In depth

The price of coastal flood mitigation in Europe
Wednesday 06 May 2020 |
Stefano Valentino | VoxEurop
MobileReporter
European countries are set to invest up to €2.82 billion per year until 2100 to avoid losing as much as €1.27 trillion due to climate-driven coastal flood damage, a new analysis by the EU Joint Research Center shows.

Will football go bust?
Friday 24 April 2020 |
Vincent Grimault | Alternatives Economiques
The interruption to football championships – local, national and European – caused by the coronavirus pandemic is plunging the sport into a crisis. For a sector with billions in annual turnover, tomorrow’s world is looking very different to yesterday’s.

Eurobonds can wait, for the time being
Monday 06 April 2020 |
Guillaume Duval | Alternatives Economiques
EU heads of state and government failed to agree on a united response to the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19. Yet after the measures taken by the European Central Bank, there is no longer urgency to enact a measure like eurobonds.

Climate crisis makes beaches disappear
Wednesday 04 March 2020 |
Stefano Valentino | VoxEurop
MobileReporter
Europe is set to lose up to 15,000 km of shoreline due to erosion. The UK, France, Greece, Spain and Italy will be especially affected. And European holidaymakers will find less sand on beaches during their trips to warm destinations around the world.

Timber mafia and deforestation in Romania
Tuesday 18 February 2020 |
Christoph Lehermayr Sebastian Reinhart
Johannes Kaiser
| Addendum
Virgin forests in Central-Eastern Europe are the last remaining ones on the continent, yet they are being mercilessly torn down. Part of this multi-billion euro industry is a mafia-like system that stretches all the way from Romania to Ukraine. Austrian timber companies are right at the heart of it.

The energy transition yet to come
Thursday 06 February 2020 |
Gianluca De Feo | OBC Transeuropa
The European Union wants to abandon coal by 2050, but this will require significant help from European banks, which still finance 26 per cent of all coal power plants in the world.

“Warning, No Signal”
Monday 30 December 2019 |
Nikos Morfonios | MIIR
Only 30 km of the whole rail network in Greece has functioning train traffic lights. The installation of new European Train Control System has derailed in the country because of mismanagement – costing tens of millions of public funds and several fatalities.

Greece’s deadly rail tracks
Monday 30 December 2019 |
Ilias Stathatos Nikos Morfonios
| MIIR
Greece takes the bloody lead in terms of deaths and injuries in rail accidents in the EU, with about 25 victims per year. Problems are mainly caused by unsafe level crossings, poor infrastructure and traffic management systems, and understaffed companies.

The problem with refugee camps in Greece
Friday 27 December 2019 |
Eleni Stamatoukou | OBC Transeuropa
While it may seem that the refugee-migration crisis is over, more than 100,000 migrants and refugees are still present in Greece. Many of them live in refugee camps, which are not appropriate accommodation solutions because of their location in faraway, poorly connected areas.

Poland has a new train schedule. But problems are far from over
Friday 20 December 2019 |
Jarosław Kopeć | BiQdata
As the Polish government claims to fight against transport exclusion, trains are coming back to some routes that were not operated anymore. The merits and impact of these changes are not clear-cut though, as much larger investments would be needed to rescue local lines.