So Austria does not have a right wing populist President. Alexander Van Der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer by 31000 votes, or 50.3% to 49.7% – summary of the result from Der Standard here. But that was too close for comfort.
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Category: EU Politics
EU or Großdeutschland: the German influence in the European Union
On 10th May at 1030 CET I am giving a lecture entitled “EU or Großdeutschland: the German influence in the European Union” at the Europe2Day Forum at the University of Trieste campus in Gorizia. This a bit different to my
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A traditional and an alternative explanation of why the European Union cannot communicate
People who work in European Union politics in some way often bemoan the EU’s communications problem. Their classic diagnosis goes something like this: If only people would search out the facts about the European Union, people would better understand that
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Why turning Santo Stefano into a Eurocrat training college is a really bad idea
Matteo Renzi has an idea: train Eurocrats in Italy, as a way to boost Italy’s influence in the EU. Possibly a good idea. He wants that place to be Santo Stefano. That’s a really bad idea. Yes, nearby Ventotene was
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Teaching EU online communication through simulation – the twitcol case
For the first time in the academic year 2015-16 I am a member of the faculty of the politics department at the College of Europe in Bruges. My own MA is from the College of Europe (in 2003-04) and it
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David Cameron, democracy and the European Parliament
At the height of the Eurozone bailout crisis, Alexis Tsipras went to address the European Parliament. Why bother with that? was the cry of sceptical journalists who have never paid attention to the European Parliament. 887000 viewers of Guy Verhofstadt’s
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The refugee crisis. Words are easy (and dangerous). Action is hard.
Obergrenze. It’s the word of the moment in Germany – namely should Germany set an upper limit on the number of refugees that it can take in 2016. CSU leader Seehofer wants to set it at 200000. The Austrians have
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Why don’t we all know which journalists are accredited to the EU institutions?
Ska Keller retweeted this from Spiegel Online journalist Markus Becker earlier: https://x.com/MarkusBecker/status/690186662941474816 The insinuation is that – having purged the Warsaw press, the government of Poland is about to try to do the same in Brussels. That may be the
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Charlie Hebdo, Alan Kurdi and Köln
Charlie Hebdo has everyone up in arms with their latest cartoon. People have variously said they are enraged, that it is racist, that it is disgusting. For me it most definitely is not funny, but it encompasses such complicated contradictions
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German humour about the EU (part 2)
Back in July I made a first compilation of Youtube films about the European Union, in German, that were actually very funny. You can see those here. Now, thanks to Publixphere, here are a few more. Enjoy! Showdown in Brüssel:
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This is what happens when you poke the Politico Europe wasps’ nest
Earlier today I blogged about Politico Europe. My blog entry outlined some good points about it, but found failings too, and was the result of many conversations with many respected people over a couple of weeks. One of the points
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EXCLUSIVE! Blogger attacks Politico Europe! – a review of Politico’s european operation
It is now 7 months since the US publication launched its European operation. Enough time to reflect on what does, and does not, work with it. In this blog entry I am going to try to give a fair and
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