Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash A former UK minister under Tony Blair’s premiership says “no dramatic breakthroughs” should be expected in the upcoming EU elections. Denis MacShane, a former Europe Minister in the UK, was speaking about the EU-wide poll that takes place from 6 to 9 June. The EU parliament will spend an estimated €33 million…
Photo by Lisanto 李奕良 on Unsplash Taiwan’s elections in January demonstrated the “resilience” of a democratic society. That was one of the messages to emerge from an event in the European Parliament on Friday. The hearing in Brussels was organised by the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium along with three cross-party MEPs. They were:Petras Auštrevičius (Renew Europe), Vladimír Bilčík (EPP), and Markéta Gregorová(Greens/EFA). They…
Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash Support for authoritarian parties across Europe stands at 26.9%, finds new Populism Index The Authoritarian Populism Index published by Timbro and EPICENTER, finds that 26.9ercent of Europeans support authoritarian political parties both on the left and right wings of the political spectrum. The main conclusions of the report are: Average support for left and…
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash New polling says the far-right is divided” in the run up to the EU elections in June. This is one of the many findings detailed in a report published by the European Council on Foreign Relations. It was authored by leading political scientists Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard and…
“It does seem a bit odd that if you are a French citizen living in Bali, then you can vote in the European Parliament elections, yet if you are an Irish citizen living in Belfast you can’t,” writes Else Kvist. Questions were raised at the UK Parliament, as to why Irish and British citizensliving in…
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash The European People’s Party (EPP) has been accused of “drifting to the far right and dismantling the Green Deal.” The allegation is made by the European Green Party which goes on to claim that the manifesto adopted by the EPP congress in Romania “confirms this worrying trend.” The EPP reportedly backs Ursula von der Leyen…
Russia should bear “criminal responsibility” for the death of dissident Alexie Navalny, according to MEPs. The claim, by the Greens, came on the day Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya , made a speech to the EU parliament plenary session in Strasbourg. Her husband died in suspicious circumstances in a Russian jail over a week ago. Sergey…
Photo by mahdi rezaei on Unsplash Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of murdered Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei, has made an emotional appearance in the European Parliament. Fighting back tears in an address to a packed plenary in Strasbourg on 28 February, she accused the Russian mafia state, led by President Vladimir Putin, of having orchestrated her husband’s killing. She…
Photo by Keszthelyi Timi on Unsplash The ruling Fidesz party has announced that Tamás Sulyok, president of Hungary’s Constitutional Court, will be Fidesz-KDNP’s presidential candidate. Fidesz faction leader Máté Kocsis said, “He is the best person for the job, as he can best express the unity of the nation.” Kocsis said that Sulyok was proposed by Viktor Orbán. Orbán subsequently…
Delegates from all the European Green parties have elected Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout to be the “face and heart” of the Green campaign for the EU elections, at their congress in Lyon, France. The elected leading candidates ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ will represent the Greens in the upcoming political debates and campaign events. Reintke commented: “I am overwhelmed and…
