19/03/13"Sport helps get to know and understand other people", interview with Bernard Cazeneuve and Michael Link

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Elysée Treaty which sealing the friendship between France and Germany, Sport and Citizenship brings you a joint interview with Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister-delegate in charge of European affairs at the Foreign Affairs ministry (France) and Michael Link, deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Secretary general for Franco-German cooperation.

15/11/12Celestino Spada: "Towards a better governance to build the future of culture"

While the 2012 edition will take place in Avignon on 15th, 16th and 17th of November, the Forum d'Avignon interviewed Celestino Spada, editor of the quarterly review 'Economia della cultura' and vice-President of the Italian Associazione per l'Economia della cultura, around the question "How does Culture give you a reason to hope?"

02/11/12Richard rasi : "Reshaping a city through culture"

Košice in Slovakia will be, with Marseille, European capital of Cutlure 2013. While the 2012 edition will take place in Avignon on 15th, 16th and 17th of Novemebre, the Forum d'Avignon interviewed its Mayor, Richard Rasi, around the question "How does Culture give you a reason to hope?"

16/10/12Giorgos Demosthenous: "In our days match-fixing is the biggest current threat to the world of sport"

Since the first of July, Cyprus has taken the lead of the Presidency of the EU, succeeding to Poland and Denmark. Following the EU Sport Forum held in Nicosia, Sport&Citizenship met Giorgos Demosthenous, Cypriot Minister for Education and Culture.

03/11/11Asylum and immigration : what the European youth thinks about

2352 young people from 43 European countries between 16 and 27 had their say in the survey conducted via Facebook by the European Youth Parliament from 13 – 26 September 2011, in cooperation with Stiftung Mercator. Toute l'Europe publish today the complete results of this poll.

07/04/11John Monks : "The Euro plus pact is a major threat"

John Monks is the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Two days before a new Euro-Demonstration on 9 April in Budapest, he describes for Touteleurope.eu Trade Unions opposition to the "Euro plus pact" recently adopted by member states.

23/03/11Social Europe’s new battleground

The fallout from the eurozone crisis has utterly changed the debate over how to achieve a more “Social Europe”. The big question is can its supporters turn this in their favour? Olaf Cramme, director of Policy Network and a visiting fellow at the LSE's European Institute, gives some clues to ansxer that question.

11/03/11Hannu Takkula : "Pushing values related to health and tolerance through sport is not difficult"

In partnership with the think tank Sport and Citizenship, Touteleurope.eu regularly publishes an interview from their quarterly journal. This month we are bringing you an interview with Hannu Takkula a Finnish MEP, member of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and the Culture and Education Committee. Considering the current economic constraints and the role of sport in the EU 2020 Strategy, it is clearly time to start really supporting sport, in particular sport for everyone. Hannu Takkula explains why.

09/12/10Notre Europe: "European political parties: the missing link"

The next European elections will take place in 2014. Why then focus today on the participation of European citizens on this vote? For the French think-tank Notre Europe, the answer is simple: if we want to reverse the decline in participation over the last thirty years which paradoxically has taken place at the same time the European Parliament has been steadily gaining power within European institutions, we must act now. Notre Europe has published a policy paper on this topic by Sir Julian Priestley, former Secretary General of the European Parliament from 1997 to 2007.

24/11/10Notre Europe: "a new resource for the european budget"

On Saturday, November 13, Notre Europe’s Steering Committee met at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris. The meeting, chaired by Jacques Delors, former of the European Commission and founding President of the think tank Notre Europe was attended by current President Tommaso Padoa-Schoppa and more than forty other participants. Following the debates, all participating members signed a joint declaration entitled "a new resource of the european budget".

01/10/10Etienne de Poncins: “The situation of Roma, although often dreadful, is not a hot topic in Bulgaria”

In its new series of monthly interviews, Grand Angle, Toute l’Europe is interviewing an important European person – researcher, politician, historian or artist – on a current European topic. In partnership with Diploweb, Toute l’Europe this month interviewed Etienne de Poncins, the French Ambassador to Bulgaria and expert in European institutions. This is an opportunity to review the economic situation in Bulgaria, major subjects that interest him such as the Roma and energy but also the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty almost one year after it entered into force.

