Current Affairs

A new Eurosceptic group campaigning for radical changes to the EU wants to end ‘free movement of people’ and only to allow ‘free movement of workers’. If the group achieves its aims, it could mean an end to moving to other EU countries to retire, such as to Spain where many British pensioners now reside. […]

A new anti-EU campaign, provisionally called ‘No Thanks – We’re Going Global’, is being funded by rich business people to persuade Britain to leave the European Union. The campaign, scheduled to be launched in September, is being funded with £20 million provided by some of the country’s richest entrepreneurs, according to The Telegraph. The group […]

Support for Britain’s continued membership of the European Union is currently the highest it’s been since the creation of the EU, according to a new poll released today. The poll by Ipsos MORI discovered that 75% of people are now in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU. Only 25% want Britain to leave. […]

This week I’m in Moldova, for a workshop of our TEMPUS project INOTLES. You’ve probably not been to Moldova, but Chisinau is a very pleasant city around which to walk, albeit one in which the local UNDP office looks like one of the more important buildings. To be here – in a country that has possibly the lowest GDP […]

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that an Estonian news agency can be held responsible for anonymous ‘hate’ comments posted on its website.   The Court decided that the agency’s ‘freedom of expression’ under the European Convention on Human Rights had not been breached as a result of an Estonian court imposing a […]

This weekend marks 30 years since the Schengen agreement was signed by European leaders marking the end of passport control across a large area of Europe. Now passports are no longer required when travelling through 21 countries of the European Union, as well as non-EU countries Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The Schengen area functions […]

The European Parliament transcended into chaos today after a key debate on the controversial US-EU trade deal (known as TTIP) was postponed at the last-minute, causing a loud and prolonged protest led by anti-EU party UKIP. President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz, announced that the debate had been postponed, “to give more time … to […]

More than 50 Conservative Members of Parliament have started a new group to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. The Telegraph reported it as, “a move that will electrify the battle for Britain’s future place in the world.” The new group, called Conservatives for Britain (CfB), has warned that unless Prime Minister, David […]

So here we are, about a month into the new government. How’s it shaping up with the EU referendum thing? For me, four things stick out so far. Firstly, David Cameron has conformed to type in his approach to the matter. Assuming that he was a surprised as the next man (that next man being Ed […]

Last week, interior ministers of the 15 countries sitting at the UN Security Council met to discuss foreign fighters. They did so as part of the follow-up of Resolution 2178 (2014), which defines foreign fighters as people “who travel or attempt to travel to a State other than their States of residence or nationality, and other […]