Jon Worth's Euroblog

European Parliament elections are scheduled for June 2009 and the party lists for Labour have been set for some time now. It was known that Glenys Kinnock would not seek re-election, and it was announced yesterday that Eluned Morgan MEP

From time to time up pops ex-German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to demoan some aspect of how the EU conducts its business. Last week was no exception, with a short interview with Euractiv that contains this passge: I think we

Baroness Ashton has been nominated as the British member of the European Commission to replace Peter Mandelson, but she’ll be in post only until the summer of 2009 as a new Commission takes office in autumn 2009 (presuming she can

Gordon Brown nominated Baroness Ashton to be European Commissioner after Peter Mandelson returned to UK government. The reason is clear enough – Brown did not want a by-election that Labour might loose after the Crewe and Glasgow East debacles. After

Has Brown made a monumental error in putting forward Baroness Ashton to replace Peter Mandelson as the UK’s European Commissioner? That’s the interesting issue raised in a comment by Giacomo Benedetto (more on his blog) on my previous post about

I was very wide of the mark with my previous post so now, with some more time to write and a couple of hours mulling over the implications of the reshuffle, here are my thoughts. First of all Mandelson from

Shock news: Peter Mandelson is back in ther UK Cabinet today in Gordon Brown’s reshuffle. So he’ll be resigning as a member of the European Commission. Geoff Hoon is to be Transport Secretary. So who will go to Brussels as

36 flights a day between Heathrow and Manchester! Madness! That was for me the most stocking part of an article in today’s Guardian about Tory Party transport plans. Factor in the other London airports and the total is much higher