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February 22, 2015
By Rebecca Harding, CEO of Delta Economics Germany holds the answer to Kissinger’s question: “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” It needs – metaphorically – to pick up the phone.
Guest blogpost by Wilfried Ruetten, director of the European Journalism Centre, ahead of the News Impact Summit Brussels discussing new tools and approaches to cover the European Union. It is the business of journalism to generate and distribute relevant information, and its future depends on how well we manage to launch new journalistic products and… » read more
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English, EU Citizens and Media, InfoSociety, Innovation & Enterprise |
One step before reaching an agreement (?) on Greece’s bailout program, the government dispatched today the revised proposal including the extension of the current loan agreement for the next six (6) months, while introducing a moratorium in the implementation of new austerity measures suggested by troika last November. Meanwhile, the ECB decided yesterday to extend… » read more
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English, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance, Global Europe, Greek, Member States |
Much has been written already about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a trade agreement currently in negotiation between the European Union and the United States of America. It entails a comprehensive product-specification and trade on equal terms between the two blocks. Well, for the sake of accuracy, between a Federation (the USA) and a… » read more
Federalism has become such a dirty word in EU politics, and federalists are accused of so many evils that some EU’s federalists are now hiding in the closet and will not freely admit their affiliation. The nationalists view the Federalists as the bad boys of EU politics who are trying to turn the EU into… » read more
The talented French writer, dedicated revolutionary and wise politician André Malraux wrote in his memoires that Charles de Gaulle was France’s “alibi for courage”. According to Malraux, De Gaulle’s actions saved France not once, but twice. The first time, by organizing the resistance against the Nazis during the WWII and, the second time, by defusing… » read more
Soon after he was appointed Commission Vice President for the Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič started lobbying Russia to return to the South Stream gas pipeline project. The same project was frozen by direct orders of former Commission President José Manuel Barroso. First episode: Barroso stops South Stream by telling the former Bulgarian PM Plamen Oresharski… » read more
I freely admit: I’ve been a fanboy of the UK’s Government Delivery Service (GDS) since studying their design principles. Those principles are still good. Everything else, it turns out, was not. I was not the only information architect in Brussels dazzled a few years ago by GDS’ approach which, according to internal reports seen by… » read more
A clash of titanic national illusions is at play in the critical negotiations between the new Greek government and the Eurogroup on the future of the financial assistance program to Greece. It is an illusion for the Greek government to believe that it can escape its obligations to the other Eurozone countries that have financially… » read more
2015 ha empezado francamente mal. No es que 2014 fuera un camino de rosas, pero queda claro que la escalada de violencia contra los judíos ha entrado en una nueva fase. El 20 de enero redacté una entrada en el blog de The Jerusalem Post indicando que “parece que hemos alcanzado un momento crítico, y… » read more
To date, Russia’s strategic sights as regards to unraveling Ukraine’s statehood lie with Yemen, where the ship bulging with Russian arms, is tried to be passed for Ukrainian delivery-at-door in the best interest of the Yemeni rebels. Undoubtedly, considering a regular cut-throat rivalry with their Ukrainian counterparts, Putin’s arms trade moguls found themselves on the… » read more
February 18, 2015
By The Risk Monger Will negotiators in Brussels and Washington be able to agree on and push through a TTIP pact? Forget it. The anti-American, anti-TTIP campaigners inside the Brussels Bubble have sharpened their Eur-redneck knives and tongues to squash that gosling in its nest.
February 17, 2015
Time always matter. In 1946 Great Britain’s PM Winston Churchill gave a speech at the University of Zurich pointing out the paramount need for the creation of the “United States of Europe”. The statement of Churchill came after an unprecedentedly devastating war that destroyed Europe in political, human, and economic level. Almost 60 years later,… » read more
Yale University placed itself on the map as the first United States University to take the lead in EU affairs this past weekend when European students from the European Student Conference launched an EU think-tank here in the US named European Horizons. The aim of the think-tank is to contribute to the policy’s being… » read more
February 16, 2015
How can you make sure you hit an EU-wide binding target for renewable energy, if you don’t have binding targets at the national level? It’s a problem Commission officials have struggled with since the 2030 climate and energy targets were agreed by EU leaders last October. Heard in Europe hears tell that one renewable energy… » read more
By Radovan Geist It has become fanciful to see the current stand-off between the Greek Syriza-led government, and the EU as a “game of chicken”: whoever blinks first, loses everything.
The pan-European student organization had a conference in Burgos, Spain, on 18 to 21 February 2015. It again chose a visionary topic, and asked me for an opening statement, below. (video to be inserted) “Buenos dias, bonjour! Europe and Russia: Today’s challenge from a youth perspective. What a great topic! 1) Congratulations for gathering so… » read more
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English, EU Citizens and Media, Europe's East, Global Europe |
The EU officially came to Yale this weekend via the European Student Conference who obtained funding from the European Commission’s ERASMUS program for higher education students. The European Student Conference brought to the United States members of the EU Commission and Parliament and other EU heavyweights to officially launch their think -tank European Horizons.… » read more
The Munich Security Conference’s theme for 2015 was the question “Collapsing Order, Reluctant Guardians?”. On this background, the main topic discussed during the event was Ukraine. A few days later after the conference ended, on Feb. 12, negotiations on Ukraine conflict completed in what the media calls the Minsk Agreement 2.0, giving a feeling of… » read more
Was für eine Woche! Zwei parallele Dramen in Minsk und in Brüssel, zwei Krisenherde, die es einzuhegen gilt, beide mit großer zerstörerischer Energie und dem Potential zu Kettenreaktionen, deren Folgen von niemandem absehbar sind. Und mittendrin und vorneweg: die deutsche Bundesregierung mit Angela Merkel und Frank-Walter Steinmeier an der Spitze. Vom Bundespräsidenten abwärts ist in… » read more
