I write this blog entry as a convinced EU democrat. By that I mean that, faced with the options about how to solve the many problems the EU currently faces, actually trying to make democracy work at EU level is the least worst of the available options. Yes it is...
With the European elections now just over a month away, every campaign organisation in Brussels is coming up with its demands for wannabe MEPs before the election. ALTER-EU, the campaign for lobby transparency, has released its campaign site entitled “Politics for People“, with the subtitle “Stop banks and big business...
From its headquarters at the southern end of Stresemanstrasse as far as Potsdamer Platz, the SPD has filled the street with huge election posters for the European Parliament election campaign… and they are awful. The five main posters are shown below. For me the main test for an election slogan...
One of the supposed advantages of the European Commission top candidate / Spitzenkandidat process is that it gives some personality to the European Parliament election campaigns for the first time. I am hence very happy to see that televised debates between the main candidates are now also starting to take...
I’ve previously written about how the UK is absent from the EU’s Presidential Election (otherwise known as the top candidate, or Spitzenkandidat process), and while the essential content of that earlier post remains valid, I have reflected further about the implications for UK-EU relations from this process, and cannot see...
I was back in the UK for the first time in ages last week and was frustrated as a result of not being able to use two services I had grown to rely on – my Three Pay-as-you-go Data SIMcard, and Auto-TopUp for my Oyster Card. What’s the problem? A...
I can just imagine the scene. Neelie Kroes is sat at Düsseldorf Airport waiting for her flight, tries to get online, and turns to Ryan Heath or Jack Schickler or some other member of staff travelling with her, and with that mix of steel and mischievousness in her eye she...
Anyone who knows me well knows I am fascinated by the use of words about the EU. Since @europasionaria first got me to read Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant”, I’ve been wondering how to apply his ideas to the debate about the European Union. I’ve even run a couple...
The words “More Europe” are essentially used a shorthand for needing EU action in an area where the EU does not currently act, like current efforts to complete the Digital Single Market for example. But take a step back and think about this for a minute. “More Europe” is actually...
Back in my days as a civil servant one phrase dominated UK government-speak: evidence-based policy-making. The essential idea was to gather adequate evidence about a problem, and how various solutions could work, and determine a policy choice based on that. Now of course this was constrained by the ideology of...
I’m sat at a conference and there in front of me sits a diplomat from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He’s here to present the UK’s positions on the future of the European Union. His suit is sharp, his role senior, and undoubtedly his bank balance a lot healthier...
So the lineup for the first-ever Presidential Election in Europe, to select the Commission President 2014-2019, is complete – Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists (PES), Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People’s Party (EPP), Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), José Bové and Ska...