Big tech companies bring in plenty of traffic for media outlets but take a disproportionate chunk of the earnings. And even when agreements are signed, it’s Big Tech that sets the rules

Nationalising companies is no longer a taboo topic for the European Union's state members. After the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st-century privatisations, the economic crisis of 2008 gave a central role back to State ownership. The COVID-19 outbreak has opened the leading European companies' doors to the public capital.

Member countries will be continuously assessed for meeting targets and reforms in order to receive their share of the recovery fund. If European governments do not comply with the agreed recovery plan, the purse strings will be tightened.

VAT is a regressive tax, putting more burden to the poor than to the rich. Indeed, VAT applies the same rate to everyone regardless of their level of wealth – but the richer you are, the lower the proportion of your revenue goes to consumption. VAT cancels out one-third of the effects of fiscal redistribution.

With its "farm to table" strategy, the European Commission aims to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilisers and at the same time increase organic production by 2030. But how? 

Eurostat data from 2019 show that in Europe, on average, 32 percent of workers employed in the Cultural and Creative Industry were self-employed. In some countries this percentage reaches almost 50%. The EU is pumping money into the CCI, but that won't be enough for a sector that structurally hinges on precarious working relationships.

Due to COVID-19, the economic losses of the European Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) businesses will add up to billions of Euros. The EU stepped in with a top-up of its flagship Creative Europe programme. But pumping more money into the system won’t do. In many EU countries, the crisis has highlighted structural inequalities within the sector. And workers have started to mobilise.

Due to Brexit and multiple lockdowns, hundreds of thousands of expats have left Britain in 2020.

The European recovery plan is in a bad state. Already criticized for its slow implementation, the European Union now faces another issue with Germany, as the German Constitutional Court suspended on March 25 the ratification process of the "Next generation EU" plan at the national level.