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April 12, 2006
The result in Italy's general election is welcome, but the slim margin of victory is worriesome. In the 10 years prior to Berlusconi's 6 years in office there were 6 changes in Prime Minister, it would be disasterous if that...
December 14, 2005
And so avid readers, as it is almost the holidays, we have a special guest here to interrupt the monotony of Oasis living. Our roving Brussels correspondent, Gemma will, over the next couple of days, be posting live and in...
April 29, 2005
Observer blog highlights interesting statistic regarding the EU enlargement:There are some good numbers in today's FT. Do you remember the hysteria around European Union enlargement in May last year - alarmist reports about the hordes of migrants queueing up at...
January 14, 2005
In her first post the EC Vice President and Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication talks about the Tsunami and her hopes for the Luxemourg Presidency. I have decided to do a blog during my five year term to give...
December 16, 2004
Gavin highlights a great piece in the Washington Post by Robert Kagan on the lure of the European Union and its transformational power, e.g. in Turkey.Europe’s foreign policy today is enlargement; its most potent foreign policy tool is what the...
November 29, 2004
In the Guardian, Freedom's front line: Europe must give immediate and total support to Ukraine's velvet revolutionariesActually, it's in places like Kiev, rather than in Brussels, that you see what a great story Europe has to tell, if only we...
November 27, 2004
Good primer on the ascendancy of Nicolas Sarkosy in the Union for a Popular Movement party in the Economist, The changing of the guard.Although they spring from the same political family, Mr Chirac and Mr Sarkozy embody two quite different...
November 09, 2004
Prospect features an interesting article by Anand Menon, Professor of European politics at the University of Birmingham, on what will be a struggle to ratify the EU Constitutional Treaty;Ultimately, the task of the yes campaign [in Britain] is to persuade...
August 13, 2004
The President-designate of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has announced the twenty four Commissioners he hopes will be approved by the European Parliament on November 1st to serve for the next five years. Barosso has also announced changes to...
June 24, 2004
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw delivered a speech today, "THIS IS A TREATY FOR AN EFFECTIVE EUROPEAN UNION OF NATIONS," which mentions the word "constitution" exactly 0 times, "constitutional treaty" twice and "treaty" a further thirteen times. An attempt to...
June 19, 2004
Frankly I think it is a major miracle that the 25 Nations of Europe have managed to agree a 'Constitution' for the Union which both tidies up existing treaty arrangements and reforms some of the structures to better reflect a...
June 10, 2004
Just discovered that Neil MacCormack, author of Legal Reasoning and Legal System (which I've been trying to understand) and Regius Professor of Public Law at Edinburgh University is also a SNP MEP. Rebutting Michael Howard's "countries have constitutions" mantra he...
