Correspondent's diary, (day five) Double-exposure: memories of Dubrovnik
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Our correspondent ends his Balkan journey on a bitter-sweet note, enjoying the comforts and sights of Dubrovnik but recalling the trauma of war...
Vacancies: Specialists required to build bridges
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The lack of specialists in EU-oriented blogs is impeding the development of the European online public space. One of the observations in the recent Waggener-Edstrom survey of influential blogs that resonated with me was the lack of specialists in Eu...
Strasbourg Court shows itself sensitive to the plight of Afghan women
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The status of Afghan women has been high up on the agenda of the international human rights community in the past few years. Today the European Court of Human Rights joined the chorus of the concerned. The Court rendered a judgment that recognizes th...
Karzai Reaffirms 2014 Goal For Afghan-Led Security
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President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment for Afghan police and soldiers to take charge of security nationwide by 2014 and urged his international backers to distribute more of their development aid through the government. R...
Is the Court of Justice Worried about Accession to the ECHR?
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On 7 July 2010, the official talks have started on the European Union’s accession to the European Convention of Human Rights between the Commission and the Steering Committee for Human Rights. Already on 26 May 2010, the Committee of Ministers...
The weak link just got weaker (Heti Világgazdaság, Budapest)
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Both the Hungarian government on one side and the IMF and the EU on the other will have to accept some measure of blame for the failure of negotiations on Hungary’s financial situation, which were suspended on 17 July. With its 29-point economi...
Turkish politics roundup (2): CHP, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu meeting, Internal struggle at SP…
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Erbakan supporters call for new SP convention from Hurriyet Dailynews The recent Saadet Party convention failed to yield the expected solidarity, the founder of the party has said as his supporters call for a new convention. Turkey’s Prime Mini...
Latvia: Living in the Land of Extremes
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Here in Latvia the internal devaluation continues and the debate is whether the economy is flexible enough for this experiment. I say perhaps it is, Edward says perhaps it isn’t but one thing is for sure: the Latvian economy is (possibly perversel...
Economists React to Breakdown of Hungary Debt Talks
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Hungary made front page headlines with its refusal to take further austerity steps in exchange for support from the IMF and EU. See economists' reaction.
Luc Devigne's role in ACTA negotiations
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On Saturday, July 17, 2010, I said on twitter, "Apparently Luc Devigne is out as head #acta negotiator for EU." There were a number of sources for this inside the European Union and also among other trade bodies or governments following or participa...
Are potatoes the root of all evil?
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The chiropracter sorting my RSI said to me that he wanted to test whether I was sugar sensitive, and that I can’t physically deal with all the stress I’m under at present. Tell me something I don’t know… I should explain, la...
Alexander Langer Award: Stava 1985
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On June 16, 1985 the Stava Onlus 1985 received the Alexander Langer Award. The prize, financially supported by the Ethic Bank (Banca Etica), aims to promote the associations which work in the context of the Sustainable Development , civil rights and...
How to deal with the imbalances
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We have looked before at the interesting report from ING on how much a eurozone break-up would cost, arguing that any such estimate must be weighed against the medium to long-term alternatives (i.e. wealth transfers between member states and permanen...
The 281 MEPs who don’t support the EU’s MDG Targets
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The European Parliament has officially risen for the summer recess, and although they managed to bag themselves an extra week of holiday than usual this year (due to return 30th August) this doesn’t mean they can escape their responsibilities.In th...
Waltzing Matilda Interview
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Three of our number (Raffaella, Tibo, Steve) were interviewed on our social media activities on behalf of the European Parliament by the Commission’s “Waltzing Matilda” blog. Read the interview here. This was in fact the second in a...
Who killed Sokratis Giolias? (Ta Nea, Athens)
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In what Ta Nea describes as a “planned assassination,” on 19 July, the investigative journalist and radio chief Sokratis Giolias “who was well known for his role in the uncovering of several scandals” was shot 16 times on his...
Consolidators versus Stimulators
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All intellectual systems rely on assumptions that do not need to be spelled out because all members of that particular intellectual community accept them. These “deep” axioms are implicit in economics as well, but, if left unscrutinized, they can...
