European Parliament

05.08.2011 EU Politics

The anatomy of a story about the European Parliament and body scanners

I saw this tweet from @Bruce_Schneier, retweeted by @EvgenyMorozov: [blackbirdpie url=”https://x.com/Bruce_Schneier/status/99450840410112000″] This led me to Schneier’s piece about a Welt am Sonntag article about ineffectiveness of full body scanners in airport tests in Germany. One piece in particular caught my

03.08.2011 EU Politics

What does the EP do about an offensive e-mail? Delete it from staff inboxes remotely

As covered by England Expects (in French, e-mail now removed) and Guido Fawkes (in English), the European Parliament has been full of gossip this week as a result of a remarkable resignation e-mail from a member of staff that was

24.06.2011 EU Politics

The Guardian | The European parliament needs to get its house in order

“You have to understand: you are the enemy.” Those were the words I heard uttered by a researcher in the European parliament to civil servants from the EU’s member states a couple of years ago. What – with aghast looks

17.06.2011 EU Politics

The European Parliament is being pro-EU, but not pro-EU democracy

There are two main issues at stake with the so-called ‘Six Pack’ of EU legislation designed to prevent eurozone countries overspending in future. The first is the amount of wriggle room to be given to states that break the rules,

15.06.2011 EU Politics

Silvana Koch-Mehrin: resign now

I first wrote about the Silvana Koch-Mehrin plagiarism case on 12th May, the day she chose to resign her positions in the FDP and as Vice President of the European Parliament. Notably she remained a MEP at this stage, saying

14.06.2011 EU Politics

The EU nerds’ new toy – Vote Watch’s vote match

VoteWatch.eu has been a vital tool in the EU politics watcher’s toolbox for sometime – it allows you to see how individual MEPs vote, how cohesive political groups are, and how often MEPs turn up to vote. The data it

10.06.2011 EU Politics / UK Politics

Lazy Daniel Hannan MEP

I suppose drafting polemics takes time, or perhaps there is another reason for his deficiency. For Daniel Hannan MEP, European poster boy for the Tory right, seems increasingly to be neglecting the very work he is supposed to be doing

08.06.2011 EU Politics

22nd June – a day of web activity for an open and honest European Parliament?

It has not been a good few months for the European Parliament, and today probably tops all of the days for stories that show the EP in a bad light. As Jason O’Mahony points out, the EP lost the Toland

07.06.2011 EU Politics / UK Politics

MEPs should stop complaining that they are anonymous – they are responsible

OK, he’s a MP rather than a MEP now, but a piece by Jonathan Evans for Public Service Europe annoys me. There are some valid points in the piece on the way the EP and Westminster work, but this is

21.05.2011 EU Politics / Technology

How MEPs should organise their web comms and social networking

I was a speaker yesterday at the Nordic-Baltic Youth Forum 2011 in Narva, Estonia. The slides from my presentation are here, but this post is about an issue that was on my mind all day – how Members of the European

12.05.2011 EU Politics

Silvana first, FDP second… European citizens last

I’m not the biggest fan of German liberal MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin. She was involved with a spat with bloggers prior to the 2009 European elections and was not open and transparent at that time, and she’s the sort of ultra-professional,

20.04.2011 EU Politics

Delightful irony as Koch-Mehrin runs an event on openness and suffers from it simultaneously

Thursday 12th April and Dr. Silvana Koch-Mehrin MEP runs an event in the European Parliament entitled “The New Rules of Openness”, together with LibertyGlobal. The poster advertising the event is shown above. The very same day the Vroni-Plag Wiki released