There is a clear call for change in the way we do politics – unfortunately, the change is not moving in a positive direction, as I’ve seen on three occasions. The first time when waking up after the UK referendum in favour of Brexit, I didn’t expect that the call to leave the EU would […]
On 16 November Vice-President and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Sylvie Guillaume invited colleagues and civil society representatives to a meeting on shrinking civic space. Transparency International defines civic space as ‘the freedom and means to speak, access information, associate, organise, and participate in public decision-making’ The discussion took its starting point from Civil […]
On 15 November we held a round table meeting in the European Parliament, entitled ‘The EU Facilitation Directive: Protecting the right to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants & refugees’ (see photos). The event was co-hosted by with Members of the European Parliament Carlos Coelho (EPP), Elly Schlein (S&D), Cecilia Wikström (ALDE), and Judith Sargentini (Greens/EFA). […]
On 16 November, the European Commission adopted the Autumn Package presenting the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) 2017, with the Press Release title: ‘Working on a stronger and more inclusive economic recovery’. European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) cautiously welcomes some messages and actions highlighted in the AGS 2017 and Autumn Package which highlight the intention to promote […]
15 children from over 9 EU countries to travel to Brussels to share their experiences of being child mayors, child councillors and other positions allowing them to engage in decisions that affect the lives of children. In advance of the International Children’s Day on 20 November, the European Parliament will discuss how children’s voices can […]
The European Youth Forum announced this evening (16th November) that the European Youth Capital for 2019 is to be the city of Novi Sad, in Serbia. An independent, high-level jury, convened by the European Youth Forum, chose Novi Sad from a shortlist of five finalist cities for the EYC (European Youth Capital) 2019 title. Through […]
In mid-December a Social Platform delegation will go to south Sweden for a fact-finding visit to learn about some good examples of economic inclusion of migrants, which will be our focus next year. I therefore read with great interest a chapter about Sweden in a report by Bertelsmann Stiftung that has mapped labour-market integration support […]
Many people share my opinion that the European Union’s record on migration so far has been pretty scandalous. It’s a scandal that since the beginning of the year, 4,000 migrants and refugees have died at sea trying to enter the EU. It’s a scandal that many of our leaders have shown a clear lack of […]
On 25 October I met with our members working on migration and refugees to look at how we should input to the European Commission’s work on legal migration, and to discuss challenges we face with keeping up with the proposals for a reformed Common European Asylum System. EU Legal Migration – fit for purpose? Representatives […]
The European Commission has set out its work programme for next year, prioritising the need to ‘focus on the important things’ and ‘do things better’ to gain citizens’ trust that the EU is ‘at their service’. A key focus is to review existing laws to evaluate if they are effective or obsolete, as well as […]
