Jon Worth's Euroblog

23.01.2006 EU Politics

This week: the Sound of Europe [Updated, 23.01.2006]

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

23.01.2006 EU Politics

Is this hypocrisy from the Irish?

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

22.01.2006 UK Politics

Whale solidarity

Sometimes a certain story just manages to capture the public imagination. This weekend, London has been lucky enough to benefit from such a story – the Thames Whale. See the coverage from The Observer here, The Sun here, and then

22.01.2006 EU Politics

‘Safe pair of hands’ personified: Olli Rehn

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,

20.01.2006 EU Politics

Wallström’s White Paper: you can’t separate communication and democracy

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

19.01.2006 Technology

Burning the midnight html: Europatermine

There’s been a good reason for the blog being a bit quiet recently: I have been working like crazy to get the website Europatermine.de complete for JEF and Europ√?ische Bewegung in Berlin. It’s needed a hell of a lot of

16.01.2006 EU Politics

Wealth inequality, working hours, and happiness?

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

14.01.2006 UK Politics

Brits with an American-style debt problem

The Brits have apparently reached the point where their credit card debt is starting to decline, but according to this interesting article in USA Today, we still have an average of $5188 of credit card debt per person – about

13.01.2006 Observations

What is it about the Aussies?

Whenever I fly with Ryanair I always seem to have the bad luck to end up sat close to some Aussies in the plane. Does not even seem to matter where: they have been on flights to Stockholm, Altenburg, and

12.01.2006 EU Politics

Guardian tempers its analysis of Sweden

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

12.01.2006 Observations

345 deaths for the sake of their faith? The Hajj

Every able bodied Muslim is supposed to make a pilgrimage to Mecca during their lifetime, and yet it seems this duty is bound to involve fatal sacrifice for some. This year 345 people have died today (as I write –

11.01.2006 EU Politics

The Dead Constitution Sketch

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