EU Politics

25.10.2006 EU Politics

Off to the city of European Union

I’m leaving London for a few days and am off to Maastricht, the city most famous for the Treaty on European Union signed there in 1992. It started off what might be argued was the heyday-period of European integration –

Charlie McCreevy (copyright European Commission Audiovisual Library)

24.10.2006 EU Politics

McCreevy the lad

I’ve not been especially kind to some of the EU’s ‘leaders‘ in this blog in recent times, and here’s another one for the series – European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, Charlie McCreevy. This is a quote from

18.10.2006 EU Politics

EU at 50 – no parties, a bizarre logo, but decent Open Source software

With the EU still stuck in a deep period of reflection (hibernation?) I suppose it was no surprise that the celebrations to mark 50 years since the Treaty of Rome have been scaled back a lot. Plans for contests and

17.10.2006 EU Politics

BeMEP, or maybe not

I’ve been sent the link to BeMEP.eu, and online game where you can play at being a Member of the European Parliament. It’s backed by – among others – the Konrad Adenauer foundation. But the problem is this: how does

16.10.2006 EU Politics

2 Swedish Ministers resign – and the government is just 10 days old!

It all looked so pleasant for The Moderates in Sweden a few weeks ago – Reinfeldt had led the party to a historically high share of the vote, and he would be Prime Minister. Yet just over a week after

13.10.2006 EU Politics

PES – showing signs of European party cohesion

The Party of European Socialists voted yesterday to suspend its Slovak member party SMER due to their decision to enter a coalition with right wing and populist parties, a matter that I have previously written about here. News on the

13.10.2006 EU Politics

Fab Greenpeace campaign for a Greener Apple

Greenpeace have launched a fab campaign to make Apple Computer go green – have a look at the brilliant campaign website. You can send Steve Jobs an e-mail, and they want people to make their own T-Shirts for the campaign

12.10.2006 EU Politics

Napolitano: with leaders like this, no wonder Europe has problems

I spent an hour this evening at LSE listening to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano [Wikipedia] speak on the topic ‘Is there a future for European Integration?’, part of the LSE European lecture series [details]. The event got off to a

10.10.2006 EU Politics

EU Bureaucrats are too powerful. So do something, Verheugen! [Updated]

Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen has had a rant that too many senior officials in the European Commission are too powerful, and want to take decisions themselves rather than letting the Commissioners know what’s going on – see this article

04.10.2006 EU Politics

Sights and smells of London

It is a bright, clear Autumn morning in London. A scattering of brown autumn leaves covered the pathway outside my flat and the air really felt cool when cycling for the first time since spring. Yet the sun over Walworth’s

04.10.2006 EU Politics

What can Labour learn from the Swedish and Austrian elections? EUROPA-Soirée, 17 Oct

Elections have just taken place in Sweden and Austria, with very differing fortunes for centre-left parties. In Sweden, a resurgent right managed to win a narrow victory. The ‘Nya Moderaterna’ have a dynamic young leader – sounds a bit like

02.10.2006 EU Politics

Josep Borrell is a prat

President of the European Parliament Josep Borrell, when talking about the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament, last week stated that the “historic dimension [of Strasbourg] cannot be perceived in the same way in ‘some Nordic country’ which did not