100 posts
Week in Bloggingportal: Exercises in Democracy
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BY CC FutUndBeidl It may be a year until the European elections, but with Croatia joining the EU in July, Croats are heading to the polls today to elect their representatives to the European Parliament. It’s not been the bes...
Ecfin Sits Next To The King
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The 800 or so officials of the European Commission's economic affairs division have been moved to Schuman, reflecting their new-found importance in the EU bureaucracy.
EU Commission's translation and information breakdown
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My latest articles in English about the Commission's ”copyright reform” and regarding the Digital Agenda review revealed an unprecedented breakdown of translation services for citizens and the collapse of systematic posting of COM documents on Eu...
Towards a European Party System?
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Dimitri Almeida Amidst what is arguably the most severe crisis the European Union had to face in recent memory, we tend to overlook crucial dynamics in the transformation of the European polity. The sovereign debt crisis and the rising scepticism o...
Are Leaders Born or Are They Made?
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Fall 2012 American Marshall Memorial Fellow Megan Owen observes that effective global leaders are both born and made.
Nowotny Opens a Can Of Worms With Comments on ECB Votes
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Today is Election Day in the U.S., but European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny seems more concerned with who’s voting at the ECB.
Europe’s Regional Revolts
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Article by Ana Palacio, published on Project-Syndicate.org, on November 5, 2012 In both Catalonia and Scotland, calls for independence are growing once again – an indication of conditions not only in Spain and the United Kingdom, but in the Europea...
"Citizens have the rights to..." Social welfare defending EU Citizens' lack of interest in their political sytem
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It seems as if there is not much sense in discussing the topic of Citizens' duties in times of duties. To whom ever I talk I just here: Citizens have the rights to,... Yes, citizens have the right. "Citizens have," as one person stated today during a...
The Centripetal Theory of Governance: A Borderless Union
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Many articles have been written from different sources on European crisis and its origins, but most of them base their arguments on personal standpoints derived from financial news and officials’ speeches. What we see is two distant authorities’...
Conference: “The Challenge of Non-Territorial Autonomy” on 9-10 November in Belfast
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European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and partners are preparing for the multidisciplinary conference this weekend. A draft programme of 'The Challenges of Non-Territorial Autonomy' is now available. Continue reading →Source: ECMI InfoChan...
How Tony Blair could be elected President of Europe.
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Tony Blair recently made a speech (here) where he spoke about the need for a directly elected President of Europe. Not surprisingly, as soon as he made the speech, the usual suspects made their remarks about how Blair was pretty much advocating a job...
Seeing small in the age of European federalism
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Europe has been these last couple years at the forefront of world media. First, the Eurocrisis and its domestic impacts have been over studied and analyzed. Second, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the EU creating a...
Barroso's State of the Union address: “Europe must remain united”
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The President of the European Commission gave an address on the State of the European Union on 12th September - 1. News focus / European Commission...
Political Europe, with rockets.
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Something that has been interesting me recently is the surprising resilience of political Europe. It’s not supposed to work this way – economic integration was meant to pull the continent together into ever-closer union, and the imperativ...
No need for a more democratic Europe!
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When reading the news every day I stumble upon the demands of different stakeholders and civil society agencies, bloggers as well journalists who say that the European democracy is at risk and that Europe is undemocratic. As matter of fact there is n...
E.U. Directives: Applicability to American Federalism
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Far from having gone off the court to an easy retirement in the Bahamas, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens found a calling in advocating the addition of four words to the U.S. constitution, here put in italics: “The laws of the United St...
Sacred cows
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Are there sacred cows in democratic politics? Ideas, institutions, procedures that may not be questioned, criticised or challenged? The answer is yes, however surprising that may be, seeing that democracy is the grandchild of the Enlightenment and th...
The endless controversy about the EP’s single seat
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Important: the opinions defended throughout this article are mine and not Europe’s Café point of view. On the 24th of October, the MEPs meeting in plenary session voted in favour of an amendment asking for a single seat for the … Continue re...
Supra1: Supranational values must be the foundation of Europe, not party oligarchs or markets.
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The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for a ‘Grand Bargain’ to set Europe on the right track. Part of his idea, said Mr Blair, speaking in Berlin at the Council for the Future of Europe on 29 October 2012, is the election of t...
