The Struggle for Energy Democracy in the Maghreb

The European Union and its member states claim that its international relations are guided by values and principles based on democracy and human rights. Countless projects are financed and implemented in this regard. Europe’s hunger for energy is no exception in this context, and this brochure, authored by Hamza Hamouchene, serves as an introduction to this topic ...

Migrant detention in the EU: a thriving business

In the decade influenced by the september 11 attacks, a veritable "migration security market" sprang up, and the interests of european political leaders looking to militarize borders progressively converged with those of the main defence and security service providers. Migrant detention at the borders and within the EU plays an important role in the markets developed in response to political programmes to stem migration flows ...

What is to be produced? The making of a new industrial policy in Europe

Is it unwise to work on a progressive industrial policy in times of climate change and COP21? Au contraire!, we’d like to answer. A truly progressive industrial policy is one of the basic pillars which a sustainable future society will be built on. A truly progressive industrial policy is a necessary precondition for a strong and permanent social dimension for any future integrated Europe ...

The coalition treaty of the European elite

It is crunch time in the European Union. The cold putsch against the Syriza government was designed to put a stop to potential progressive reforms at the EU level; the referendum on Brexit threatens to lead to further EU exits; and under pressure from many states, the European Union is treating war refugees from the Middle East inhumanely and working with NATO to keep them out ...

Harnessing private finance to attain public policy goals?

Governments increasingly try to use public funds or guarantees to attract private portfolio finance to realise public goals like infrastructure projects, or to deal with social or environmental problems. The latest SOMO report ‘Harnessing private finance to attain public policy goals?’, analyses this growing trend and identifies the risks that come with it ...

Update 2016: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

The resistance against TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is alive and kicking. While national leaders of the interested parties like Obama and Merkel are trying to revive the negotiations, wishing to finalise them, people are organising protest in many places to mark their disagreement ...

The expected impact of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

On 6 April 2016, the Dutch electoracte will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine. But what is the referendum about and why is it worth campaigning for a No vote? Here we explain why the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will only benefit a number of Ukraine’s elite at a cost to the majority ...

Resisting Evictions Across Europe

As this timely report makes depressingly clear, the forcible eviction of people from their homes – whether rented, owned or occupied – is on the rise in Europe. In some respects, Europe has arrived late to the global eviction party that each year sees millions of people displaced from housing across the world ...

The Coldest Summer - Three refugees' stories

A working mother, a working father and two children who are forced to struggle to survive, to leave their homeland because it has become too dangerous, to abandon the life they knew as it had become unbearable, and leave their families behind in the pursuit of a life where they can think beyond the next day or month and in which they will be able plan a future in peace: to work, study and live among us with equal access to democracy, social rights and culture ...

A love-hate relationship

EU 2016: the political crisis follows the financial and economic crisis. Right-wing populists have taken over the government in Hungary and Poland. In France the far right Front National is making gradual inroads towards power; Member of the European Parliament Marine Le Pen wants to become president in 2017 ...

Strategies of Energy Democracy | a report

Since its emergence within the German climate justice movement around the turn of the decade, the concept of “energy democracy” has begun to offer the seeds of a new political agenda for a progressive energy politics. Discourses of energy democracy are now circulating throughout grassroots movements, trade unions, universities and policy circles ...

The Energy Union: what's behind it?

Faced with the multiple crises of neoliberal capitalism and growing geopolitical tensions, the European Union (EU) shifts from one failed crisis management to the other. Thereby, the financial and economic crisis, as well as the failure of the EU migration regime, have revealed deeply rooted institutional weaknesses ...

The making of the EU Internal Energy Market

This short explanation paper aims to provide the reader with a brief overview of what the Internal Energy Market is, how it has been developing so far and what barriers and conflicts can be associated with it.Download:

Why "left industrial policy"? (copy 1)

The multiple crises put the European left parties and social movements under pressure to find answers to often contradicting challenges. On the one hand we are in the midst of an environmental world crisis, which originates largely in the capitalist metropolis of the North. On the other hand millions of Europeans are unemployed and the economic crisis after the Lehman Brothers crash has proven those voices wrong who thought that the service sector will provide stable and good job opportunities ...

A bright future for fossil energy in the EU?

The expansion of the electricity and gas distribution networks presents an obstacle to a decentralised, Europe-wide transition to renewable energy. Supporting electricity and gas infrastructure projects allows energy companies to profit on the energy markets from their production overcapacities of fossil fuels ...

Shaping industry from the left

In 2015 a group of politicians, scientists, activists and trade union representatives reflected on solutions for the multiple crises in Europe. The environmental world crisis as well as the un-employment of millions of Europeans are raising significant challenges. A part of the solution for the most urgent problems lies in a progressive industrial policy ...

Golden Dawn on Trial

After many years of bloody action on the streets, the leaders and officials of Golden Dawn are in the dock facing charges of directing and participating in a criminal organisation. No special legislation or political intervention was required. All that was needed was the state’s decision to allow the criminal code to be applied and the combining of dozens of case files on the activities of Golden Dawn’s hit squads ...

The Golden Dawn Trial

The trial of Golden Dawn begun on April 20. What do we know about it? Who are the defendants, in which cases are they involved, what other cases are included in the case file? What are the charges against current and former Golden Dawn MPs? At a glance, this flyer gives basic information about the structure of the trial, the defendants and the charges and exposes moments from the action of Golden Dawn as it is recorded in the case file ...

Practice of Energy Democracy

Already today, the energy transition in Europe is supplanting nuclear and coal power plants and will, at some point, be able to completely replace them.This study offers a general and easy-to-understand overview of vanguard energy democracy projects within the EU. The authors looked for nascent energy projects characterised by their combination of an energy transition approach with gains in participation, collective ownership, or for local business or ecology in general ...

Economic Valuation of Nature

'Nature is destroyed because it’s invisible to politicians and business', advocates of economic valuation say. The implicit assumption: Create a ‘nature that capital can see’ and the loss of biodiversity will be stopped. But it isn’t that simple!Possibly far-reaching changes in perception and subtle changes to legal principles will go hand-in-hand with creating a ‘nature that capital can see’ ...