Today’s Daily Telegraph carries a story on rumours that the EU’s foreign minister high representative for foreign affairs Cathy Ashton might quit the position within months. It’s interesting to read this as, when reading that Lutz Güllner quit as her spokesman last month, I remarked to some friends that I […]
5 days into the volcano mess and the finger pointing is starting, some of it more and some of it less well argued. Charlemagne has an elegantly penned argument of why he will not comment, while EUObserver has a summary of the rants of Europe’s politicians. Alejandro meanwhile has a […]
I’ve had a nightmare winter on the rails of Europe – stranded 3 days thanks to Eurostar (and missing a friend’s wedding as a result), delays with SNCF, and mess with a journey to Germany. Yet today, back home in Brussels, everything looks just a little better. Almost 2 months […]
On 7th January 2009, Tom Steinberg (founder of MySociety in the UK – more about them in a moment) penned a blog entry entitled “Top 5 Internet Priorities for the Next Government (any next Government)“. The whole thing is worth a read yet it’s the first part of the first […]
Traffic light stuck on amber. For 6 20 days solid*. And no-one has done a thing. A STIB tram passes this light every 10 minutes – it’s at the southern end of Chaussée de Charleroi. At least one police vehicle will have passed it each day. At least one person […]
An interesting debate has broken out in Brussels this week over the declining number of accredited journalists that follow the work of the EU institutions. Charlemagne and Leigh Phillips have differing approaches to the issue, and Julien has a visceral blogging take on these matters. Today on Twitter the debate […]
I’ve just finished reading Who’s Your City by Richard Florida and, in short, it strikes me as intuitively about right. The essence of the book is that where you live is as important a choice as what your job is or who your partner is. Additionally Florida argues that the […]
I’ve been at a conference in Brussels this morning organised by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and I was asked to give a presentation about Social Democracy in the e-society era – you can find my slides here. But that’s not the topic of this blog entry. I […]
A mother of three has been shot in Uccle and EUObserver is jumping up and down reporting on the crime rates in various Brussels communes. You can just hear the typical EU expat having a whinge at Place Lux complaining about things, about how unsafe Brussels streets are… and then […]
Perhaps I have a naive and simplistic approach to it, but for me Facebook Friends are actually supposed to be people, not organisations. Hence I am automatically going to reject anyone called ‘European Federalists Secretariat‘, ‘Young Socialists Georgia’ or ‘Abf Södra-Östra Dalarna’. Why is this important? Firstly, I have no […]
Seems that BIS has had a re-think and reckons that the UK should still provide some scholarships to the College of Europe in Bruges, as reported in today’s FT. This is an issue that I first covered here on 29th January this year, so the change of heart has also […]
I ran a workshop on online campaigning in Brussels last night, and in the initial round of introductions I asked the participants if they blogged, were on Facebook, on Twitter, or used RSS. A couple of people said they ‘didn’t have time for RSS‘. I was flabbergasted. How do you […]
