The conventional wisdom in the Westminster village is that ‘Nick v Nigel’is best explained, regardless of how well he does, by Nick Clegg’s apparent political weakness. “What has he got to lose?” say Conservative sources. If you are struggling in the polls, why not roll the dice and gamble? Proclaim the virtues of the EU […]
While European political leaders are trying to find suitable responses to Russia’s quiet annexion of Crimea, going so far as to cancel the planned G8 meeting in Sochi, European football leaders carry on business as usual. In living rooms all across the continent this week’s broadcasts of the Champions League quarter finals will be opened […]
On 9 February, a small majority of Swiss voted in favour of taking measures to ‘curb mass immigration’. For a country whose economy and public services rely heavily on immigration, this was an astonishing sign of abandoning common sense and rational thinking to emotional fear-mongering by the leaders of the nationalist SVP. It’s what […]
Kiev, 1048.Yaroslav The Wise, the Kiev-Rus leader, was caught in strife with the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empire when a French envoy from King Henry I arrived to request the hand of Yaroslav’s daughter in marriage. As a powerful ally in the West would have made a useful strategic alliance, the Kiev-Rus leader’s response was […]
In European studies and political science more broadly qualitative elite interviews are a well established method. For any PhD student (or indeed any researcher) conducting your first qualitative interviews with elites (those in a privileged position over the activity or area of policy in question) can be a daunting prospect. I was equally daunted, although […]
Over the past two decades preferential and free trade agreements (FTAs) have proliferated around the globe. FTAs differ in the level of liberalization they commit to, and the scope of economic sectors brought into the agreement. Asian FTAs tend to be ‘shallow’, that is, they reinforce commitments already taken at the WTO and lower tariffs […]
The most impressive ‘permanent representation’ to the European Union in Brussels is not the French, British of German one, but that of a region: Bavaria. The beautiful ‘château’ just some meters from the European Parliament has been considered megalomaniac by some observers, but is calmly defended by its inhabitants as an excellent real estate […]
When they joined the EU Central and East European states committed themselves to meet EU norms on international development aid. Small budgets, weak social support and limited political commitment have so far limited the impact of aid from CEE. However, it is too early to dismiss them as ‘premature donors’ argue Simon Lightfoot and Balazs Szent-Ivanyi.
We’re two PhD students at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. We focus on environmental politics in the European Union, and hope that you will enjoy this blog, where we will post regularly on ongoing environmental policy developments in the EU. We hope to make our academic work […]
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 […]
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