EU austerity pact: Franco-German conflict | Editorial
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Ms Merkel is trying to make it a fait accompli just as support for it is waveringA wellhead of votes gushed open on Friday for the socialist candidate in next week's presidential election, François Hollande. It had been drilled by Nicolas Sarkozy's...
Weekender
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Further weekend reading,- Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Tim Geithner.- Stability is not an option.- Bernanke and the 2% catastrophe.- Martin Wolf on the impact of...
Visas for Prime Ministers
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Apparently there was a problem with the Croation Prime Minister, who didn't like the questions he was asked on his visa application form for the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago. (The full story is here.) I was surprised to hear about this, because I...
Indian agriculture minister: "Global warming has not adversely impacted India´s agriculture production"
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Remember all those doomsdays predictions about global warming leading to famine and huge harvest failures in India and other countries?Well, it did not happen:Global warming has not adversely impacted India's agriculture production which has been inc...
Finland’s got a [redacted]
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‘Greece Pays Finland Collateral Money,’ goes the Bloomberg headline.Well, that’s broadly true we suppose. Technically, Greek banks which cannot be named have...
Blind Chinese human rights activist safe in the US embassy
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Thank God, there is still one place in China - the US embassy - where an innocent blind human rights activist is safe from the terror of the ruling communist thugocracy!A blind Chinese rights activist who made a daring escape from extrajudicial deten...
Unfair contract term? Consequences for all consumers, not only those party to the proceedings. - CJEU case C-472/10 (Invitel)
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26 April 2012: CJEU judgment in case C-472/10 (Invitel) I'm participating right now in the conference on the law and economics perspective of the CESL in Chicago, which means that this blog post will be short by necessity. Still, it is worth menti...
Four pages good, two pages better
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The EPO’s Boards of Appeal routinely issue minutes of oral proceedings which reveal almost nothing about what has taken place over perhaps the most important five or six hours of a patent’s life. In contrast, if you attend oral proceed...
Ambiguous George: does Galloway know what religion he is?
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Following on from claims in the latest New Statesman that George Galloway had converted to Islam ten years ago, the maverick Bradford West MP is apparently threatening to sue the magazine. The controversy over Galloway’s faith stems from th...
Ukraine's chaos threatens to engulf Euro 2012 | Kris Kotarski
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With only a month until the football kicks off, can Ukraine limit the damage done by terrorist attacks and corruption scandals?Beaten female prisoners, hunger strikes, and terrorist attacks – surely this is not the backdrop that organisers or Ukrai...
Our French resistance is only just beginning | Jean-Luc Mélenchon
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In unity we on the left have found the strength to stop Sarkozy and derail the politics of austerityFor the first time in more than 30 years, a new French political force – not only to the left of the Socialists, but also unafraid to assert itself...
Talking to practitioners
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I gave a talk this afternoon to a group of consultants and lobbyists. It was a fun occasion because I was invited to talk about pretty much whatever I wanted and on the basis of ‘Chatham House rules’ (that is, off the record). ON the reco...
Porn director Erika Lust: 'I felt uncomfortable like all women when they're watching porn'
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In her native Stockholm Erika Hallqvist was a politics student who pondered why the porn industry wasn't more feminist. Today the 34-year-old award-winning writer, director, producer and mother-of-two is based in Barcelona and successfully rebelling...
Hospitality vs. Anger
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“Merkel?” asked the Greek owner of the fuel station, somewhere near the Turkish border, when he looked at our number plate this morning. Though he was smiling, visiting Greece as a German is a thrilling experience: Austerity measures hit...
Fußball-EM in der Ukraine
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Die ehemalige ukrainische Regierungschefin Julia Timoschenko im Gefängnis, Bombenanschläge und ein Präsident, der mit Demokratie nicht allzu viel im Sinn zu haben scheint. Knapp sechs Wochen vor Beginn der Fußball-Europameisterschaft gibt die Ukr...
Die politischen Winde Europas
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Grob gesagt, gibt es zwei Möglichkeiten. Eine erfordert Opfer und Kompromisse von allen Seiten. Die andere ist einfach: Gemäß dem Gesetz, das es in vielen Gesellschaften gab, sollte der Ehemann – Deutschland – die Dinge regeln. Hat die...
26. Jahrestag der Atom-Katastrophe in der ukrainischen Stadt Tschernobyl
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Am 26. Jahrestag der Atom-Katastrophe in der ukrainischen Stadt Tschernobyl weihen hohe Staatsbeamte die Arbeit an einer neuen Schutzhülle ein. Diese wird Block 4 des Atomkraftwerks abdecken, in dem sich vor 26 Jahren der tragische Unfall ereignete.
Completing CAP reform on time
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In this week’s issue of Agra Europe, editorial director Chris Horseman, who is one of the most experienced and knowledgeable observers of the CAP, suggests that the deadline of January 1, 2014 for the new CAP could be missed unless EU leaders can c...
Obama Caving to Agribusiness
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Faced with political pressure from Republicans and farming groups, the White House decided in April 2012 not to go ahead with rules that would have prevented children from “operating heavy machinery, handling tobacco crops, working in grain silos o...
A Meal Worthy of a Czar — With Price Tag to Match
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A businessman close to Vladimir Putin is preparing a meal worthy of a czar to fete Putin's return to the presidency. Then he'll prepare a bill for Russian taxpayers: 12 million rubles.
Want EU and Eurozone growth? Then ...
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Markit data for Germany, France and Italy for April shiowed in all 4 surveyed post lower sales, with record decline in France. UK is recession again, based on GDP on Q4 of 2011 and Q1 of 2012. The situation in Greece, Spain, Portugal is also well kno...
Another one bites the dust
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LESS than three months after it took office, Romania's government has fallen. The centre-right administration, led by Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, a former foreign-intelligence chief, lost a no-confidence vote filed by the left-wing opposition. When the...
What hope for Spain? | Sarah Morris
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This week Spaniards have seen their credit rating downgraded, rising unemployment and even football succumbing to the gloomSpaniards have had a dismal week. On Friday, they woke to learn the credit ratings agency Standard & Poors had downgraded the c...
Merkel's Intervention
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Merkel's intervention in the French elections yesterday - effectively attacking Hollande by stating that there will be no renegotiation of the Fiscal Stability Treaty - strikes me as bizarre. If she's hoping that this will discredit Hollande and lead...
Nationalism and the Schengen Debate
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In recent years the EU member states have criticised Greece and Italy for not doing enough to protect their borders from immigrants entering the EU illegally from Turkey and North Africa. Last year France and Denmark violated the Schengen agreement a...
Financial markets running riot & billion-dollar rescue plunged Europe into a debt crisis, Mr Draghi
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Not breaking but…ECB chief’s vision of Europe amounts to strategic negligence, says European Left Read the statement...
The EU budget: no solidarity during austerity
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Earlier this week the European Commission’s proposed a whooping 6.8 per cent increase for next year’s EU budget. Cue outrage and fury. Finance minsters around Europe stamped...
