150 protestors have been injured in clashes over the last 24 hours in Hungary in light of a leaked tape of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany in which he stated that Hungarian politicians had been lying to the population over the economic situation in the country [Guardian article here]. Some have […]
Excellent news today – oneseat.eu has passed the 1 million signature barrier! This will not have a direct impact straight away, but it will at least act as a decent tool in the armoury of those that are calling for the abolishment of the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament. […]
Aside from the issue of party leadership that I have written about here, what else can we learn from the Swedish election campaign – for the sake of the future of the Swedish Social Democrats, and for Labour too? Beyond any debate that may arise here, this will be the […]
Spending the last 4 days of the Swedish election campaign in Stockholm with the Social Democrats has been an eye-opening experience. The stark realisation – starting on Saturday (the day before Sunday’s poll – result here, and here (Swedish official results)) that actually they were going to lose, was the […]
It looks like the inevitable will happen – the UK government will impose restrictions on freedom of movement for Romanians and Bulgarians once those countries join the EU in 2007 – news from The Guardian here. There’s much smoke and little fire in this debate, and it really infuriates me.
There’s been plenty of talk, and now we are ready to go with a number of events from the Labour Movement for Europe this autumn. The main series of events is entitled EUROPA-Soirée – a get together each month in The Ship & Shovell pub close to Charing Cross, with […]
Wow! He’s the European Commissioner responsible for Research, so you would hope he would be quite high tech, but Janez PotoÄ?nik has launched a new website with animations, an audio message greeting you, and a gaudy yellow background too. So for details of what the EU is spending its €4.5bn […]
20 days to go until the Swedish election, the campaigns are in full swing. So what should be made of all of all of this? And might the Social Democrats manage to hold on to power in the face of the conservative ‘alliance’? For election news in English, try The […]
The online petition calling for one seat for the European Parliament – oneseat.eu – has now passed 900000 signatures. It’s an excellent initiative to call for the ending of the wasteful monthly trips of the European Parliament to Strasbourg. Anyone in favour of an effective European Parliament and value for […]
Polly Toynbee has written a column in The Guardian today about Sweden, this time analysing the threat of Fredrik Reinfeldt to Persson’s government in the forthcoming elections. Toynbee often raves about the good things in Swedish society, and has generally been astute about Swedish politics in the past, but today’s […]
I’ve been trying to work out what my answer to that question should be for some months now, and attending the United Seminar of JEF in Norway [my blog entry, pics from JEF-Sweden’s blog] a few weeks ago helped me to clarify some of my thoughts, now summarised in this […]
French politics has its downsides – the domination of an ENA-educated elite being the principal among them – but la politique àla française has normally managed to avoid the more vulgar approach typified in the UK and especially the USA. Not so for the 2007 Presidential election it seems. […]
