Sometimes a tweet from a politician really hits the mark. So it was with this yesterday from European Council President Donald Tusk: I have just recommended to EU27 leaders that we welcome, in principle, the agreement on transition. In practice, the transition phase will allow to delay all the negative...
Tomorrow – Wednesday 7th February – the plenary of the European Parliament votes on a proposal from the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) committee about the rules for the 2019 European Parliament elections, now just 16 months away in May 2019. What makes this matter controversial this time is the issue...
Back in December 2015, the board of trustees of Stonewall commissioned a series of essays, each of 1000 words, about the political context in which the charity will operate in the next 25 years. I was asked to the Europe essay in this series. I submitted the essay on 8...
tldr; “…it is easier for an independent Scotland to join the EU, than for the UK to leave it…” – thanks @odtorium on Twitter. But if you do want the detail, read on! Back in 2012, prior to the Scottish Independence Referendum, I wrote a blog post entitled Answering how...
2017 is election year in France. Le Pen is stealing votes from the traditional republican right and Nicolas Sarkozy, never one to shy away from stealing ideas to the right of him, thinks that he’s on to something to promise to tear up the Le Touquet agreement between the UK...
Obergrenze. It’s the word of the moment in Germany – namely should Germany set an upper limit on the number of refugees that it can take in 2016. CSU leader Seehofer wants to set it at 200000. The Austrians have agreed one (but there are questions if it can work),...
It is now 7 months since the US publication launched its European operation. Enough time to reflect on what does, and does not, work with it. In this blog entry I am going to try to give a fair and balanced view of the publication so far. I have canvassed...
So, having taken apart the behaviour of European Commissioners on Twitter earlier this week, the critique has poured in – most of it to me personally in private, and some of it on Twitter. In this blog entry I am going to examine each main avenue of the critique, piece...
Refugees stream from Serbia into Hungary. So Orbán puts up a border fence. But then Serbia struggles to cope with the refugees on its side, and many continue to find ways to cross anyway. Refugees don’t want to stay in Hungary however as they fear Orbán’s government will not treat...
South Tyrol – at the request of Germany apparently – has promised to check all passengers trying to travel north towards Germany over the Brenner Pass, but Schengen has not been suspended (officially). Refugees in Budapest are being rounded up and put onto trains to who knows where? Hungarian PM...
Back on 30th June I was subjected to a non-Schengen compliant border control at Buchs in Switzerland. The full report from the border, including a transcript, can be found here. The essence of the message given by the police officer checking me was that as he was from the cantonal...
I’ve never met European Commission for Trade Cecilia Malmström in person. But from tweets exchanged over the years with @MalmstromEU I have some picture of what Malmström must be like as a person. From serious discussions about the implementation of Schengen (her previous Commission post was Home Affairs), via deleted...