European Parliament Elections 2014

15.07.2014 EU Politics

Candidates for the new European Commission – where we stand 15.7.2014

So Juncker is now certain. 26-2 in the Council, 422 of 751 in the European Parliament. I have analysed the High Rep and President of the European Council positions at the LSE EUROPP blog here. But who has been nominated

15.05.2014 EU Politics

Why the Spitzenkandidat process is the best thing to happen to EU-level representative democracy for years

Let’s get the caveats out of the way first. I know the way the parties selected their Commission President candidates was imperfect. I know that none of the candidates has really shone. I know this process has not been dealt with with

08.05.2014 EU Politics

It’s a public sphere Jürgen, but not as we know it

It’s European Elections time. That period every five years when people partially wake up to the issue that democracy is supposed to work in the European Union, and the press starts to worry why it does not. The media itself

21.04.2014 EU Politics

The parties have their Commission President candidates. TV channels, it’s over to you: 15th May debate on prime time TV please.

I write this blog entry as a convinced EU democrat. By that I mean that, faced with the options about how to solve the many problems the EU currently faces, actually trying to make democracy work at EU level is

18.04.2014 EU Politics

Politics for people, or let’s bash the bankers?

With the European elections now just over a month away, every campaign organisation in Brussels is coming up with its demands for wannabe MEPs before the election. ALTER-EU, the campaign for lobby transparency, has released its campaign site entitled “Politics

09.04.2014 EU Politics

At least 4 televised debates between Schulz and Juncker, more to come? (update: now 7!)

One of the supposed advantages of the European Commission top candidate / Spitzenkandidat process is that it gives some personality to the European Parliament election campaigns for the first time. I am hence very happy to see that televised debates

12.03.2014 EU Politics

Britain is absent from the EU’s Presidential Election

So the lineup for the first-ever Presidential Election in Europe, to select the Commission President 2014-2019, is complete – Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists (PES), Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People’s Party (EPP), Guy Verhofstadt for the

05.12.2013 EU Politics

So Martin Schulz, are you, or are you not, a federalist?

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament and wannabe Commission President, was on BBC World’s Hard Talk yesterday (4th December 2013), and used the following words: You used the term that I am a European federalist. I have never in