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European Union: Cameron-Merkel, a courting couple
15 April 201324567 The Times London -
Iceland: Journey to Iceland’s cultural miracle
22 March 20131488126 El País Madrid -
Cyprus: The crisis? Merkel’s fault, of course!
19 March 2013816139 El Mundo Madrid -
Portrait: Andreas Georgiou learns the unwritten rules of Greek statistics
18 March 201311415 NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam -
European Parliament: A loaded chamber
13 March 201312316 Financial Times London -
Poland: Gone with the Fiat
23 January 201311152 Tygodnik Powszechny Cracow -
Immigration: The secrets of Fortress Europe
4 October 201217712 De Groene Amsterdammer Amsterdam -
Catalonia: Artur Mas - the man with Spain’s future in his hands
2 October 201214387 Financial Times London -
Photography : Their Europe is ours too
21 September 20121112 Público Lisbon -
Profile: Bare breasts, heads high
20 September 20122039 Libération Paris -
Spain: Workers’ cooperative defies crisis
29 August 2012262825 Público Madrid -
Italy: Monte Argentario, where the Czech elite goes to heaven
1 August 2012394 Mladá Fronta DNES Prague -
Estonia: Two-thirds reject privacy-busting Facebook
28 May 20122226 Postimees Tallinn -
Profile: Is Alexis Tsirpas a danger for Europe?
25 May 2012298127 Der Freitag Berlin -
Profile: Sascha Lobo, nerd king in internet desert
22 May 201281 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Portrait: Economics with a human face
3 May 201297 Respekt Prague -
Germany: Far right in green packaging
2 May 20126086 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Romania: A fertile land of opportunity
30 April 20124201 Le Monde Paris -
Profile: Max Schrems, the man who de-friended Facebook
27 April 20129254 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Environment: Statistical fog in battle against CO2
20 April 20121334 The Guardian London -
Emigration: Indignado generation finds happiness abroad
19 April 2012104913 Polityka Warsaw -
Belarus: Lukashenko’s friends in Brussels
20 March 20121174 EUobserver.com Brussels -
Balkans: The three musketeers of new Serbia
6 March 2012852 Le Figaro Paris -
Romania: Raed Arafat: A reluctant rebel
18 January 2012129 Qmagazine Bucharest -
Czech Republic: Václav Havel - neither an angel nor God
19 December 20112021 Hospodářské Noviny Prague -
Transnistria: Stooges’ ballot in Tiraspol
9 December 2011111 România libera Bucharest -
Profile: Jürgen Habermas, the last European
2 December 2011292313 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
EUROPEAN OF THE WEEK: Guido Strack - the downfall of a whistleblower
6 October 201122810 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Ireland: Martin McGuinness - from IRA to the presidency
29 September 201139 The Independent London -
Portrait: Power, not nuclear
2 May 20111522 VoxPublica.ro Bucharest -
Litterature: Paolo Rumiz, soul without frontiers
22 April 20111491 Le Figaro Paris -
Portrait: A Super Mario for the ECB?
8 April 2011543 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
Far right: Timo Soini, True Finn in sheep's clothing
10 March 2011153 Fokus Stockholm -
Literature: In praise of indignation
7 January 2011870 Libération Paris -
European of the week: How I survived the Irish boom
24 November 20104661 The Times London -
European of the week: The riddle of Princess Hijab
12 November 2010466 The Guardian London -
European of the Week: No downfall for Bruno Ganz
8 October 201019 România libera Bucharest -
Roma: Sarkozy is doing the right thing
6 September 201030119 The Independent London -
Roma: No end to hypocrisy from Paris and Brussels
26 August 201098 Sega Sofia -
European of the Week: Béla Bugár, bridge builder
29 June 201034 Respekt Prague -
Football: World cup, the succour of soccer
11 June 20101193 ABC Madrid -
European of the Week : Ilmars Poikans, Latvian cyber-avenger
21 May 2010578 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
European of the week: Ahmet Davutoglu, between two worlds
14 May 201031 Adevărul Bucharest -
European of the Week: Antonio Presti, anti-Mafia patron of the arts
23 April 2010142 El País Madrid -
EUROPEAN OF THE WEEK: Necla Kelek, defending democracy
16 April 201015 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
European of the week: Baltasar Garzón, judge in the dock
9 April 2010432 El País Madrid -
EUROPEAN OF THE WEEK: Iveta Radičová, phoenix of Bratislava
2 April 2010332 Respekt Prague -
European of the week: Miriam Meckel, life after burn-out
19 March 2010331 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurt -
European of the week: Florence Aubenas, undercover on the crisis
26 February 2010102 Le Monde Paris -
European of the Week: Agata Buzek, not just daddy's girl?
