Integration v Assimilation: Flaws of Coerced Inclusion
Last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the state of Switzerland had the right to oblige a pair of Muslim parents to send their daughters to mixed swimming lessons. While the parents had protested that the requirement to send their daughters to mixed swimming lessons violated Article 9 of the European Convention...
The European Pillar of Social Rights: A Timely Lifeline for the EU?
The march of far-right wing political parties across Europe, the recent Brexit, and the US Presidential election of Donald Trump - have all signalled a sweeping social disconnect and disenfranchisement on both sides of the Atlantic.
Parallelgesellschaften: Leicester Model and the Politics of Integration
The terrorist bombings in Brussels and Paris in recent months have brought a strong and at times xenophobic edge to the continuing discussion on immigration and the integration of minorities in Europe. While previous articles on this website have focused on the migrant crisis, this article looks at issues with regards integration of migrants in...
The end of Schengen and the Euro dream? Europe’s crisis of consensus
A European project which set out with the intention of complete convergence and policy harmonization has ironically, resulted in widespread divergence and disharmony.
A floating dilemma: the Mediterranean crisis
Amnesty International reported July 2014 that at least 2,600 individuals had died attempting to cross the Mediterranean since 2011. In the nine month period between October 2013 and June the following year, 43,430 would be migrants were rescued by the Italian Navy as part of Operation Mare Nostrum, a rescue initiative which cost the Italian...
In review: ‘The Crisis of the European Union: a response’, by Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas, in “The Crisis of the European Union: a response” presents a powerful case for (a) the expansion of the powers of the European Union and (b) (more explicitly than in the case of (a)) the creation of a European “demos” or “civic solidarity” (p. 53). I shall address his arguments for both (a) and...
Geopolitical preferences and the Securitization debate
The recent events in Paris have again brought the debate of securitization to the fore in European political dialogue. The acts, perpetrated by members of a minority ethnic community against a bastion of francité – the free press, has been decried not only in France, but across Europe as a continent and further afield. In its wake,...
The Far-Right in Europe: Nightmare Scenarios and Inevitabilities
Last Sunday Sweden went to the polls to elect its national legislature. The result was the replacement of a minority centre right administration with a minority centre left one. In Europe an occurrence such as this (or its reverse) is generally of only passing interest. On this occasion, however, the most startling result of the...
European Integration and Popular Sentiment
Around the time of Jean Claude Junker’s nomination by the European Parliament to serve as President of the Commission, it could frequently be heard that Junker’s brand of euro-federalism was a sort of “relic”. Few believe any longer in the viability of the integrationist project, it was said, and Junker’s appointment served merely to demonstrate...
Modern European social democracy in crisis
The central question for established centre-left political parties in Western Europe is whether there remains a viable future for traditional social democracy, among whose features we might number support for the mixed economy and the institution of large cash transfers with the aim of redistributing wealth and easing poverty. Recent developments within the aegis of...
