Current Affairs

‘Visit Europe from 1 January 2021’ is the title of the UK government website which ironically tells you how much more difficult visiting ‘Europe’ will be from next year. Yes, we’re getting our country back (really?) but instead, we’re losing our continent, or at least, easy access to it. Among some of the key points for […]

A no-deal Brexit now looks almost certain, with the latest round of talks between the UK and the EU ending in stalemate, and the negotiations by all accounts turning acrimonious. It’s almost as if the British government wants a no-deal, even though the non-binding ‘political statement’ of the Withdrawal Agreement, approved by the UK Parliament, […]

This Bank Holiday weekend we have celebrated VE Day – Victory in Europe, and the end at last, in May 1945, of our continent’s most devastating and brutal war. We especially remember those who fought so hard and valiantly to save us from the menacing march of the ferocious Nazi war machine. Yes, we won, […]

Boris Johnson’s re-election as prime minister and the decisive majority his now completely pro-Brexit Conservative Party won in the December 2019 general election were bound to further strain the already difficult relationship between the central government in London and the Scottish government in Edinburgh. While the Tories managed to win almost two thirds of the […]

This post originally appeared on the UK in a Changing Europe website. The return of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings to Number 10 has seen a significant ramping-up of the British rhetoric on the negotiations around the future partnership with the EU. That’s not merely meant stronger words about refusing an extension of the talks, […]

by Costanza Marcellino On 26 March the Joint Statement adopted by members of the European Council contained firm demands for a coordinated exit strategy, a comprehensive recovery plan and an unprecedented level of investment. It invited both the Presidents of the European Council and Commission, in consultation with the other institutions, and particularly the European Central Bank […]

Sometimes it takes the extreme and sudden loss of something to fully appreciate its true value. When Home Secretary, Priti Patel, gleefully told her Tory faithful at the party’s annual conference last October that she was going to “end free movement of people once and for all” she could hardly have had any idea just […]

The socio-economic effects of the coronavirus requires a massive and coordinated response from the EU. So far, the EU has not been up to the challenge, argues Marco Dani and Agustín José Menéndez.   The coronavirus pandemic has deepened and radicalised a set of crises that the European Union postponed but did not solve in […]

In the Netherlands, the public underestimates how much Southern Europe has already suffered. And how we benefited ourselves, says Joris Melman, analysing the Dutch stance in the negotiations on the EU’s economic responses to the corona crisis. The Dutch stance in the EU negotiations about the economic response to the corona crisis has sparked criticism […]

With the coronavirus pandemic on our minds, Brexit and the still to be negotiated future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union have more or less slipped off the agenda, although it was merely two and a half months ago that the United Kingdom formally left the European Union as a member state. […]