Europe

Ever since its first proposal in the 1950s, the European army has been a ghost in the system of European Defence debates. But it is an unhelpful and distracting concept for the challenges that the EU and Europe more broadly are currently facing.

Italy's media is in crisis, battling legal onslaughts and facing a surge of censorship one year after the establishment of the far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni.

The EU’s half-baked response to the U.S. investment offensive is putting its competitiveness and our future prosperity at risk. Now is the time for deeper European integration and major adjustments to EU treaty law.

This year`s representative survey reveals that citizens expect Germany to play a more active role in the EU.

A recent opinion poll by 21 Research Centre investigated how Hungarian people perceive different media outlets in the country and how they access political information.

Countries such as Poland or Hungary frequently face criticism for a lack of media freedom. Their governments dispute that they oppose critical media. Yet, restrictions on media freedom come in many shapes and sizes.

The once lively scene of local and national Ukrainian media is threatened by the brutal Russian invasion and occupation. War has changed the work of journalists and media business models are under threat.

In this far-ranging interview, our office director, Nino Lejava talks to NIN Award winning author and director of the KROKODIL independent cultural center, Vladimir Arsenijević, about the historical and political foundations of Serbia's current geopolitical as well as cultural position with regard to its immediate neighbors, as well as Europe.

The use of spyware against journalists in the EU is alarming. Saskia Bricmont explains how severe the threat is, who the perpetrators are and their intentions.

Tasos Telloglou reports on the surveillance of journalists and politicians, the violation of telecommunications secrecy and his research into spyware.

Gendered disinformation online silences women in the public sphere. The disinformation and democratization expert Nina Jankowicz explains how.   

Czechia has firsthand experience with a prominent politician controlling his media. Therefore, we must not stay on the sidelines. It is of the utmost importance that Czechia support the creation of this legislation, MEP Marcel Kolaja (Czech Pirate Party, Greens/EFA) says regarding the Media Freedom Act.

The media systems of Europe are facing challenges from multiple directions. Elda Brogi explains the European approach to tackle them.

Parallels between the American "New Right" and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s brand of illiberalism extend beyond CPAC and his relationship with Trump.  

This year`s representative survey reveals, citizens expect Germany to play a more active role in the EU during this "Zeitenwende”. 

For a significant part of the last two years, the United States and Germany were polar opposites with regards to their success in handling COVID-19. While the Trump administration’s chaotic response to the virus left states effectively to fend for themselves, widespread testing, ample intensive care beds, and high levels of trust in the government led to talk of a “German exception” in the early months of the pandemic.

Against the backdrop of political homophobia and anti-feminism in recent years, a two-day digital conference entitled “Queer Feminist Perspectives on Political Homophobia and Anti-Feminism in the Middle East and Europe” was held in September 2021.

Franziska Brantner MdB talks about her hopes that the new German government will reframe its European policy. Its priorities in this process should be the European Green Deal, defending the rule of law and bolstering the EU’s capacity to act.

Looking back at 16 years of Angela Merkel's Balkan policy, there were ups and downs, but the objective of eventually bringing Serbia closer to the EU has failed. It is now high time for a fresh, new start to Germany‘s relationship to the key enabler or blocker of a European future for the region - Serbia.

In recent days, there has been a lot of talk in the EU about an emerging “wave of refugees” or “migration disaster”. However, the real disaster is the failure of Western governments to rescue people from Afghanistan who deserve our protection, the Director of our office in Brussels, Eva van de Rakt, comments.