Legal migration: an EU talent pool and more options for immigrant entrepreneurs

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. MEPs call for new EU rules on legal labour migration to respond to Europe’s demographic challenges and to effectively match immigrants’ skills with labour market needs. The European Union should offer third-country nationals new avenues for legal migration, ensure decent working conditions and end […]

Autumn 2019 Standard Eurobarometer: immigration and climate change remain main concerns at EU level

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. According to the results of a new Eurobarometer survey released today, overall trust in the EU remains stable (at 43%), although slightly less than in spring (-1 percentage point). Trust in the EU is the majority view in 18 Member States and trust has […]

Will the EU reconsider Frontex’s role in light of accusations about violations of migrants’ human rights?

The European border agency Frontex has been found to violate human rights and abuse its power to make excessive use of force and mistreat migrants according to latest research conducted by the ARD political magazine report München, the British Guardian and the search center CORRECTIV. However, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency has been denying […]

Poliomielitis: climatic changes and impossibility in border control

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Ana Flávia Cury Ivantes and Rariane Bernardino Marani, two third-year medical students from a private university in south region of Brasil. They are affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong to the writers and […]

EU elections 2019: Trump’s share in the support of populism

It was last Monday when the US President Donald Trump met the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the White House. Both leaders had the beautiful chance to praise each other at a gathering which lasted less than an hour. Only a few days ahead of the EU elections, the US President clearly shows his […]

What are the real debates surrounding immigration in an increasingly globalized world?

This article is brought to you thanks to the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Yuval Harari, Professor, Department of History , Hebrew University of Jerusalem This excerpt is from Yuval Harari’s new book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”. The book was chosen as November’s book for the World Economic Forum Book […]

Reinforcing EU border security: Visa-exempt travelers will be pre-screened

The European Parliament Plenary session, debated and voted today (5/7/2018) (European Union Audiovisual Services photo taken 09/11/2017). This story is brought to you in association with the European Union (a European Parliament decision and release) Travelers posing a security risk will be refused entry into the EU  Application will include questions on criminal record and […]

The Bavarians threaten Berlin and Brussels with immigration crisis

In an unprecedented move, the German Interior Minister is betraying his boss – Chancellor Angela Merkel – and is forming an anti-refugee alliance with the extreme right-wing Austrian government and the precarious new Italian populist administration. The impossible German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Bavarian CSU party and junior partner in the […]

Is the advent of nationalism to destroy economic neo-liberalism?

All major stock exchanges suffered severe losses on the first day of this week not because Tesla and facebook stocks are falling, or even because the Chinese announced on Sunday night their retaliative import tariffs of 15% to 25% on 128 US products; all that was known and probably discounted for during the past few […]

What Merkel and Macron are to tell Trump in Davos?

Donald Trump, the American President, is to deliver the closing speech at this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of 23-26 January in Davos, which as usually is set in the unsullied Alpine landscape. Perhaps, he has something new to say about how America sees Europe. Most probably though, he is simply to repeat his […]

What will Germany look like after the next election?

Last Thursday this newspaper came out with a lead story about European countries having problems producing viable governments. The article was entitled “Minority governments ‘à la mode’ in Europe but can they last long?” It seems conformist Germany answers this question in the negative. According to an opinion poll published this week and reported by […]

Germany not famous for easy way outs from political stalemates

And now ‘Frau Bundeskanzlerin’ what? The truth is though whatever the future holds for the German political landscape, is no good. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s failure last weekend to form a government, with a viable parliamentary majority has irreparably stained the so far pristine scenery of the country’s politico-economic affairs. The unsuccessful attempts to convince liberal […]

Czech Babis, Austrian Kurz and others threaten Europe with nationalist populism

Andrej Babis, a media magnate and second wealthier Czech leading his anti-immigration, nationalist and populist ANO party, won last Sunday’s election, with around 30% of the vote. He is to become the next Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Babis did that on an anti-systemic Trump-like ticket. He was recently implicated in a tax fraud […]

EU: Divided they stand on immigration and Trump hurricanes

The last Friday’s Malta Summit of the 28 minus 1 EU leaders, on emigration and the future of Europe, was convened amidst a steaming wider political environment within and without Europe. The Council could only agree upon on transferring another €200 million to the one of the at least two Libyan governments, that a small […]

The Brits are not an exception and that’s why they voted to leave

The choice made by a bit more than half of the adult Britons to exit the European Union has already triggered financial and political turmoil. In a short while the direct impact on people’s lives will start to materialize. Let’s count the most important adverse effects: the financial markets turmoil, the international trade fallout, the […]

To Brexit or not to Brexit: British exceptionalism doesn’t allow any Obama telling Brits what to do

Barack Obama visited the UK last week clearly in an attempt to boost the “Remain” campaign urging Britain to stay within the EU. This move has not yet been exactly measured as beneficial or not for David Cameron’s campaign but has certainly caused several reactions to the British voters about two months before the referendum. The […]

Why is Merkel’s Germany so liberal with the refugees? Did the last elections change that?

