The No Thank EU campaign against the new Tobacco Products Directive asks a pertinent question: The EU proposes to ban all menthol and slim cigarettes (the latter less than 7.5 […]
What has the Commission got against menthol cigarettes? Read More »
No sooner does this website publish a criticism of the way that national governments behave in the Council of Ministers (read it here) than a cast-iron example emerges of exactly
Parliament’s influence on EU legislation goes up in smoke Read More »
Labour eurosceptic MP Gisela Stuart convened an interesting debate in Westminster Hall on 16 July about the role of national parliaments in the EU legislative system. Her speech focused on
How can national parliaments exert influence in the EU? Read More »
An interesting post by Jon Worth arguing that framing the debate about Britain and Europe in terms of pro-European and Eurosceptic is not helpful. The European Union legislates everything from
I am still a pro-European Read More »
Another example of the problems caused by the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers came into my in-box today. Federalists have long criticised the system of changing the chair
A problem of rotation Read More »
One of the intellectual fashions of the moment is crowd-sourcing, that is the idea that good ideas and useful information can come from the population as a whole rather than
The wisdom of crowds Read More »
By Richard Laming EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – You can tell a lot about a political system from the buildings it erects to house its decision-makers. They provide a literally concrete
Building European democracy Read More »
A news story in EUobserver last week on the plans for a new building for the Council of Ministers reminded me of the issues we raised the last time the
Symbol of a closed order Read More »
The latest news from the Czech Republic, famously that faraway country of which we know little, is that its government has collapsed. In a vote in the Czech parliament yesterday,
Collapse of Czech government shows weakness in EU Read More »
By Richard Laming Published in EUobserver, 30 January 2008 The meeting in London on Tuesday between the government leaders of Europe’s biggest economies called for more transparency in the financial institutions,
Transparency works both ways Read More »
