Europe Articles

During his week-long visit at Harvard University in October of 2012, Douglas Alexander agreed to talk with the Harvard International Review about the European fiscal crisis, the state of the British economy, the job of opposition party leader David Cameron, as well as the foreign policy and security risks posed by Syria and Iran. As the EU begins its slow path to recover and Britain itself continues to face meager growth, Alexander has voiced strong opinions and clear policy suggestions for how to promote Britain’s shared interests with its global partners.

All too familiar with the current economic situations of Greece and Spain, Ireland currently finds itself in a peculiar position within the European Union. In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the nation’s economy shrank more than ten percent and weathered one of the deepest recessions in its history. Through extensive global assistance and adherence to strict austerity measures, Ireland is poised in 2013 to become the first country to leave its EU bailout on schedule. Recent economic figures have shown slow market-access growth and led to praise from the European Commission for Ireland’s adherence to its fiscal plan.

Over the past few years, extreme right-wing parties have gained popularity across Europe: performing strongly in opinion polls, winning seats in parliaments, and exercising greater influence over governmental decisions. While the movements vary in constitution from country to country, they are typically populist nationalist parties characterized by some combination of anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-EU policies. France, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have all recently seen particularly high growth in far-right parties. The expanding influence of these right-wing movements can be seen not just in their increased political power, but also in street demonstrations throughout Europe, and, in its most extreme form, in the violence wrought by Anders Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 69 people near Oslo in July 2011. Although far-right parties are by definition nationalist, and are therefore rooted country-specific grievances, many of the issues that have driven their recent resurgence are common across Europe, including anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment and discontent with the European Union, particularly in light of the Eurozone crisis.

Data protection is at the heart of the digital economy. Whether it is students posting photographs of themselves online, consumers typing in credit card details to book a flight, or individuals interacting with e-government applications, we constantly rely on our data being protected. As such, information technology has huge economic and social potential. However, this potential will only be fully realised if citizens trust that their personal information is protected: hyper-connectivity must go hand-in-hand with the protection of privacy online.