The unofficial rulebook for lazy EU journalism. 20 invaluable tips for your career in EU journalism. 1. Not sure how the EU works or what institutions are involved? –> Just write “Brussels”. 2. Germany is generally seen as important in EU politics and journalists know how to frame it: If Germany is active in a [...]

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Eurocrats

by Kosmopolit in Bright side of life, EU politics

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Hilarious! via The Belgium Free Press: EU Hot Air A man in a hot air balloon over the Belgian countryside realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. Descending a bit more he shouted, “Excuse me, can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but [...]

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In December 2010, the mysterious Brusselsleaks website appeared.  The idea was simple: Think of wikileaks in a EU/Brussels context. Now BrusselsLeaks is back with a new website and a new logo!  Well, the logo is rather basic and it looks like the Ukrainian flag turned upside down. A couple of weeks ago we wrote a lenghty [...]

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Last week there was another #web2eu (and on twitter) event, formerly known as openbeer 2.0 (if I remember correctly!).  If you have not heard of it: it’s a nice little series of events focusing on social media and the European Union in Brussels. It is informal and it is a great place to meet people [...]

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Fact: Brussels is the centre of EU activities, the main seat of its institutions. It is enshrined in the Treaties as such. But was it like this from the very beginning? And why was it chosen to play this role? Going down history lane, we find Belgium, one of the founding members of the European [...]

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It seems as if my predictions about who will become the new German EU Commissioner were wrong. Spiegel Online reports today that Chancellor Merkel wants to nominate Wolfgang Schäuble, the current German Interior Minister, for the post in Brussels. This is quite a bad choice especially if he aims to get the Justice and Home [...]

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Today it’s the 9th of May, Europe day. Like every year, celebrations are organised, with various intensities, throughout Europe. Of course, the main festivities are held in Brussels, where the European institutions open their doors to the public. Having attended the event for the last three years as a visitor (and enthusiastic collector of pens [...]

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Do you remember the worstlobby awards? Now the final list of nominations has been announced! Go to worstlobby.eu, check out the nominees and vote for your favourite until November 30th! There is also quite an entertaining video on how the nominees reacted when they got the news… Do you remember the worstlobby awards? Now the [...]

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Quotes of the week

by Kosmopolit in EU politics

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Although the title suggests a weekly feature I doubt that I would find something every week. To be honest I just could not come up with a better title … so here we go with some remarkable statements: via Times Online I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared. Mr Sarkozy [...]

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The problems of EU debates

by Kosmopolit in EU politics

· 6 Comments

After reading recent posts by Martin Westlake and Julien Frisch I actually remembered a post on “EU debates” that I wrote a couple of months ago but somehow forgot to publish. It is rather an exploratory post, very general and patchy and open to new ideas. I want to look at the nature of EU [...]

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