Oh the irony! A Member of the European Parliament – Inge Grässle (whose name sounds rather like graisse, the French word for fat) – has had a go at the European Commission for creating its hundredth Director General post. Parliament Magazine has the story: Gräßle likened the commission to a...
A friend pointed me to the Working Document on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the citizens’ initiative from the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Rapporteurs for this are Zita Gurmai and Alain Lamassoure. This is not the first time I’ve...
Bit of genius from Danny the Red Green:
Mark Reckons has done an excellent bit of work looking at the likelihood of UK MPs milking their expenses correlating that with how safe their seats are. Meanwhile New Europe has raised the question of if and when the scrutiny of expenses is going to come to the European Parliament....
I had to chuckle when, via a Facebook Friend, I came across the Frequently Asked Question on the Campaign for European democracy (aka Strasbourg defenders) website entitled ‘Why should the European Parliament in Strasbourg be reinforced?’ Perhaps the campaign is unaware that FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions and that...
Back in the autumn of 2004 I was working in London. It was a year or so before I even started this blog and I was working as a civil servant on EU energy policy. News reached us that a controversial Italian nominee to the European Commission, Rocco Buttiglione, had...
I’m just home after having endured one of the most unpleasant experiences I can remember in an EU institution. Really remarkable. I’ve had meetings in the European Parliament on two consecutive days (yesterday and today) with two different British MEPs. When signing in for the visitor’s pass at the ASP...
There’s an interesting article in Le Monde today speculating once more about a role for François Fillon as a possible candidate for the Presidency of the Commission. The story goes broadly like this: José Manuel Barroso secured the nomination of the Heads of State and Government in July Approval of...
European Citizen has an interesting and thoughful post about why Guy Verhofstadt’s statement that “The three largest groups in the European Parliament announced today their commitment to pro-European values” is essentially the wrong approach. European Citizen’s critique is not too far away from my own analysis of the travails of...
There has been a bit of debate on Twitter this morning between @eurosocialiste and @boriswandoren about the ongoing behaviour of politicians in the European Parliament, specifically with regard to the behaviour of the socialists who have caved in and agreed with the EPP to carve up the positions in the...
Change or die is the message to the PES from Poul Nyrup Rasmussen on Labourlist today, and he has this to say about the EP: We now face the least progressive European Parliament in its history, with a far more eurosceptic and nationalist right-wing than ever before. Moreover, we also...
It’s been another silly day of do-they, don’t-they with regard to the composition of the political groups in the European Parliament. The ECRG lost one MEP (Takkula, Finland) and gained one (Tomaszewski, Lithuania). Meanwhile on the other side of the political spectrum the Socialist Group has put its new name...