In order to receive their allocated portions of the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funds, member states are required to submit their national recovery and resilience programmes (NRRPs) to the Commission for assessment. Despite various delays, 12 NRRPs had been assessed as of the end of June 2021, and were adopted by the Council […]
Will Berlin finally acknowledge that economics is a social science and not theology? How to escape the pandemic? For some – the Italians Mario Draghi and Paolo Gentiloni or the French Emmanuel Macron and Thierry Breton – the pandemic has called into question the previous economic policy equilibria and so they are asking for the […]
The Next Generation EU superfoods are on their way. Can they save a starving Italian patient? Italy entered the Covid-19 crisis enfeebled by years of anaemic growth, stagnant public and private investment, high unemployment, a heavy debt load and tendentially feverish interest rates. Hopes for its recovery were pinned on the Eurozone’s standard recipe of […]
Today is International Women’s Day, and I want to take the opportunity to remember the wise words of Hannah Arendt, a woman who is regarded as one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born to a German-Jewish family in 1906, she had to flee from the Nazis when Hitler came to power in 1933. […]
There has been much speculation, and a lot of inaccurate gossip, about the EU’s vaccination programme. So, to get to the facts, please refer to this new and clear question and answer website setup by the European Commission to answer your questions. Just click the graphic: Just click on one of the themes on the European […]
It was one year ago today that Britain left the European Union, and one month ago that we also left the EU’s Single Market and customs union. So far, NOT so good. Putting up costly and complicated barriers to trade with our most important customers and suppliers in the world is causing enormous headaches and […]
This year Europe and the United States have donated millions of dollars to Ukraine to fight COVID-19. In fact almost half of the funds were allocated not for medicines or medical equipment, but slip into the pockets of the Ukrainian construction firm’s cartel and foreign contractors. Non-earmarked expenditures The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around […]
Covid-19 has once again put EU solidarity to the test. While much of the focus has been on the pandemic’s impact on healthcare and the European economy, it has also pushed states further apart on the issue of irregular migration. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the issue of irregular migration had been at the top […]
The European Union recovery fund could greatly increase the stability of the bloc and its monetary union. But the fund needs clearer objectives, sustainable growth criteria and close monitoring so that spending achieves its goals and is free of corruption. In finalising the fund, the EU should take the time to design a strong governance […]
EU researchers have been rather silent about rhetorical action in recent years. The current Brexit and Corona reconstruction negotiations show why they shouldn’t be, Dirk Leuffen and Pascal Mounchid argue. In the early 2000s, rhetorical action – the “strategic use of norm-based arguments” – was a powerfully used concept in academic debates on European integration. […]