The European Union has a democracy problem. The polycrisis that has plagued the EU for years has led to a cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets caused by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to address the perennial democratic deficit. Read
Interview with Gerhard Mangott, Associate Professor at the Political Science Department, University of Innsbruck Read
Interview Philippe Kamaris, former Head of the European Parliament Information Office in Riga* Read
Three weeks before the US presidential elections politika.lv interviewed Richard Jensen, professor emeritus of History, University of Illinois, Chicago Read
The new members should party as hard as they like, on 1st May, but if the British don’t turn up at the Malta fireworks with a bottle of Moet in hand, don’t think us spiteful – it is just that the party is further for us to travel to and we’d rather have a nice cup of tea and a good night’s sleep. Read
Interview with William Taubman, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography "Khrushchev: The Man and His Era" (2003) and Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College Read
Interview with Vladimir Socor,
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies
Columnist, Wall Street Journal Europe
Read
In her book, which was banned from stores before the Russian parliamentary elections, long-time Kremlin correspondent Yelena Tregubova speaks openly about what goes on behind the scenes in of her country’s political system. Read
Everybody concerned has learned the lessons and is going through a kind of ‘hang-over’, if you like, after the excessive emotions and divisions we had earlier in the year. On both sides of the Atlantic, I feel a sobering up. Read
Perhaps that was the strategy of the state-sponsored campaign - to let EU-sceptics waste all their arguments before the pro-EU side seriously entered the battlefield? Read
I think that the Convention has already shown that an enlarged EU of 25 is very different from the Union of 15 because I don’t think that most of the newcomers will be very afraid of expressing their thoughts. I don’t think that they would “use the opportunity to shut up” when France or Germany is saying something that they believe is important and the others have to follow. Read