Some lines have been crossed in today’s news in the UK about European Union politics. First we have Liberal Democrat (yes, you read that right, Liberal Democrat) transport minister Norman Baker having a go at an EU transport white paper: We will not be banning cars from city centres anymore […]
Like or loathe them but UK Uncut have been highlighting tax avoidance in the UK in a way no-one has ever done before. Vodafone, Fortnum and Mason… more on their site. But this is not a UK problem alone. Different corporation tax rates apply across the EU, and as if […]
Since news broke on Sunday that three MEPs – Zoran Thaler, Ernst Strasser and Adrian Severin – were prepared to accept money in return for tabling amendments to legislation, I’ve been trying to work out what conclusions to draw from all of this. You can read more on the ongoing investigations and […]
EU justice Commissioner (and, very incidentally, Commissioner responsible for communications) Viviane Reding yesterday gave a speech entitled “Your data, your rights: Safeguarding your privacy in a connected world”. You can read the speech here, and there are articles from The Guardian, The Register and The Telegraph. I’m actually surprised – […]
David Miliband set out his concerns about the predicament of the European left in a speech at LSE this evening. The full text of his speech is available at Labourlist here, and Next Left has a little post from earlier here. As you would expect from the elder Miliband, the […]
Since the 2009 European Election I’ve kept an eye and an ear open for what MEP Marta Andreasen will do in UKIP’s delegation. Today I seem to have my answer – she’s willing to be just as stupid and poisonous as the rest of them. The issue at stake is […]
It’s so easy for non-EU-phobic politicians in the UK to slip into it: a discourse that membership of the European Union is ‘in Britain’s national interest’. Wayne David’s recent piece for Labour List uses the term three times. Ben Fox, writing for the same site, says: But an In/Out referendum […]
Brussels Bubble dominates EU blogosphere – Public Service Europe.
Here we go again. The next stage of the UK government’s effort to get more Brits into the EU institutions… is to try to skew the application system to assist Brits. Today’s FT has more on the story here. There’s more here about the government’s previous efforts. The essential gist […]
A pedestrian bumps into another pedestrian who is blocking the pavement. The pedestrian gets a wet foot from a loose paving stone and clambers over bags of rubbish on the way to the Métro. The same person takes the Métro, and when leaving the train at Gare du Midi he […]
A piece in the European Parliament magazine entitled “Plans for big shake-up in European elections branded ‘absurd’” caught my eye. It concerns ideas that have been rumbling around in Brussels about how to improve European elections, and the idea to create a transnational top-up list system comprising 25 MEPs of […]
What should Labour’s EU policy be in opposition? What can at the same time be positive about the future, realistic, deliverable, and also decisively different from the coalition’s approach to the EU? Vital questions. The starting point seems to be a few high profile events to talk about this stuff – Policy […]
