Did
you ever wonder what do your MEPs do in Brussels or in Strasbourg? Or
whether they really vote according to their electoral promises or
not? If that’s your case, VoteWatch
Europe is for you! This independent organization analyzes for us
all the votes in the European Parliament and in the Council, and
gathers all these information in a single website. An interesting
tool to watch your representatives…
Many
organizations and political groups share the opinion that the first
step to make our life sustainable is to make our social habitat
sustainable. Cities are the centre of our social life and the way
they will be built and planned in the future needs to take notice of
this priority. On the 10th
of April, political actors, stakeholders and experts were gathered
in a seminar organized by SAAB to explore what are the core elements
that a sustainable urban environment should have in the future.
The EU
is often viewed as some huge bureaucratic monster that has no or
little appeal to the average person. It is difficult for most people
to understand how important the settlement of a long-term European
budget is to their own lives. Indeed, why should people care about
some high-level technocratic political “hoo-ha” when the latest
Quentin Tarantino movie is out on the blocks?
Many
believe the way out of the crisis can only be found by resisting
nationalist temptations and go for more Europe: the Spinelli Group is
one of the main platform arguing for this point. It is time to see
how, with the help of new European media, it might one day reach
this goal.
Cafebabel Brussels is currently looking for its new EDITORIAL OFFICER (unpaid trainee position) from March onwards and for a period of 3 or 6 months. Preference will be given to candidates entitled to a grant (i.e. Leonardo or other).
Do you happen to be a master in writing breath-taking articles? Are you a student in Communication or Journalism, interested in everything Europe is and will be and in everything that’s happening in Europe? Then you may well be the one we are looking for!
Cafebabel Brussels office is looking for an EVENT MODERATOR (unpaid trainee) starting on ASAP and for a period of 3 months minimum .
Cafebabel Brussels is part of cafebabel.com
international – the first cross-border multilingual magazine online
translated into 6 languages and based on participatory journalism.
Cafebabel Brussels' team is the largest local team in the Babel
family based on both volunteers and permanent staff. It is famous for
its regular and interactive debates on European topics as well as for
its multicultural team.
Following years of speculation that
Greece may leave the European Union, the attention has recently
shifted towards the United Kingdom; the term “brexit” replacing
“grexit”. Why should all EU citizens, British included, be
concerned about this UK-EU crisis?
Have you ever wondered
how in authoritarian States, people still have the Internet. Part of
the answer lies in the hacktivist networks. Time to look behind the
scenes and discover that a digital war is going on and that your
computer is not as safe as you might think.
A survey
published by ComRes only a few weeks ago pointed that 54% of the
British public were willing to leave the EU, a number far higher than
their other European counterparts. How come the British people are so
adamantly opposed to the EU that they would rather leave the Union as a
whole, rather than play an important role from within?
The
Hives! This Swedish garage rock band has, during more than fifteen
years, established itself as one of the most exciting live rock acts.
Their energy and stage performance are unbeatable. Cafebabel asked
the band some questions; about Belgium, their experiences throughout
Europe, and their Swedish roots. What is the European dimension of
this band after all these touring years?
On the 5th December 2012 the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) organized the Second European Grid Conference in order to explain the lessons learned by its members during the last few years.
By
Aris Kokkinos (live from the European Summit), translated by Danica
Jorden
Even
if the European Union paid any attention to the Mayan calendar, it
seems the 13th year of the 21st
century is as frightening as the online
apocalypse. In 2013, the legislative framework for the banking union
will be put in place, but 2014 is the year European leaders have
chosen for its launch -- in the hope that the present financial
morass will have cleared up between now and then, and that German
electors will have confirmed Angela Merkel to lead the EU.
By Pierre-Yves Leveaux (live from
the European Summit), translated by Danica Jorden
Following the 17-18 October and
22-23 November Summits on the European Union’s budget, 2012’s
last meeting of the European Council opened today in Brussels. Not
bad for an event that was supposed to be quarterly.
Calling
your grandmother in Italy, texting your girlfriend in Romania or
watching news on your Belgian mobile phone while on vacation in
Sweden...Thanks to the newly launched
‘One Single Tariff’ act, all this might be soon possible without costing the earth. As part of the European Citizens Initiative, two young French citizens are on a mission to tackle the challenge
of roaming charges.
To
boost growth between the EU and the Arab world is the ambition of
many public and private institutions, both in the West and in the
East. On December 4, Friends
of Europe
and Dansk
Industriorganized
a meeting whose purpose was to pave the way in this direction.
"There is no
need to be feminist in my generation”, that
is what the French former First Lady Carla Bruni lately declared.
These words set off many reactions from the feminist movement; she
ended up rectifying them and saying: “I
personally never felt the need to be a feminist activist”. That
little controversy reminds us that feminism is still alive, even
though it sometimes takes new shapes.
Despite the EU summit which took place on 22-23 November focusing on settling the Greek debt and securing a bailout for Cyprus, everybody’s eyes were on the EU budget negotiations for 2014-2020. The EU multi-annual budget pays for policies carried out at European level (such as agriculture, regional development, research, etc), as well as for its administration.
By Agata Olbrycht Between 15 and 17 November, Brussels Expo opened its stalls to exhibitors and guests for Innova 2012 where 4,000 professionals from 15 countries presented over 300 innovations. Cafebabel Brussels went along to check it out and found everything from innovative wind energy converters to newfangled frites bags for the country's favourite junk food...
Salman Rushdie was in Brussels on 13th November to present his autobiography “Joseph Anton: A Memoir”. This was the opportunity for an author knowing the difficulties and responsibilities it implies to reiterate his fight for free speech. Meeting with an entertaining speaker who doesn’t keep his mouth shut.
Every
music lover in Brussels knows Autumn Falls. This one-week festival
across the center of Brussels gives (undiscovered) bands a chance to
convince their crowd….The third edition starts today and lasts
until the 2nd of December.