The original blog: commentary about everything except transport
In 2014 the race to become President of the European Commission – using the new Spitzenkandidat process – was a two-horse race, and months ahead everyone knew who would likely win – Jean-Claude Juncker (EPP). Martin Schulz (PES) put in energy and
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So the Heads of State and Government put in an all-nighter at the European Council in Brussels. And this morning at the time of writing there is still no consensus as to who will get any of the EU’s top
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Prior to the 2014 European Parliament elections I examined all the runners and riders for President of the European Commission and other EU top jobs (2014 posts on President of the Commission: EPP, PES, Others | President of the European
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Brexit, and the economic and political consequences of it, is serious. So why then has the UK appointed its least serious front line politician, Boris Johnson, as its Foreign Minister? (backed up by the little better Davis, Fox and Leadsom)
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So, having taken apart the behaviour of European Commissioners on Twitter earlier this week, the critique has poured in – most of it to me personally in private, and some of it on Twitter. In this blog entry I am
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South Tyrol – at the request of Germany apparently – has promised to check all passengers trying to travel north towards Germany over the Brenner Pass, but Schengen has not been suspended (officially). Refugees in Budapest are being rounded up
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Following my earlier blog entry about Twitter chats I was confronted by a familiar charge – ah, Frans Timmermans is a Facebook guy. He doesn’t like Twitter. That’s the problem. There are probably some pretty good reasons he likes Facebook,
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At 1600 CET today, First Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans will do an online chat on Twitter and Facebook* – tag is #AskFrans. Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc will do the same on Monday 27th April at 1400
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Back in 2013, José Manuel Barroso in his State of the European Union speech stated that the “EU needs to be big on big things and smaller on smaller things” (speech text here – phrase 3/4 of the way through).
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A tweet by Gergely Polner, sometime comms guy for the European Parliament in London, and now working in the private sector, tweeted this earlier today that caught my eye: https://x.com/eurocrat/status/542952340358459392 What does this actually mean? (and indeed the quote Gergely
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So the British tabloids, and plenty of folks on Twitter, have been having a rant about vacuum cleaners, and the EU EcoDesign rules that came into force this week banning the sale of vacuum cleaners rated at more than 1600W.
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The High Rep is appointed by the European Council, acting by qualified majority. However as the person is also a Vice President of the European Commission, their nomination has to also be approved in the same way as the rest
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