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Politics
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The ECB and the recession: Count Draghila
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
The Von der Leyen Commission: The new cabinet in figures
VoxEurop -
After the European elections in Czech Republic: Fragmented polarisation and demise of the Left
Eurozine (Vienna) -
New government in Italy: First steps
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
After the European elections in Spain: Europe still popular, but domestic issues prevail
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Bulgaria: Voters are politically resignated
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Finland: Peak populism
Eurozine (Vienna) -
State elections in Germany: No-brainer
Neues Deutschland (Berlin) -
After the European elections in Hungary: Fidesz wins big, but does not take it all
Eurozine (Vienna) -
Government crisis in Italy: What Salvini’s exit means for Europe
France Inter (Paris) -
After the European elections in Denmark: Pro-European parties trump nationalistic right
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Belgium: The North-South gap widens
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Lithuania: Slogans, promises and verbalism prevailed over critique and vision
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Greece: Keeping the country in Europe cost Syriza power
Eurozine (Vienna) -
Boris Johnon’s EU tour: A week gambling
De Groene Amsterdammer (Amsterdam) -
After the European elections in Latvia: The populist surge that did not happen
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in France: Nationalism, liberalism, ecology
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Romania: Massive turnout challenged the ruling party
VoxEurop Eurozine -
After the European elections in Estonia: Joys of governing with the far right
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in the UK: From bastion of good governance to perpetually ‘exiting’ state?
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Poland: Harsh lessons for the opposition
Eurozine (Vienna) -
Boris Johnson and Brexit: Emergency plan
De Volkskrant (Amsterdam) -
After the European elections in Portugal: A progressive alternative for Europe?
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Ireland: Green country went even greener
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Slovenia: Trapped between authoritarianism and ‘normality’
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Germany: A deeply divided country
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Malta: Turbulent campaign ends in gender balance
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Austria: A night in Ibiza led to a political earthquake
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in the Netherlands: The Social democrats’ comeback
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Italy: Why does the country keep turning right?
Eurozine (Vienna) -
Government crisis in Italy: Mission accomplished
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
After the European elections in Cyprus: Neo-Nazi threat is over – for now
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Croatia: Looking at the right for alternatives
Eurozine (Vienna) -
After the European elections in Slovakia: Discussing the far right without empowering it
Eurozine (Vienna) -
Far-right : Vox makes Madrid an exception to the European rule
El Confidencial (Madrid) -
Political polls: Parties with a clear stance on the EU gain ground
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Trento) -
Authoritarianism on the rise in Poland: There is no freedom without solidarity
Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw) -
Demonstrations in Russia: Standing up
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
UK's new prime minister : Countdown
De Groene Amsterdammer (Amsterdam) -
Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty-Iran: The puzzle
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
Presidency of the European Commission: The birth of Ursula
Neues Deutschland (Berlin) -
7 July general election in Greece: Old parties strike back
VoxEurop -
EU top jobs: Out of the hat
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
Arms trade: Yemen, a European humanitary disaster
H-Alter (Zagreb) -
European defence fund and arms sales: How the EU is gearing up to become a major arms vendor
VoxEurop -
Mayoral election in Istanbul: Stung
Neues Deutschland (Berlin) -
Italy and the eurozone crisis : Rome’s dangerous game
Alternatives économiques (Paris) -
The European elections in Romania: A double yes to Europe
VoxEurop -
Facebook and the EU elections in Poland: How much did the candidates spend on ads?
Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw) -
European elections and social media: How much did the European institutions and parties pay for ads on Facebook?
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Trento)
EU Commission president-elect Ursula von der Leyen presented her 26-strong team on 10 September. Here's an overview of its composition. 
It was surprising just how much of a trouncing the Czech Left took in the European elections. The Social Democrats were the country’s major governing party from 1998 to 2006 and from 2014 to 2017, thereafter a minor partner in the government. In May they lost all of their seats in the European Parliament, got just 3.95 percent of the vote. 
The European elections have confirmed beyond doubt that Spanish voters remain consistently pro-European, but domestic issues – and the forming of a new coalition government – still dominate the political agenda. 
Average turnout across the European Union may have been just over 50 percent last May, the highest for two decades. But Bulgaria returned a record low for the country of just 32.64 percent. 
The results of the European elections in Finland confirm that peak far-right populism is upon us, as already evident in the national elections held in April. Which is to say that the Finns Party could only muster a slight gain from 13 to 14 percent, retaining two out of the country’s 13 seats in the European Parliament. 
When Viktor Orbán left the voting booth on 26 May, he expressed high hopes for anti-immigration forces in the European elections. 
The removal from the Italian government of Matteo Salvini’s far-right Lega strips the European populist parties of their "showcase". It is a second setback after the break-up of the right-wing extremist coalition in Austria. But this does not mean that the causes of their existence have disappeared. 
An increasingly pro-European mood in Denmark has dealt the nationalist populist Danish People’s Party a severe blow. 
Two major tendencies dominate Belgium’s political landscape after the European elections. These are shaped by a moderate red-green wave among the Francophone population and a rather more concerning wave of nationalism and xenophobia in Flanders. 
In Lithuania there is felt to be a distinct lack of constructive criticism of the way the EU works and of any robust vision concerning its future. 
Former prime minister Alexis Tsipras' coalition paid the price for implementing the harsh austerity conditions of the third bailout programme, losing both the European and national elections within a few months. 
Finally, though the political landscape in Latvia has never been more fragmented, the Baltic state came out of the elections largely unscathed by populism. 
As president Macron’s ability to forge alliances in practice is finally put to the test at the European level, the far right’s second consecutive victory in an European election in France underlines the fact that the smallest of margins can still make a significant difference. 
