Tag Archives: European Union
The problems of EU debates
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 [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union Also tagged Brussels, discourse, EU, EU myths, European Politics 6 Comments
The Romanian face of justice
In the aftermath of the report issued by the European Commission on the Romanian justice system and fight against corruption, many comments and interpretations have emerged in the Romanian press . This was to be expected. One of the most prominent debates stirred by the report these days is about the re-confirmation of Daniel Morar [...]
Posted in Romania Also tagged corruption, Daniel Morar, DNA, EU Enlargement, European Commission, justice, politics, Romania, Romanian Politics 1 Comment
How to explain a political process with a video?
The brilliant people at Common Craft just released a great video that explains the US elections in ‘plain English’! If you don’t know their other videos (mostly about internet issues) you really missed something and I strongly recommend them to you. Basically they “make complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos.”(mission statement!) [...]
Posted in European Debate Also tagged education, elections, EP elections, EU, online video, politics, US elections, video 4 Comments
Latest monitoring report on Romania- definitely not the last
Today the European Commission released the monitoring reports on Romania and Bulgaria, foreseen by the “cooperation and verification mechanism”. On the whole, not many surprises: the rough tone that was expected, telling off the two countries for the very small (if existing) progress regarding judicial reform and fight against corruption. This time, Bulgaria is more [...]
Posted in Romania Also tagged Bulgaria, cooperation and verification mechanism, corruption, EU Enlargement, European Commission, judicial reform, politics, Romania, Romanian Politics 5 Comments
After Karadžić, Mladić?
Recent developments in Serbia give the impression that the newly established government tries to act in a “European way” and fulfill the criteria of the SAA as quickly as possible. Probably everyone who follows the developments in the region and who knows something about the Yugoslav conflicts is relieved after this capture. However, there are [...]
Posted in European Foreign Policy Also tagged EU, EU Enlargement, ICTY, justice, Karadžić, Mladić, SAA, Serbia, Western Balkans 1 Comment
Marianne Mikko and the Blogs – Reloaded
Does anyone remember this story? The European Parliament was accused of trying to regulate blogs… of course this was not really the case. Basically Marianne Mikko (MEP) did not understand blogging and made some strange recommendation in a EP resolution (which has no legal weight whatsoever!). Anyway, today the EUobserver reports that this story has [...]
Posted in European Debate Also tagged blog, blogging, EU, European Parliament, media, politics, surveillance, Sweden 4 Comments
Kosmolinks #17
The referendum: populism vs democracy The idea of the referendum as an instrument of the people’s will rests on pre-democratic foundations, says George Schöpflin. I certainly agree! A better way with referendums Interesting idea: Is it possible to introduce a more deliberative approach when holding a referendum? Does “deliberative polling” make citizens more knowledgeable? Instead [...]
Posted in Kosmolinks Also tagged blogging, EU, EU Reform, Europe, Germany, Ireland, lisbon treaty, No, politics, referendum, SPD, WIA Leave a comment
The forgotten Trio