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Which Victims Count? The EU and Refugees from Ukraine

LeftEast is reprinting this important analysis by Monika Mokre on the contradictions of the EU’s refugee policy, in light of the current Russian aggression in Ukraine. The piece originally appeared on the Refugee Outreach and Research Network (ROR-n) website. It was at the end of the 1990s when the EU once again realized that it […]

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What does Europe want? An interview with Volt Co-President Reinier Van Lanschot

Over the last decade the European Union has been confronted with one crisis after the other. On the national level this situation prompted the creation of new political parties, which entered the scene abruptly. Notable examples include Podemos, founded in the wake of the indignados movement and two years into the European debt crisis; the […]

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Interview with Wolfgang Streeck: “I definitely prefer a cooperative over an empire”

Note from LeftEast editors: This interview was originally published in Mérce, a left-wing news site in Hungary. It was conducted via e-mail and published on the occasion of Merkel’s departure from power, and to provide context for Hungary’s and Poland’s initial veto on the EU COVID19 recovery package. NL: For many Hungarians Germany is a […]

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Organizing for Housing Justice during the Covid-19 pandemic: a report by organizations from 18 countries

The European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City (EAC) is launching its report: Organizing for Housing Justice during the Covid-19 pandemic. A collectively written overview, the document covers tactics employed by housing movements from 18 different national contexts in Europe during the first part of the pandemic (March-July 2020), detailing […]

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In Name Only: where are the People in the Romanian EU Election Campaign?

We are publishing this article in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian web portal Bilten. Recently, relatively new political actors in Romania announced their intention to run for the upcoming elections of a new European Parliament. Their profiles could not be more different but they share nonetheless a common feature that neatly expresses the systemic and terminal […]

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The Country He Loved So Well: a Conversation with Yanis Varoufakis

I was waiting for Yanis Varoufakis seated in an old Hamburg cafe while outside everything had turned gray. A light mist blanketed the roofs, trees, cars and the occasional passerby. It was the perfect day for snowfall although the weather forecast had given no hope for it. Inside the lights were on, the cafe packed […]

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Romanian Agriculture and its Discontents: Its Social Importance, Its Economic Insignificance

This article has been published in collaboration with Bilten. According to the Eurostat statistics for 2016, one third of all farms in the EU can be found in Romania- roughly 3,600 thousand agricultural holdings. Similarly, the country boasts the largest share of labor force employed in agriculture in the EU, a staggering 26% of the […]

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So Trashy! A Review of EU Waste Management and Inequality Modeling

The policy of the European Union (EU) in the field of environmental protection and natural resources has, since the 1980s, continued to grow in importance. But some topics are of particular concern to European citizens. This is the case, in particular, with the production of waste, which is increasingly alarming, with the EU generating some […]

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A 50/50 Ball: The East versus the EU in the Refugee Relocation Game

Editorial note: The following piece originally appeared at Verfassungsblog | On Matters Constitutional. We carry it here with kind permission from the author. The soccer terminology of a 50/50 ball refers to a free ball contested by two opponents, usually after a badly behaved goal kick. Analogy that much resembles the ongoing political game between […]

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Refugees and the Image of Suffering: Why Does Nobody Listen?

From the diary of false faith in the outside world. Last year during my presence on the Balkan migrant route, I struggled with a number of new roles. First I was a volunteer at the borders, then all of a sudden I was to direct a documentary, and then I became a journalist, whose job was […]