ZN and Euractiv have drawn up a new table of EU influencers. You can find out more about their methodology here, and I have written up my thoughts about this on my own blog here. The Twitter list of the full 40 is here.
Observations
I have been nominated to be a member of World Economic Forum’s Europe Policy Group for the period between August 2017 and January 2018. A list of the members of the group can be found here (PDF). The group contains some people I know quite well like Ulrike Guérot, Katarzyna Pisarska...
Germany goes to the polls on 24th September. And that means the country is in full on election mode at the moment. Posters are appearing on lamp posts, street stalls proliferating outside U-Bahn stations and supermarkets. It’s the first time I’ve actually been living in Germany for a Bundestag election...
It started back in 2012 when Anne Laumen, Captain Europe and I decided to meet for a beer and invited other Twitter nerds along – #EUTweetUp was born. Now almost five years the ad hoc series of pub nights is still going strong. Anne has left Brussels and Captain Europe...
In the spring of 2017 the “Pulse of Europe” movement spread swiftly across Germany and into other EU countries as a response to rising Euroscepticism and perceived threats to liberal democracy in Europe. In Berlin for many consecutive weeks people would make their way to Gendarmenmarkt every Sunday to listen...
I normally consider this blog something rather personal, a place to express my thoughts. But more people know of me thanks to this blog, and thanks to some of the projects I have managed to launch here, than through anything else I do. Long term professional connections, and plenty of...
Transparency International’s EU office established an Advisory Group to help translate TI’s new Global Strategy into something workable within the narrower confines of EU policymaking. Chaired by former Commissioner Mario Monti, I have been a member of the 11 strong group since December 2015. More about the work of the...
I tend to steer clear of Leffe beer in Belgium – it tastes inferior to the likes of Orval or Tripel Karmeliet, and I always tend to fear the market influence of large brewers like InBev, the owners of the Leffe brand. But a friend I’m staying with had a...
Nauseating posters such as this one: adorn airports worldwide. They are part of the “Britain is GREAT” campaign. The website even states “Welcome to GREAT Britain”. Well, not if you’re Ai Weiwei. A state visit for the Chinese PM is more important than a visa for the dissident artist. So...
In the 18 months I’ve lived in Kreuzberg I’ve passed Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap (website, map) stand on Mehringdamm dozens of times. Come rain or shine, summer or winter, there is always a queue of people waiting outside it. Today I finally tried it. Part of the intrigue for me is...
My first foray into sports blogging! ““Any chance we can go to a football game?” my oldest friend asked me, when announcing he was coming for a weekend to Berlin. “Sure, Union Berlin are playing FC Ingolstadt 04 in the 2. Bundesliga” I replied.” – read my match report!
It was a normal enough Copenhagen situation; that’s what makes it frustrating. I was introduced to some friends of my partner’s in Copenhagen yesterday evening. Two of them persisted in speaking Danish conscious that I did not understand what they were saying, and the third – rather than politely enquiring...