By Laila M. Lange (Groningen, Deusto, 2021-2023)
Inés Bolaños Somoano did a Bachelor’s in English studies, before joining the Euroculture programme in 2015. She attended the University of Göttingen and Palacký University Olomouc and finished the Master’s programme in 2017 with a thesis on Islam and terrorism in the European Union.
Continue reading “Interested in Doing a PhD? Inés Bolaños Somoano’s journey to a PhD at the European University Institute”
By Laila M. Lange
In this opinion piece, Laila Lange (Groningen/Bilbao, cohort 2021/2023) scrutinises the 2021 State of the Union speech and argues that Von der Leyen self-aggrandises Europe’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is argued that she, thereby, disconnects her description of the state of the Union from reality and harms European credibility.
The seemingly everlasting Covid-19 pandemic has changed and dominated the life of everybody from March 2020 onwards. Despite the high percentage of vaccinations in European countries and one and a half years of experience with the virus, the situation in winter 2021 shows that Covid-19 is far from being conquered. Uncountable infection waves are followed by stricter Covid-19 measures. Not to mention that the regulations differ per member state and that Covid-19, once more, pinpoints the dominance of national power in the European structure. So to say, Covid is a major contributor to and factor of the current state of the European Union.
Continue reading “The Utopic State of the Union concerning European Covid-19 Management “
By Bryan T. Bayne
Humanity collectively spends billions of hours on video games each year. Most would brush off such figures as mere trivial entertainment, but Attila Szantner, a web developer, and Bernard Revaz, a physics researcher, saw in them one of the world’s greatest untapped resources. If only a tiny fraction of the time spent on video games could be devoted to science, researchers might quickly find the answers to thorny questions, they reckoned.
Enter Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS). Founded in 2014 by Szantner and Revaz, the company connects video game developers to researchers who seek assistance from citizen scientists. The premise is simple: a background in science is not needed to adequately perform mundane tasks such as pattern recognition or image classification, therefore, by gamifying such tasks, the huge gaming community may contribute thousands of hours to assess large data sets, considerably speeding up scientific research. The project has garnered the attention of several universities, game developers, NGOs, and even of the European Union, which has provided over 570,000 EUR in funding.
Continue reading “The European Union funds video games… for science!”
By Paola Gosio
As stated by Helmut Schmidt “the European Union lives of crises”. [1] Since its inception, the EU has undergone a series of emergencies of diverse nature that challenged its governance and furthered the debate on intergovernmentalism versus supranationalism. The Coronavirus outbreak arose in this context, which seems to represent the latest crossroads in front of which it will be possible to assess whether the European Union will be able to expand its competences, specifically in the public health sector, to be able to manage future crisis situations in this area.
The coronavirus pandemic was indeed first and foremost a health crisis. However, due to the subsidiarity principle reigning in the EU, the European institutions could not intervene in the public health matters of every Member State. This, because public health measures are primarily a Member State competence, and therefore the Union can only be called upon to perform an additional and/or auxiliary action, but without replacing EU Governments.
Continue reading “COVID-19 crisis: an opportunity for the EU to expand its competences in public health?”
By Katarina Jarc
A few years ago, I took up the challenge of substituting dairy products with plant-based alternatives. Even though cheese IS life, I have to say I still succeeded in eliminating that deliciousness from my life for slightly longer than one year. It was far from easy, honestly. But, as with every period of our lives, this one also brought new habits, and to this day I still continuously saunter over to the aisles offering plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products. Needless to say, finding the right substitute to the mouth-watering taste and texture of cheese is not an easy task, especially with a lack of descriptive nomination on product labelling.
Continue reading “When the EU sends mixed-signals: the example of plant-based food labelling”
By Leyre Castro
It is widely known that you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience. This is the reason why many young people end up doing unpaid internships. However, this may be coming to an end soon. October 8th, 2020 was a day to celebrate among all the students and newly graduates who are looking for internships as EU lawmakers adopted a resolution with 574 votes to 77 and 43 abstentions calling on all member states to ensure that young people are offered “good-quality, varied and tailored job, training, apprenticeship or internship offers, including fair remuneration”.
Continue reading “Towards a more equal Europe: The end of unpaid internships?”
By Hannah Bieber
Disclaimer: this article was written on March 18th, 2020. Due to the instability of the situation, some of the information it contains might be subject to changes.
A lot of people were expecting it, and it finally happened: the world we live in has been challenged. Not the way we imagined it, not in the circumstances we expected, but it did. Europe is now facing one of its major crises since the day the European Union was created. And all the flaws that we knew that existed blew up in our faces. The demography of an old continent getting older and older, the weariness of our welfare states system, the instability of our financial organizations, the limits of a space without borders and the emergence of nationalism have now all been crystalized by a microscopic organism.
