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 […]
There is a growing worldwide network of think tanks and research institutes which aim to provide policy-relevant climate change-related research. For example, the International Center for Climate Governance’s fascinating database of climate change think tanks currently lists 294 organizations who are “…conducting research in the field of climate change economics and policy.” Drawing on this dataset, I wanted to […]
The Daily Mail last night refused to apologise for their story that claimed buses and planes from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK were full up and sold out, or to agree that their story was inaccurate. The world’s most popular online newspaper had reported that many Romanians and Bulgarians were coming to the UK […]
Earlier this month, the Greek Government assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU for this semester. In an attempt to show off the austerity efforts made by his Government, the Deputy Prime Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, said in a recent interview with Euronews: Over the past three and a half years, Greece has made […]
On 31 December 2013 the UK’s Daily Mail published a story claiming that buses and planes to the UK from Bulgaria and Romania were sold-out, fully-booked, and single plane tickets were selling for up to £3,000 each. The story carried the bold headline: Sold out! Flights and buses full as Romanians and Bulgarians head for […]
The New Year of 2014 in European research policy comes with a couple of high profile events: launch of Horizon 2020 – one of the largest research funding programmes worldwide and envisaged completion of the European Research Area – so far the most comprehensive initiative in transnational knowledge governance. These major events involve a […]
Germany’s new government under Angela Merkel (her third term) was sworn in on 17 December 2013. While some faces will be familiar, much has changed as Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) entered a ‘grand coalition’ with the Social Democrats (SPD) after voters ousted her last coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), from parliament. But what […]
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 […]
To paraphrase one of my colleagues: for all intents and purposes European integration in higher education should not exist. This is not a normative position, but rather an observation of what seems to be somewhat of a puzzle: the European Union has very limited formal competences with regards to education in general, or higher education […]
With an aim to assist the Western Balkans in the area of education and training, as well as to increase regional cooperation, in 2012 the European Commission launched the Western Balkans Platform on Education and Training (WB PET). It includes seven Western Balkan countries: the newest EU member state Croatia, candidate countries Macedonia, Montenegro and […]