2017 is election year in France. Le Pen is stealing votes from the traditional republican right and Nicolas Sarkozy, never one to shy away from stealing ideas to the right of him, thinks that he’s on to something to promise
Continue reading
Tag: Nicolas Sarkozy
A simplified conversation between David Cameron, and Merkel and Sarkozy
Take a deep breath. Step aside from your preconceptions about the UK and the EU, and your views on David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sakozy. I’m trying to do that when writing this blog entry. Follow the steps of
Continue reading
The complicated balance between listening and leading, and how it applies to politics in Europe
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
Continue reading
Will the politician ready to defend Schengen please stand up?
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
Continue reading
Ashton: you are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Foreign Ministers of EU countries are meeting today in Brussels, while at the same time protests against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt enter their 7th day. On his way to the Brussels meeting Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted this: [blackbirdpie
Continue reading
The EU is a man sat in Princeton, NJ
This blog entry is a partial response to the Presseurop / The Guardian My Europe series The man in question is Princeton Professor Andrew Moravcsik, mastermind of the theory of liberal intergovernmentalism, that goes further than any other to explain the
Continue reading
The EU’s merry budget dance
The British press has been making a big thing of negotiations on the 2011 EU budget for the past couple of days. David Cameron was apparently telephoning EU leaders yesterday, and on the eve of today’s summit claimed victory that
Continue reading
Nicolas Sarkozy’s hair
Nicolas Sarkozy has released his message for 2010. Apart from the rather smug line that France has coped better with the economic crisis than other countries, one thing rather struck me: Sarko’s hair, which looks even more of a perfect
Continue reading
British press in petulant Frenchman controls the city shocker
The French President can behave like a petulant teenager, yet the British press (and the British Bankers’ Association) seem to not understand that the best thing to do with a petulant teenager is to ignore it. The Times led today
Continue reading
It took 4 days for the Czechs to make a mess
Why am I not surprised about this? The Czech Presidency has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as ‘defensive’. Hmmm, I think not. I’m not looking forward to the Czechs in the chair for the next 6 months. Bring back Sarko,
Continue reading