Society & Culture

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 […]

It has been sixty years between the idea to create a truly pan-European competition for football clubs and the Champions League final in Berlin between Barcelona and Juventus next week. But it has not been a linear evolution from the first tournament launched with sixteen clubs handpicked by the journalists from L’Equipe and today’s huge […]

Citizens from over 70 nations will be able to vote in the UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. But most European Union nationalities will be excluded. A spokesman for the British Prime Minster said: “This is a big decision for our country, one that is about the future of the United Kingdom. That’s […]

Today’s newspapers are full of the latest migration figures that show net migration to the UK rose last year by 50% to 318,000. That’s way beyond the target set by Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, who five years ago promised – but failed – to reduce net migration to ‘tens of thousands’. Today Mr Cameron […]

Following the Conservative party victory in the 2015 UK general election, Tobias Lock presents the key findings of a policy paper which resulted from a UACES Small Event grant funded workshop.

On 25 February this year, the European Parliament voted on an EU fund to provide food aid to those suffering extreme poverty in the EU.  The EU offered up to £22 million pounds to help subsidise Britain’s food banks, but the money was blocked by the UK government. Today writing for the Mail on Sunday, […]

Remember when they wanted to change the recipe of Coca Cola? Very bad idea. If there’s one golden rule in marketing, it’s not to mess around with well-established household brands. You may surprise the customer with brand extensions – diet coke, cherry coke, coke zero – but you never ever alienate him from the core […]

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 […]

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 […]