Is this 2012 or 1932? As reported by CNBC, the leader of Hungary’s third largest party has just used a televised session of parliament to call on the government to compile a list of all Jews in the country because, he says, they pose a “national security risk.” Does this sound familiar? Even today, respect for the most basicContinue reading “Back to the future, again: Jews as a “national security risk””
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Another look at ‘Europe’s New Fascists’
This recent story from The New York Times offers several chilling illustrations of the growing threat that extremist groups pose to democracy and human rights in Europe. As I have written in earlier posts, the protracted nature of the current economic crisis inevitably broadens and deepens public support for extremist agendas. The answer is notContinue reading “Another look at ‘Europe’s New Fascists’”
The real spectre haunting Europe
How safe is democracy in Europe? Observers of extremist political movements have sometimes described them as “self-disqualifying” — that is, the louder they shout, the less they are heard (or at least listened to) by mainstream voters and parties. If this were true, and established democracies really have such a built-in circuit breaker, we wouldContinue reading “The real spectre haunting Europe”
It’s time to stop digging
If Europe wants to get out of its current hole, it must first stop digging. Over the past four years, economic crisis management in Europe has been dominated by a narrow obsession with fiscal discipline. The narrowness of this approach reflects in large part the German political elite’s misinterpretation of Europe’s current crisis as aContinue reading “It’s time to stop digging”
And you thought QMV was complicated…
Voting systems in the European Union often attract criticism and/or debate. Complex voting systems are not the sole prerogative of the EU however. The US system for electing its President also has its complications, as both the campaign and past election results have shown. Nobody will count electoral chickens before they hatch in the presentContinue reading “And you thought QMV was complicated…”
The Brussels Insider 