Crisis

For Turkish citizens, entering and traveling within the EU can be a frustrating struggle, with many bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. Although this state of affairs seems a great injustice, the prospect of easier access for Turks to countries within Schengen seems fraught with difficulties – both linked to Turkey’s turbulent domestic politics as well as the increasingly uncertain state of the EU’s internal borders.

Over the past year, Europe, besides the economic crisis, has had to face another big challenge: the largest refugee flow since the Second World War.

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 conflicting messages of welcome displayed by the German government towards refugees is hindering integration processes, for the state, the refugees and the citizens. For the sake of all three, accepting the situation is the only way of moving forward.

Europeans have to make their societies genuinely inclusive, and Greens could play a constructive role in making this work – says Green MEP Jean Lambert, in an interview with the Green European Journal, which touched on Jeremy Corbyn, Calais and the British response to the refugee crisis.

A strong anti-austerity civil society started to be a reality in Portugal in 2011.

In what kind of world does the political artist work? Sociologist Saskia Sassen spoke at the first Life Hack of the art project Hacking Habitat. Her theme for the evening: invisibility. This concept was explored in connection to a range of ideas including expulsion, complexity and violence in the global economy.

Introduction by the Editorial Board

At the southern border of “Fortress Europe”, the Mediterranean has turned into a graveyard. The current migrant crisis in Europe is about more than a risk to the EU’s reputation. It strikes at the core of the EU’s founding values. A continuation of its half-hearted response to the migration crisis is out of question.