In the last three years I have visited Warsaw regularly. It is interesting to follow the evolution of this country and its connection to the mechanism of the European Union. In Poland, the leaders of the institutions, corporations, unions, media, NGOs and think-tanks are concerned and discuss topics such as the euro in 2016, the [...]

Par Alessandra Flora, en Italie Le nouveau gouvernement Italien présidié par Enrico Letta se trouve face à des nombreaux défis. La coalition composée par le Partito Democratico, par le Popolo della Libertà e par Scelta Civica doit, avant de tout, combattre la plaie du chômage, surtout le chômage qui atteint les jeunes générations. Un problème [...]

Vital in any campaign, a political party cannot exist without its activists. It is necessary that the majority of the party members (the activists) understand the importance of each campaign – whether the elections are local, regional, national or European. They want to and need to be involved, as well as to be treated with [...]

For already more than 20 years Romania has adopted the European way – there is no doubt about that. The declaration signed on June 21 1995 at Snagov by representatives of all political parties at that time in Romania, clearly expressed its intention to support European integration. It was a huge step on the road [...]

Guest post by Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance Board and Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers. He was previously Norway’s Minister of Health. World Immunization Week, which is being celebrated around the globe this week, is an important opportunity to highlight the power of immunisation in protecting children against life-threatening diseases, including [...]

By Thomas Schuster Basically, the European Union intends to adopt the Basel III accord. For that reason the European Commission drafted a capital requirements directive CRD IV (European Commission 2011a) and a capital requirements regulation CRR (European Commission 2011b) in 2011. Both the directive and the regulation were negotiated under the co-decision rule. Parliament and [...]

By Alessandra Flora Everybody across Europe knows Mario Monti. Beyond doubt he’s one of the most respected and admired economists and politicians. In 2011, when Italy’s Head of State, Giorgio Napolitano, nominated him prime Minister, after Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation, Monti inherited many problems from the previous governments, above all a very high sovereign debt, an [...]

By Fadi Elhusseini Regularly, when spring comes, people expect flowers and green shoots and optimism prevails. Alas, things in the Middle East are quite different. With every spring that comes, people recall the outbreak of the first spark of the current “Arab Spring” that started in Tunisia 2011 and swept Arab countries, wondering what will [...]

By Jana Hainsworth At least the EU institutions have understood the urgency of the issue: child poverty is rising and we need to invest now to avoid long-term social and economic decline. Today one in four children in the EU is at risk of poverty or already experiencing it. That equals 25.3 million children. The [...]

Although the European elections will only take place in more than a year’s time, in May 2014, the subject already deserves attention now. Today’s exercise aims to present a possible but undesirable scenario. The financial crises we’ve lived with for the last 5 years have an impact on our European construction too. It appears that [...]