30/09/10Social networks: a space for European political conversations?

To mark the launch of the new website Tweet your MEP, we explain why we developed this new tool for pan-European dialogue and how we hope that it will help develop a European public sphere. 

22/09/10Analysis of MEPs and their Twitter usage

Twitter is a new tool for political staff to communicate what they are doing with citizens. Some have discovered the tool through electoral campaigns and others have come to use it of their own accord. Touteleurope.eu has looked into the percentage of MEPs per country who use Twitter.

28/07/10David Nichols, Amnesty International : "Human rights is often seen as a distraction from more political issues"

The 12th annual EU-NGO Forum took place on 12 and 13 July in Brussels. Organized by the Belgian Presidency of the EU and the European Commission, the Forum focused on the Lisbon Treaty and what it means for EU Human rights policy. Interviewed by Touteleurope.fr, David Nichols from Amnesty International explains the purpose of this forum and what he sees as the main changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty for Amnesty's work on human rights both within and beyond the frontiers of the EU.

05/07/10Mairead McGuinness : "Agriculture is not just an economic sector : it's also social"

Mairead McGuinness is an Irish MEP and member of the agricultural committee of the European Parliament. She spoke to Touteleurope.fr about the recent report of the European Parliament on CAP reform and outlined her views on why CAP should remain a priority of the EU. She cautions against dismantling the CAP which provides essential public goods for all European citizens. She recalls that ensuring food security, balanced rural development and high levels of environmental protection are now the central objectives of the CAP.

29/06/10Ana Mar Fernández: “The Spanish Presidency has passed practically unnoticed in Spain”

The Spanish Presidency ends this Wednesday. It was an eventful presidency due to being the first to operate in the institutional framework of Lisbon and having to deal with the crisis that hit the euro and Spain in particular, in January. To draw conclusions from the presidency of the last six months, we asked Ana Mar Fernández, Professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona and researcher at Sciences Po, to talk to us about European issues.

15/06/10Corruption remains a challenge for the EU-27

European Finance Ministers have just strengthened the investigating powers of Eurostat (on Tuesday 8th June) which will from now on be able to check the reliability of national statistics, but what is the level of corruption in Europe?
Pierre Verluise, PhD in geopolitics, Research Director at IRIS (French Institute for International and Strategic Relations) and Director of the site www.diploweb.com analyses the latest figures on corruption perception from Transparency International and reviews the current situation of corruption in the European Union.

11/06/10Jozef Bátora : "Hungary is the main issue in the Slovakian elections"

On the 12th June Slovakian citizens will head to the polls in a general election overshadowed by tensions with neighbouring Hungary. What will the thse elections change for the foreign and European policy of Slovakia? Why are the new Hungarian laws on citizenship such a cause for concern in Slovakia? Who are the political parties with a chance of being elected?  Jozef Bátora, Associate Professor of Institute of European Studies and International relations in Bratislava, explains the issues at stake in this election.

03/06/10Christophe de Voogd: “In the Netherlands, we are witnessing an anti-European electoral campaign”

In the Netherlands, there is an air of uncertainty hanging over the next elections that will take place on Wednesday, June 9th. Will the new government include the populist and xenophobic candidate Geert Wilders whose results in the March municipal elections took everybody by surprise? Or will there be a return to a more traditional coalition of centrist parties? Whatever the outcome, relations with the European Union seem likely to suffer according to historian Christophe de Voogd. Touching on programmes, populism, social security and Europe, Mr. Voogd discusses the stakes that are at play in the Dutch elections.

26/05/10Pascal Perrineau: “Halting the far right should be done with social, economic and cultural policies”

Hungary, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and the European Parliament are among recent elections which seem to show that parties from the far right are riding high. Pascal Perrineau, university professor at Sciences Po and specialist on the far right in Europe and France, believes that the growth of nationalist forces in several European countries reveals deep discontent but should not, however, be over-estimated.

