Another day, another European Commission web communications mess. Today it’s “Science: It’s A Girl Thing” and this video. The website for the initiative is here, and reactions that range from The New Statesman to the very rude tweets. This is just three months after the Commission had to pull a […]
Tag: European Commission
Taxing public servants (nationally and internationally)
Scandal! Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, pays no tax! How can this be when she’s lecturing more Greeks to pay tax!?! Story from The Guardian here. Sony Kapoor, so often the voice of reason throughout the Eurozone crisis on Twitter, stated “IMF staff don’t, period!” prompting all kinds […]
Cameron, Vickers, the EU and the recapitalisation of banks
It sounded a bit far-fetched – that the UK wants to set higher standards for its banks than the EU would allow. But these are Cameron’s words in his statement on Monday [from Hansard here]: To those who say that we were trying to go soft on the banks, nothing […]
The idiot in Brussels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxPFZra8MuM (note: video is uploaded by UKIP, so they add their own vile header to the video. Thanks for @spignal for pointing out the film) Extraordinary ‘debate’ on Newsnight last night between Amadeu Altafaj Tardio (Ollie Rehn’s spokesperson) and Peter Oborne. Oborne repeatedly calls Altafaj Tardio ‘the idiot in Brussels’, a […]
Barroso is not just ‘A senior EU official’ – he’s President of the European Commission
Have a read of this piece (see comments – link changed – a version is available here) on AP’s website about Barroso’s State of the European Union speech. It’s entitled “Top EU official seeks closer policy union” and then starts “A senior EU official called for closer political and financial unification […]
The anatomy of a story about the European Parliament and body scanners
I saw this tweet from @Bruce_Schneier, retweeted by @EvgenyMorozov: [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Bruce_Schneier/status/99450840410112000″] This led me to Schneier’s piece about a Welt am Sonntag article about ineffectiveness of full body scanners in airport tests in Germany. One piece in particular caught my eye: The European parliament backed on July 6 the deployment […]
What Cathy Ashton needs to do now
I stand accused of being a negative, complaining blogger. I have not been a fan of Cathy Ashton’s work as the EU’s High Rep, wrote that she should go as early as January, have analysed her current predicament, and have even raised a few smiles at her expense. While Ashton’s […]
Duff’s EP reform proposals prioritise institutional change over real leadership – misguided
The Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament yesterday backed Andrew Duff‘s report (PDF here) that proposes reforms to the way MEPs are elected. Most controversial is the proposal to create a Europe-wide list of 25 MEPs, essentially a transnational list, that would give European Parliament elections a truly transnational […]
The latest waste of time and money video from the European Commission
The Transport White Paper is coming to save us! Look kids, out of the window a stream of paper is going to deliver modern transport for you by 2050! Please, please can someone tell me why the European Commission spends cash on this? The video is well produced, clearly expensive, […]
Beyond the slogans Reding’s data protection principles aren’t too bad
EU justice Commissioner (and, very incidentally, Commissioner responsible for communications) Viviane Reding yesterday gave a speech entitled “Your data, your rights: Safeguarding your privacy in a connected world”. You can read the speech here, and there are articles from The Guardian, The Register and The Telegraph. I’m actually surprised – […]
Clearly UKIP’s poison is all-invasive
Since the 2009 European Election I’ve kept an eye and an ear open for what MEP Marta Andreasen will do in UKIP’s delegation. Today I seem to have my answer – she’s willing to be just as stupid and poisonous as the rest of them. The issue at stake is […]
Correlation is not causation: why the government is protesting too much about Brits in Brussels
Here we go again. The next stage of the UK government’s effort to get more Brits into the EU institutions… is to try to skew the application system to assist Brits. Today’s FT has more on the story here. There’s more here about the government’s previous efforts. The essential gist […]