Early Saturday morning, 16th January 2021. Across Germany 1001 people look into their bathroom mirrors, wipe their eyes. And Armin Laschet stares back. And then, suitably refreshed, they each settle down in front of their laptops, and vote for Laschet as the new party leader of the CDU. Or, to […]
Tag: Angela Merkel
The Martin Schulz bounce
What is going on in German politics, just 7 months ahead of the 24th September Bundestag election? How can a party, the SPD – that was consistently 10 points behind the CDU in the polls – suddenly be running neck and neck with Angela Merkel’s party? This graph from Wikipedia […]
The European Commission is up to its neck in the VW scandal, but for reasons a little more complex than the press is reporting
The FT wrote yesterday how the European Commissioners Janez Potočnik (then with the Environment portfolio) and Antonio Tajani (then with the Industry portfolio) both knew in 2013 about potential differences between car emissions in real conditions and in lab tests. “There are widespread concerns that performance [of cars] has been […]
UK – German relations in the context of the UK’s EU referendum
I was invited to speak at DG Cambridge on 14th October about UK – German relations in the context of David Cameron’s EU referendum. Antony Carpen was kind enough to film the speech, and put it up on Youtube: There are three parts to the speech: – How did UK-EU […]
A little transparency to confront the national responses to the EU’s refugee crisis
Hungary has shut its border to Serbia completely. So the refugees head towards Croatia instead (and Croatia then closes its border), and if the refugees do succeed they may need to cross minefields. Then fears are raised in Slovenia that the refugees might well head there – its PM Miro […]
Why 2015 is going to be the beginning of the end for Merkel
I’ve long been fascinated by the German politics, and how German politics is perceived beyond Germany. One aspect of this is how Merkel is described as the strong leader, internationally – a picture that is generally not reflected within Germany itself. For all their fascinating insight, pieces like the long […]
Reinfeldt, Merkel, Cameron and Rutte in a boat – a roundup
So embattled Swedish PM Reinfeldt invited Merkel, Cameron and Rutte to Harpsund and took them out in a small rowing boat (news summary here), and let photographers take pictures of this. Here’s the original: The Junckermonster – my own effort Putin, via @GeneralBoles Breaking apart, via @Spacexecadet Sinking, via @JOR_ID Just […]
BREAKING: first picture of EPP’s winning candidate in Dublin, Jean Claude Juncker
So the European People’s Party has a candidate for Commission President – Jean Claude Juncker. Tweet announcing the result is here. He’s going to be Merkel’s poodle. Image above is Creative Commons, Sharealike Licensed – can be used, for free, but must be attributed to Jon Worth, with a link […]
Gender balance at #EPPdublin
Europe’s Centre Right, the EPP, is holding its Congress yesterday and today in Dublin. Details about it here. Via @AnneLaumen on Twitter I was alerted to today’s speaker line up. Here’s an illustration of those speakers.
Merkel in London – a case study in political tweeting
Angela Merkel spoke in London earlier today, and – as could have been predicted in advance – it was one of the most interesting political stories of the day in UK and indeed EU and German politics. A BBC story with all the background can be found here. Such events […]
So what did we learn from Merkel in London. Rather little.
I suppose Angela Merkel’s speech today to the members of the House of Commons and House of Lords was what was to be expected. High on vague sounding phrases, and low on commitment. Open Europe put out a table at the start of the week laying out where they saw […]
Candidates for President of the European Commission – where we stand in January 2014
Back in the early summer of 2013 I wrote a detailed series of blog posts about the future President of the European Commission. There were posts about EPP, PES and other candidates. Overall those posts have stood up well over the last 6 months. But with the EP elections just […]