Tag Archives: European Politics
Should the EU offer a SAA to Serbia? (and possibly influence the elections?)
“Ministers, over lunch, will discuss the situation in the Western Balkans, notably in the run-up to the Serbian general elections on 11 May.” This is the seemingly unimportant announcement on the GAERC Council Agenda for the April 29th meeting in Luxembourg. But EU Foreign Ministers will have to decide on quite a difficult issue: Should [...]
Posted in European Foreign Policy, European Union Also tagged Balkans, EU, EU Enlargement, European Union, Kosovo, politics, SAA, Serbia, Tadic, Western Balkans 4 Comments
The European Dream
Thanks to analyzingEU (somehow the post disappeared in the meantime…) I found this speech by Jeremy Rifkin, the founder of the Foundation of Economic Trends. If you know the stuff by Jeremy Rifkin you know what you get, if you don’t just give it a try! He is a quite influential advisor, a best-selling author [...]
Welcome back!
The summer break is over. Slowly, the Brussels xpat crowd is coming back from holiday. I just started deleting blog spam….it is incredible what kind of spam you get these days! It used to be only the obvious things about different medications and various operations, as well as dating opportunities…but now they started making compliments: [...]
Posted in Brussels, European Debate, European Union, International Politics Also tagged blogging, EU, EU Reform, Europa, Europe, Kaczynski, poland, Romania, Romanian Politics, UK, US Politics 1 Comment
EU summit conclusions
In case you have nothing better to do this weekend, here is a wonderful exercise to make sense out of the EU summit conclusions: Empty your desk, put all former EC/EU treaties on the table, also the constitutional treaty! Now, have a look at the draft IGC mandate (the presidency proposal before the summit) and [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union Also tagged EU, EU presidency, EU Reform, Europa, Europe, politics 4 Comments
Romania's political mess – A mini roundup
Last week the political crisis in Romania truly escalated. A few weeks ago I posted a general introduction on the nature of politics in Romania and the fight between President Basescu and PM Tariceanu. Now, President Basescu is suspended from office and there will be a referendum on May 19 (unusual for elections: a Saturday [...]
Posted in Brussels, Eastern Europe, European Union, Romania Also tagged Elite, EU, Europa, Europe, European Commission, politics, Romania, Romanian Politics, Securitatea 9 Comments
Berlin declaration online
Thanks to Jan’s EU Blog the German version of the Berlin declaration is online! As expected, it is a rather non-binding document which also sounds a bit pathetic. References to more controversial issues such as the “Euro”, “open frontiers” and the “European social model” have also been included. References to “further enlargement” and “Christian heritage” [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union Also tagged EU, EU presidency, EU Reform, Europa, Europe Leave a comment
EU achievements
As the weekend comes closer, the media is getting more and more enthusiastic about the achievements of the EU (for a change). The BBC came up with Ten things the EU has done for you (somehow inspired by the popular What has Europe ever done for us? -video) and a guide to the best euromyths. [...]
A view from the outside
Sometimes it is quite revealing to change perspective. Andrew Moravcsik comments in Newsweek on the upcoming 50th birthday of the EU and comes to this conclusion: … it’s significant that 50 years after the EU’s march to unity began, it is now Europe, not the United States, that’s held up as a new lamp unto [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union, International Politics Also tagged EU, EU Reform, Europa, Europe, international affairs, USA Leave a comment
An introduction to Romanian Politics
Romania joined the EU a few months ago but not too much is known of Romanian politics in the rest of Europe. Only Vadim Tudor managed to get some press coverage in Brussels by helping to set up the Independent Tradition Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament. But nobody seems to care about what [...]
Posted in Brussels, Eastern Europe, European Union, Romania Also tagged Bucharest, Elite, EU, Europe, Romania, Romanian Politics 5 Comments
The problems of EU debates