The often bewilderingly fast pace of change that defines today’s globalised world more often than not escapes the categories that scholars and journalists reach for to capture it – though at the height of a northern-hemisphere summer and amid the ever-present awareness of climate change, Thomas Friedman’s pithy “flat, hot and crowded” feels as accurate [...]

On August 13, 1961, East Germany divided the city of Berlin and its people with a concrete wall and barbed wire. This month marks a painful anniversary of a construction both symbolic and physical that defined the latter half of the twentieth century as a period of division and suspicion, ideological confrontation and isolation.
Last week [...]

The overall average turnout across the EU27 was 43% in last June’s European Parliament elections.
The European Parliament commissioned a post-election survey* and results indicate that the under 40 year old Europeans scored the lowest average participation rates (29% for the 18-24 year old group and 36% for the 25-39 year olds).  The results are just as discouraging in [...]

Amidst all the concern about the effects of the global economic and financial crisis, there has been much analysis about its consequences for the markets, employment, the future nature of capitalism, migration, and the prospects for a green economy. There has been significantly less talk about the setbacks this global financial crisis may have on [...]

How to better integrate and actively involve immigrants in European societies is relevant for all EU member states. The challenges are multiple and the stakes are high for social cohesion and economic development in a Union of countries that adhere to human rights standards and that share respect for democratic principles, equality, non-discrimination and solidarity. [...]

European societies are characterized by a broad, and growing, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity. In the more recent decades, immigration has been the principal source of this diversity. Multiculturalism is thus already a rather vibrant reality across all EU societies today. As tends to often be the case, policy responses are, unfortunately, lagging behind. [...]