Strong far-right gains in three western member states – Austria, the Netherlands and now Ireland – indicate that the EU is on course for a political shift after the European Parliament elections. Euroscepticism also predominates across the conservative spectrum in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Do the violence and oppression against Palestinians in Gaza and the discrimination and surveillance against migrants trying to cross European borders have more in common than meets the eye? A Belgian activist of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition speaks out about the Israeli arms industry, institutionalized violence and human rights abuses.
Georgia’s ‘March for Europe’ protests express deep polarization in the country over the current government’s pro-Russian course. The return of Moscow-friendly oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili to official politics signalled the beginning of an election campaign whose outcome will decide Georgia’s democratic future.
The gig economy is undermining labour rights rapidly, but the conventional protections around employment have been eroding for decades. We talk labour migration, the gendered division of unpaid tasks, and the history of the workers’ movement on our latest episode.
European museums are full of stolen goods. Impressive exhibitions of prized artefacts behind glass testify to the extent of colonial robbery. They also evidence the spoils of earlier imperialism, often depicting acts of conquest. How can previous empires genuinely atone for their abuses of power and truly recognize compromised biographies?
Student anger at Israel’s assault on Gaza has been directed at their own universities, whose refusal to condemn the Israeli aggression they see as a moral failure. By closing down protests to ‘protect’ the neutrality of the academic environment, universities only appear confirm this.
How can the consumer enjoy an ethically sourced piece of fashion, when most garments are produced in sweatshops and soon end up in landfills anyway? A designer from India, a Romanian investigative journalist, and an Austrian ecotoxicologist discuss this on the new episode of Standard Time.
The description of contemporary far-right media outlets in France as ‘pluralist’ is a euphemism that denies the continuity of a nationalist and xenophobic journalistic tradition that began in the Belle Epoque and flourished until the end of the Second World War.
In a bid to implement its Rwanda legislation, the UK government is rushing to inhumanely detain refugees, instilling panic, impacting its politically sensitive border with Ireland. The EU, meanwhile, is planning off-shore processing facilities. And surveillance technology is proving just as invasive as past obsessions with the ‘born criminal’.
Pronatalism has become a populist vote winner for right-wing parties in Central and East European countries. Demographic imbalances, involving youth migration, ageing populations and immigration resistance, have sparked a series of baby-making policies. But are financial incentives in Hungary, Poland and Serbia enough to reverse the trend of decreasing birth rates?
It has become axiomatic in our distrustful age that truth stands in tension with friendship. But the traps of identitarianism require that we rehabilitate our relation to truth – and understand it not as the opposite of friendship, but its very condition.
From the English Channel to the Sea of Marmara, Europe’s seas are soaked in sewage. It might not be the best topic for polite conversation, but managing human waste is the single most important urban necessity – and that’s why we’re talking all about it on the Earth Day episode of Standard Time, premiering at 7 PM CET.
New border and surveillance technologies are being lauded for their accuracy and fairness. But how ethical can forced identification be? Late nineteenth-century enthusiasts of pinning down the ‘born criminal’ enlisted scientific advances to sinister ends. Might biometric data processing that registers migrants entering the EU risk a similar transgression of human rights today?
Perceiving war as a series of strategic manoeuvres delineated on a map renders a horizontal view of conflict. And projecting an end to fighting is fundamentally restorative. But deep pollution, as is occurring in Ukraine from Russia’s radioactive colonialism, warns of a more persistent dimension with long-term environmental impact.
Even after the disgracing of Gerhard Schröder and Scholz’s trumpeted Zeitenwende, German Social Democracy has been unable to dispel suspicions that it continues to sympathise with Russia. The authors of a recent book discuss this ignominious history, in which Schröder was the main but by no means only actor.
From free school meals to the privatization of family policy, early childhood education can be heaven on earth when it works well, or a hellscape when it is dysfunctional. Kindergartens are on this week’s episode of Standard Time, premiering today at 7 PM CET.