European Union

Dr. Triantafyllos Karatrantos, Research Associate at ELIAMEP, analyzes the new European Union EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda, explaining how rapid changes in the digital environment, increasing online radicalization, and complex geopolitical developments make an adapted and strengthened strategy necessary.

In this context, the EU’s new institutional initiative aims to effectively address terrorism and violent extremism, both in the physical and digital domains, promoting a comprehensive and coherent response within the framework of the ProtectEU Internal Security Strategy.

Read the ELIAMEP Explainer here (in Greek).

Thursday 12 March

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Thursday 12 March

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Written by Steven Blaakman

Europe is one of the world’s primary destinations for international migrants. In 2024, the region hosted approximately 94 million migrants, the highest number of any region in the world. The biggest share enter via legal means. The EU is experiencing skills shortages, which is partly because of its ageing population, and migrants could play a role in helping to plug them. The EU shares competence on migration and asylum policies with its Member States; EU legislation plays a significant role in managing legal migration, although its impact varies by type of migration.

Nonetheless, data consistently show that most EU legal migration tools are under-used. Blue Cards, an EU initiative to attract highly skilled workers, account for only a fraction of permits issued for employment reasons and few EU countries make significant use of them, which would suggest more work is needed to make them an attractive option. Similarly, the Single Permit, which is a combined work and residency permit, is mostly used by just a handful of EU countries. In recent years, the EU has also launched new initiatives with non-EU countries such as Talent Partnerships and a Talent Pool, but it is too early to say anything about their impact. There is also a directive for seasonal workers, but again only a few EU countries make much use of it.

The EU plays an important role when it comes to asylum by setting common standards, clarifying which EU country is responsible for processing an application, and encouraging solidarity. The European Commission has proposed a Return Regulation to make it easer and faster to return non-EU citizens who were unsuccessful in their bid to obtain asylum. It includes the possibility to create return hubs in non-EU countries, which many Member States are interested in. Temporary protection was used for the first time to help Ukrainians after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Legal migration to the EU‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime. Source: World Population Prospects 2022 report from the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

By Nandita Bajaj
ST. PAUL, Minnesota, USA, Mar 12 2026 (IPS)

As birthrates continue to decline in many industrialized countries, anxious governments are running out of schemes to keep women procreating.

In the US, millionaires and billionaires are lining up to donate to Trump’s “baby bonus” savings accounts. Trump accounts give parents $1,000 for all babies born between now and 2028, plus whatever private donors add.

Late last year tech billionaires Michael and Susan Dell donated $6.25 billion to them. The accounts are part of Trump’s far-Right pronatalist agenda, and also part of the broader trend of governments using heavy-handed pronatalist policies, ranging from bribes to outright coercion, to convince women to have more babies and shore up the supply of future workers, taxpayers, and soldiers.

These interventions are notoriously ineffective. A recent Heritage Foundation report recommended using economic incentives to convince American women to have more babies, “with preferences for larger-than-average [families],” while shaming those who choose to have fewer or no children.

A family in South Korea, which has the lowest Total Fertility Rate in the world (0.8).

But it also admitted, “Other nations have tried to reverse declining birthrates through financially generous family policies, none has succeeded. Government spending alone does not ensure demographic success.”

Nor can such policies achieve what Heritage calls “success.” Trying to raise birthrates by incentivizing women to have babies not only undermines hard-won reproductive rights, it’s a waste of money.

Such spending is not a priority for U.S. taxpayers, as most Americans do not see falling birth rates as a crisis. Instead, they overwhelmingly want the government to address untenably high child care costs. But a one-time Trump account infusion makes no dent in high costs of raising children and other barriers to motherhood.

Just as recent cuts to SNAP and Medicaid disproportionately affect marginalized women and children, Trump accounts benefit least those who need help most. By the Administration’s own calculations, the accounts will benefit wealthy parents disproportionately.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Trump accounts and other pronatalist policies aren’t really about empowerment or saving families or supporting children. They are a bid to make more white Americans, part of a larger nativist program which includes cracking down on immigration from African and Muslim countries, detaining and deporting non-white people in huge numbers, and even abandoning former U.S. efforts to fight child exploitation and trafficking.

These policies overtly stoke panic about falling birthrates, and tacitly uphold the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

That makes support for pronatalism from some progressives especially disturbing. Even if their intent is not nativist, advocating policies that push women to have more children is anti-feminist and fundamentally at odds with reproductive agency.

And even when such policies intend to serve feminist goals–for example Finland’s generous parental leave and child and health care—they fail to raise birthrates. That’s because the biggest factor in childbearing decisions isn’t affordability; it’s empowerment.

Nobel prizewinning economic historian Claudia Goldin has shown high birthrates are no longer tied to economic prosperity, as women increasingly choose education and careers over traditional family roles. In fact, she found an inverse relationship between per capita income and fertility. “Wherever you get increased agency,” she said, “you get reduction in the birth rate.”

Another study across 136 countries confirms this: whenever women achieve reproductive agency, birthrates decline, whether the economy is growing or shrinking.

But hundreds of millions of women and girls are denied this agency. Over 640 million alive today were child brides (including in the US). Over 220 million have an unmet need for contraception. More than half of pregnancies are unintended—121 million annually. Cuts in USAID and other aid programs make the situation more dire.

