EFDbackup: Eurosphere agenda: “Confidential TTIP documents published…

Debate: Confidential TTIP documents published

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Confidential documents were made public on Sunday that reveal the current status of the negotiations on the TTIP free trade pact. Obama and Angela Merkel spoke out only last week in favour of the deal while tens of thousands of people protested against it. The press also discusses the pros and cons of the TTIP

France claims TTIP talks likely to stop

EurActiv.com by frederic.simon

Negotiations on the planned TTIP agreement between the US and the EU are likely to grind to a halt because of Washington’s reluctance to make concessions, a top French trade official warned today (3 May).

Debate: What will TTIP leaks bring?

euro|topics

Greenpeace published confidential documents on Sunday that reveal the current state of the negotiations on the TTIP free trade pact. Commentators take different views of the coup, with some saying that the politicians must not act without consulting the people and others arguing that such transparency hurts Europe’s bargaining position.

Debate: Obama and Merkel right to promote TTIP?

euro|topics

Barack Obama and Angela Merkel have spoken out in favour of signing the controversial TTIP trade deal as soon as possible. Meanwhile thousands of people took to the streets in Hanover, where the two leaders opened the city’s industrial trade fair. Europe’s press talks about the pros and cons of the deal.

Debate: Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party

euro|topics

Britain’s Labour Party has repeatedly had to defend itself against accusations of anti-Semitism. First former London mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from the party and now three more Labour politicians have met the same fate because of their controversial statements about Israel. How susceptible is Labour to anti-Semitic views?

Debate: FPÖ triumphs in Austrian presidential elections

euro|topics

The FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer won over 36 percent of the vote in the first round of Austria’s presidential elections – the best result the right-wing populist party has ever achieved in nationwide elections. Commentators see the election above all as a vote against the establishment and call for a serious approach vis-à-vis the party.

Debate: Panic over Greece again?

euro|topics

The assessment of Greece’s austerity measures is progressing slowly, delaying the release of the next instalment of the country’s third bailout package and leaving the country once again facing bankruptcy. Prime Minister Tsipras’s proposal for the convening of a special EU summit has been turned down by EU Council President Donald Tusk. Which approach can solve the crisis?

Debate: Fewer refugees – crisis solved?

euro|topics

Since the conclusion of the Turkey deal and the closure of the Balkan route fewer migrants have arrived in the EU. But does this mean the EU now has the refugee crisis under control? Only superficially, commentators conclude.

Defence on the Brexit frontline

open Democracy News Analysis – by Richard Whitman

The UK has shown little interest of late in enhancing military cooperation with Europe, preferring to work through NATO instead. Would a vote for Brexit change that?

llee_wu/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nd)

EU freedom of movement and Brexit

open Democracy News Analysis – by Sofia Vasilopoulou

EU migration could be the make or break issue of the Brexit campaigns. Both sides understand this, but how will they approach the topic?

fkwiatkowski/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)

Brexit from the French perspective

open Democracy News Analysis – by Pierre Kanuty

This challenge for ‘in’ campaigners is to answer the demands of citizens without offering Eurosceptics an opportunity to frame the debate.

Rob Bowker/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)

Brexit – Britain’s exit from the European Union – is more than a debate on the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the European continent.

What are the BBC guidelines on the EU referendum?

open Democracy News Analysis – by Oliver Daddow

To hold the BBC to account on its coverage of the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ campaigns, we need to properly understand its Referendum Guidelines and the challenges of ensuring ‘impartiality’.

Brexit Divisions: What you ought to know about EU referendums and the UK debate

open Democracy News Analysis – by Claudia Sternberg and Ece Özlem Atikcan

As the Brexit campaigns heat up in preparation for the 23 June referendum, we launch a new project to examine both the issues and how referendum campaigns are waged.

Women and the young are being left in the dark by the Brexit debate

open Democracy News Analysis – by Josiah Mortimer

New research suggests that the British media’s coverage of the EU referendum is failing to reach groups outside of middle-aged to elderly men.

Credit: Leave.EU

There are now less than four months to go until the EU referendum. Yet all the signs are that the hard facts of the debate are not seeping through to the public. So far the discussion has been dominated by internal party politics and personalities – where an MP backing the in or out side means a media-dominating rift in this or that party.

The puzzle of EU referendums

open Democracy News Analysis – by Ece Özlem Atikcan

Previous referendums on European Union treaties contain many lessons and insights into the upcoming referendum in the UK.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission. Martin Schulz/Flickr. Some rights reserved.Referendum campaigns matter more than election campaigns. Research has shown time and time again that people tend to change their minds during a referendum campaign, especially when the subject is an unfamiliar one, and the politicians line up in a non-traditional way. Voters then rely on campaign information to make sense of the referendum proposal, and the way political actors present the issue makes a difference.

This is typically the case in referendums on the European Union (EU), and even more so when the referendum question concerns EU treaties, which are considerably technical and long. Besides being unfamiliar with the EU’s unique terminology, European citizens lack direct interaction with EU institutions in their daily lives. In addition, these campaigns often pitch the parties in the middle against those that are at the extremes of the political spectrum. The far left and the far right come together in their fight against the proposal, forming alliances never seen in regular elections. Referendum campaigns thus have an important role in helping citizens make sense of the European treaty at hand. In the referendums on Maastricht, Nice, Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, campaign information has been shown to be the key to understanding the vote choice.

Will Greece become the Calais of Europe?

EurActiv.com by Romaric Godin

Greece is at risk of becoming one giant refugee hotspot. The closure of its northern border and the continued influx of refugees from Turkey has placed Athens in a critical situation

INFOGRAPHIC: Who are the EU summit champions?

EurActiv.com by Georgi Gotev

The EU summit today (7 March) will be the 101^st for Jean-Claude Juncker, as premier of Luxembourg and president of the European Commission. Second comes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with 66 summits Third is Donald Tusk, with 57 summits as premier of Poland and president of the European Council.

The problem of sovereignty in the EU referendum

open Democracy News Analysis – by Gerry Hassan

Politicians have a habit of throwing the concept of sovereignty around when it suits them…

After years of second guesses and a rising tide of Europhobia and scare stories, finally the UK faces the certainty of a vote on June 23rd on whether or not it remains a member of the European Union. This will be a debate about so much – about how people see Britain and its future, the English question, and the distinctiveness and autonomy of Scotland – all illustrating the absence of any uniform national British politics.

Moldova’s women in crisis

open Democracy News Analysis – by Marina Shupac