BBC News Online has a good piece about the implications for tourism of the enlargement of the Schengen border free area in Europe, only one thing is missing: any discussion about Britain eventually joining the parts of Schengen that are actually useful to citizens. Essentially there are 3 elements of […]
Just a few lines, but they say a lot about the person: By Friday I had to get up to prepare for a dinner at home with Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden as one of the guests (!) She accepted gracefully the not so professional service (= […]
Gordon Brown manages to make the matter of signing the EU Reform Treaty a national disgrace, so what are the reactions? The eurosceptic papers unsurprisingly whine about signing away sovereignty (good piece from Political Betting). William Hague has a field day, accusing Brown of being rude and at the same […]
It makes me so sad, so disappointed. The UK cannot even be a diligent enough European country to manage to get its Prime Minister to Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty on time. It’s a matter of such elementary organisation, respect and kindness – a clear two fingers in […]
So Gordon Brown boycotted the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon because Robert Mugabe was there. Yes, he’s gruesome and evil (Mugabe I mean), but a whole host of other African leaders were there too – it wasn’t an EU-Zimbabwe summit after all. Plus Angela Merkel has been very critical of Mugabe […]
So the door to your shower cubicle falls off. What do you do? The answer from our neighbours upstairs: keep showering anyway! Spraying water all over the floor, causing mould, damage to the wooden floor outside their bathroom, and now damp and mould in our bathroom on the floor below. […]
What do you do when you end up in a new city and don’t have the information available to find decent bars and restaurants? Well, you do something about it! Hence the idea to register the domain name barsinbrussels.eu and make a simple site allowing bar reviews to be posted […]
Via Nosemonkey’s blog I came across this column in The Observer by Tim Adams from just over a week ago about the European Parliament. What a load of drivel. I’ll quote one paragraph: One of the problems with the European parliament is that it is not quite a parliament at […]
I’ve been a Labour Party member since 1996 – I joined before I could even vote – and EU politics is my major interest. I’ve worked on all kinds of EU matters for a decade and I’m 27 now and I’ve done my fair share of different things in the […]
If you’ve reached this page via Google looking for the allocation of the portfolios for the 2009 European Commission then see the latest information from European Voice here. The Barroso Commission is well past the half way point in its term – on 1st November 2009 a new European Commission […]
I haven’t written anything here about the HMRC missing discs scandal as yet, but a post by Never Trust a Hippy (one of the most thoughtful Labour bloggers) and some conversations with social democrats from other European countries here in Brussels has brought me to write something. First of all, […]
Can it get any worse? Labour’s General Secretary Peter Watt has had to resign over donations from David Abrahams via 3 associates. It looks like the planning process might have been compromised as a result (Evening Standard link, so take it with a pinch of salt), and Abrahams also made […]
