National leaders and EU officials often use bureaucratic language to obscure controversial policies. This not only serves to confuse and alienate European citizens, but it undermines the democratic legitimacy of the Union and this will have to change as it acquires more powers. Last week’s high-level Belgo-German Dialogue took place […]

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s signature “Agenda 2010” welfare and labor reforms may have established the foundations for Germany’s economic success, but these came at the expense of both social security at home and European neighbors abroad. The European Left has yet to recover. “Europe will be Socialist or it will […]

  There is perhaps no area where interdependence and the futility of a strictly national approach are clearer than on the environment. Whether we’re talking about shrinking stocks of over-consumed fish, rising air pollution or the radioactive particles from a nuclear accident, national boundaries offer no protection. This reality is […]

The French capital’s new electric car rental scheme Autolib’ raised high hopes as a cost-effective means of making transport more livable and environmentally-friendly in one of Europe’s largest and most-visited cities. However, the program has so far been unable to achieve the same success as the city’s similar bicycle rental […]

In January 2012, Google, Wikipedia and Flickr temporarily closed their websites in protest of two proposed U.S. Congressional bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The legislation, if enacted, would have undermined online freedom of speech, and would have allowed governments and corporations to […]