Why AI-turbocharged misogyny and porn is a threat to EU democracyWhile speaking with friends and relatives, I often encounter the (sorry) naïve views that the ‘manosphere’ is just some sad boys posting ‘locker-room banter’.
As Beijing’s new “ethnic unity” law tightens state control over Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols, and other minorities, the EU should show that its “unity in diversity” principle is more than a mere slogan — holding the Chinese government to account for its continued violations of international human rights obligations.
In Alpine villages with hardly any foreigners, red campaign flags and talk of “overcrowding” reveal how a distant 10‑million threshold has morphed into a national debate over house prices, cowbells and who still feels at home.
Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani is a loud and outspoken feminist in the rightwing and male-dominated corridors of the European Parliament. “The far-right is really funny because they will fight you for the right of Syrian women to wear lipstick, but then they will not allow women with a veil to work in this house,” she tells EUobserver.
The French Parliament is examining a bill aimed at decriminalising sex work in the country. And for the first time, the text was co-drafted with sex workers. The move has reignited a debate that regularly resurfaces in many European countries. How to regulate sex work?
Sweden, alongside 10 European nations, has raised concerns over the recent rise in European visas granted to Russian citizens.
Stun grenades have no place in the policing of protests. The right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Greece is being blatantly violated both in law and in practice.
French doctors are urging stricter action on PFAS, microplastics, and other water pollutants, while the EU considers easing water regulations to support critical-mineral mining. So what takes priority? Water quality, or battery production in Europe?
Mainstream left and centre-left parties are increasingly adopting positions associated with the far right — tougher migration enforcement, collective policing measures, and the scapegoating of minorities — in pursuit of electoral safety. The evidence this works is, at best, mixed.
Does a direct link really exist between rising defence spending and budgetary cuts in healthcare, benefits or pensions, as many citizens assume? Is it true that European countries must choose between ‘guns or butter’?
“People want participation. They want to be involved in decision-making”, warned one former leader of France’s ‘Yellow Vests’ movement, as a group of European ex-politicians and civil society figures launched the Demcracy27 exercise.
THIS WEEK: EU parents’ rights, US trade war, and a Western Balkans summitA new EU law on ‘recognition of parenthood’ will top the agenda of home affairs’ ministers in Brussels. MEPs will also get an update on the Ebola and Hantavirus outbreaks.
As EU lawmakers turn their fire on “foreign-funded” NGOs, Natacha Kazatchkine warns that a coordinated witch-hunt is starving civil society of money, legitimacy and space to defend basic rights.
Pope Leo has chosen to confront one of the most pressing issues of our time by placing lethal autonomous weapons and the militarisation of artificial intelligence at the centre of his thinking.
Albania is already becoming unaffordable for many of its own citizens during the summer months. Entire coastal areas increasingly cater to foreign investors, luxury tourism, and speculative real estate markets. What was once a shared natural space risks becoming privatised scenery for multimillionaires.
The outbreak of Ebola currently hitting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is being fueled by armed conflict — but also, and perhaps above all, by the global decline in humanitarian aid.
The depopulation situation in Ukraine is particularly acute. The country faces a dual crisis: its population has been declining for over 30 years, and the Russian invasion has only accelerated this trend. Safeguarding a country’s demographics and its future during wartime is a dilemma with no easy solutions – and EU accession might not suffice to reverse the trend.
Most of Europe has seen antisemitism re-emerge dramatically and in explicit and violent forms. Yet alongside it, a more insidious trend is also taking hold: the growing normalisation of Holocaust distortion through fabricated imagery, misleading historical narratives and manipulated content.
From concerns over Israel to getting negotiations right with “our American friends,” data protection has been no walk in the park for veteran EU supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski.
West Bank Israeli settler exports are ending up in Europe’s shops – even in member states which want the EU to ban them in order to curb Israeli aggression, such as Belgium and Spain.
