Why were the Dutch so reluctant to endorse a post-pandemic economic recovery package? Jean Monnet Fellow G. Matteo Vaccaro-Incisa takes a look at some of the underlying motivations driving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s reticence.

Brought into high relief by the COVID-19 pandemic, unregulated commercial surrogacy generates risk and damage to families, children, and mothers. In this article, Law researcher Sylvie Armstrong argues that a self-sufficiency approach in Europe, where commercial surrogacy is widely banned, is the best strategy available for protecting the parties involved.

In the momentum of the Black Lives Matter protests, cities around the world have been challenged to remove commemorative statues recalling their colonial or slaveholding pasts. EUI history researcher Daphné Budasz examines these controversies through a reflection on commemoration, national identity and the social role of history.

Nearly 10 years ago, the UN first articulated a business responsibility to respect human rights in their supply chains. In this article, School of Transnational Governance Policy Leader Fellow Martin Curley argues that going forwards, civil society, especially trade unions, should play a much greater role in defining how this responsibility is fulfilled, especially at the international level.

What do voters want? Former EUI member Konstantin Vössing and his co-author Sebastian Jobelius take a look at the decline in support for social democratic parties around the world, and suggest a new values-based strategy in light of research on voter moblisation.

The French Senate recently walked back a state of emergency provision that shielded decision-makers from criminal responsibility related to their actions during the COVID-19 crisis. Law researcher Sophie Duroy analyses the provision, its rationale, and proposes an approach to high-risk decision-making that ensures legality while safeguarding effectiveness.

The extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19 put severe limits on movement in the EU, setting up a potential conflict between air carriers and ticketed passengers who could no longer depart. Will the Commission’s guidelines on the matter help or hurt consumers? Law researcher Marc Steiert takes a look.

Will efforts to recover from the economic damage wrought by COVID-19 accelerate the EU’s development of a European industrial strategy? Political Science researcher Luuk Schmitz reflects on what could happen.

In this article, STG Policy Leader Fellow Sebnem Kenis discusses the gendered implications of COVID-19 across a range of human rights.

Jonas Brendebach and Nathalie Tocci examine the challenges and opportunities COVID-19 has posed to multilateralism and global cooperation, indicating some key take-aways generated by a panel debate held during the 2020 The State of the Union Conference.