The EU

As we roll back round that time of year when schools briefly re-open and we all head back to the office [sic], it’s worth considering the progress made on the Future Relationship talks. Recall that after the June decision that no extension to the transition period would be sought, the UK government pressed for – […]

All that summer rest finally gave me the impetus to put together this little chart the other day. It’s a simple breakdown of the time allocated to the 11 headings of the Future Relationship negotiating rounds, including this week’s 7th. Weightings are based on a negotiating block (usually a half-day), with some joint sessions (e.g. […]

This month 59 years ago – on 13 August 1961 – Berliners woke up to find that a wall was being built to split their city in two. To say it was a huge shock is an understatement. It was not until 28 years later – in November 1989 – that Berliners ripped the wall […]

The BBC call them migrants; the Prime Minister and some other media call them illegal; some Tory MPs and Nigel Farage call them ‘invaders’. They are none of those. They are mostly desperate, destitute, stateless men, women and children fleeing from war, torture, oppression and persecution. Nobody risks their lives across treacherous waters in unsuitable and unsafe boats unless they are deeply distressed and determined, with nothing […]

The ongoing negotiations over a comprehensive trade agreement have sidelined discussion of Anglo-EU security and defense cooperation, and the future relationship between the EU and Britain is uncertain. Considering mounting tensions with China and Russia as well as the security implications of COVID-19, the evident neglect of security and defense is concerning. Today’s EuroBlog entry […]

A transition period comes to a close, and the UK will no longer have to follow European Union rules, Richard Rose examines how Brexit could be reversed in whole or part.

On 20 July 2020, British MPs voted by a majority not to have any say or votes on future UK trade agreements. Can you think of any other professions where you could vote not to do your job but still be paid for it? Postmen and women voting not to deliver letters? Train drivers voting […]

The reforms in the EU’s economic and financial governance structure in response to the Euro crisis have been put to the test by the Coronavirus pandemic. While the resurfacing of the sovereign debt crisis has highlighted the inadequacies of the Union’s fiscal policy reforms, the relative stability of the banking system so far hints at […]

The aim of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is to harmonise asylum procedures across the European Union. As several crises have shown, however, this goal is far from being achieved, and a reform of Europe’s asylum policy is long overdue. Radu-Mihai Triculescu argues that such reform should also incorporate the perspective of street-level bureaucrats […]

Last week, almost as an aside to another conversation on Twitter, I noted that the UK was always going to have a much more difficult time of it all with Brexit than the EU because it (the UK) has to build and rebuild a huge pile of government functionality, while the EU just keeps what […]