The European Council elects its President by a qualified majority for a term of two and a half years, renewable once. This means that Herman Van Rompuy, the current incumbent, cannot run again. This is also the only one of the top EU positions that has no role for the...
The High Rep is appointed by the European Council, acting by qualified majority. However as the person is also a Vice President of the European Commission, their nomination has to also be approved in the same way as the rest of the College of Commissioners. If 2014 works as 2009...
So Tory Andrew Feldman may or may not have said that some of the party’s members are “swivel-eyed loons”. I am not especially bothered whether he said it or not, because as far as I am concerned it is right. And it is not only in the Tory party that...
Following my previous posts about likely EPP and PES candidates for President of the European Commission, what about other candidates not from either of the main political forces? With no party likely to achieve an overall majority in the European Parliament after the 2014 elections, could a compromise candidate somehow...
In a previous post I analysed the likely candidates from the centre left PES for Commission President. Here I examine who the centre right EPP might put forward. It is worth bearing in mind that the nomination process depends on the outcome of the European Parliament elections, according to Article...
[Please note: this is not a piece about referendums in general, and nor does it call into question my overall position as a referendum-sceptic. It relates to a very specific Danish case.] The Danish Ministry of Justice, in the final page of this note (in Danish, PDF), has once more thrust...
So someone had the temerity to criticise the über-Eurocrat Barroso on the blog of the Eurocrat school! And then the blog post was removed, without explanation, as pointed out by @quarsan on Twitter, and argued on Facebook here. Anyway, thanks to the joys of Google Cache, here is a PDF...
It was a normal enough Copenhagen situation; that’s what makes it frustrating. I was introduced to some friends of my partner’s in Copenhagen yesterday evening. Two of them persisted in speaking Danish conscious that I did not understand what they were saying, and the third – rather than politely enquiring...
For me it was a journey by rail like any other: a Paris to Milan TGV between two work assignments. Until, between St Jean de Maurienne and Modane, stations near the border on the French side, four policemen passed through the train asking all passengers for passports. “Why,” I asked...
Every five years Brussels has a bout of political intrigue. It is the time when a new European Parliament is elected, and connected to that, a new team of European Commissioners chosen. The European Parliament elections are due in May 2014, and with the Commission due to be chosen in...
I was at an event in Brussels this week where there was much discussion about Labour trying to find 5 points it could put on a pledge card during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. So, looking at what top politicians in the Labour Party have been saying about the...
In Greek mythology the Lernaean Hydra is a monster with many heads, and every time one head is removed two more grow in its place. So too, it seems, is the case for the UK Independence Party just now. Yesterday there was a new (and, for UKIP, rather predictable) media...