I’m a bit slow on the uptake – I had not until today really noticed the inaugural speech that was made by new European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering. See the EP’s News Service about it here. That’s probably because his speech was notable for the things he did say, rather […]
Chatting with my Italian teacher recently, he mentioned that the Italians are scared that next year Spain is projected to overtake Italy in terms of GDP per head. I’ve today been reading Le Monde, and the stats they present tell a remarkable story about the Spanish labour market. A summary […]
In Europe, not run by Europe. That’s what William Hague once said as leader of the Conservative Party. I happened to hear him on the Today Programme this morning advocating a similar sort of line in his current role as the Tories’ spokesperson on foreign affairs [BBC News story here]. […]
I was contacted by Myra von Ondarza, a Masters student at Hamburg University, about an academic survey of ‘Euroblogs’. As my own blog has the title Euroblog that’s why she came across me. I’ve been asked a number of questions about my motivation to write this blog, and how I […]
The main news story today in the UK is contaminated petrol in UK filling stations operated by Tesco and Morrisons – see the reports from BBC and The Guardian. Initial investigations seem to show that problems might be related to a firm Greenergy that is supposed to supply greener fuels […]
EPSO will today publish a new concours to enter into the European Institutions, entitled: EPSO/AD/94/07 ADMINISTRATORS (AD5) IN THE FIELD OF INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION AND THE MEDIA The deadline for applications is the end of March. I really wonder whether I should give this a shot. I did not manage to […]
The EU is gearing up for a party (of sorts) to celebrate 50 years of the Treaty of Rome. The exact date is 25th March which falls on a Sunday. So what should you do? If you’re in the UK and have an academic interest in all things European, the […]
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has caused quite a stir in Brussels by asking for a Toyota Prius as his next car, rather than a BMW or Mercedes as the Commissioners traditionally use. The Prius is a petrol-electric hybrid and has low CO2 emissions per kilometre. The whole story from […]
My attention has been drawn to plans for how the UK Foreign Office is to boost efforts to communicate the European Union to the British Public. The ideas were leaked to the Mail on Sunday in December 2006 – read the full idea here. The plans themselves seem all too […]
I was not the greatest fan of Romano Prodi as Commission President, but he has until now made a reasonable job of governing Italy with a wafer-thin majority. Yet today it looks like that is going to come crashing down [BBC Story], as the government’s foreign policy proposals were defeated […]
2 more European Commissioners – Janez Potocnik and Mariann Fischer Boel – have jumped on the blogging band-waggon. There’s also a blog by Toivo Klaar, the head of the Commission Delegation in Estonia. But it’s in Estonian, so I have no idea whether it’s any good! Sadly neither of the Commissioners’ […]
This is one of the oddest EU-related things I’ve come across recently. A colleague was looking for pictures of ‘Eurocrat’ in Google Images. That search drags up – among other things – a picture of Gerhard Schroeder, one of Daniel Hannan, and a few of a wire fox terrier. It […]
