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...
I’ve never met European Commission for Trade Cecilia Malmström in person. But from tweets exchanged over the years with @MalmstromEU I have some picture of what Malmström must be like as a person. From serious discussions about the implementation of Schengen (her previous Commission post was Home Affairs), via deleted...
So Juncker is now certain. 26-2 in the Council, 422 of 751 in the European Parliament. I have analysed the High Rep and President of the European Council positions at the LSE EUROPP blog here. But who has been nominated by the 27 other countries? (Luxembourg’s Commissioner is Juncker) Austria...
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 of the College of Commissioners. If 2014 works as 2009...
Following my previous posts about likely EPP and PES candidates for President of the European Commission, what about other candidates not from either of the main political forces? With no party likely to achieve an overall majority in the European Parliament after the 2014 elections, could a compromise candidate somehow...
The European Commission, and Commissioners themselves, have progressively taken to Twitter over the past couple of years as a way of communicating with (at?) EU citizens. So how are they doing? This blog entry gives a quick summary. My starting point is that a good Twitter account is an engaging...