The afternoon panel of the Sound of Europe conference?? Wallström is back, but looked a bit nervous and had negative body language, Plassnik looked serene and calm, Danskeckguber looked smug, and Moisi too. The best quote at the start came from Geremek: “Mozart is what we want, Wagner is what […]
The morning started with a quick and bland introduction from Wolfgang Sch√?ssel, followed by some words from Margot Wallstr√∂m. Nothing much of note, except the video Wallstr√∂m wanted to show did not work correctly. She then left the conference – is that as much as we are going to hear […]
It???s Friday morning and the conference will start in one hour. My real work will then commence, writing the minutes of the speeches and the discussions. I???m here to help out with this as an English native speaker yet trying to write the minutes of a vast variety of different […]
A new study of different nations’ environmental protection has been released today prior to the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The report is different to previous analysis by the same authors from Yale and Columbia universities in that it ranks countries according to how well they are […]
New year, new EU Presidency, and a new debate about the European Constitution? This week should make things a bit clearer I hope… Friday and Saturday this week the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the EU is hosting a conference in Salzburg amusingly entitled “Sound of Europe“, and I […]
An opinion poll in today’s Irish Times finds that 78% of Irish citizens want to re-introduce a permit system for migrant workers from the new EU member states, and a majority of the population thinks that enough immigration has taken place. The article can be found here. It strikes me […]
Now, if there is one issue that tends to get people motivated, it is EU enlargement. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was in London on Friday and, among other things, gave a speech at LSE about his work. Yet his speech, and especially his means of answering questions, were such a […]
Commissioner Margot Wallström is due to release her White Paper on EU Communications at the start of January, and – surprise, surprise – the whole thing is getting quite messy and complex. This line in an article in European Voice is illustrative of the problems that Wallström is facing: During […]
There is an excellent post on the New Economist blog (read it here) that discusses a recent study about whether there is a correlation between working hours and income inequality – simply put, the need to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ and to work to get the possessions that others […]
After Polly Toynbee’s “The Most Successful Society” piece in the autumn, The Guardian has tempered its tone about the Nordic model in this piece by Nicholas Watt. The analysis is not too bad – Sweden does, without doubt, have a problem with its integration of ethnic minorities and I suspect […]
Have we not been over this ground before? Immediately after the French and Dutch No votes, everyone started to debate whether the European Constitution was dead or not. Then the Brits came along with their Presidency and put the lid on all talk. Now with the Austrian Presidency, the farce […]
The row over cartoons of Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten goes on and on. Arab Foreign Ministers yesterday condemned the Danish Government for not doing anything about the cartoons, so no surprise there then – article from the BBC here. Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen has stood firm throughout, […]
