Latest blog articles

  • The statutory pension of civil cervants in Belgium is on de verge of a reform. The legislative proposal ‘mixed pension’ will soon be introduced by law, after being the centre of intense debate for nearly a year. What exactly does ‘mixed pension’ mean?

  • Brexit_EU

    Far from calm waters

    They say that one cannot have one’s cake and eat it – a rather well-known adage which the proponents of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union were determined to disprove. This article is only available in Dutch.

  • The difficult thing about the Brexit referendum and the events that followed in the United Kingdom is that the instrument of a referendum, in all its simplicty, may have undemocratic consequences... This blog is only available in Dutch. 

     

  • How should we describe last week's situation, when the Canadians headed home after the Walloons torpedoed CETA? ... This blog is only available in Dutch. 

  • On Saturday 16 of April an earthquake struck Ecuador. At 7.8 on the Richter scale, it levelled various towns of the province of Manabí, in particular Pedernales, Manta and Portoviejo. At current estimates, it has killed more than 500 persons. Many of them died a slow death, after days of being...

  • Refugee crisis and migration may obviously have a lot of different sources. The current refugee crisis in Europe is obviously strongly related to the war in Syria. However, quite often migration and hence a stream of refugees, can also be caused by natural disasters, even by climate change. Some...

  • After months of media bombardment about ostensibly lazy Greeks who are unwilling to pay their taxes or their debts to the fellow countries of the Eurozone, the latter of which generously helped Greece out of its self-inflicted dire financial straits, many in Europe have breathed a collective sigh of...

  • Prof. Dr. Jan Smits on the David Cameron’s long awaited speech on the future of Europe.