ARTICLES

Imagine a dinner party where the bill is not paid by the people eating, but by the guests arriving for the next shift. As long as the line of new guests is longer than the table of current diners, the feast continues. But what happens when the queue shortens, and the diners at the table decide to stay longer? This is the simplified, uncomfortable reality of Portugal’s Social Security system. It is not a savings account where your contributions are stored for your future; it i

The latest U.S. government shutdown was the longest in history; the French National Assembly seems paralyzed in the face of country’s deteriorating economic situation; and Germany’s ruling coalition has lost its reformist momentum as infighting kicks in. Polarization, the hardening of partisan and ideological divides, has become a defining feature of our current political landscape. Political parties increasingly hold fundamentally divergent views on core principles, prioriti

The EU’s economic development has been slowing down over the past 10 years, with an annual GDP growth rate ranging from 0.35 percent to 1.4 percent, compared to a US average of 2.5 percent. A decline in EU labour productivity can explain this slowdown, and the EU workforce is projected to shrink by close to 2 million workers per year until 2040, representing a period in which growth will no longer be supported by rising populations. This low growth and lagging technological p