Current Affairs

The recurring trope of getting Brexit ‘done’ is incredibly hard to escape: the public (including my family, as far as I can tell) would love not to have the matter occupy their minds any more, and those more connected to matters would love to be in a more regular steady state. Sadly, things don’t actually […]

The other evening I had a quick drink in Brussels with a bunch of people who could, by any reasonable definition, be described as experts on the technicalities of Brexit. As I struggled with the whole order-your-beer-via-an-app thing, they discussed the Windsor Framework, as one does in such settings. It was clear that they (just […]

The unveiling of the Windsor Framework this week was important in many ways. Not only did it provide a set of solutions to the most pushing and tricky problems facing the Northern Ireland Protocol, but it also marked a return to more conventional modes of British diplomacy towards the EU. To watch Rishi Sunak and […]

For our weekly "Ideas on Europe" editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Dario Mazzola, from the University of Bergen, in Norway.

Rather than rake over the current indulge-fest that is the will-they-won’t-they of the Sunak deal with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol (although you can read my thoughts elsewhere, here and here), I notice it’s the time of the month to check back in on retained EU law (REUL). Long-standing readers will know that […]

Last week’s third anniversary of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU also means it’s the third anniversary of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The TCA is the oddly overlooked counterpart of the Withdrawal Agreement (with its troublesome Protocol), oddly because it is the much more substantial treaty, structuring the full breadth of current relations […]

I will freely admit that I have shied away from getting into the whole question of Retained EU Law, primarily because it’s much more about law in the UK than it is about EU law per se. I know enough to know that I don’t know much. However, the question is one that cannot be ignored. […]

As you might have noticed, I have recently become a Senior Fellow of the ESRC-funded UK in a Changing Europe initiative, working on UK-EU relations. For present purposes, it mainly means I carry on doing this work, but now with more access to resources, and with a plan. That plan is basically to try and make […]

French-German commemorations are a reassuring routine, especially on the governmental level. They are the occasion of some shoulder-tapping, large smiles that are not even unsincere, welcome obligations to bask in the sunshine of what has been achieved over all these years rather than in the shadow of the challenges that lie ahead. And contrary to […]

On 22 January 2023, France and Germany celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, rightly praised as a milestone in Europe’s post-war history. But the Treaty only institutionalised on governmental level a process towards reconciliation that civil society had already initiated without waiting for politics. This is the third post of a series of […]