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Posts Tagged ‘European Commission’

Web 2.0 for Europe!

“Harnessing the power of the Internet for better communication”  – Here is an interesting open letter (in case you have not seen it on twitter…) from the European Commission’s Internet editors and webmasters to Commission President Barroso and incoming Commissioners in which they ask for more web 2.0 in EU institutions… Read it here.
I think [...]

Instead of a comment

… about the  new European Commission portfolios and the list of proposed candidates, here is a short reminder for the next Commission (and all journalists writing about national ‘winners’ and ‘loosers”):
1. The Commission shall promote the general interest of the Union and take appropriate initiatives to that end. [...]
3. (…) The members of the Commission [...]

New German EU Commissioner: Günther Oettinger

The secret has been kept very well. Günther Oettinger was actually not one of the likely candidates. Several other people were thought to have better chances, for example Wolfgang Schäuble, Elmar Brok, Peter Hintze, Peter Altmaier, Roland Koch …even Peer Steinbrück.

So who is Günther Oettinger? He is Ministerpräsident (CDU) of Baden-Württemberg and a somewhat diffult [...]

Peer Steinbrück – The new German EU Commissioner?

Just a quick post about the German discussion about the new EU Commissioner. (and a part of our concerted blog campaign). btw: Jan wrote a very useful overview of the state of play in all EU member states.
Obviously, there is no real debate about the question who should replace Verheugen since German elections will take [...]

Why Wolfgang Schäuble should not become EU Commissioner!

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 [...]

Who will be the next Romanian Commissioner?

As the (rather temporary) buzz around the EP elections started to diminish, the next big question is popping up in various circles, from political parties headquarters to newspapers and blogs (see the concerted blog action here, here and here): who will be each country’s nominee for the Commissioner position?
With the institutional framework governing the next [...]

Stop Barroso – too little too late?

Stop Barroso is a nice campaign by the greens with a very funny video (via Anyone but Barroso) .  “In the absence of a firm agenda from him, perhaps we  take this as his programme for government?” asks The European Citizen blog.
Although I fully support the campaign and the idea behind it I partly agree [...]

Thinking about the next European Commission

I just came back from the  Th!nk About It event in Rotterdam. The event was quite a success and we even made it into the Financial Times! Bloggers from almost all 27 member states were present so we came up with the idea of  a “concerted EU blogging action”! The aim is to put together [...]

What is the EU planning to do?

This is really useful – and an important step towards more transparency. The European Commission just launched a directory for legislative proposals as part of the Eur-Lex service (hat tip: Grahlaw)  You can browse through 20 policy areas and discover what kind of EU legislation is in the pipeline!
What exactly is included?
‘Preparatory documents’ means [...]

The fish rots from the head

Wolfgang Münchau hits the nail on the head:
There is nothing in European politics that stinks more than the apparent inevitability of another five-year term for José Manuel Barroso, the Portuguese president of the Commission. He spent most of the last few years on his bid for re-election rather than doing his job. If the centre-right [...]