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 Council | High Rep for EU Foreign Policy). Now, with...
Back in the early summer of 2013 I wrote a detailed series of blog posts about the future President of the European Commission. There were posts about EPP, PES and other candidates. Overall those posts have stood up well over the last 6 months. But with the EP elections just...
The European Council elects its President by a qualified majority for a term of two and a half years, renewable once. This means that Herman Van Rompuy, the current incumbent, cannot run again. This is also the only one of the top EU positions that has no role for the...
[Please note: this is not a piece about referendums in general, and nor does it call into question my overall position as a referendum-sceptic. It relates to a very specific Danish case.] The Danish Ministry of Justice, in the final page of this note (in Danish, PDF), has once more thrust...
Every five years Brussels has a bout of political intrigue. It is the time when a new European Parliament is elected, and connected to that, a new team of European Commissioners chosen. The European Parliament elections are due in May 2014, and with the Commission due to be chosen in...
TechCrunch this week highlighted that 75% of the world’s heads of state are now on Twitter. While there’s some grounds to quibble about the definition of a head of state, and the number of countries featured, the rise of Twitter among senior politicians cannot be questioned. Meanwhile in the USA...
It seems the European Parliament can do no right just at the moment. Following hot on the heels of Jack Straw calling for the European Parliament to be abolished, the Charlemagne column in The Economist has weighed into the debate with a piece entitled Elected, but how democratic? in which...
At one level it has been a privilege to attend the Danish Presidency Press Trip for the past four days. I’m the first blogger ever to have been allowed to attend, and hopefully not the last. But the whole experience leaves me feeling a little empty, although not quite for...
Sometimes unexpected doors open thanks to blogging, and next week is one of those circumstances. I am spending four days (Monday-Thursday) in Copenhagen on the Danish Presidency Press Trip. Did you even know Presidencies organise press trips? I didn’t before getting the invite to this. Anyway, what am I going...
I know that Facebook numbers are not everything. It’s about change in the real world, activism etc. But if at least clicking a ‘Like’ button on Facebook is some sort of symbol of political engagement, then this is how the Danish political parties stack up before the election due on...