The Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament yesterday backed Andrew Duff‘s report (PDF here) that proposes reforms to the way MEPs are elected. Most controversial is the proposal to create a Europe-wide list of 25 MEPs, essentially a transnational list, that would give European Parliament elections a truly transnational...
Denis MacShane has written an essay entitled “Europe’s parliament: Reform or perish?”, a paper which he says is a contribution to the debate about the future of the European Parliament started by Andrew Duff, Julian Priestley, and Anand Menon and John Peet. MacShane tries to take a position in which...
Since news broke on Sunday that three MEPs – Zoran Thaler, Ernst Strasser and Adrian Severin – were prepared to accept money in return for tabling amendments to legislation, I’ve been trying to work out what conclusions to draw from all of this. You can read more on the ongoing investigations and...
A piece in the European Parliament magazine entitled “Plans for big shake-up in European elections branded ‘absurd’” caught my eye. It concerns ideas that have been rumbling around in Brussels about how to improve European elections, and the idea to create a transnational top-up list system comprising 25 MEPs of...
April 2, 2001. Less than a decade ago, but the European Union looked rather different, and the careers of 3 politicians looked rather different. Enlargement to central and eastern Europe was in process at that time, and the Euro would be found in citizens’ pockets less than 8 months later....
There’s always an advantage to being the first to use some new technology. Or at least there should be, if it’s done well. While the rest of the world has been thinking up good iPhone (and other mobile) apps for some time, these things are thin on the ground in...
How do you get parliamentarians and their staff to better use web tools in their everyday work? It’s a question at the heart of what I do for clients on an everyday basis… So I’m rather content that Google’s Brussels office has asked me to help out with a workshop...
Godfrey Bloom is a prat. That much was clear, even before this week’s incident (BBC, Wikipedia) where he referred to Martin Schulz, leader of the socialists in the European Parliament with the words “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. This after all is the MEP best known until this week...
It seems my earlier blog posts (1, 2, 3) about Citzalia, the virtual European Parliament game costing €275000, managed to put some thoughts into UKIP’s head, and specifically led to some questions to the EP’s administration asked by Godfrey Bloom MEP as reported by Gawain at England Expects. The official...
Aahmed ElAmin, one of the developers of Citzalia (whose words were followed hook, line and sinker by The Guardian) has penned his own side of the story at a website entitled The Royal Gazette. Odd location, and his approach to the whole thing is even odder. You can read the...
My previous post about Citzalia has been creating waves in the small pond of EU debate throughout the day. The blog entry was first linked from Tim Worstall, then appeared in the Open Europe press review, and has then subsequently been linked by England Expects, Politics.ie, The Endless Track and...
Yesterday – thanks to this tweet – I had the dubious honour to be one of the first people to have a look at a draft website for Citzalia, a project that promises some sort of virtual European Parliament role playing game. The official blurb is as follows: Citzalia is...