Tag: EU

  • An introduction to the European Union

    The constellation of Council, Commission, and Parliament, all with their different tasks and characteristics, has proven to be a powerful mechanism to reach consensus even on highly contentious topics, and imposes well-functioning checks and balances on the European Union. That this is hard and takes time goes with the territory.

  • How the EU can help journalism

    Why is the European Union so ineffective when it comes to supporting press freedom and media pluralism? And what could it do within the limits of its current competences to foster journalism? It all boils down to one word: CONNECT.

  • The art of EU procurement

    The EU has masterminded the very rules of public procurement, but it is also one of the largest tendering authorities itself. The scope of design of tenders is such that it may make or break entire companies and organisations, and affect the implementation of public policy beyond the specific objectives of any individual tender.

  • The EU’s Digital Agenda (part II): Megalomania or Jack of all Trades?

    What Europe is still missing is a substantial intellectual debate about the Digital Agenda and its implications for civil society and politics. Europe dearly needs innovative and groundbreaking outside-the-box-yet-pragmatic thinking at the interface between technology and the public sphere.

  • The EU’s Digital Agenda (part I): What is at stake?

    Across all the application areas of the EU’s Digital Agenda policy there are several common and mutually interdependent issues which need to be tackled irrespective of the specific purpose of a technological solution. This is why I first take a look at some of the most important overarching issues at stake. Political analysis will follow…

  • Will eurocrats redefine democracy?

    Our current notion of democracy has developed within and for the modern nation state. Robert Menasse, however, advocates Europe as a post-national utopia, requiring a fundamentally new and different understanding and practice of democracy that still needs to be developed. “The nation states”, he suggests, “must fade away if we want a system of checks…

  • A primer on EU funding for NGOs

    Non-profit organizations which realise that some of their capabilities have a market value and deploy them accordingly can defend their autonomous status while reducing dependency from external donors, many of whom have an agenda of their own.