In 2015, the EU declared a ‘migration crisis’ and signalled an intention to take swift and determined action in response to migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. By the end of 2015, the number of migrant arrivals and first-time asylum applicants in the EU reached over 1.25 million applications. The notion of crisis became firmly entrenched […]

The last decade for Europe is one that was marked by multiple crises. Between 2009 and 2019, the term austerity dominated every discussion about the economy. The dominance of austerity in the Eurozone crisis years created the impression that there was something fundamentally different compared to previous episodes of politics in hard times. While in […]

For years now, party-based Euroscepticism has been broadly conceived – various taxonomies notwithstanding – as either in favour of reforming the EU ‘soft Euroscepticism’ or leaving it altogether ‘hard Euroscepticism’. It has been particularly so in the case of Euroscepticism on the left. However, in a recent article for the Journal of Common Market Studies, […]

Recent years have seen a rise of populist radical right (PRR) forces across Europe. Inside the current European Parliament (EP), they make up almost a third of MEPs, more than doubling their seat share in a decade. This increase in representation reflects growing public scepticism towards European integration. Still, ideological divergences have so far prevented […]

The corona recovery fund, now formally known as Next Generation EU, has been the European Union’s (EU) most important response to the economic and social damages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Unprecedently, the 27 member states entrusted the European Commission to borrow €750 billion and to allocate the money – in large parts in the […]

Who sets the European Union’s policy agenda? The complex nature of the EU’s legislative process, combined with the lack of a clear hierarchy among the core EU institutions, means that it is hard to disentangle the policy contributions of different institutions and determine which one is ultimately responsible for the legislative priorities of the Union. […]

Theresa May and the shaping of the Brexit process With the provisional entry into force of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), the dust is far from settled on the Brexit process. And yet the culmination of the formal stages of talks on the terms of withdrawal and the future relationship – however ‘thin’ […]