The European Commission, under heavy pressure from the arms industry, is advocating for a EU budget of thousands of millions of public money destined to develop advanced military technology, for the first time since the Union exists. The goal of these subsidies is to preserve the competitiveness of the arms industry and its capacity to export abroad, including to countries taking part in deadly conflicts. And this is just the beginning, the long-term objective is to set up a programme worth 3.5 billion of euros. This will mean cuts to the detriment of other spending priorities.

Goldman Sachs, a banking corporation with a central role in causing the 2008 financial crisis, just found an easy way to make sure the Union operates in its interests.

Governments across Europe have fallen seriously short in their efforts to provide aid and dignified reception to some of the world’s most vulnerable people arriving to Europe’s shores. So Europeans across the continent have stepped in to offer vital humanitarian assistance to those who desperately need it.

In a wildly disproportionate reaction against the instigators of the attempted military coup d’etat in July 2016, Turkey’s president Erdoğan seized the opportunity to launch a wide-scale attack on democracy and the rule of law. More than 130,000 joined our call to suspend all accession negotiations with the Turkish administration, and in September we drove some flashy bikes displaying our message in Bratislava, where the European Council was meeting. Unfortunately, the current Turkish government continues to promote human rights violations and the rule of law is not yet upheld in Turkey.

More than 65,000 of us from across Europe signed against financing nuclear power with public EU money in less than a week. Thanks to this amazing reaction, we were able to bring the voice of the European citizens into the discussion.

While citizens have to pay taxes, most countries in Europe let wealthy multinational corporations get away with dodging billions of euros.

The European Commission plans to give more to corporations to sue European countries, despite broad public pressure not to extend corporation’s privileges, including more than 93,00 of you! We know this is a long term battle, but we also know it’s worth the fight that’s why we are still watching and acting. Don’t miss the boat: sign and fight for a European democracy led by the people and not by greedy corporations!

More than 47,000 Europeans asked EU leaders to take action to fight tax fraud, tax evasion and money laundering, and we delivered all those signatures to the members of the European Council. Following that, in June, the European Parliament set up a Panama Paper Inquiry Committee to investigate the maladministration in the application of EU laws on money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion. There’s more work to be done, but this is a great start!

The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) allows people to participate directly in the creation of EU laws. Over six million Europeans have used it to stand up to defend media freedom, water as a public good, restriction of animal testing, high quality European education for all, and many other issues that affect us all. Sadly the ECI has proven to be highly inefficient and lacks teeth.