The recent Covid-19 outbreak and confinement measures will give us plenty of time to reflect on the consequences it will have on our societies, especially in Europe. Indeed, this virus is almost harmless for the majority of the population, but can be very harmful for the elderly, for instance. In 2016, one EU citizen out of five was over the age of 65. This is why the virus poses Europe an immense challenge today. But what about tomorrow? What will be the consequences of this crisis for the EU?
Continue reading “Covid-19: how will Europe get back up?”
By Jelmer Herms
The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, commonly known as the ”EU Copyright Directive”, has not been without its fair share of criticism. It seems to be part of a broader strategy by the Commission to capitalize on the Internet’s limitless economic potential more and more, and rightfully so. However, one aspect of the digital space seems to be consistently underestimated by EU institutions: Online communities are generally hostile towards measures that even potentially limit the free flow of data.
It is no wonder that online forums like Reddit[1] as well as larger (oftentimes American) news outlets cried out collectively in fear over potential censorship, the end of creative use, and the death of independent news outlets.[2] Initiatives like #SaveYourInternet claim that the EUCD ”restrict[s] the ability of Internet users to consume content”, turning the newly formulated Internet culture wholly ”bureaucratic and restrictive”[3]. Despite these sweeping (and oftentimes hyperbolic) accusations, the text of the directive itself contains no such intentions. In fact, it claims to have the opposite effect: This legislation would be ”allowing wider access to and use of copyright-protected content”[4]. And in specific contexts, such as increased access to copyright-protected material for scholars, this directive does in fact afford wider access to such material. The real reason behind all this public backlash should therefore not be sought exclusively in what the directive actually does, but more so in what it fails to do. For example, it fails to give examples of feasible measures by which to implement the directive, leaving it unclear to both member states and online platforms where the responsibility for copyright enforcement lies exactly, but it also fails to engage citizens in a dialogue about the nature of the Internet. Continue reading “Hating the Right Thing for the Wrong Reasons: The European Copyright Directive”
After President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker finished his third State of the European Union speech on the 13th of September, the thing that stood out to most people was the almost unchecked optimism in his message compared to his gloomy address last year, when – in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum – the general sense that the EU was heading to imminent disintegration seemed all too real. According to Juncker, the EU now has “wind in our sails” and he urged to “make the most of the momentum”. He did so by proposing a wide range of initiatives, some bolder than others, but all encapsulating this sense of optimism and determination. Nothing showed this more clearly than Juncker’s reluctance to talk about Brexit – the hour-long speech devoted only one minute to the painful issue. The looming threat of inertia and disaster that marked the State of the Union speech in 2016 seems to be replaced by a general sense of growth and hope.
How can it be that the tables have turned so drastically in only a year? And is this truly the state of today’s Union?
The State of the Union speech is – in a true European fashion – a product of import. In the United States, the State of the Union is an annual event that is deeply ingrained in the American political tradition. In Europe it was only introduced in 2010, when the Lisbon Treaty stipulated that the President of the European Commission must address the European Parliament annually to reflect on and discuss the successes and failures of the European Union in the year before, in order to stimulate transparency and democracy in the European political arena. Continue reading “Blowing the wind into your own sails – Juncker’s State of the European Union”
It is often said that knowledge is the tool with which you change the world for the better, and, as such, promoting the acquisition knowledge and its diffusion should be a top priority. One more step, considering the globalizing world, may be intercultural exchange of knowledge, achievable thanks to improved means of communication along with the mobility of people and goods. Student mobility is growing exponentially, at different levels, and has been proven invaluable in the past few decades, but this may be just the beginning. There are several exchange programs with different impacts ongoing across the globe. Some of them are bilateral but limited to a few universities, some are consortiums formed from different institutions, across several countries and continents. The US offers numerous opportunities and scholarships through their Fullbright Program, among others, which has been providing grants and promoting exchange for nearly seven decades. The US effort to implement such a project has been laudable, however, it may be easier to develop such program within a federal system when compared to a supranational organization as the EU. The latter has the Erasmus exchange program, what is probably known today as the greatest example of student mobility worldwide.
The EU is facing several issues: internal; such as the ongoing financial crisis still affecting several members; and external, foreign policies regarding the fight against terrorism and the consequent refugee crisis. Nonetheless, regional movement and funding for students willing to study within the EU area and collaborating countries have increased steadily. The Erasmus Programme creation has not been a smooth or easy process. After several postponements and additional debates, an agreement was reached in 1987, following a six-year trial program. Despite initial delays, the amount of applications received were above expectations- even for the first round, which happened during the academic year 1987/1988. The program evolved through the Socrates Programme, in 1995, and in 2000, and eventually into the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), in 2007. Only recently, in 2014, the program became Erasmus+, a new version of the former program to further promote “education, training, youth and sport for 2014-2020.” Continue reading “Erasmus for the World? Approaching Two Decades of the Erasmus Programme”
The Euroculturer 