I’ve been deluged with a load of bile on Twitter today about exports of cars manufactured in the UK to the rest of the EU (see here, here and here). There is even the line that “sales to the EU are so low”. I do not deny that there has been a slump...
A few weeks ago in Brussels I had a cup of coffee with Roberta Metsola. Since April 2013 she has been a MEP after the resignation of Simon Busuttil. Roberta and I studied on the same Masters programme, and it was good to chat and catch up. One question she posed...
According to Philip Stephens in the FT “Facts finally collide with ideology on Europe“, as his column gives solid backing to the FCO’s Balance of Competences review. The reports are “shorn of ideology and political judgments” he says, while “Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson and Philip Hammond were among cabinet...
So with rather little fanfare, the UK Government’s EU balance of competence review has today published its first six reports (links to PDFs here). The first six reports concern Taxation, Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid, Health, Foreign policy, Single market and Animal Health and Welfare and Food Safety. So what can...
My challenge this morning was to build a systematic, and free, way to keep an eye on breaking news about UK-EU relations. Of course I have had ad hoc ways of doing this until now, but for a project I am working on I needed to make it more systematic. The...
“I don’t want anything to do with the European Movement. They are federalists!” Those were the words a British friend of a friend in Brussels said to me this week as we were discussing what sort of organisations would be needed in the UK to make sure any eventual in-out...
This is the current front page of Spiegel’s website: The top five stories are about GCHQ’s Tempora surveillance programme. Germany’s Justice Minster Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has gone on the record to speak of a “Hollywood-style nightmare”. It’s top story on the FAZ, and number 3 at Sueddeutsche. The Guardian has all...
Croatia is joining the EU on 1st July, and everyone’s favourite Croat EU politics Twitter nerd, Dario Čepo, is in Brussels just before the accession. There’s even the be CROATive expo about Croatia next to the EP at the same time. So all EU bloggers / Twitter nerds are most...
I started writing this on my own laptop at Gatwick Airport, and finished it using the wifi on a Norwegian flight. I booked the ticket myself, online. I sorted out the boarding pass myself, using data I had saved myself in iCal. I bought the train ticket to the airport...
Yesterday is was David Cameron at the G8 summit, claiming that a US-EU trade deal (known as TTIP) could create 2 million jobs. The European Commission meanwhile has been using the figure of €545 per person benefit of a deal (quoted by TUC here, and mentioned by @SkaKeller at an...
Working all over the EU as I do is more or less only possible thanks to mobile internet – I have 3G and tethering on my iPhone when in Denmark (notionally home), and 3G data sim cards for a Huawei Mifi in the UK, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Now of...
State of the Net conference, Trieste, Italy Keynote: Interview: