Latest posts
The Politics of Perceiving Corruption
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The latest Corruption Perceptions index by Transparency International (TI) brings into question the description of the European Union's role, often told in dialectic terms, of the transformation of Eastern Europe from a web of Soviet satellites to Eu...
Captain Europe to the rescue
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"Mild mannered European civil servant by day, superhero, erm, at weekends and at other times on request..." He is Captain Europe, an anonymous employee of the European institutions whose mission is to lift European citizens' spirits during these hard...
Communist Ideals in Eastern Europe: Alive, cinematic and prêt a porter
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Slavoj Zizek’s new film, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (official website), is meant to be a wake-up call, not a propaganda film. While most things we see on the big screens are idealised, romanticised, stereotypical versions of realit...
A matter of choice
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We live in a society where our government's failure to provide framework and legislation for abortion has resulted in the tragic and unnecessary death of a 31 year old woman. Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to Universi...
Good Reads 22/11/12
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This week two E&M editors share their favourite European reads. From blog posts to essays, it can be anything that amused them, worried them or got them thinking about Europe. Velislav, Diaphragm editor The EU deserved the Nob...
Creating the European prototype citizens?
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When you think about institutional Brussels, you picture suited up adults carrying a suitcase on their way to work. Cheerful kids are harder to imagine in the grey bureaucratic bubble that many have built in their minds, but evidently, the so-called...
In Pursuit of Shale Gas
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There is a slow evolution in Central and Eastern European energy supply and Poland is pushing hardest to ensure that shale gas is at its centre. Rather than pursuing a policy solely of energy independence from Russia though, the pursuit of shale is a...
Music and politics in Western Ukraine
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A man with a rather large bushy grey moustache plonked three glasses of thin brackish coffee down on the fold-away table of our railway carriage and demanded 12 hryvnia (around 1 euro). It wasn't so much the clink and crash of the glasses as they hit...
Elections in the Eastern Neighbourhood
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Georgia has just chosen its new parliament. The elections in this Caucasus State were the second of three held in Eastern Partnership (EaP) States this autumn. Besides Belarus, which was given (as opposed to choosing democratically) a new assembly in...
Parada: an unlikely combination of war heroes and gay-rights activists
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True love can only exist between men. Micky Limun, main character in Serbian director Srđan Dragojević's new movie "Parada," a veteran from the Bosnian war and owner of a Judo gym, would probably agree without hesitation, having met friends for lif...
Change: How Badly Does Romania Want It?
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"As citizens, I think we all have an exhausting duty to know what our governments are up to, and it is cowardice or laziness to ask: what can I do about it anyway? Every squeak counts, if only in self-respect." Martha Gellhorn, The Fac...
The new engine of Europe
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In Warsaw in mid-September, the German led "Future of Europe Group" announced its plans for the next political development of the European Union. Both in that moment and subsequent speeches, the driving force behind this development has not...
Differentiated integration – why not?
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"Differentiation is already a fact, the question is what kind of differentiation." That's how you could briefly sum up the fascinating final panel discussion of the Allianz Alumni Academy that took place on Saturday close to the Brandenburg Gate in s...
European identity is a sandwich
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European identity is a sandwich. That was one of the conclusions from the "Does Europe lack cohesion?" event organised by the Körber Foundation, Eurozine, Europa neuer Ideen e.V. and E&M as part of the series Europe@Debate. A sandwich because yo...
Bosnian summer – A European travel journal Pt. 4
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Having visited Srebrenica, I really want to see another side of the Republika Srpska (RS). The next day I rent a car and drive to Višegrad. Part 4: The Bridge on the Drina – Visegrad, Republika Srpska The town in the south of the RS is only a fe...
Bosnian summer – A European travel journal Pt. 3
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Part 3: More dead than alive – Srebrenica, Republika Srpska I apologise in advance, because there are some facts I have been holding back: the political situation in Bosnia is far more complicated than described so far. I have already written abou...
Bosnian summer – A European travel journal Pt. 2
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My trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina has taught me so far, that I have come to a country where people are strictly separated by religion and ethnicity – so much so that a small river can mark a frontier so powerful that even 17 years after the end of...
In league with the devil
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Mainstream journalists are failing to recognise that the most resolute reactions to Pussy Riot's recent incarceration are originating from outside of Russia. Moreover, the majority of the Russian population disagrees with the group's actions. The cha...
Bosnian summer – A European travel journal Pt. 1
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"Travelling Europe" is what many students name as their favourite summer activity. But where is Europe? Geographically a broad approach still seems possible; politically and as a question of identity, borders are reached far quicker. This summer I tr...
European identity is in its childhood
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Imagine Europe in ten, thirty, fifty years. Will we ever be able to build a European identity or will Europe turn into one large museum? Leire Ariz investigates what young Europeans in Brussels have to say about Slavenka Drakulić’s predictions for...
