EU Politics

18.11.2012 EU Politics

No-one’s going to believe Labour is “hard-headed” about the EU, and it’s wrong anyway

So Labour has another stab at getting together some sort of EU policy. Ed Miliband is interviewed in The Sunday Telegraph and the only thing that seems to emerge is that Labour needs a “hard-headed” approach to the European Union,

16.11.2012 EU Politics / UK Politics

If you’re British and care about UK-EU relations, then you’re either in a state of permanent delusion or permanent depression

Two grandees of UK politics were at it again today. Peter Mandelson, while at least acknowledging an in-out referendum for the UK, was nevertheless pompous and deluded in the FT: “pro-Europeans […] should acknowledge that their case has largely been

14.11.2012 EU Politics

If I’m an influential Briton on EU policy, it sure doesn’t feel like it

It was a normal enough evening. I was sat in a bar in Copenhagen, catching up with an old friend who was visiting, and I then checked Twitter. This from my good friend @Kosmopolit, and this from @Nosemonkey (tellingly including

12.11.2012 EU Politics

Commissioners on Twitter: how are they doing?

The European Commission, and Commissioners themselves, have progressively taken to Twitter over the past couple of years as a way of communicating with (at?) EU citizens. So how are they doing? This blog entry gives a quick summary. My starting

12.11.2012 EU Politics

Echoes of Buttiglione as nomination of Maltese Borg draws criticism

Back in 2004 the European Parliament made waves by preventing the Barroso I Commission from entering office, mostly due to the views of one nominee – Rocco Buttiglione. The problem was with Buttligione’s views on homosexuality and the role of

09.11.2012 EU Politics

The recipe for European Citizens’ Initiatives

Over the years I’ve continually argued that the European Union needs to improve its representative democracy – it needs to develop federal institutions, and give citizens a genuine voice at elections. Yet while, in essence, I still believe in that,

24.10.2012 EU Politics

The chasm at the heart of European politics

At the start of last week I was a guest lecturer at Roskilde University, presenting about blogging and the EU. You can find the slides I used on Slideshare here. In the discussion following the presentation I was posed a

12.10.2012 EU Politics

The EU and peace

There have been two lines of attack from UK EU-phobes to the news that the EU has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. One has been to point to the current economic travails of the EU, and the political strife

12.10.2012 EU Politics

Who should collect the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the EU?

The EU has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But who should collect it? Have a go at the quick poll below, and if you have other suggestions leave them in the comments!

05.10.2012 EU Politics

The strange case of Radek Sikorski in Oxford

The Foreign Minister of the EU’s 6th largest country (Radek Sikorski, Poland) arrives in the UK and gives a speech on 21st September lambasting Britain’s policy towards the European Union and the reaction is… almost non-existent. Isn’t that a bit odd? Let

25.09.2012 EU Politics

Academic research on EU blogging

I was one of the people interviewed for Javier Ruiz Soler‘s European Studies Masters Thesis “Who blogs what? A qualitative study on the role of the Euroblogosphere in a context of a European Public Sphere.” The PDF of the thesis