05/05/10Georges Berthoin: “With the inspiration of Monnet and the authority of Schuman, history was made"

Almost 60 years ago in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Paris, Robert Schuman read the declaration edited over a few weeks with Jean Monnet which would enable creation of the very first European community – the ECSC. Georges Berthoin was a key player in this period as principal private secretary to Jean Monnet who was then president of the ECSC high authority. Mr. Berthoin talks about this ‘historic miracle’, analyses the reasons why Europe is today in crisis and discusses the challenges facing Europe in the future.

21/04/10An EU “fit for purpose” in the global age: Can we rise to the challenge?

After the long and painful Lisbon Treaty ratification process, the EU has a revamped institutional settlement, a new commission, a stable presidency within the Council and a European External Action service which is under construction. Are we now free of our long phase of introspection, ready to confront global challenges and to provide a European strategy to get out of the economic crisis? Loukas Tsoukalis, Olaf Cramme and Roger Liddle of the Policy Network examine the challenges facing the European Union and suggest ways to tackle this questions in the coming years.

16/04/10Cameron’s Europe policy

Coy on how he might approach EU integration, David Cameron is playing a high stakes game which could have long-term implications for Britain and Europe. Roger Liddle and Simon Latham of the Policy Network shed some light on the future European policy of the British Conservatives.

07/03/10Loukas Tsoukalis - We can’t go on like this: Greek debt crisis and the euro

04/03/10All on Board: The EU, ECB and IMF go to Work in Athens

When Prime Minister, George Papandreou, announced after the special EU Council meeting in Brussels that the IMF is providing “technical expertise” to the Greek government some commentators inside and outside Greece seemed to be caught by surprise. They should not have been in such a state of mind. Speculation in the past few weeks, over when and how the IMF should be called in to assist Greece, has been excessive.

18/02/10Frederico Steinberg : "We need to demonstrate that the EU can solve its problems itself"

Along with Greece and Ireland, Spain is struggling to bring its budget deficit under control and to face up to the economic crisis that has been particularly severe due to the combination of the global downturn and a real estate crash. Touteleurope spoke to Frederico Steinberg, economist and expert on international trade at the Institut Royal Elcano and Professor of economic analysis at the University of Madrid. He explains the situation in Spain and examines the possible solutions to the economic crisis at EU level.

17/02/10John FitzGerald : Tough budgetary measures in Ireland, an example for the Greeks

The slowdown in the global economy combined with the bursting of the property bubble marked the end of the boom years of the Celtic Tiger era. Other eurozone countries, namely Greece, Spain and Portugal, are also battling large deficits and mounting public debts. Touteleurope.fr asked Professor John FitzGerald, economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, how Ireland has managed to map out a path to economic recovery and what measures the EU should take to assist other eurozone countries. 

03/02/10Alexandre Mirlesse: "European identity is based on contradiction"

It was during a one-year journey around the European continent that Alexandre Mirlesse wrote his first work, En attendant l’Europe (Waiting for Europe). By alternating interviews with intellectuals from all countries with the author’s reflections, this little book brings a breath of fresh air to the debate on Europe. East-West relations, culture and politics, European identities and even the importance of cafés as meeting places were among the issues discussed by Alexandre Mirlesse in his book and also in the following interview.

19/01/10Loukas Tsoukalis : "Greece won't need to be bailed out by the EU"

In its new series Wide Angle, Touteleurope.fr will interview each month a different expert, politician, historian or artist about a topical european issue. For the first interview in the series Touteleurope.fr spoke to Loukas Tsoukalis, a greek politicial scientist about his country's economic woes and about the future of European social and economic policy.

16/12/09Anthony Giddens : Copenhagen and after

Copenhagen can only take us so far but by no means should it fail, rather it must serve to inspire novel thinking and innovative action at the bilateral, regional and national levels. 

György Schöpflin : 1989 with 20/20 hindsight

It is always difficult to separate perceptions in the present from those that dominated in a previous era. The benefit of hindsight is that it allows us to reevaluate past events and, if the conditions are auspicious, gain better insights into our own earlier shortcomings.