Billions in grants intended to help member states after COVID-19 emanate from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. But potentially fraudulent use of funds and concerns about transparency bring the integrity of the RRF – and the EU itself – into question.
The Active Amputee blog’s Björn Eser believes that the way we go about prosthetics should change. He’s a lover of the outdoors, even more so since his amputation, but he takes issue with the limits of social and medical support for disabled people.
The first win in Germany’s state elections since the Nazi era, gains in European Parliament, another bid for power in France and new UK seats – the far right has seemingly raised its game this year to make political advances. How should progressives interpret extremist voting to counter dissatisfaction?
The two-state solution is often seen as empty talk. But it is the only alternative that offers a realistic prospect of peace in Israel-Palestine and the wider region. Putting it into practice will require not only genuine, detailed discussion, but above all a fundamental shift of mindset.
Eurocommunism at first seemed to offer a strategy for socialist transformation in keeping with the complexities of contemporary western European societies. But by the mid-1980s its momentum had dissipated, leaving communist parties in deep crisis. Despite its political failure, however, Eurocommunism could also claim important achievements.
Given the rise in populist scepticism of scientific experts and conventional wisdom, approved research needs reliable means to reach as broad an audience as possible. Can Open Access, providing material for free to the reader, overcome its funding crisis and licensing issues to help speed up the green transition?
Conservatives in Ireland appeared to have lost the battle of ideas that now shapes the country. They were defeated by a cosmopolitan liberalism which set itself the task of dismantling the remnants of Irish Catholic identity. But a course correction may be under way.
Youth: a symbol of the future but burdened by uncertainty and crises. The final episode of the Knowledgeable Youth podcast discusses ‘futurological’ outlooks and post-high school plans.
Environmentalists seem locked in an interminable battle with fossil fuel lobbyists. But earlier apocalyptic narratives offer another reading of conflicts that demand a decisive shift of perspective.
Expectations, standards, and requirements in higher education vary from country to country. In the third episode of the Knowledgeable Youth podcast Ukrainian students embark on the complex subject of tertiary education.
Artificial intelligence developers, pillaging existing book translations to improve their products, are preying on both the past and future work of literary translators. But can the demand for subtlety and craft from enough readers and publishers save highly skilled individuals from becoming mere AI post-editors? Scandinavian-language translators at the coalface of innovation speak out.
Ukrainian journalists, acting as responsible citizens, prioritize caution over breaking news in support of the war effort. But when does vigilance become self-censorship? And how far is this tendency being manipulated for military gain? Independent media outlets, making their voices heard, defy top-down decision-making.
Modern warfare, currently playing out in the Middle East, relies on algorithms that often foreshadow further violence. But is the predilection for predicting attacks more a deterrent or provocation? And is managing risk a matter of neo-colonial imperialism rather than defence?
As the EU confronts external challenges – including the war in Ukraine, rising geopolitical tensions, and potential shifts in US policy – will its internal politics align to meet these crises, or will the growing influence of the far right impede progress on the continent’s most pressing issues?
Remaining in a new country or returning home? The Knowledgeable Youth podcast delves into the complex decision-making refugees face when migrating, together with researcher Olena Yermakova.
In France, the censorship of pro-Palestinian positions is particularly severe, with antisemitism accusations increasingly being used by the far right. But behind the current wave of repression lies a set of attitudes that are neither new, nor exclusively rightwing.