Newsletters

Europe needs more solidarity and financial transfers, these must strengthen the values that connect Europeans, not undermine them.

Why should Germans, Dutch, Swedes and their leaders care about a possible tragedy on distant Greek islands where more than 40,000 refugees and migrants live crammed together in dismal sanitary conditions?

The EU and Turkey have a common interest to support more than 3.5 million refugees now in Turkey; to control mobility in the face of the biggest public health crisis in a century: and to provide humanitarian assistance to more than 2 million displaced near the Turkish border in Syria.

It is in The Gambia's interest to see its diaspora thrive in Germany. It is not in its interest to see it disappear. It is The Gambia's interest to help those in Germany who want an agreement.

EU Balkan enlargement is only possible if it is deeply transformative. None of the current candidates and potential candidates have a chance of joining without a deep transformation.

National courts are central pillars in the EU legal architecture. They must defend the norms and enforce EU rules in all member states directly. 

What is needed is a process that does not replace accession and yet is different; a process that promises EU influence and is also attractive and credible to Balkan publics and leaders. 

Nobody in The Gambia wants a return to the tragedy of recent years, when tens of thousands were captured and mistreated in Libya and huge numbers died on the "backway" to Europe.

The EU also needs to show that it keeps its word to leaders who reach out to neighbors and minorities at home in a true spirit of reconciliation

Do think tanks matter? Do the things they write ever "cause" anything? And how would we ever know?

The European Commission needs to take Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as soon as possible for infringement of the EU's fundamental values and principles, focusing on disciplinary procedures and the executive's control over judges.

The legitimacy of the Council of Europe matters. Its destruction would be a harbinger of much worse to come. What is needed are bold measures, both in the Committee of Ministers and in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

This is the right moment for European democracies to send a strong signal that certain red lines should not be crossed and that certain types of behaviour are intolerable and unacceptable.

They have called for "cleaning our cities, street by street" and "mass expulsions". With so little to distinguish their views they are in fact ideological twins: Viktor and Matteo, defenders of a darker, illiberal Europe.

France, the Netherlands, Germany and others need to do more than put things on hold. They need to propose a constructive policy which is tougher, more transparent, and more credible than the current accession process.

No member state of the EU has ever gone as far in subjugating its courts to executive control as the current Polish government has done.

Is this the end of a dark decade and the turning point in the biggest scandal in the history of the Council of Europe?

For Athens and Skopje to succeed in 2018 where their predecessors failed both governments need a mutually beneficial breakthrough they can defend in front of their domestic audiences. They need to help each other to deliver.

The current policy debate on migration and asylum in the key European capitals remains deeply confused over both values and instruments. Without clarity of thought no effective and humane policy will ever emerge.

Bosnian leaders and international officials in Sarajevo have warned that unless there is an urgent change in the state election law Bosnian democracy might come to an end in October 2018.