Despite birthrates declining in many countries, global population is going up, projected to swell by 2 billion to 10.4 billion by the 2080s, with vast ecological and social consequences. Extreme climate events are expected to kill more than a billion people and displace up to 3 billion this century, most in countries where women and girls are disempowered and fertility rates remain high. Pronatalism will only make ecological and social crises worse.

We need new policy thinking that recognizes this and embraces the many advantages of declining fertility and less growth. As fertility rates fall, female labor participation will increase and gender pay gaps will narrow.

As median age rises, changing demographics could enable policy shifts that improve wages and conditions for workers and extend job opportunity to billions on the sidelines who want work but don’t have it.

There is no lack of good ideas, from economic models that center wellbeing and rethink growth to radical ecological democracy. Exploring them requires getting off the endless growth treadmill that enriches elites at the expense of the rest of us. We must stop treating women like reproductive vessels for making more people to serve the economy, and start reshaping our economies to serve more people and the planet.

Nandita Bajaj is executive director of the NGO Population Balance, senior lecturer at Antioch University, and producer and host of the podcasts OVERSHOOT and Beyond Pronatalism. Her research and advocacy work focuses on addressing the combined impacts of pronatalism and human expansionism on reproductive and ecological justice.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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László Ferenc mezőgazdasági és légimentő pilóta néhány évvel ezelőtt ment nyugdíjba, lezárva egy igencsak gazdag pályafutást. Közel ötven év levegőben szerzett élményeit nem könnyű röviden összefoglalni – de azért megpróbáltuk. László Ferenccel Kaposvár melletti otthonában beszélgettem.

A történet valamikor a hatvanas években kezdődött, egy Rubik-féle vitorlázógép, az R-15 Koma fedélzetén. Ilyen kétüléses géppel mutatta meg a repülés élményét az akkor még csak három éves László Ferencnek az édesapja. Az apa – aki tudta, hogy aggódó felesége nagyon félti a fiukat – a hazavezető úton többször is kérte, hogy a repülés maradjon kettőjük között. Hazaérve a kisfiú első mondata az élmény hatására természetesen az volt, hogy „Anyu, láttam fentről az erdőt!” Aznap nem csak az erdőt látta fentről, hanem életében először azt is, hogy néz ki valaki infarktus közeli állapotban...

[...] Bővebben!

On 11 March 2026, the President of the European Council, António Costa and the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev met in Baku, the Republic of Azerbaijan.

A near pristine desert and coastal wilderness in Namibia could soon host a huge hydrogen production facility.

Während rund zwei Monaten konnte die Blick-Community für die schönsten Skigebiete der Schweiz abstimmen. Bei der feierlichen Preisverleihung in Zürich wurden am Mittwoch die Sieger der diesjährigen Blick Winter Awards geehrt.

Auf einem Rastplatz im Kanton Thurgau ist es im August 2025 zu einem folgenschweren Vorfall gekommen. Ein Schweizer Milliardär und Wirtschaftsboss entblösste sich und rieb sich den Penis. Dafür bekam der namhafte Wirtschaftskapitän jetzt einen Strafbefehl.

Harvey Weinstein sorgt für Entsetzen: Der verurteilte Sexualstraftäter gibt ein Interview aus dem Gefängnis und behauptet, seine Opfer hätten gewusst, was sie erwartet.

Veronica Fusaro erfüllt sich einen Traum: Die Thunerin singt ihren Rocksong «Alice» beim Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in Wien. Der Titel behandelt Gewalt an Frauen und wurde aus 493 Songs für die Schweiz ausgewählt.

Der FC Thun spielt körperbetont und unbequem, schreibt Christian Finkbeiner, stv. Fussballchef bei Blick. Doch anstatt zu lamentieren, soll die Konkurrenz von Thun besser lernen.

Am Berliner Flughafen BER wurde der Flugbetrieb am Mittwochabend vorübergehend eingestellt. Grund dafür war die Sichtung eines unbekannten Flugobjekts.

In Steckborn TG am Bodensee wird ein Grundstück mit direktem Seezugang verkauft. Das kommt nur sehr selten vor. Für das Ferienhaus mit 4,5 Zimmern sind 5,3 Millionen Franken ausgerufen. Dafür bekommt man einen 42 Meter langen Seezugang. Und einen Grillplatz am Ufer.

Mit der neuen Staffel von «Euphoria» kehrt auch Serien-Badboy Nate Jacobs zurück. Viele Fans erkennen in ihm einen «Psychopathen». Doch wie realistisch ist dieses Bild? Psychologen erklären, woran man solche Persönlichkeiten wirklich erkennt.

Vom Adoptivkind aus Indien zum Nationalrat in Bern. Nun hat der EVP-Politiker mit Erfolg gegen ein Verbot für internationale Adoptionen gekämpft. Was er als Kind werden wollte und warum er seine Eltern bewundert.

Borussia Dortmund verlängert den Vertrag von Felix Nmecha vorzeitig bis 2030. Auch andere Top-Klubs sind an einer Verpflichtung interessiert gewesen.

Die ausgeschlossenen Vorstandsmitglieder des Radsportsverbands sind begnadigt worden. Damit kommts am Samstag an der Delegiertenversammlung zum grossen Showdown.

Council agrees on a mandate to begin negotiations with the European Parliament on new simplified provisions for fisheries and aquaculture statistics.