Recent Posts

EU Politics

Why do we even give a damn about the Eastern Partnership?

Some other EU bloggers (see Dominika Pszczółkowska and Tony Barber) are concerned about the rather poor turnout at the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague this week. But is it remotely surprising? And should we care? The Czech Presidency has been a farce – Topolanek who tried to hold it together […]

EU Politics

It’s time for Germany to learn some lessons on transparency

What’s up with Germany? What do they have to hide? I attended a press conference organised by farmsubsidy.org yesterday entitled “Who wants to be a farm subsidy millionaire?” where Jack Thurston, Brigitte Alfter and others presented the latest data on CAP payments using the latest statistics on agriculture spending due […]

Observations

A tale of two approaches to cleanliness

This is the view that greeted me when walking from Schuman to my Brussels flat this morning – a smashed up TV just lying on the pavement. Presumably the owner didn’t know it had to be put in a special white bag, the street sweepers in the commune of 1000 […]

EU Politics

Popo Posselt and Bavarian electoral absurdities

München is in the middle of the election fever campaign for 7th June European elections and this has prompted a whole load of parties to come up with their election posters. Foremost among them is the CSU, in danger of not polling 5% of the votes nationally in Germany and […]

UK Politics

The Lives of Others – UK Civil Liberties mashup

I spent an hour or so last night putting together this first-ever Youtube video mashup I’ve done, taking the German trailer for Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) and adding subtitles in English – only the subtitles are about UK civil liberties issues in 2009. The idea comes […]

UK Politics

LabourList | Ken for Commissioner?

“As Glenis Willmott rightly points out on Labourlist today the European Parliament elections should be the short term priority for Labour. With the Tories set to leave the EPP-ED group in the European Parliament it’s vital that Cameron’s right wing lunatic pals are brought to the attention of the British […]