There are many lessons to be learned from last Sunday’s elections in Germany. For one thing, the widely expected electoral setback that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) experienced last Sunday doesn’t seem to constitute a major blow to her dominant political status. She continues to be the central […]

WEF Davos 2016 LIVE: Cameron corroborates that Britain should remain in the EU

Some days ago and more precisely on 18 January, this newspaper argued that David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, readies to support the ‘yes’ side for his country’s position in or out the EU in the referendum. Yesterday afternoon he actually confirmed this with a speech at the Davos WEF. Having recited the four conditions […]

One more country to test the EU project: Kaczynski’s Poland

Poland, with a population of 40 million or 8% of the EU is not the land locked and Russia loving Hungary that Brussels may easily pretend doesn’t exist. The October electoral triumph of the Eurosceptic, if not anti-EU, Law and Justice party (PiS) under the extreme right wing politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a rampant populist, decisively […]

The 28 EU leaders unable to start a relevant debate on migration and Brexit

The poor results of last week’s meeting of the 28 EU leaders are reflected in the triviality of the remarks by the Council President Donald Tusk, in summarizing the outcome of the 17 – 18 December gathering in Brussels. His most vivid comment was about the “hard work done and the extreme efficiency of the […]

The representatives of the regions and the cities know better what the EU needs on migration, trade, poverty and taxation

The 115th plenary of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) was convened on 3 and 4 December and discussed a number of burning issues, which have been haunting the European Union during the last difficult years. The CoR is the voice of regions and cities of the European Union. Its 350 members are the […]

French elections: by the time the EU economy revives and the migration crisis is solved extremists could take over Europe

The National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen won the first round of the regional elections in France while Nikolas Sarkozy’s party came second and the French President Francois Hollande was disappointingly at the third place. The entire Old Continent was shocked last Sunday when it was announced that the FN received 28% and won six out […]

Migration has set EU’s political clock ticking; the stagnating economy cannot help it and Turkey doesn’t cooperate

The more action clauses a document of a Western Balkans-EU agreement contains, meant to “improve cooperation and step up consultation between the countries along the migration route”, the less cooperation there will be. That was the case last Sunday 25 October when 11 leaders of Balkan and EU countries met in Brussels. They knew very […]

Two major EU projects falter; the Schengen Agreement now freezes and Eurozone fails to resolve the Greek enigma

The usually so cool north Europeans seem to have lost their composure when the first waves of refugees and immigrants reached their borders. Germany and Austria within a few days made full immigration policy u-turns and finally closed their borders. Both Chancellors, Angela Merkel in Berlin and Werner Faymann in Vienna, said last week they […]

Drowning in the Mediterranean this summer? Many happy returns

This month the European Commission approved 23 multiannual national programs “under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF). The total funding for the agreed programs is approximately €2.4 billion, for the period 2014-2020… 22 national programs were already approved in March, and an additional 13 programs will be approved […]

EU should promote immigration as a humanitarian issue in order to provide a more permanent solution

Only a few days after the Calais migration incident, a new shipwreck just 10 miles off the coast of Libya caused the death of 25 people while there are still 200 people missing out of the 600 who were on board. The European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos in a common […]

Switzerland to favour EU citizens in immigration quotas as the risk of a new referendum looms

Four months have passed since Swiss voters narrowly approved the introduction of quotas on immigration with a referendum last February and the central European country has now revealed its ‘great’ plan. Last Friday, with an official government statement, the Federal Council has finally set out the intentions for new immigration quotas, and surprises were not missing. Switzerland apparently […]

Hundreds of thousands migrants ready to cross the Mediterranean. Only a local matter?

Every year, with the advent of spring temperatures get high and the conditions of the sea improve. This is not just good news for the European citizens, hungry for some mild climate after months of snow and rain, but actually what thousands and thousands of immigrants are waiting for to sail towards Europe, leaving the […]

EU labour mobility: Inconvenient truths for everybody

With a memorable lecture at the University of Bristol, entitled “Labour Mobility in the European Union – The Inconvenient Truth”, the European Commissioner László Andor, overturned all and every argument raised by Europe’s xenophobic vote mongers who oppose the internal labour mobility in the EU. Speaking in Britain though, he proved that immigrant workers in […]