Current Affairs

At this week’s by-election in Rochester and Strood the language of politics has once again turned to fear of immigration.  But is it right to blame immigrants who are not the cause of our problems?  Why have leading politicians allowed Ukip to dominate the agenda, rather than saying, “We reject your scapegoating”? Instead, it seems […]

Following the 2014 European Parliament elections Anchrit Wille considers the normalization of the European Commission.

The pictures on French and German television showing Vladimir Putin all alone at his lunch table in Brisbane and explicitly meant to illustrate his alleged ‘isolation’ at the G20 summit were obviously fake. Dilma Roussef had already taken place at the other side of the table and both were waiting for other guests to join […]

As discussions on a UK in/out referendum pick up steam, it is necessary to discuss how the United Kingdom would be affected by such a change. While the current discussion on EU/UK relations in mainstream media (in the UK and beyond) tends to focus on migration issues, there is an important environmental dimension. As such, […]

Never trust experts. It was experts who said the Titanic couldn’t sink. It sunk. Two years ago experts said that Greece would sink and would have to leave the Euro.  It hasn’t – and it didn’t. In July 2012 Ireland’s ‘Independent’ newspaper reported that experts predicted a 90% chance that Greece would leave the Eurozone […]

Ace BBC journalist John Humphrys broadcast classic myths about the European Union’s budget on Radio Four’s ‘Today’ programme yesterday. If he can get it wrong, is it any wonder that the British public is so confused? At 8:35am on Friday 7 November, John interviewed European Commission spokesman, Jakub Adamowicz, about the EU’s demand for an […]

The combined effects of the financial and economic crisis starting in 2008 and the fiasco of the 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiation have led to a gradual re-framing of climate change from an environmental to an energy issue. As I detail below, this re-framing has happened in subtle, and not-so-subtle ways, from changes in political rhetoric […]

How to achieve accountability at MS level for shared management? What should the remit for auditors at EU and national level be? How to account for EU policy’s effectiveness and measure impact? How should the European Central Bank (ECB) be held to account? Why is the ESM/ESFS a special case, and challenge, for public audit? How to democratically […]

Two special reports published this month by the European Court of Auditors question the added value of the EU budget when channelled through fisheries and regional development programmes, to projects aiming to protect and improve aquaculture, and biodiversity more generally. ‘Each year the EU produces about 1,3 million tonnes of fish from aquaculture, and the sector has a turnover […]

As we enter the last 200 days of this current Parliament, it’s perhaps useful to spend a moment thinking about where the UK finds itself in relation to the EU. But this is a very reductive reading of the situation. Let’s start by considering UKIP, seeming standard-bearer that it is of the anti-EU movement. Carswell’s […]