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...
There have been two lines of attack from UK EU-phobes to the news that the EU has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. One has been to point to the current economic travails of the EU, and the political strife that has caused, and to criticise the award as a...
Whether (and indeed how) Scotland would remain in the EU if it became an independent state has been an issue that has risen up the political agenda over the past few months. Theresa May has weighed into the debate today, stating that border controls would have to be imposed between...
Today’s Guardian has the story that Denmark is to ban Marmite. As the FT’s Stanley Pignal quipped on Twitter, is this the next step (after new customs controls, despite Schengen) from Denmark’s populist Dansk Folkeparti to keep foreigners away by banning their foods? While the idea of Pia Kjærsgaard lobbing...
German Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer outlines his concerns about Cathy Ashton this week in Strasbourg, including that she’s a ‘sentence generator’: So it gave me an idea. Now you can have a go as well, thanks to the automated Ashton Sentence Generator…
I was on the BBC World Service programme “World Have Your Say” (programme site, blog) earlier to talk about the implications of the election success of Timo Soini’s True Finns party in yesterday’s parliamentary election. The discussion briefly examined the reasons for the support for this populist party, but the...
EU justice Commissioner (and, very incidentally, Commissioner responsible for communications) Viviane Reding yesterday gave a speech entitled “Your data, your rights: Safeguarding your privacy in a connected world”. You can read the speech here, and there are articles from The Guardian, The Register and The Telegraph. I’m actually surprised –...
When EU institutional comms are not up to scratch I say so – see posts about the EEAS, Citzalia and the Citizens’ Initiative for example. So it’s only fair, in return, when I see a good example of what the European Union is doing to give some credit where credit’s...
I have respect for the UK blog Political Betting – I never bet on anything, but I like Mike Smithson’s rigourous analysis of odds. However when it comes to anything to do with the European Union reason and rigour seem to go out of the window. Take his recent rant...
Norway goes to the polls on 14th September and the election is being held at a time when Norway’s position in the world is in some question: what role for the oil rich country of 4.5 million people at the northern edge of Europe? The influence of the EU on...
I’m rather conscious that I have a tendency to rant and complain on this blog. So after some interesting questions posed by the audience at an event organised by le Cercle québécois des affaires internationales where I was the speaker earlier today, here are a few strange and radical ideas...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHqpzjMTD Oh, you can just imagine them chortling away in the TaxPayers’ Alliance producing the above video about the Common Agricultural Policy. It contains a heady mix of fact and prejudice and there’s even a report to go with it. The ‘stats’ in the TaxPayers’ Alliance report are correct in...