Every one in a while a Brussels media outlet or public affairs firm tries to show they are digital-aware by publishing a kind of league table of something to do with social media in the EU bubble. Yesterday it was
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Category: EU Politics
Catalan referendum: violence is never the answer, but politicians on both sides are getting it wrong
I’ve spent the last three days in Barcelona, observing the 1st October independence referendum, not in any sort of official capacity, but as an interested politics nerd. Political tourism if you like. After my fascinating trip to Scotland prior to
Continue readingOpening week at Leuphana University, Lüneburg
Every cloud has a silver lining, and for me personally so it has been with Brexit. In the week a year on from Brexit I toured right across Germany talking to all sorts of audiences, in English and in German,
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Tories breaking the law on how they replace MEPs leaving the European Parliament?
A story caught my eye in The Guardian this morning. “Former candidates sue Conservative party after missing out on MEP posts” it is titled. Remember that MEPs are elected on regional lists, and each party puts up as many candidates
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4th June 2017: Ferme Olivier Cemetery (Part 2)
(Part 1 of this remembrance story explaining the background can be found here. This blog entry recounts the trip.) The train from Kortrijk to Poperinge rumbles its way through little villages and across the potato fields and pastures of West
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4th June 2017: my trip to West Flanders for a very personal remembrance (Part 1)
(Part 2 of this remembrance story about the trip itself can be found here. This blog entry explains the background.) This coming Sunday I will travel from my home in Berlin to West Flanders in Belgium for a very special
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Saying the EU needs reform has become a truism, but there’s no consensus on what to reform or how
Timothy Garton Ash, in a column for The Guardian about the task facing Macron after his election on Sunday, sums up the new French President’s challenges in the EU thus: it’s great that Macron also wants to reform the EU,
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The case for the ideological defence
My earlier post about immigration in the UK and Labour’s response to it prompted this reply from Rob Ford at the University of Manchester: [tweet id=”803884593510223872″] At one level this is right – my post does not propose any reform
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What is Matthew Karnitschnig’s problem?
Back on Sunday I wrote this tweet about François Fillon winning the first round of the centre right primary in France: [tweet 800444200089042944] Then, out of the blue and without asking me anything, four days later I get this: [tweet
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Roaming, lobbying, and Brussels journalists unable to see the real problem
The European Union has been trying to get rid of roaming charges for mobile phones for years, first for calls and for SMS, and then subsequently for data. One aspect of it is a so called “Fair Use Policy” –
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#SOTEU is back on 14th September. So print out those bullshit bingo cards!
“Was it really a year since the last one?” you’re perhaps asking yourselves. Yes, just as Brussels eases itself back to work after the summer break, Jean Claude pops up to tell everyone why everything is going swimmingly (or not)
Continue readingArticle 50 Clock
Time since polls closed in the UK’s EU Referendum Time since the UK triggered Art 50 at approx. 1200 BST on 29th March 2017 Time the UK still has in the EU – NOW WITH Article 50
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