The endless single seat controversy
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On the last 24th of October, MEPs, in plenary session, voted in favour an amendment for the European Parliament single seat, based in Brussels by preference. The amendment was backed by 518 MEPs against 149 only. The resolution has no … Continu...
The IMF and the democratic deficit
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An enquiry comes in, referring back to a letter published in the Guardian in 2002 (read it here) on the lack of democracy in the IMF. Is that still true of the IMF now? Of course, in those days the IMF was a vehicle for...
How much fiscal integration does a stable Eurozone need? (29 November 2012)
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A LSE European Institute – APCO Worldwide Perspectives on Europe panel discussion on ‘How much fiscal integration does a stable Eurozone need?’ on Thursday 29 November. Panelists: · Clemens Fuest is Research Director of the Oxford University C...
Czech President Klaus on renewable energy, Europe and the welfare state
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Klaus on the "profits" from renewable energy: This profit is not an outcome of those energy sources, but an outcome of government subsidies that are paid by taxpayers through high taxes and by consumers through high prices of energy, food and ot...
EU-kommissionens arbetsprogram 2013 nu på svenska
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På Europeiska unionens juridiska portal Eur-Lex finns nu den första volymen (text) av EU-kommissionens arbetsprogram för 2013 på flertalet officiella språk, bland dem svenska: Kommissionens arbetsprogram 2013; Strasbourg den 23.10.2012 COM(201...
EU:n komission työohjelma 2013 nyt suomeksi
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Kuvasin jo aiemmin EU:n komission työohjelmaa vuodeksi 2013 ja selostin Euroopan parlamentin täysistuntokeskustelun ryhmäpuheenvuoroja. Nyt Euroopan unionin oikeusportaali Eur-Lex tarjoaa tiedonannon COM(2012) 629 ensimmäisen niteen (tekstin) u...
A European Commissioner to veto national budgets: We are being alienated from our own institutions
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Mario Draghi, the ECB chief. Picture credit: Wikipedia In an interview for the esteemed German newspaper Der Spiegel, Mr Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank discussed among others the following (full interview here): SPIEGEL: Fin...
New language versions: EU Commission Work Programme CWP 2013
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We already noted the arrival of the EU Commission Work Programme 2013. Both volumes, text and annex, are still available in English, French and German through the web page The European Commission at work > Key documents. Eur-Lex The first volume...
Characteristics of both parliamentary chambers
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In the last post devoted to the federal parliament, I will deal with special characteristics of its individual chambers (houses). I will discuss both chambers altogether in one post because provisions about both of them will be similar.I begin with a...
Is versus Ought in the European crisis
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European leaders gathering in Berlin on October 30th struggled, and probably failed, to find a "narrative" to sell political union to the citizens of the EU...
"Recapturing Solidarity and Shared Values in Europe" by George Soros
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Watch George Soros discuss the new social initiative of his foundation to create a new atmosphere of solidarity in Greece and help to alleviate the rising tensions in the country. This talk was held at the ‘Europa nach der Krise’ conferen...
"Does the Eurozone Crisis threaten liberal Reforms in Eastern Europe?" by Sean Hanley
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Uncertainties about the EU’s future are undermining mainstream parties throughout Europe. In central and eastern Europe politicians can no longer sell the european model of liberal reforms when that model is itself in crisis. Although only three EU...
Is it time to dismantle the EU as we know it?
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There are beliefs that come from the gut. Religion is the most obvious one, but even that can be grounded in the reasoning that organised religion, and a set of organised religious values, can provide social stability. The same can be said for suppor...
Blair calls for directly elected EU president
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Tony Blair has suggested that an elected EU president would be 'the most direct way to involve the public' in closing the bloc's democratic deficit as part of a 'grand bargain' solution to the crisis...
Old Words, Perennial Truths
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After reading the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, delivered on 1863, I was amazed by the wisdom of a person who is considered to be one of the best American Presidents of all time. One of the most quoted lines is the following:The last high qu...
Estonian president wants to see Lithuania and Latvia in euro zone as soon as possible
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Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves says he would like Lithuania and Latvia to join the euro zone as soon as possible, adding the accession would enhance the Baltic influence "in the so-called European core." READ MORE...
The EU: a threat to democracy?
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In the 1980s, the prospect of EU access for Greece, Spain and Portugal helped to pave the way to democracy. Today, EU economic policies contribute to the dismantling of these democracies. All the three countries mentioned above are experimenting a lo...
