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Polarization in Poland: A Warning From Europe. Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series that attempts to answer the question: Is democracy dying? On December 31, 1999, we threw a party. It was the end of one millennium and the start of a new one; people very much wanted to celebrate, preferably somewhere exotic. Our party fulfilled that criterion. We held it at Chobielin, the manor house in northwest Poland that my husband and his parents had purchased a decade earlier, when it was a mildewed ruin. We had restored the house, very slowly. It was not exactly finished in 1999, but it did have a new roof. To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. The guests were various: journalist friends from London and Berlin, a few diplomats based in Warsaw, two friends who flew in from New York. You could have lumped the majority of them, roughly, in the general category of what Poles call the right—the conservatives, the anti-Communists.

As parties go, it was a little scrappy. It was that kind of party. Cookies op Trouw | Trouw. The European Union: A Critical Assessment | Cato Institute. Introduction What is the European Union, and what has it accomplished? This is how the EU answers those questions: “The EU is unlike anything else—it isn’t a government, an association of states, or an international organization. Rather, the 28 Member States have relinquished part of their sovereignty to EU institutions, with many decisions made at the European level. The European Union has delivered more than 60 years of peace, stability, and prosperity in Europe, helped raise our citizens’ living standards, launched a single European currency (the euro), and is progressively building a single Europe-wide free market for goods, services, people, and capital” (my emphasis).1 This self-congratulatory assessment of the EU’s achievements is deeply problematic.

Consider, also, prosperity. That is not to deny the strong desire for peace and prosperity among European peoples and their leadership after World War II. Brief History of the European Integration Process Mounting Failures Conclusion 1. European Debt Clock (Running National Debts European Countries, US, and Japan) What does Jeremy Corbyn think? | Politics.

Jeremy Corbyn is the new leader of the Labour party. This is what he thinks: On the economy Corbyn is opposed to austerity and plans to bring down the deficit by growing the economy and taxing the wealthy instead. He intends to introduce a “people’s quantitative easing”, which would allow the Bank of England to print money to invest in large-scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects, partly through a national investment bank. Corbyn says he will fund this by reducing the “tax gap” and ending corporate tax reliefs. On tax Corbyn says there is £20bn in tax debt uncollected by HMRC every year and another £20bn in tax avoidance and a further £80bn in tax evasion that needs to be addressed. On education Corbyn has proposed a National Education Service, which he says would be “every bit as vital and as free at the point of use as our NHS”.

Corbyn has said he will also look at abolishing the charitable status of private schools but admitted it would be “very difficult to do”. On housing. MEPs give passing vote to TTIP | EurActiv. Greece: The End of Austerity? (2015) A Historic Opportunity. On Sunday, Greece will hold a pivotal election. Opinion polls still have Syriza ahead of New Democracy by 3 percent and the old party of the center-left, PASOK, behind even the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Syriza’s platform has no doubt moderated over the past months, and much debate can be had about how much the party can accomplish in power so long as Greece remains tied to the eurozone.

How a government of the Left would relate to the movements that paved the way for its election also remains to be seen. There’s no one better to answer these questions than Alexis Tsipras, the person who looks destined to be the next Greek prime minister. Tsipras spoke to Haris Golemis a few months ago for the first annual edition of Transform! , which is available now from Merlin Press, the longstanding publisher of Socialist Register. The conversation below was translated into English by Maria Choupres and has been edited for clarity. This simply can’t continue. What is your response to such claims? Welke eurofiel wil er eigenlijk een Superstaat? Het lege liberalisme van Mark Rutte & Co. Mark Rutte had tijdens de verkiezingscampagne in 2010 alle liberale stokpaardjes bereden: belastingen op de hogere inkomens waren 'jaloeziebelastingen' ('Wat ze zelf niet hebben, mogen anderen ook niet hebben'); de erfbelasting een 'sterftaks' ('De meest onrechtvaardige belasting') en de bijstand moest op termijn maar worden afgeschaft ('We moeten de onderklasse activeren').

Met succes: hij zou in 2010 voor het eerst premier worden. Een historisch moment, wist Rutte, die geschiedenis heeft gestudeerd. Sinds Pieter Cort van der Linden (1846-1935) was er geen Nederlandse premier van liberale huize meer geweest. 'Ik voel een zekere verwantschap met hem en niet alleen omdat hij mijn liberale betovergrootvader is in dit ambt,' oreerde Rutte in zijn eerste regeringsverklaring. Net als het kabinet-Van der Linden stond het eerste kabinet-Rutte voor grote hervormingen, aldus de premier.

Onverdiend inkomen Tot zover weinig verschil tussen Rutte en zijn laat negentiende-eeuwse voorgangers. Verdammt ich lieb dich, … ich lieb dich nicht | DeWereldMorgen.be - Waterfox. Anno 2012 heeft iedereen de mond vol over het Duitse economische model dat ons uit het Europese economische moeras zou kunnen trekken. Laat ons een poging wagen om het fameuze ‘Duitse model’ in al zijn facetten te bekijken. In de never ending story van de zoektocht naar de recepten om uit de economische crisis te geraken, worden al maandenlang geschiedenislessen opgerakeld, sociaal-economische modellen vergeleken en zogenaamde succesformules uitvoerig becommentarieerd en verdedigd. Als het gras van je buurvrouw groener lijkt dan het jouwe, is het logisch dat je eens in haar tuinhuis zal piepen om de ‘succesformule’ te vinden.

Dat is een natuurlijke reflex, maar een reflex die gevaren met zich meebrengt. Anno 2012 heeft iedereen de mond vol over het Duitse economische model dat ons uit het Europese economische moeras zou kunnen trekken. De geschiedenis herhaalt zich nooit, maar rijmt altijd een keer. Ooit waren ze het walhalla, nu is iedereen ze vergeten. Wat is het Duitse model?

Crisis