Issue 393 | 23 June 2014

Elections retrospective, internal market for motor vehicles, Erasmus+, NDCs guide and more...

Manfred Weber, newly elected chair of parliament's EPP group, heads up our retrospective cover story feature on the European elections, saying "it is time to start work in order to make Europe safer and retain [its] prosperity". For the German deputy, the elections strengthened "the democratic grounding and transparency of European decision making processes" by electing Jean-Claude Juncker as commission president. Elsewhere, Syed Kamall, the new ECR group chair, says the recent elections present parliament with a chance to "challenge the status quo", while Gabi Zimmer, chair of parliament's GUE/NGL group, says the elections showed citizens' desire for an alternative to the EU's "failed neoliberal austerity policies". The German deputy also highlights her groups' challenge of "tackling the dangerous rise of the far-right".