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Thatcher's rose-tinted American legacy
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The American media’s reverential depiction of Margaret Thatcher this week says much about how the US and UK differ when looking at history. As I’ve watched the international media coverage of the death of Margaret Thatcher over the past...
Violence erupts in French anti-gay-marriage protests
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Across Europe and the Americas, gay marriage has been enacted peacefully and with minimal protest. Meanwhile, in France... Yesterday, an estimated one million people flooded the streets of Paris to protest plans to enact same-sex marriage in France.
A Cyprus whodunit
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Brussels is in full blame-game mode today following last night’s rejection by the Cypriot parliament of the bailout package offered to the country by the EU. It’s a veritable whodunit mystery, with the answer depending on whether you&rsqu...
What does Frigide Barjot say about France?
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On Tuesday of this week, I was sitting in the press room of the European Parliament in Strasbourg - waiting for a press conference on the 2014 EU elections - when suddenly a woman clad in hot pink burst into the room. Her leathery brown skin and blea...
A week of turmoil for Europe
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Yesterday was a big news day for EU politics, with a series of high-profile speeches in reaction to the disastrous election result in Italy on Monday. But despite the many speeches, the message has been singular: there is “no alternative”...
Send in the clowns
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There are plenty of people in Europe who hold stereotype-based views about Italy - that it is and has always been an ‘unserious’ country. Italian voters won’t have helped that perception over the weekend, when half of them voted for...
The Italian election that could sink Europe
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Italy’s constant lurching between left and right since WWII had, in the past, become so frequent that few people bothered to pay too much attention to the vagaries of Italian politics. But all that has changed since the advent of the eurozone c...
UK rejects ‘separate but equal’ marriage
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The British House of Commons has just concluded a historic vote, voting 400 to 175 to adopt gay marriage in England. But despite its historic nature, the legislation will prove to be of more symbolic than practical importance – particularly for...
Brexit begins
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By all accounts, the speech delivered by UK Prime Minister David Cameron this morning outlining his vision for a British disengagement with the EU was short on substance, contradictory and hackneyed. He mixed metaphors, made embarrassing errors refle...
Obama warns Cameron over his dangerous EU game
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The British eurosceptic right, normally known for their fawning obsession with America, have been in a strange state of cognitive dissonance this week after the Obama Administration delivered this frank warning to British Conservatives on Wednesday:...
Who is Captain Europe?
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For two years, Brussels has grappled with a mystery that has taken on a sort of legendary aura – who is Captain Europe? Tonight, I may finally be able to discover the answer.The caped crusader – pictured right – appears suddenly at various even...
A relief for Europe - but will gridlock persist?
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Anxious Europeans have been able to breathe easier the past two days, after Tuesday’s reelection of US president Barack Obama. But the relief has much more to do with the defeat of Mitt Romney than with Obama himself.Europe isn’t the only place f...
The case for four more years? Look at the previous four
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Rachel Maddow had an excellent review of Obama's first term last night. It's bizarre that anyone would say the American president "hasn't done anything" in his first term. Historic legislative actions were taken during the first two years. And even a...
The EU - peaceful, but not united
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I’m on a plane back to Brussels from Barcelona at the moment, still digesting the amusingly partisan reaction to Friday’s announcement that the EU has won the Nobel Peace Prize. The significance of the announcement was only heightened for me this...
Does the EU deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?
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What a day to be away from Brussels! I'm in Barcelona this weekend, but awoke this morning to the news that the European Union has been awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. I'll admit, I had to do a double-take after reading that news.This is another...
Britain snubs Europe, goes to the dance with Canada
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It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that UK foreign secretary William Hague has found a new way to annoy his European counterparts. But today he’s managed to bring a North American country into the fray, and for once is isn’t the one with whom...
EU citizens embrace the eurobots
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Citizens of the European Union may have lost faith in their leaders, but they have not lost faith in robots. This according to a reassuring press release put out today by the European Commission, which boldly declares, “More than two-thirds of EU c...
The peril and promise of a new treaty
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European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso dared to use the ‘F word’ in his state of the union address here in Strasbourg today – federalism.“Let’s not be afraid of the word, we will need to move towards a federation of nation states...
A long-distance relationship
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There are many clichés used to describe Iceland’s position in the middle of the Atlantic. Torn between Europe and North America – quite literally sitting on the fault line separating the two continents geologically – the country’s location i...
One car, one vote
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The US presidential campaign switched into high gear this week with Mitt Romney’s selection of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as a running mate. But with a raft of voter ID laws now going into effect in crucial swing states across the country, it
