Back in the autumn of 2004 I was working in London. It was a year or so before I even started this blog and I was working as a civil servant on EU energy policy. News reached us that a controversial Italian nominee to the European Commission, Rocco Buttiglione, had […]
I’ve come across this little summary from PressEurop of an article from the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza which looks at comments within the EPP saying that anyone who formerly co-operated with “repressive regimes and undemocratic organizations” be denied the post of Commissioner. This is essentially a way of saying that […]
The European Parliament has had to make one formal adjustment for June’s elections – as opposed to the 750 MEPs foreseen in the Treaty of Lisbon (rejected by the Irish), 732 MEPs will instead be elected. A few countries get a few less MEPs. Easy. Well, perhaps not… The first […]
Every fifth year is decisively different for the EU: election years. And this year is one of those years. For the 40% of the population that will go to vote it’s a relatively minor event, but in Brussels itself election years are very different. MEPs try to cram a few […]