Current Affairs

In the last 15 months since David Cameron’s speech on Europe, the issue of EU red tape (i.e. EU rules imposing unnecessary costs on businesses) has featured prominently on political and media agendas. Initiatives such as the “Cut EU red tape” report by the Business Taskforce in October 2013,[1] and the ongoing balance of competence […]

It’s rewarding to know that Ed Miliband (or at least his minions) read blogs, even if incompletely. Last week, I wrote a piece off the back some press speculation about the Labour leader being about to offer a referendum. In that post, I noted that Miliband was going to be motivated to do this because of the […]

The PCC has rejected 81 complaints against The Daily Mail Note: scroll down for updates – this is a breaking story Over 80 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission against the Daily Mail’s story that incorrectly claimed buses and planes to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria were ‘full-up and sold-out’ have been rejected and […]

Despite the usual embarrassment of riches that I could cover, today I’m going to build on some of the thoughts that I discussed some weeks ago, regarding the LibDem’s strategy for the European Parliament elections. During the past weeks, we’ve seen Nick Clegg offer – and Nigel Farage accept – to have a public debate on things European, which will have […]

A couple of things have caught my eye this week in the world of UK-EU relations, one relatively minor, the other potentially much bigger. However, they are linked by a common strand of thinking about how the UK acts and is perceived. The minor thing was an article at the start of the week by Boris […]

In 2009, Commission President Barroso created a new Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG Clima) in the European Commission (EC). This decision was a deliberate political choice following considerable controversy at the time. With European Elections around the corner, and now 28 Commissioners, we may yet again see a re-shuffle of Commission departments. When debating the […]

To look at Twitter (or the academic conference schedule), the European elections are almost upon us. With them comes the familiar litany of concerns about falling turnout, democratic deficits and all the other tropes. While these have some basis in fact, such debates tend to present a rather distorted view of the world (turnouts are […]

In September 2013, a number of countries issued a joint statement in favour of an international treaty on business and human rights. The statement was drafted by Ecuador and signed also by the African Group, the Arab Group, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru. These countries believe that a legally binding […]

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, yesterday gave an impassioned, personal speech for a pro-Union vote in the forthcoming referendum.  No, not the referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union, but this year’s referendum on whether Scotland should stay in the Union of the United Kingdom. Most of the strong arguments presented by […]

EU environmental action programmes set the priorities for EU environmental policy. After the 5th programme (1992-2000), which focused on sustainability,[1] the 6th programme (2002-2012) stressed the need for better implementation and the better environmental policy integration in other policy areas.[2] Adopted in November 2013, the new 7th action programme (2013-2020) focuses once again on implementation.[3] […]