(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...
So it looks like the European Council has agreed a real-terms cut in the EU budget for the 2014-2020 period. This has, understandably, been labelled unacceptable by the 4 largest groups in the European Parliament. Yet, fearing coercion from Member States, EP President Martin Schulz and leader of the EPP...
While the columns in newspapers criticising Cameron’s referendum commitment continue to be written, I nevertheless have a nagging fear – that while Cameron’s strategy may be ill-advised, the main pro-EU party in the UK, Labour, has nothing really to say about the EU than to defend the status quo. This...
“To explain the transformation of people’s interaction with a new technology, Gartner coined the term “hype cycle”. After its initial invention, the new tool sees a peak of hype, followed by a trough of disillusionment, and finally a plateau of productivity.” Read the full piece at techPresident
UPDATE 14.30 – the original video, as I suspected, has been pulled from Youtube (it was here). As I stated in my blog post at 10.08 this morning, I downloaded the video before it was removed, and hence can show it for you here. Watch this. But probably not in...
NOTE: Speech has now been postponed. Will not be 18th January. New date tbc. David Cameron’s long awaited speech will take place Friday 18th January at Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. Here are some ideas to allow you to follow the speech. 1) Watch it live The speech starts at...
NOTE: Speech has now been postponed. Will not be 18th January. New date tbc. All entries below remain valid for take 2 of the speech. So Twitter (#TheSpeech) and the newspapers are full of analysis and gossip about David Cameron’s big EU speech, now to be given on Friday 18th...
I cannot remember a week with as much EU news in the UK as we have witnessed over the last 5 days. This is likely to continue in the lead up to David Cameron’s long awaited EU speech. So I’ve made a Storify of the main milestones of the preparation,...