Publications
This study sets out to achieve two objectives. The first objective is to examine the main features of Electricity Market Reform (EMR) proposed by the European Commission (hereafter, the Commission) in March 2023 and subsequently adopted by the European Council in December2023.1 The study discusses the impetus for reform, how and why the initial plans for fundamental reform were largely abandoned, and considers the implications of the steady drift towards a policy framework based on what can be termed “fortified de-risking”, which is ...
read more "Mapping a Public Pathway for Europe’s Energy Transition"
read more "Mapping a Public Pathway for Europe’s Energy Transition"
30,000 lobbyists…and counting. The sheer number of corporate lobbyists that influence EU policy-making, and the financial firepower available to them, constitute a challenge to democracy, social rights, peace and the planet. In this book, lobbying researcher and campaigner Kenneth Haar explores how corporate representatives have shaped the institutional foundations of the EU. He examines how they inscribed their vision into its fundamental principles, constructing a “European competition state,” marginalising concern for the common good, and generating an enormous ...
read more "A Europe of Capital"
read more "A Europe of Capital"
According to its presentation of itself, the European Union (EU) is based on principles and values such as freedom, democracy, equality, and the rule of law, promoting peace and stability.1 Against this background, the huge inequalities, high poverty rates, and multiple cases of precarious living across and within the Member States (MS) are even more dramatic and suggest that the EU displays serious discrepancies between its declarations and the existing politics. These discrepancies are manifested in the domain of housing, too.
...
read more "The Impact of EU Policies on Housing and Urban Development"
read more "The Impact of EU Policies on Housing and Urban Development"
Mobility is a basic human need. Over the last 100 years, the automobile has revolutionised the transport of people and goods. The automotive industry is a core industrial sector employing millions of people in Germany, Europe and the world. The trade unions in the metal sector are strong and powerful organisations without which the enforcement of social rights would have been impossible. But the costs and irreversible damage caused by the fossil fuel era are now undeniable. The technology based on the burning of fossil fuels is reaching its ...
read more "The Transformation of the Global Automotive Industry"
read more "The Transformation of the Global Automotive Industry"
Groups fighting for energy democracy at all levels of society are leading resistance and remedies towards a better future.
Profit-driven energy models have escalated the climate crisis, failed to decarbonise our energy systems, and do not provide universal access to clean, affordable energy. We need to unite globally to transition to public energy systems rooted in justice, solidarity and democracy.
The global energy democracy movement recognises that the energy transition is an urgent opportunity to reclaim our energy systems from the market and put ...
read more "Energy Democracy Movement Declaration"
read more "Energy Democracy Movement Declaration"
An analysis of the perspectives for the French left and the NUPES in the 2024 European Parliament elections***Version française ci-dessous***
This study aims to provide a brief analysis of the current state of affairs in the European Union in order to analyse the perspectives of the French left in the 2024 European Parliament election. In France, the question of the union of the left was at the heart of public debates in the year preceding the presidential election of April 2022. This union was widely sought by a large majority of left-wing voters, which even ...
read more "Unity Makes Strength?"
read more "Unity Makes Strength?"
A Call for Sustainable Alternatives to the EU-ASEAN Trade Regime
This report explores the effects of existing trade agreements between ASEAN and EU states, takes a look at possible effects induced by potential developments of these trade agreements, and discusses alternatives to their approach to organizing ASEAN and EU trade relations.
We seek to offer an understanding of the positions of the various layers and the general mechanisms behind historical and present developments around the emergence of a free trade regime leading us to FTA negotiations ...
read more "Casting off the Chains of Unfair Trade"
read more "Casting off the Chains of Unfair Trade"
Looking at the Proposed Free Trade Agreement between India and the European UnionAbout the publication
Since 2007, India and the European Union (EU) have engaged in active negotiations on an ambitious and comprehensive Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA), or a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in generic terms, that includes tariff removal on goods, liberalisation of services, investment, and government procurement among many other issues. The negotiations had seen an impasse since 2013 after the relative reluctance of the newly elected Indian ...
read more "Development Opportunities or Challenges"
read more "Development Opportunities or Challenges"
An assessment of the agreement from an EU perspectiveExecutive Summary
EU-India trade negotiations were relaunched in June 2022. Behind the storytelling of the Commission, Member States and business lobbies lies the reality which can not be hidden for long: the EU-India trade deal is a neoliberal deal, entrenched in the idea that more trade between the two markets will bring significant benefits. Benefits there will be, for Indian and European multinationals but people and the planet will significantly lose from this deal.
Little is known on the ...
read more "EU-India Trade Deal: Business as usual?"
read more "EU-India Trade Deal: Business as usual?"
An analysis of the Spanish government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis
Just as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic finally seemed to be behind us, the war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 sent the world economy into another tailspin. With Russian gas now tainted by Putin’s invasion, Europe acted quickly to abandon what had until then been its most important source of cheap fuel — with skyrocketing prices as the result.
Since then, European consumers have found themselves paying energy bills that are two, three, or even four times higher than ...
read more "Capping Prices, Taxing Profits"
read more "Capping Prices, Taxing Profits"