Language: English

An interview with the economist Yann Moulier-Boutang and Philippe Lamberts, Co-President of the Greens in the European Parliament.

The prospect of the use of bank notes and coins becoming severely restricted, or even eliminated altogether, is one we should scrutinise closely. Making all transactions electronic could have a profound impact on the lives of many people, while giving banks even greater control over the flow of currency.

In order to evade another economic earthquake similar to or even bigger than the Greek crisis and to reinstate the trust in the Euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) took extraordinary measures to boost growth, raise inflation and indirectly lower the indebtedness of the Eurozone Member States: they started the Quantitative Easing (QE) program.

Viewed with suspicion, TTIP hangs over us like a dark cloud. Deemed as a threat to social rights, welfare, the environment and constitutional sovereignty, a civil society resistance movement continues to gain traction. In light of a recent leak by Greenpeace Netherlands further exposing these threats, it is time now to reassess the state of play.

After a surge of support in the Presidential and General Elections last year, the right-wing national conservative Law and Justice Party now dominates Polish politics.

Climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, and of course many other effects that will occur over several decades or longer. Now, we must address how a possible Brexit might impact climate change and future climate negotiations at the national, European and global levels.

For decades, a wave of privatisation has been rolling across Europe, making many investors, banks and consultancies rich but making few citizens happy. The great neoliberal promise of privatised utility companies providing water, power and transport more cheaply to their customers has regularly been shown to be deception and even, in many cases, a lie.

The concept of loss and damage due to the impacts of climate change first entered into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating text in 2008. Eight years on, the issue still appears to be little known to people outside of a specific community of policy actors, NGOs and academics working on the issue.

As a Bruxellois, confronted with the terrible events in Zaventem and the Maelbeek metro station, terrorism has reached my doorstep. More than ten years after September 11th, my reaction to these attacks is very different to the one I had back then.

It would be an illusion to believe that irregular migration will come to an end as a result of the legally dubious deal agreed between EU leaders and Turkey on 18 March 2016. Instead, we should recognise that migration is a natural human phenomenon, which has to be managed as such, and reform the dysfunctional EU framework on asylum and migration.