A healthy surplus
The limitations of small c conservative economics are laid bare by Peter Oborne in the Observer yesterday in his description of the problems facing the eurozone. (Read the article here.) […]
Europe
David Cameron and Zhou Enlai
By Brendan Donnelly The new Conservative policy on the Lisbon treaty and the European Union more generally, announced last week by David Cameron, is a distinctly ambiguous one. This may
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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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Let’s reduce the cost of Europe
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Back in the 1980s, an important piece of research by Paolo Cecchini looked at the benefits that would be gained by creating the single market, dubbed
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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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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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The future of the EU after the Lisbon treaty
I was asked to give a talk to the politics society at Royal Holloway college in Egham a couple of weeks ago, on the future of the EU after the
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Writing history
By Richard Laming EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Czech president Vaclav Klaus wants to write his name in the history books. But is he choosing to make the right kind of