Support for the ruling Social Democratic Party in Romania halved and its president departed the day after the vote to commence a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption. Meanwhile Renew Europe elects former Romanian prime minister and former European Commissioner Dacian Cioloș as its leader. 
After Estonia’s national elections in March, the far right was admitted to the new coalition government. It has then won a seat in the European parliament. Though the liberal Reform party topped the polls and the rest of the country’s seats remain with the Liberals and Democrats, the Center Party of Prime Minister Jüri Ratas came in third, and far-right incendiary rhetoric continues to disrupt the coalition’s ability to govern. 
The EP election was widely seen as a second referendum in all but name in the UK, almost three years after the electorate voted to leave the European Union in the first place. But how much longer is the country to languish in Brexit purgatory? As support for the two main parties collapses and a new Conservative prime minister is due to be announced on 23 July, this has long since ceased to be a matter of a one-off protest vote. 
Pollsters were wrong footed in Poland concerning the efficacy of the ‘European Coalition’, a group of centrist parties opposing the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. With this autumn’s national parliamentary elections fast approaching, harsh lessons need to be learned quickly if a strategic rethink can have any chance of loosening PiS’s grip on power. 
The question above might reasonably be reformulated thus: could the ability to form an innovative left-leaning coalition, so influential at a domestic level to Portugal breaking free of austerity, effect a similarly startling shift in the dynamics of the European Union? 
While turnout improved across the EU last month, in Ireland it declined, not least because of the absence of a far-right threat. The Greens gained two seats, having had no representation in the last parliament at all, and the radical left enjoyed a better showing than they tend to in domestic elections. There was also something of a skewed result among the country’s two largest parties. 
Authoritarian tendencies in Slovenia are shaping a somewhat fearful new normality as the creeping polarization of public life intensifies.
Divisions old and new have shaken up the compelling semblance of stability accomplished in Germany since reunification. While the Green surge is most noticeable in the western states, the electorate in eastern ones continues to be drawn to the far-right. Whether outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel can save face as Berlin loses its influence in Europe remains an open question. 
In May's election voters returned an equal number of female and male MEPs, the most notable outcome of a campaign dominated by domestic issues. 
As expected, the government crisis on the eve of the European elections caused by the withdrawal of the far-right party from the majority after its leader was implicated in a scandal of possible Russian financing for its party, had huge repercussions on the vote. 
The surprise success of the Labour Party and the middling performance of a far-right start-up in the Netherlands proved opinion polls to be significantly wide of the mark. Though the Greens decisively increased their share of the vote, the political centre ultimately held its ground fairly convincingly. 
Italy has united behind Matteo Salvini’s League to the extent that the party has effectively overtaken Marine Le Pen’s National Rally as the largest contingent in the new rightwing populist group, the European Alliance of Peoples and Nations. 
The ruling liberal conservatives in Cyprus took a hit at the polls, after departing from their traditionally pro-EU stance and moderate approach to the island’s division. That the main opposition party fielded a Turkish Cypriot candidate did not make matters any simpler, although it did produce an interesting outcome. 
The liberal conservatives who head Croatia’s coalition government saw their share of the vote halved in May, as populists from across the political spectrum offered various alternatives. Some of these hail from the right or far right, others from the centre left or the country’s anti-eviction movement. 
The far right in Slovakia has secured an advance in the polls that would have been unthinkable five years ago. Yet coalitions of new parties – including Progressive Slovakia, the party of new president Zuzana Čaputová – are responding well to the fear-mongering that characterizes the latest tide of extremism. This is the first of a series of articles by Eurozine on the aftermath of the European elections in every EU country. 
As opposed to their far-right European counterparts, who have grown in villages and small towns, Vox has gained their biggest vote percentage in Madrid and the big cities. 
European integration is becoming more and more a key issue in determining voters’ preferences. Parties affiliated with Renew Europe or Identity and Democracy are benefiting the most from this trend. 
After a new attack from radical nationalists against a LGBT+ march, and as the inequivocable signs of authoritarianism grow every day in Poland – but not only – at the expense of minorities and “traitors”, opposition newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza’s journalists call for supporters of democracy to stand up, and defend its core principles. 
Leftwing coalition Syriza’s rise to power in 2015 seemed to swept away the old greek political order. But a journey through the strongholds of these dynasties shows they never went away. Their power lies deeper in history. 
By providing weapons to parties in conflict in Yemen, Europeans have a responsibility in the war that has claimed more than 10,000 lives in four years. In this sense, it is also our disaster, explains H-alter. 
The creation of a €13.6 billion scheme for the European Defence Fund can fundamentally challenge the nature of the European Union as a peace project. It may provide the arms before creating the army and even the political frame for it, and will contribute to a new arms race, suggests civil society. 
On 5 June the European Commission cleared the way for an excessive deficit procedure against Italy. This could lead to a fine of several billion euro being imposed on Italy. Above all, this new showdown risks restarting the general eurozone crisis just as Europe’s economy is slowing sharply. A slowdown which is partly caused by the vulnerability of Germany, Europe’s flagship economy, to the China-USA trade war and its dampening effect on the world economy. 
As much as it may sound like an overstatement, May 26 2019, European election day in Romania, may well enter the history books. It marked more than one major triumph in Romanians’ arduous battle against corruption, and proved that the protests of tens of thousands of people were not in vain. Below we provide the background and an analysis of what exactly happened. 
Candidates to the European Parliament spent hundreds of thousands of PLN on Facebook ads. The most money was spent on European Coalition’s profiles. Confederation, on the other hand, has clearly been investing in the nationalist leader Krzysztof Bosak. 
During last month’s European election campaign, the EU institutions and European political parties spent almost four million euro on paid Facebook posts. Data published by Facebook reveals how much was spent in each country, and who spent the most. - 1 of 92
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