Interessante Rede von Joschka Fischer zur Lage der EU und der Rolle Deutschlands. Kurz zusammengefasst ist seine These: “Jeder ist sich selbst der Nächste” – vor allem in der Krise und das gilt auch fur Deutschland: Bedauerlicherweise hat unser Land, Deutschland, damals eher die Rolle der Bremse statt des die des Motors gespielt, und dieser [...]

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Here is a short ACTA explanation in “plain English” by Public Knowledge’s Legal Director Harold Feld. Five minutes with Harold Feld – because this stuff is important – and you need to know. Oh, and this is not only a matter for the US, in fact the EU has been quite active in the negotiations [...]

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So you (think you) know everything about how the EU works? Mastered the intricacies of codecision? Ah, so you already know it is not called codecision anymore, but ordinary legislative procedure. Good. So you probably already know about all the changes brought by the Lisbon Treaty. We all do. What, of course, we still don’t [...]

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After officially becoming a EU Girl Geek, I decided to give one more try to our (very infrequent) EU geek quiz series. So, digging deeply, for mere academic purposes,  into the Commission’s internal rules of procedure, as amended in February 2010, I did not have many difficulties in finding some very geeky details. Now, of [...]

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During the last weeks the editors of bloggingportal have been discussing the future of bloggingportal. The attempt to kick-start a public debate on our editors’ blog here failed, partly because we had some server problems last week. So I thought I should give it another plug here. So why do we need to talk about [...]

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Simon Hix on The State of European Democracy After Lisbon at the IIEA – The Institute of International and European Affairs. Simon Hix on The State of European Democracy After Lisbon at the IIEA – The Institute of International and European Affairs.

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Belgium takes over. Not.

by Anda in EU politics

· 6 Comments

What will be “sober, plain and simple”? But also “tricky” and “not glamorous”? Estonian Euro coins? No, it is the upcoming  Belgian Council presidency – at least this is the characterisation of  senior Belgian officials. As we are approaching its start, on July 1st, everyone is eager to hear about the famous presidency priorities. The [...]

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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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Probably not. To get an idea what the new Conservative/ LibDem coalition is thinking about the EU you just have to read two short documents: Last week an interesting memo leaked from William Hague who is now the new British Foreign Secretary: The Tory letter on Europe in full. There is also a section in [...]

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Sunday reading: Why Europe will win

by Kosmopolit in EU politics

· 1 Comment

via Newsweek.com European firms beat American rivals. Forget the conventional wisdom. European firms are faster-growing, more profitable, and better at globalization than their American rivals. (…) via Newsweek.com European firms beat American rivals. Forget the conventional wisdom. European firms are faster-growing, more profitable, and better at globalization than their American rivals. (…)

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