Foreign Ministers of EU countries are meeting today in Brussels, while at the same time protests against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt enter their 7th day. On his way to the Brussels meeting Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted this: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/31952709766610944″] The right question to pose – but what prospect...
There’s an interesting piece at Centre Right on Conservative Home that looks at Cameron’s posturing on the EU budget last week (making a similar point to mine about his ‘win’) but also looking more broadly at whether the EU is an important political issue for voters, and what that might...
The British press has been making a big thing of negotiations on the 2011 EU budget for the past couple of days. David Cameron was apparently telephoning EU leaders yesterday, and on the eve of today’s summit claimed victory that the budget would rise 2.9% rather than the 5.9% proposed....
“A little more than half a page of the Coalition Programme for Government deals with Britain’s relations with the European Union and, like much of the rest of the coalition deal, the EU policy combines soothing words and a mixture of Conservative and Lib Dem policy commitments. Brussels, for a...
OK, the UK has some difficulties due to the financial crisis and is struggling out of recession, but does Cameron really reckon that people think the place is “in a complete and utter mess” as he has termed it in today’s speech that’s supposed to be part of his fightback...
I have a problem. A serious problem. I’m beset by some kind of political depression. It’s not because I fear the result of the UK’s forthcoming general election – even if Labour wins there will be scant optimism. The battle is about who cuts what, when – aside from occasional...
Ho, ho, here we go again. A question posed in the House of Commons by Philip Davies (Con) as cited by the Open Europe blog: Given that the accounts of the EU have not been signed off by the auditors for 15 years running, why do the Government keep giving...
It has been widely trailed that David Cameron is going to outline his new European policy today, after capitulating yesterday on the Treaty of Lisbon issue. The feral members of the Tory Party are baying for blood, so what is Cameron going to give them? The most likely position that...
David Cameron, as quoted on the BBC News website today: It looks like this treaty is no longer going to be a treaty, it looks like it is going to become part of European law and that is going to create a new situation. Does David Cameron simply not understand...
Rumours of tensions between David Cameron and Boris Johnson rumble on, as covered today by Alex at Labour List. I don’t want to comment on Boris vs. Cameron as such; others are better placed to debate that. I just have 2 small remarks. First, Britain has had more than a...
I’m no fan of the Tory Party or indeed any of the parties they are cooperating with in their new political group in the European Parliament, the ECRG – European Conservatives and Reformists Group. Yet even I cannot have imagined how soon things would start to crack, for today Hannu...
So David Cameron is finally starting to make good his pledge to take the Conservatives out of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, as covered by the FT Brussels blog, Richard Corbett and Iain Dale. There’s of course a lot of bluster about the whole thing, and plenty...