Latest blog articles

While the world was looking towards Paris, there was another election that was taking place on Germany’s coast. Germany’s Social Democrats lose control of a pivotal state, at the worst possible time.

It is not that listening to the electorate is wrong. It is not wrong either to build a campaign on perceived wishes of the electorate. Trying to win an electoral campaign either, is wrong.

Published on MLR blogs. Conflicts of interest of high-ranking civil servants that leave their EU post are currently again subject to critical discussion. This blog will examine how conflicts of interests are dealt with in selected European agencies.

Published on LBM. Social dumping is a difficult issue at present in political institutions, both national and European. In short, social dumping, workforce in most cases are working under appalling conditions by being seconded in other countries.  This blog is only available in Dutch.

What exactly are the legal instruments for the EU according the measures that have been introduced recently with regard to the constitutional court and in terms of the media law. This article is only available in Dutch.

Legitimacy in the political sense can be defined as an inquiry into the justification for the exercise of public authority. Or put differently: it is the reason why I, being part of society, should accept laws and regulations that bind me.

The day after the “Brexit”-referendum, with a majority of 51.9% voting to leave the European Union, some speak of the success of democracy (“the people have spoken”). Already, there are calls for referenda in other countries to let the people speak there, too. This suggests that independently of our...

Several days ago, the French government forced the acceptance of a disputed law about - among other things - labour issues. Its treatment in parliament was incredibly labourious and almost 5000 amendments had been proposed... This blog is only available in Dutch. 

After months of negotiations between Greece, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Union (EU), which acuminated in an overwhelming amount of over 60% of “no”-votes by the Greek citizens to the reforms attached to the second Greek bailout programme...

The 2015 Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX)   update highlights and confirms the shift towards a restrictive migration and integration policy in the Netherlands. Overall, the Netherlands dropped to the eleventh place in the MIPEX ranking, down from the fifth in 2010.