The Christmas period was generally quite quiet in matters European, as most took an opportunity to gather themselves for what will be a busy year of European elections and the selection of new senior EU officials. UKIP was a partial confirmation of this. Just after Christmas, Nigel Farage made an announcement that caught a fair bit of […]
Some of the British media are at war against the European Union – and it’s often said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Yesterday on New Year’s eve, the Daily Mail reported: ‘Sold Out! Flights and buses full as Romanians and Bulgarians head for the UK’ Asserted the Daily Mail: ‘Almost all […]
It’s time for the final blog post of the calendar year for me, as I prepare for the Christmas break. My mind naturally turns towards thinking back over the past 12 months and I find myself looking at a situation much like that a year ago. Last Christmas, the talk was of Cameron’s much-trailed speech, which […]
Forty years on, the EU environmental policy is a much-publicised success of European integration[1]. After a slow start in the 1970s to tackle trans-boundary environmental issues and level the playing field for European businesses, EU environmental policies now cover water, air or noise pollution; habitat and biodiversity preservation; sustainable production and consumption and the fight […]
My blog last week got picked up by British Influence, a pro-EU pressure group, who asked if they could re-post it on their website. Off the back of that, I got drawn into a Twitter exchange with Iron Lad, a self-professed libertarian and UKIP supporter. Suffice to say that we didn’t agree on much, as we slid quickly into the ‘who […]
The free movement of people is a cornerstone principle of the European Union. Why change it? But that’s exactly what the British government has announced today that it wants to do. EU membership works both ways. Other EU citizens can come here; we can go there. Britain has benefited greatly from other EU citizens coming to Britain to fill […]
Sunday 1st December 2013. Mass protests in Ukraine. They come just one week before the day when 22 years earlier Ukraine was instrumental in signing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into obsolescence; and 20 years – to the day – after the historic Rome meeting of the Conference (now Organisation) for Security and Cooperation in […]
In 1999, I visited the Baltic State of Latvia in the north-east part of Europe. It was eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Latvia was forced to join in the 1940’s. And it was five years before Latvia chose to join the European Union.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the most iconic women in the world. Ranked fifth on the Forbes list of “World’s Most Powerful Women”[1], the former US Secretary of State (the 67th of that ilk) is on most occasions entirely capable of providing a crisp and detailed delivery of a given viewpoint. Her October 2013 […]
I’ve had a small flurry of late-autumn events of late, including a talk at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin (podcasted here) and a workshop here at Surrey on Croatia’s membership of the EU, organised by CRonEM. In these events, we have talked as much about current events across the Union as we have about […]
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