19 February 2010Polska The Times Warsaw
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As David Cameron’s recent visit shows, a growing band of people in Germany support the British PM’s tough approach to the EU. Ahead of Germany’s September election, Chancellor Angela Merkel looks quite tempted to align herself with Britain’s open market ideas, rather than those of protectionist France.
Iceland escaped the grip of austerity and has turned Icelandic culture into the country’s second largest contributor to GDP, with an impact of around €1bn per year. Unemployment is at 5.7 per cent, growth at 3 per cent – and the island is alive to the sound of music and movie shoots.
The aid plan launched by the Eurogroup in return for a tax levied on Cyprian bank deposits has provoked violent reactions. Germany is often accused of wanting to punish a struggling country. However, it’s not the Chancellor who is to blame for the mistakes of the island, writes an economist.
Greek statistics are now finally reliable, even according to Eurostat. However, the man largely responsible for a shake-up of working practices in the country is now facing charges of treason.
The EU parliament’s capping of bank bonuses shows it has matured as a political force.
Modern and productive, the Tychy factory was once Fiat’s flagship site, but in the face of the debt crisis, the Italian automaker has decided to bring production of the popular Panda back to Naples. For the Polish workforce, this means a wave of redundancies in late January, and disillusionment is the order of the day.
The EU is constantly looking to strengthen surveillance of its external borders, using increasingly expensive technologies. But are they effective? And in a democracy, who control the controller? asks the Groene Amsterdammer.
Not only is Spain in the midst of a devastating economic crisis, but it also faces the prospect of a constitutional one, after nationalist leader Arthur Mas, president of the autonomous Catalonia region, called an election widely considered as a plebiscite on independence. A profile.
What is our Europe like? How do we see it? How do we experience it? We all live in the same space, but without seeing it in the same way: an observation demonstrated by the works on show at the European Photo Exhibition Award, which is set to run until 18 November at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris.
The women of the Femen association, noted for their bare-breasted feminist demonstrations, are the best-known activists in Ukraine. But some, such as Inna Shevchenko, have been pressured into leaving the country. Now settled in Paris, they have opened a training centre in order to instruct followers from the world over.
Unemployment is non-existent in Marinaleda, an Andalusian village in southern Spain that is prosperous thanks to its farming cooperative. In a country in the grip of austerity, the village mayor, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, heads a grassroots resistance movement.
Some of Czech Republic's most famous politicians love nothing more than spend their holidays in stunning villas on Italy's Tuscan coast, sharing quality time with with family, lobbyists and businessmen. Their friendly and generous ways have endeared them to the local residents.
Although they pride themselves on being a wired nation, statistics show that only a third of Estonians have registered with the leading social network. For the other two thirds, it is a question of privacy.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies.
Revolt against data retention, distrust of Google and Facebook: in all things Internet, Germany is an “emerging nation”, says Sascha Lobo. The best-known blogger and Internet pioneer in the country is going through something similar. He is sought after – and hated.
A former advisor to Václav Havel and a member of the Czech National Economic Council, the 35-year-old Prague man is the author of the international best-seller on the history of economics from the perspective of the Bible, myths and literature. His secret: a remarkable ability to sell himself along with his ideas.
Right-wing extremists linked to the far right NPD are increasingly making hay in politically innocuous organic farming, which they use as a means to spread neo-Nazi ideas in green packaging.
Attracted by the low cost of agricultural land, Farmers from elsewhere in the EU are taking the plunge to set up in Romania. In so doing they are contributing to a renewal of local agriculture which is increasingly oriented towards organic produce.
A law student from Vienna is accusing Facebook of contempt for Europe’s data protection laws. For the company, which wants to go public soon, the attention comes at a bad time.
The EU’s plan to reduce CO2 emissions is lauded for being the most ambitious scheme of its kind. But unclear criteria and wayward accounting put into doubt the success of steps taken so far.
Thousands of young people, often educated, are leaving Portugal and Spain. Europe doesn’t need them while Africa and South America receive them with open arms.
Even as President Alexander Lukashenko becomes increasingly cruel — with two men recently executed for the 2011 bombing in the Minsk metro — the EU capital is seeing an unprecedented level of lobbying on his behalf, reports the EUobserver.
Forget the Milošević years and strike a course for the EU. In Belgrade, this is the plan embodied by three ambitious young politicians — Vuk Jeremić, Božidar Đelić and Borislav Stefanović — all of whom trained in the west.
The revolt currently shaking Bucharest is inspired by Raed Arafat, a doctor of Palestinian origin who protested against the privatisation of the country's health system.
The former Czech president did not seek power for power’s sake, but became indispensable during the next twenty-two years of his country’s post-communist development. A tribute from Prague daily Hospodářské noviny after his death on December 18th.
