Posts

• 

  Jul 20th, 2020

  Shorter working week newsletter 6

  The newsletter is produced by the New Economics Foundation (UK), and is coordinated by ATTAC (Germany – Group ArbeitFAIRTeilen) and Réseau Roosevelt (France). It is supported by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Brussels Office, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
• 

  Jul 14th, 2020

  Interview with Ethan Earle about the Gilets jaunes and French democracy

  The takeover of the Bastille by ordinary French women and men represented a massive turning point in the French Revolution, and, while Bastille Day is now typically celebrated with Europe’s largest military parade and other accoutrements of crude nationalism and reactionary state power, the Place de la Bastille remains a major popular square, a meeting point for ordinary people from all over Paris and beyond, as well as a common site of protest and political demonstration.
• 

  Jul 8th, 2020

  New Paper Exposes Big Tech’s Plans for New WTO Rules over Data Access and Control

  The paper, “Digital Trade Rules: A Disastrous New Constitution for the Global Economy, By and for Big Tech,” by Deborah James, provides a detailed look at the efforts of companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft to secure new accords at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that would allow them greater access to, and ownership of, data with minimal restrictions.
• 

  Jul 8th, 2020

  Reset: The post-coronavirus transport conundrum

  During the coronavirus crisis, cities around the world seized the opportunity to close roads to cars and to expand pedestrian zones and cycle lanes. But what future will these initiatives have when normality is restored?
• 

  Jul 6th, 2020

  “For the democratic production of democratic societies”

  Over the last two decades, various consultation practices regarding extractive activities have emerged and been implemented throughout Latin America.
• 

  Jul 2nd, 2020

  “Closer to the people? On (direct) democracy in the age of digitalisation”

  Call for contributions to edited volume “The Crisis and Future of Representative Democracy”
• 

  Jul 1st, 2020

  Austerity and Health

  With the current crisis making this issue increasingly topical and urgent, we sat down to discuss health care with three prominent speakers with a view to developing an analytical overview of the dramatic situation, explaining its causes and coming up with alternatives worth fighting for.
• 

  Jul 1st, 2020

  Austerity kills

  A decade of austerity imposed by the European Union institutions and EU Member State governments has caused significant deterioration in healthcare services across the EU.
• 

  Jul 1st, 2020

  The EU`s role in attacking healthcare

  The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the EU’s healthcare and public sectors to be ill-equipped to respond to the outbreak in accordance with international best practice.
• 

  Jul 1st, 2020

  In the wake of Sunday’s “green wave”

  On Sunday the 28th of June, voters across France went to the polls to decide the municipal governments of 4.820 communes, including all of the country’s largest cities.
• 

  Jun 30th, 2020

  Call for contributions: the relationship of liberal democracy and racism

  With its emphasis on human rights, equality, justice, freedom and participation, liberal representative democracy appears to hold many promises for marginalised and racialised people. Yet reality tells a different story.
• 

  Jun 29th, 2020

  Of humans and cattle

  Last summer, the unprecedented scale of forest fires in the Amazon rainforest clouded the skies above the Amazon and the world's television screens. We will most likely see these images again this summer, because these are blazes started by humans, who then happily dance around the fire as they look forward to the ensuing profit. Against this backdrop, a Europe-wide network bringing together many environmental and human rights organisations is currently mobilising its forces against the agreement. In an open letter, the NGO Seattle to Brussels Network therefore calls to put a stop to the agreement once and for all.
• 

  Jun 26th, 2020

  “We must make the commons a fulcrum for our society, allowing everyone to have security and give meaning to their life.”

  The mayor of Grenoble has assembled a broad coalition of Greens, the Left and citizen groups to do a different sort of politics in the city of 158.000, located in Southeast France at the foot of the Alps. On the cusp of his second term, Éric Piolle sat down with Ethan Earle to discuss Covid, Macron and the “humanist arc” he seeks to build.
• 

  Jun 25th, 2020

  The European Automotive Sector

  Every sector of the economy has felt the impact of the coronavirus crisis, and car manufacturing is no exception. There are 12 million EU workers employed in the automotive industry, either directly in production or in parts manufacturing, and the sector accounts for 7% of the union’s GDP.
• 

  Jun 24th, 2020

  Analysing the Spanish Minimum Income Guarantee

  The Minimum Income Guarantee (IMV) is not the same as an unconditional universal basic income, but it is a big step in the right direction.
• 

  Jun 23rd, 2020

  The strength of the people against COVID-19 across a country in misgovernment

  In Brazil, while president Jair Bolsonaro boycotts all efforts to fight the spread of novel coronavirus, popular movements are getting organized to help the most vulnerable part of the population.
• 

  Jun 19th, 2020

  “Closer to the people?”

  Call for contributions to edited volume “The Crisis and Future of Representative Democracy”
• 

  Jun 18th, 2020

  Unlocked in lockdown

  On 12 June 1985, Felipe González signed the Treaty of Accession of Spain to the European Economic Community. Less than a month later, on 1 July, Organic Law 7/1985 on the rights and freedoms of foreigners in Spain was enacted.
• 

  Jun 16th, 2020

  “When women spend more time at home, it is never good for their rights”

  The lockdown has highlighted the fact that victims of domestic violence live in de facto lockdown all the time. Anne-Cécile Mailfert is a French feminist activist and President of the Fondation des Femmes (Women's Foundation). In early June 2020, she took the time to answer questions from A Season in Hell Editor Ethan Earle about violence against women during, before and after the Coronavirus.
• 

  Jun 10th, 2020

  "Permanent right to remain instead of undeclared work!"

  Italy's farmworkers are organising successfully in the USB union: An interview with Patrick Segal Konde