Last year a bunch of EU blog nerds had a laugh when José Manuel Barroso made a State of the European Union address (more here). The very notion that Barroso would do this made us smile, and knowing he’s not a great speechmaker we played the EU version of the popular business...
In a regular government, when a Minister is struggling he or she is removed by the Prime Minister. I don’t think anyone has any doubt that the European Union is struggling to get to grips with the Eurozone / debt crisis. So who’s the fall guy? Well, so far, there...
Look across Europe, and think of the calibre of its leaders. Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron. Zapatero, Berlusconi, Tusk. Reinfeldt, Løkke, Pahor. Brussels with Barroso and Van Rompuy. This is not a quality lineup, not what one would classically call a statesman or stateswoman among the lot of them. Not a Schuman,...
So started an interesting exchange of views about the future of Schengen yesterday – my tweet, and then a reply from European Commisson spokesperson Koen Doens: http://twitter.com/jonworth/status/64751179715969024 @jonworth Disagree. Intelligent Cion w/ courage to c that governance may possibly have 2 b adapted 2 take account of exceptional circumst. —...
At Bloggingportal we came up with the idea of having a laugh at the expense of our esteemed President, Jose Manuel Barroso with his “State of the European Union” speech by playing bullshit bingo. The entire speech is now available here, and the Wordle for it looks like this: Barroso...
Via Twitter I came across this post in French by Michael Malherbe about a letter sent from Commissioner responsible for Communications, Viviane Reding, to Commission President Barroso. Euractiv managed to get hold of a copy of the letter that contains 14 points about how communications are to be improved. The...
Bit of genius from Danny the Red Green:
I try to see the positives where I can, but I am really struggling this evening. Who actually wanted Barroso, Van Rompuy and Ashton to be running the European Union? It all strikes me as the lowest common denominator of the worst sort. As @kosmopolit pointed out on Twitter, the...
Rumours are reaching me via Twitter that Baroness Ashton, UK Labour politician and outgoing Commissioner for Trade is the individual the socialists are now backing to be the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy. I must say I am astounded. Let me at least set the record straight about what...
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...
The EP elections, the five year democratic interruption to the Brussels game, are long in the past. Everyone is back from their summer holidays, ready for a bout of jousting and positioning in that depressing and opaque game: how to put together a team of 27 Commissioners. The nomination of...
OK, here we go again. Open Europe having a further whine at something going on in Brussels, this time the amount of money the European Union spends on ‘propaganda’. Also not a surprise is the choice of EUObserver to carry a column from Open Europe’s Lorraine Mullally, and in Sweden...