), he takes part in the European Parliament Committee on Development and Subcommittee on Human Rights, as well as in the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. He kindly accepted to share with us his views on the Lithuanian Presidency, its ambitions and priorities.
Nearly 20 years after the beginning of the removal of border controls, the Schegen area constitutes one of the major achievements of the European integration. It gathers 26 countries among which 4 are not within the EU. It is often cited by Europeans as something they like about the EU. However, it has been put into question after the Arab Spring (spring 2011) and is currently undergoing a reform, which creates a great debate especially between several visions of European integration.
“Don’t ask what Europe can do for you but ask what you can do for Europe!” In his speech given in February, the German president Gauck makes good use of this reference to Kennedy’s well-known inaugural address. Beyond resistance towards sometimes petty political decision-making, we need a stronger common civil society. Promising projects are under way.
Will the common currency still be around in 2020? Ridicule me in ten years, but I am certain that it will be. It is not very common these days to defend the euro; and it is even less common to praise it as one of the main, positive, achievements of the European integration project. This however, is what this article sets out to do. Voices defying the status quo in reporting and public opinion are needed to prevent the onset of a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. The constant reporting on and prognosis of a collapse of the Eurozone will lead to just that: the end of the common currency. Differentiated analysis of the euro’s weaknesses is in order; hysterical blabbering about the euro’s apparently imminent end is not.
With a youth unemployment rate of 56% in Spain, 58% in Greece and over 30% in Italy and Portugal, young Europeans are taking advantage of the free movement of people and labour, which has become a symbol for European integration. Similarly, other countries such as Germany, which has a youth unemployment rate of only 8% and a shortage of qualified workers, benefits from it as well. This fundamental freedom constitutes one of the most important rights that the EU guarantees to its citizens.