Yesterday and today NATO Foreign Ministers have been meeting in Berlin, no doubt an important meeting in light of the problems facing the mission in Libya. I also do not deny that these ministers are important people and are a
Continue reading
Category: EU Politics
The latest waste of time and money video from the European Commission
The Transport White Paper is coming to save us! Look kids, out of the window a stream of paper is going to deliver modern transport for you by 2050! Please, please can someone tell me why the European Commission spends
Continue reading
Can EU twitter nerds crowd-source a newspaper? A new paper.li experiment
Twitter is a great place for sharing links. But there’s no way to really systematise what’s particularly interesting… It’s see it this moment or it’s gone. So I’m trying once again with paper.li to do something about this. My new
Continue reading
‘Now is not the time to put the environment in the back seat’ – some framing lessons for Janez Potočnik
Yet more EU politics reflections via Twitter today – I saw this from Janez Potočnik, Environment Commissioner: 'Now is not the time to put the environment in the back seat'. My speech to Greek parliamentary committees today http://tinyurl.com/3gjm5cl — Janez Potočnik
Continue reading
How elected representatives could use the web to add context (an example for Claude Moraes MEP)
I saw this tweet earlier from Brian Duggan who works for EPLP in their London office: http://twitter.com/TheBrianDuggan/status/55944123059941376 I followed the link to the letters page of The Guardian, and this is what I get: Your report on the conviction of
Continue reading
A response to Denis MacShane’s CER essay: national parliaments are not the route to EU legitimacy
Denis MacShane has written an essay entitled “Europe’s parliament: Reform or perish?”, a paper which he says is a contribution to the debate about the future of the European Parliament started by Andrew Duff, Julian Priestley, and Anand Menon and
Continue reading
UK message to the EU: we’ll only call you if we want some money
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:
Continue reading
Time for EU Uncut?
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
Continue reading
What do you do about corrupt MEPs? Openness is vital, but give voters more choice as well
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
Continue reading
Beyond the slogans Reding’s data protection principles aren’t too bad
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
Continue reading
Miliband explains all the problems of the European left – now time for solutions
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
Continue reading
Clearly UKIP’s poison is all-invasive
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
Continue reading