Articles

Europe produces 5 tons of waste per capita each year and exports a significant portion of it for other countries to handle. Can we reduce, reuse, and recycle our way out of this? New talk show episode premiers today.

Controversies over the legacies of dictatorship and civil war have polarized the Spanish debate for over two decades. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death, the legitimacy of the transition is uncertain. Could things have been done differently?

It’s only two months into Trump’s second presidency and Americans are already suffering from nightmarish visions of democracy being suffocated. Brutal spending cuts in the name of efficiency, coercion of institutions threatening academic freedom, strong-arming law firms into pro bono work – all inducing fight or flight responses.

Editor-in-chief Réka Kinga Papp is stepping down from her post at Eurozine and offers three main lessons from her tenure.

From getaway destination to point of entry, the EU’s southernmost territories attract plenty of ongoing arrivals. Migrant containment policies, outlining stringent confinement and processing, would see newcomers restricted to the archipelago. But could Spain’s swift transfers and regularization turn the tide of migration strategy?

The digital world we navigate today was built on centuries of technological innovation by librarians and archivists. The unprecedented access to online information now compels these institutions to evolve. In this discussion, librarians and a data steward from Helsinki, Vienna, and Pécs explore the challenges and opportunities of this transformation.

Denmark’s neglected areas of urban social housing are up for regeneration. But Copenhagen’s demographic diversification plans threaten to ostracize the very communities ghettoized within the city’s ‘imaginary borders’ – immigrants fear expulsion at the hands of gentrification.

The white saviour, driven by a moral mission, benefits from the oppression they claim to resist. Reactions to the plight of ‘victims’ often fail to translate into concrete actions, leaving those in need of care begging for sympathy. Could acknowledgement of individual complexity to the point of mystery alter this dynamic?

After the catastrophic performance of the traffic light coalition, what Germany needs is a strong, unified government able to provide an antidote to the new fascism. Friedrich Merz must begin by rebuilding trust, writes the editor of ‘Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik’.

Radio waves may travel indefinitely through space, but maintaining a record of live transmissions requires dedicated archival practices. In Portugal, where an outdated legal deposit law only safeguards printed material, even historically important broadcasts are recorded over. Could a new law based on a French model be the answer to libraries saving priceless material from obscurity?

Governments are scrambling to stop the sharp decline in birth rates across the developed world; the pronatalist policies on offer don’t seem to have found a solution. They do, however, disproportionately target women, fuel culture wars and some very gendered propaganda. This is our International Women’s Day edition of the Standard Time talk show.

Why does peace in Ukraine hang on a ‘mineral deal’ whose handling is more reminiscent of trade than negotiations? Perhaps because the global race for critical raw material mining is well and truly underway, digging for today’s equivalent of gold: raw earth elements and lithium critical for renewables and digital technology but also modern weaponry.

Under the aegis of the Council of Europe, a ‘core’ group of countries have been moving forward with plans for a tribunal capable of prosecuting the Russian leadership for the crime of international aggression. The US administration’s switch of allegiance now puts these plans at risk, writes Gwara Media.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, and not the human chain across the Baltics, is emblematic of 1989. But what if this show of unity had become iconic of communism’s disintegration? Could acknowledging Eastern Europe’s liberation positively reframe what Russia otherwise perceives as loss since the Soviet Union’s demise?

Pro-Irishness was part of the Democratic-Party-dominated political culture that MAGA despises and whose day is done. Time for Ireland to opt once and for all for Brussels over Boston, argues the co-editor of the Dublin Review of Books.

Syria’s reinvigorated civil society must assert itself not just in negotiations with the new government, but also in its dealings with Europe. Neo-colonial assumptions regarding minorities and gender are a source of tension that Europe would do well to reflect on.