How do you know you are living in dangerous times? Is it the hysterical headlines in the news? Hardly, the news is always dramatising everything that happens around us. Dangerous times are times when the stability and balance of international norms and institutions are threatened. What truly determines the danger of our time is the […]
Everywhere we look, we keep hearing that the wealthiest 1% keeps getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. While this is not exactly true and certainly not in Europe, as I demonstrated in my latest book, ‘Fear of the Future‘, it is certainly true that ‘the elite’ are a small minority. This is also […]
2020 has only just begun, but it is already proving to be an interesting year. A new European Commission takes office and promises us a union that strives for more. Britain is finally going to Brexit. The USA are heading for an election. Tensions are growing between China and Hong Kong. Russia is remodelling its […]
Humanity is plagued by existential threats. Threats, it seems we cannot overcome. Whether it is an asteroid that could hit the Earth at any time, wiping out all life, supergerms for which there are no cure, space lightning that can incinerate a whole galaxy in an instant, or the ever advancing changes to our climate, […]
In the wake of the green wave, we see renewed calls for a “system change”. But what exactly does that mean? Does anyone have any ideas? Ideas other than Anarchy, Communism or a return to Feudalism? When posed this question, those that shout loudest, tend to go quiet very quickly. But we don’t have to […]
Civil society organisations and groups campaigning for a Europe of citizens are increasingly setting the agenda at Commissioner-designate hearings at the European Parliament this week. Following intense lobbying by European Civic Forum (ECF), a body representing over 800 third sector organisations across Europe, the nominations of Rovana Plumb of Romania, and Hungary’s Lászkló Trócsányi have […]
The Austrian elections are over and Sebastian Kurz’ conservative ÖVP has come out on top. The night ended in bitter tears for the socialist SPÖ, which lost nearly 6% and booked its worst ever result in history at 21,2 %. The only upside? In 2017 the far-right FPÖ was close to beating the SPÖ into third […]
Nobody likes taxes. Okay, that’s not true. There are students on every university campus, who live in social housing and have never paid taxes in their life. They will tell you that they fully support taxation. But let’s focus on those of us who pay taxes on a regular basis: working people. Most everyone of […]
‘The European Union is too far removed from its citizens,’ is a sentence uttered all too often. Europhiles have passionately defended the democratic nature of the union and its institutions. In 2014 the Spitzenkandidaten-procedure was introduced to increase the influence of the European Parliament and start a European public debate around the elections. The process […]
Every year the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3 for short) presents the newest innovations in gaming. Only this year was rather disappointing. Not only did Sony not show up, but most of the presentations did not reveal anything new. One very notable exemption that most journalists glossed over was Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs: Legion. Watch Dogs […]