Language: English

The influx of refugees to the shores of Greek islands has generally been met with overwhelming support from locals, eager to provide much needed aid to the refugees.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a coalition of Left-wing, Kurdish and progressive parties, was founded in in 2012 in order to help smaller parties amplify their voices and gain access to the Turkish Parliament, where the electoral system stacks the odds strongly against them. In both the 2014 and subsequently recalled 2015 parliamentary elections, the party succeeded in winning over 10% of the vote, the necessary threshold for entering Parliament.

The recent accession of the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) to power has seen the judiciary and legal systems in Poland struck by swift and far-reaching reforms, and the trend shows no sign of slowing. With the phrase “constitutional crisis” being increasingly heard, it is time to examine what is happening to the legal system in Poland.

In a time of ecological uncertainty in a swiftly changing society, it is important that as Greens, we lend an ear to the public mood. However, change cannot be brought about if we ourselves also do not change – from a negative tone, to a positive one…

Following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, the international spotlight has been on Belgium as an alleged breeding ground for radical Islam.

Thirty years on from its transition to democracy after Franco, Spain faces a new transition to another system of government, which has yet to be defined.

We need to start thinking about the future and Poland after the end of the Law and Justice (PiS) rule – even though for many it may seem like a science fiction scenario right now.

The events of the last couple of weeks in Poland are no peripheral abomination, and certainly no exception. They are a part of a global trend of liberal democratic models becoming weaker and weaker, a trend which can also be found in the heart of Europe.

TTIP has become notorious over recent years. From Brussels to Berlin, Warsaw to Barcelona, more people know what these four letters stand for today more than ever before.

In 2013, Rui Tavares, then Portuguese Member of the European Parliament among the Greens-EFA group, put forward a report that investigated the threats to fundamental rights that Orban’s government had given rise to in Hungary since 2010, and proposed mechanisms for a common European response to such actions, both in Hungary and potential future similar cases.