I was at an event in Brussels this week where there was much discussion about Labour trying to find 5 points it could put on a pledge card during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. So, looking at what top politicians in the Labour Party have been saying about the […]
It has taken a couple of months to get everything in order, but I am now very happy to be able to announce my most unlikely, and most exciting, project to date as a blogger about EU affairs – I am going on board the Greenpeace boat Arctic Sunrise, as […]
“Europeans show strong sense of solidarity” – it seemed a counter-intuitive headline (in a tweet from @svaroschi) in these times of social strife. The story was Deutsche Welle’s coverage of some new research conducted by the Open Society Foundations. The summary of the research is here (although that makes no specific […]
So the European Commission and 7 Member States finance and commission a European Report on Development. There have been three of them so far (details here), and the latest one – entitled Post-2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future will be released on Tuesday next week. There’s apparently […]
On 4th March, George Osborne suffered a bruising defeat in negotiations in the Council of the EU about bankers’ bonuses. 26 EU Member States wanted limits on bonuses, Britain did not, and as the dossier was voted under Qualified Majority Voting (QMV), Britain was marginalised, and lost. OK, the financial sector […]
It’s not quite my normal topic – development aid – but here I am in Paris, sat blogging about the OECD’s Global Forum on Development. Why? Well, in short because I was asked. Linda Warnier who works on online communications for OECD is someone I’ve worked with in the past […]
I’m no fan of George Bush. But he did do one good thing – he lengthened Daylight Savings Time in the USA by 4 weeks, and made Daylight Saving more symmetrical – now clocks change back in the USA the first Sunday of November (rather than last Sunday of October), […]
(nudity in the video – not for watching on your office computer) Elmar Brok is a portly German CDU MEP, and a well known character in Brussels. This video of him being accosted by a FEMEN activist poses more questions than it gives answers. I also wonder who the woman […]
The 0744 København H to Berlin train (although I’m getting off at Hamburg Hbf). Friday 1st March. Two policemen wait at the German border station Puttgarden, board the train at 1040, it departs at 1042, and the two of them reach my seat (at the opposite end of the 4 […]
After the successful first event back in November, there will be a second EU Tweetup – this time on Wednesday 6th March, from 1800, at the James Joyce Pub, Rue Archimède 34, 2 minutes away from Schuman. The basic idea is that you come along and have a beer and […]
Brussels is lobby-central. Everyone is at it – companies, NGOs, national governments, trade associations – trying to shape legislation that has an impact on 500 million citizens and the market rules for the products these people buy. It’s generally said that the EU institutions are the second most lobbied in […]
As regular readers of this blog know, the problems within the Schengen Area have been giving me cause for concern over the last few months. I have been wondering what best to do in light of my experiences, and my current plan is to find a way to more systematically […]
