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Politics
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Brexit: One more step towards the exit
Kleine Zeitung (Graz) -
Eric Jozsef on Europe in 2020: Regain momentum, or scuttle the European Union
VoxEurop -
Cas Mudde on Europe in 2020: Time for Europe to live up to its responsibilities
VoxEurop -
After the general election in the UK: Scottish backstop
De Volkskrant (Amsterdam) -
Media and democracy: Call for respect for press freedom and journalistic independence in Europe
VoxEurop -
The Von der Leyen Commission: How we got here
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Trento) -
European Citizens’ initiative: A democratic fiasco?
VoxEurop -
Elections in Romania: How the diaspora behaves in the ballot box
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (Trento) -
Political crisis in Malta: Justice is coming for Daphne
The Times of Malta (Valetta) -
"Sardines" demonstrations in Italy: November fool
La Repubblica (Rome) -
The Von der Leyen Commission: The new cabinet in figures
VoxEurop -
European Parliament committees: Welcome to the EU engine room
EUobserver.com (Brussels) -
General election in Spain: The voice from the past
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
EU members and the rule of law: Put the blame on the Visegrád 4
VoxEurop -
General election in the UK: Moving towards the polls
Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) -
EU law violations: Everything you always wanted to know about infringement procedures – but were afraid to ask
OpenPolis (Rome) -
General election in Poland: Why did young people vote for the “national-liberals”?
VoxEurop -
After the elections in Hungary and Poland: A few good reasons for Liberals to be cautiously optimistic
Visegrad Insight (Warsaw) -
Boris Johnson and Brexit: Ditch-digging
Público (Lisbon) -
Health and pollution: Cleaner air is still killing too many
VoxEurop -
Smart cities and 5G networks: Massive data circulation challenges privacy and individual liberties
VoxEurop -
Brexit: Beware the no-deal!
Alternatives économiques (Paris) -
International Rebellion demonstration: The fat cats man
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
General election in Austria: Kurtz bungee jumping
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
The Western Balkans after the European elections: Still in limbo
Eurozine (Vienna) -
The ECB and the recovery: Open letter to my German friends
Alternatives économiques (Paris) -
The ECB and the recession: Count Draghila
Cartoon movement (Amsterdam) -
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)
For the co-founder of EuropaNow! and member of VoxEurop's supervisory board, the Conference on the Future of Europe taking place this year may be the last chance for the European Union to make the leap towards a fully democratic European federation. 
Geopolitically isolated but economically strong, the EU should enter the new decade by finally becoming an independent global player, defending its institutions and values, says political scientist Cas Mudde. 
At the conference it is organising in Paris on 6 December, the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) joined forces with other organisations defending press freedom to call on European institutions and governments to adopt effective measures to protect the Fourth estate for the sake of democracy. VoxEurop joins the call. 
After months of delays, the von der Leyen Commission is finally set to take office on the first of December. What did the last few months involve, and why did it take so long? 
Eventually, European policy makers and MEPs greeted the start of the new European Commission’s term under the leadership of president, Ursula von der Leyen. In September, Von der Leyen mentioned that the priority of the Commission’s team would be to revive Europe’s democracy. However, it might need to break with the past if it plans to achieve. 
At the latest Romanian presidential elections, almost one million Romanians voted from abroad, largely by casting their ballots in more than 800 polling stations open from Friday through Sunday. A visual exploration of the data. 
More than two years after the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, public pressure and the tireless work of her colleagues to continue her investigations are beginning to bear fruit. The alleged instigator, his links with the authorities, and the corruption that plagues the archipelago have come to light, plunging Malta into an unprecedented political crisis. 
The new EU Commission led by president-elect Ursula von der Leyen is now finally set, with all 26 commissioners having being vetted by the European parliament. MEPs should give their green light on 27 November. Here's an updated overview of the new EU cabinet composition. 
Welcome to the EU engine room: the European Parliament's 22 committees, which churn out hundreds of new laws and non-binding reports each year and keeps an eye on other European institutions. 
The World Bank’s worldwide governance indicators provide useful data about the evolution of the perceptions within EU countries as to how much agents abide by the rule of law. Based on this data source, Southern European countries appear more problematic than Visegrád ones. 
What happens when a country does not respect its legal obligations towards the EU? Which countries are the least diligent? What is the area with the highest number of offences recorded? Our partners from OpenPolis developed InfringEye, a data-driven tool that makes it easier for journalists and citizens to understand the EU's infringement mechanisms, and to monitor past and ongoing procedures. 
Poland’s ultraconservative Law and Justice party (PiS) held on to power in legislative elections on 13 October. But the real surprise of the election was the score of Konfederacja, a party even further to the right, which attracted a lot of the youth vote. We look at their motives. 
While the dominant parties have cemented their power both in Hungary and Poland, the elections of last Sunday signal that the regimes built by Jaroslaw Kaczyński and Viktor Orbán are on the defence. 
The latest European Environment Agency report shows air is getting cleaner in Europe, but persistent pollution, especially in cities, still damages people’s health and the economy. 
The 5G networks that are being deployed all around Europe can provide urban citizens with sustainable living, reduced traffic and stringent security but the technology can also be a slippery slope towards mass surveillance 
The undoing of decades of UK-EU integration will mean huge economic disruption on both sides. 
Meanwhile, timing is everything in the Western Balkans. Just days after the vote, the European Commission published its annual report on the prospects for EU enlargement in the region. This may well focus minds on the delicate issues that the region’s countries face, though the EU’s own lack of consensus about the way forward may prove a major obstacle to their resolution. 
Not without reason, Germany is demanding a change of direction for the European Central Bank. The best way forward, however, would be to start by giving up on imposing austerity on the whole eurozone, believes columnist Guillaume Duval. 
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.
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