Over the last 18 months the EU has seen many growing pressures on its social services provision. The unemployment rate in the EU has been rising steadily since April 2008. What can the EU do?

The financial crisis gives an opportunity to define a new society in Europe. Antonio Gramsci once said a crisis is when the old is dead, but the new not yet born. A new European socialism will be based on freedom, economic security, equality and democracy. By Stefan Collignon

A column in Le Monde, written by Laurence Boone and Raoul Salomon, complains about the lack of coordination at the European level during the crisis and warns against worrying divergences in managing the after-crisis, notably in matters regarding public funds.

Icelandic foreign minister argues that Iceland’s request to access to the EU is the result of a long process as “Europe” has been the most debated topic in Iceland over the last decade. Also, the country has understood the difficulty in maintaining an independent currency in a globalised world.

With a simple and rather modest understanding of how things are supposed to work when acknowledging the inseparable link that exist between political decision-making and the economy and vice versa, recent orientations of decisions having been made in different member states of the EU are worrying, and rightly so.

Michel Rocard explains how within the three last decades, capitalism transformed itself and underwent an internal revolution, which became apparent in banking by an overweening greed explaining the spread of derivative products …

Ana Carbajosa analyses an increasingly widespread feeling throughout Europe: fear. Globalisation, terrorism, immigration, social insecurity, climate change and the current economic crisis are making Europeans more and more fearful: “Europeans are frightened” and distrustful of a little promising future.

Dominique Reynié says Europe is taking root to the right because the financial crisis made European owners fearful and wanting to protect their interests which the right is more likely to do.

A crisis liberates the imagination. The uncertainty of the future allows for the emergence or real political alternatives. By Immanuel Wallerstein

With the financial collapse of September 2008 begins the development of a major systemic crisis. Samir Amin analyses the implications for the North/South global divide