The secessionist region of Moldova is to hold presidential elections on 11 December — a vote that will be marked by a strange bargain between its Russian protector and Germany, which aims to resolve a conflict that has been deadlocked for 20 years.
Jürgen Habermas has had enough. The philosopher is doing all he can these days to call attention to what he sees as the demise of the European ideal. He hopes he can help save it -- from inept politicians and the dark forces of the market.
He wanted justice, and for it risked family, work and health – to lose it all. Guido Strack was once an ambitious officer with the European Commission. But that was before he began to draw attention to abuses in his department.
Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has declared his candidacy for the Irish Republic’s presidential election of October 27. The Independent profiles a candidate whose career begins as IRA leader during the Troubles, to peacemaker, and politician.
Founder of one of the first cooperatives for producing renewable energy, Germany’s Ursula Sladeck has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in the United States.
Traveller, writer and journalist. Italian, Balkan and a little bit Slavic too. Paolo Rumiz is all these things at the same time, this man who has passed through the upheavals of Europe and got it all down in books of highly personal tales.
Axel Weber has taken himself out of the running, and the candidate from Finland has also withdrawn: That leaves an Italian, Mario Draghi, in line to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank. A man from a deeply indebted EU nation may now be tasked with saving the euro.
With two months left to run before general elections, the anti-immigration, eurosceptic populist leader is moving ahead in the polls. Taking advantage of a nice-guy image, Timo Soini could undermine Finland’s political establishment.
With sales of more than 500,000 copies, the pamphlet Indignez-vous [which literally translates as “Be indignant”] by 93-year-old philosopher and former member of the French Resistance Stéphane Hessel launches an appeal for social and political commitment fueled by the emotion inspired by injustice.
Irish author Julian Gough got through the Celtic Tiger years on little more than love and fresh air. Now resident in Berlin, here’s his tale of staying sceptical (and broke) as the rest of the country went mad (and bust) on property fever.
In the midst of heated debates about national identity and burqa bans, French graffiti artist Princess Hijab’s ad-busting interventions on Paris metro fashion ads now have a worldwide audience. But who is she? And does it matter if she’s not even a she?
Every year the European Film Academy honours a practitioner of the “seventh art” for the entirety of his or her past work. This year the lifetime achievement award goes to Swiss actor Bruno Ganz.
As interior ministers from several EU states gather to discuss immigration in Paris, French president Nicolas Sarkozy's drive against illegal Roma settlement has been vilified at home and abroad. A British columnist takes his defence.
The "humanitarian" repatriation of several hundred Roma from France to Romania and Bulgaria is "cynical and demagogical", insists Bulgarian editorialist Svetoslav Terziev. And worse yet, it offers nothing toward solving the problem of their eventual integration.
Founder of Hungarian-Slovak reconciliation party Most-HÍD, the Magyar politician leads the drive to improve the troubled relations between the Slovak majority and the country's ethic-Hungarian minority. His success in recent elections is a positive sign for stability in Central Europe.
The World Cup kicking off on 11 June in South Africa is a lot more than a sporting event: it has become a mass sociological phenomenon that eclipses our daily doldrums. A case in point is Spain: a country in a fix but favorites to win the tournament.
For months he was Latvia’s cyber Robin Hood. After hacking into secret tax files, Ilmars Poikans, alias Neo, showed his compatriots how the country’s elite lined their pockets during the crisis.
Can Turkey reconcile its European orientation with an ambition to play a more active role in the Muslim world? The answer to this question will be largely determined by one man: Turkey's current Minister for Foreign Affairs, an increasingly influential neo-Ottoman academic.
For 30 years this Sicilian entrepreneur has been lavishing the bulk of his fortune on artistic projects. Defying convention, corruption and the Cosa Nostra, he seeks to "help people respect their patch” and “rediscover their identity" through art.
The Turkish-German writer Necla Kelek is a vehement defender of democracy. Her criticism of Islam has sparked controversy amongst many German intellectuals. Der Spiegel wonders whether she is unjustly vilified by her critics.
Famous for having prosecuted Pinochet, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón is facing trial at the Supreme Court of having committed abuses of power while investigating crimes committed under Francoism. Is he a hero or an megalomaniac? wonders El País.
The first woman to have penetrated the higher echelons of Central European government, Iveta Radičová's style and political positions have created a new phenomenon in the virile world of Slovak public affairs. According to the weekly Respekt, on 12 June, she may well become the country's next prime minister under the banner of the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ).
Journalist and former hostage in Iraq, Florence Aubenas spent six months immersed in the world of precarious employment. She wrote about her experiences in a book which reveals a little known aspect of the reality of life in Europe.
Voted one of the year’s ten best European actors at the Berlinale, the Polish film actress is chalking up one high-profile part after another – in life as on the silver screen. Agata, daughter of European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek, is making a first name for herself.