A president for Europe (still)
The BBC appears to have taken some kind of corporate decision to refer to the post of president of the European Council as “president of Europe” or “president of the […]
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Tuna off the menu and onto the agenda
Environmentalists are angry about the decision by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) at the weekend to reduce the allowable catch next year from 22,000 to
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Two points about Afghanistan
George W Bush won the 2000 presidential election arguing that America should turn away from the nation-building efforts that had characterised Bill Clinton’s foreign policy and focus more narrowly on
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Six pledges by David Cameron
The speech by Conservative leader David Cameron yesterday dropped the previous commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and replaced it with six pledges that he aims to achieve
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A deal with the Czechs
So, a deal was struck with the Czech Republic to get the Lisbon treaty through. An opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, along Polish and British lines, was added
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Expats and MPs
President Sarkozy has floated the idea of having French MPs to represent French people abroad. There are hundreds of thousands of French citizens living in the UK – London is
The wrong campaign for president
The Financial Times today carries an article by Paavo Lipponen, former prime minister of Finland, outlining his view of what the role of president of the European Council entails. (Read
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Praise where it is due
This blog specialises in criticising politicians when they say and do things that fall short of our ideas about democracy, effectiveness and accountability in political institutions. So it is only
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Blair vs Juncker for president of the European Council
Historian Simon Schama has a marvellous knack of explaining the big themes of history through the life stories of selected individuals. For example, in his “History of Britain”, he describes
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Achievements over the past 20 years
I went to an interesting discussion this morning on the achievements of the European Union over the past 20 years. There were many of them mentioned: enlargement; the euro; some
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