“Was it really a year since the last one?” you’re perhaps asking yourselves. Yes, just as Brussels eases itself back to work after the summer break, Jean Claude pops up to tell everyone why everything is going swimmingly (or not) depending on your point of view. This year Juncker’s State […]
EU Politics
Why France would be foolish to tear up the Le Touquet agreement while Britain’s legally still in the EU
2017 is election year in France. Le Pen is stealing votes from the traditional republican right and Nicolas Sarkozy, never one to shy away from stealing ideas to the right of him, thinks that he’s on to something to promise to tear up the Le Touquet agreement between the UK […]
The rest of the EU doesn’t understand Britain playing games with its and the continent’s future
Brexit, and the economic and political consequences of it, is serious. So why then has the UK appointed its least serious front line politician, Boris Johnson, as its Foreign Minister? (backed up by the little better Davis, Fox and Leadsom) That’s the question that politicians and journalists across the EU […]
Salami slicing TTIP
Oh TTIP. That great hope to rescue the transatlantic alliance. Or that scary fear of deregulation. Or both. Or neither? Juncker is worried, apparently. The Commission is putting pressure on the USA, supposedly. New Austrian President Van Der Bellen says he is against it. Merkel and Obama say they are […]
We can breathe a sigh of relief that Van Der Bellen won. But what now?
So Austria does not have a right wing populist President. Alexander Van Der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer by 31000 votes, or 50.3% to 49.7% – summary of the result from Der Standard here. But that was too close for comfort. It’s also not enough to point out that Van Der […]
EU or Großdeutschland: the German influence in the European Union
On 10th May at 1030 CET I am giving a lecture entitled “EU or Großdeutschland: the German influence in the European Union” at the Europe2Day Forum at the University of Trieste campus in Gorizia. This a bit different to my usual lectures about online communications in the European Union, but […]
The EU referendum will not improve UK-EU relations, so federalists and progressives outside the UK should advocate Brexit
The standard way of looking at the UK’s EU referendum in other capitals around Europe, and indeed within the EU institutions in Brussels, is that – often a bit grudgingly – people feel it would be better for the EU if the UK does not leave. In this blog entry […]
A traditional and an alternative explanation of why the European Union cannot communicate
People who work in European Union politics in some way often bemoan the EU’s communications problem. Their classic diagnosis goes something like this: If only people would search out the facts about the European Union, people would better understand that the European Union does work in their interests, and that […]
Why turning Santo Stefano into a Eurocrat training college is a really bad idea
Matteo Renzi has an idea: train Eurocrats in Italy, as a way to boost Italy’s influence in the EU. Possibly a good idea. He wants that place to be Santo Stefano. That’s a really bad idea. Yes, nearby Ventotene was where Altiero Spinelli was imprisoned, and where he penned the […]
Teaching EU online communication through simulation – the twitcol case
For the first time in the academic year 2015-16 I am a member of the faculty of the politics department at the College of Europe in Bruges. My own MA is from the College of Europe (in 2003-04) and it is good to be back there as a teacher this […]
David Cameron, democracy and the European Parliament
At the height of the Eurozone bailout crisis, Alexis Tsipras went to address the European Parliament. Why bother with that? was the cry of sceptical journalists who have never paid attention to the European Parliament. 887000 viewers of Guy Verhofstadt’s response show that this was a worthwhile political exercise – […]
The refugee crisis. Words are easy (and dangerous). Action is hard.
Obergrenze. It’s the word of the moment in Germany – namely should Germany set an upper limit on the number of refugees that it can take in 2016. CSU leader Seehofer wants to set it at 200000. The Austrians have agreed one (but there are questions if it can work), […]