Expenses speculation – time to hit MEPs?
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Mark Reckons has done an excellent bit of work looking at the likelihood of UK MPs milking their expenses correlating that with how safe their seats are. Meanwhile New Europe has raised the question of if and when the scrutiny of expenses is going to...
The Belgian government is asking for help. Please listen to its call
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Found on Twitter thanks to @Maitea6 Fortunately, some good souls, such as @linotherhino, have already started to reply.
Quote of the Week: Marian Wright Edelman
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“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” Marian Wright Edelman, found on Twitter thanks to Women on the Verge...
European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 8 February
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A Daily Review Of International Online Media Europeans on this date in history:# 1828 Jules...
New EU Council Resolution In The Making: 'Enhancing The Enforcement Of Intellectual Property Rights In The Internal Market'
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On February 05, 2010, the General Secretariat of the EU Council has published Document 6164/10 titled “Commission communication 'Enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market' - Revised proposal for a Council Re...
Euro roundup: European Young Journalist Award 2010 etc
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European Young Journalist Award 2010 from Stephen Spillane Again this year DG Enlargement are running the European Young Journalist Award 2010. (post on last years competition is here). Its simple, if your aged between 17-35 you can enter the competi...
Who has picked so far? [Eurovision 2010]
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Image via Wikipedia As I am in a sort of Eurovision mood I felt like looking at the countries who have so far selected there entries for the Eurovision. Seven countries have picked their representative. Ireland will pick its entry on March 5th. Wh...
Semi-Final Draw [Eurovision 2010]
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Image via Wikipedia The draw took place today for the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. Ireland has been drawn to be in the second half of the second semi. That semi will take place on the 27th of May. Here are the results of the Dr...
RIP Ian Carmichael…an excuse to revisit Fred Kite
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The delightful comic actor Ian Carmichael died on Friday. He specialised in playing upper-class twits and I am eternally in his debt for introducing me to the wonderful world of PG Wodehouse, by way of his portrayal of Bertie Wooster on BBC TV i...
Of American Presidents and ironies
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Barack Obama’s travails in both domestic and foreign policy have led me to re-visit American presidential politics a little. It is a land strewn with ironies. Take the three Presidents of my childhood; JFK, LBJ and Nixon. Kennedy won against Ni...
Wehrkunde guest list bingo
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It’s Wehrkunde time! The annual festival of military-industrial thinkery, held in Munich for NATO bigwigs of all kinds, is coming around again. Laura Rozen notes that a surprising number of John McCain’s campaign foreign-policy team are c...
Solidarity with Haitian workers
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The Haitian union federation, Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) organises in some of Haiti’s poorest communities and amongst the hyper-exploited workers in its sweat shop factories. Since the earthquake, the organisation has been fightin...
A fashion week in the campus
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Istanbul Fashion Week happened to be at the campus I work in. Santralistanbul’s large parking lot was turned into a tent town and fashion people showed around in the campus, frequenting our cafes and all. There was a Meg Ryan scandal. She showe...
Death of Pierre Pescatore
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Pierre Pescatore died on February 2nd, 2010, aged 91. He was one of the representatives of Luxembourg government at the negotiations of the Treaty of Rome. Then he was a judge at the Court of Justice for 18 years. If...
Horizontal Direct Effect of Directives (?) and Age Discrimination: Case C-555/07
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The Court of Justice has handed down a major judgment on the horizontal direct effect of directives. And on age discrimination, again. The judgment of the Court in Case C-555/07 Seda Kücükdeveci is a difficult and subtle one and is...
Banking data: Why MEPs must say no to SWIFT agreement
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I have written before why the SWIFT agreement is bad for Europe. This post is an update based on the final agreement and the new arguments that have been brought forward. In short: the situation has not changed and MEPs should reject the SWIFT agreem...
The last man in East Germany
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What must it have been like to be a Stasi case officer in the autumn of 1989? What did they do? The answer, in this fascinating piece in Der Spiegel, was that they kept going to the office. In fact, they kept on going about their spooky business - qu...
Islington Liberal Democrat cuts to target children
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Almost 12 months ago I wrote about the importance of school meals for all children, and called upon Islington Liberal Democrats to scrap their plans to cut back on their provision. Congratulations to the Labour team in Islington for winning their ca...
Lobbying and Advocacy: Talking to NGOs
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I had the pleasure of being invited to speak about Lobbying the EU by EDRI (European Digital Rights) at a seminar organised for a bunch of NGOs and activists. Obviously, aside from the nice feeling one gets being “The Lobbyist” amongst &#...
What if the IPCC were wrong?
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The credibility of the UN’s climate watchdog has been seriously hit recently through the effective attacks by climate deniers. Several “scandals” (“Climategate”, “Glaciergate” ) have exposed that even the best peer-reviewed study will h...
Europe in blogs - Euroblogs (13): A month full of hearings
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It has been a long time since the last Europe in blogs - Euroblogs - so I thought it's worth looking back to January, a month in which Commissioners were given a mouthful by MEPs and bloggers. But let's first start at the end of the month when Nosem...
Transportes Urbanos- new case on state liability
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Ola! Here it is- Transportes Urbanos! As we all know (or those of us sad enough to call ourselves lawyers should know!) the principle of state liability arose in Mama Mia!- not the film- but Francovich & Bonifaci v Italian state. The case concern...
Hot tax row between Germany and Switzerland
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Here are only a few samples of what has become front page news in Germany, generating hundreds of newspaper articles. Deutsche Welle reports that a number of offers have been made to German authorities on Swiss banking data, although buying stolen da...
And you thought UK politics was wacky…
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People on the UK left sometimes wonder at the morbid fascination that I have with the weirder aspects of US politics. I can’t help it – sometimes sensible political discussion just starts to bore me and at times like that, a dose of nut-j...
