French radicals to start referendum campaign on Permanent Austerity Treaty
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The radical Left Front is to launch a campaign for a referendum in France against the Fiscal Compact, known by critics as the Permanent Austerity Treaty. Agreed on 2 March 2012 by 25 EU countries, minus Britain and the Czech Republic, the EU Fisca...
Alternatives prompt demand for ban on potent greenhouse gasses
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According to an article by EurActiv, six NGOs are calling for the European Commission to propose a ban on some uses of the most potent greenhouse gas known to humankind, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), after a new report found that existing alternativ...
EU-GRASP: delving into EU’s role in multilateralism
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After 3 years, EU-GRASP, research project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission, has come to an end. From February 2009 to Spring 2012. EU-GRASP studied the role of the EU as a global-regional in a context of cha...
Another stale answer to Europe’s troubles from Joschka Fischer
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I haven’t posted on Blick from Berlin in a while, so for something a little different, here’s a quote from a column by Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former Green vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister under Chancellor Schröder, at the Social Europ...
The Closer
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ROUND-UPCentral banks stole the show but stocks barely budged. The S&P 500 closed down 0.47 per cent at 1,367.58. The Nasdaq closed flat. Calm before the payrolls numbers (Reuters)....
Democrat Fundraisers: ‘Give us $3 and we’ll stop spamming your email’
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A novel, if pretty cheeky, approach to fundraising has been taken up across the pond by the Democrats — give us money to stop us spamming your inbox. In a fundraising email sent to potential donors, top Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz lays it...
Ukraine's war of the words | Andrey Kurkov
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The politicisation of our language means Ukrainian writers like me who use Russian are under real pressureEvery nation has its bugbears. Ukraine has two: the forced famine orchestrated during Stalin's rule, which killed between four million and seven...
Heard about shepherds?
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Quick one this… I just read about what it really meant to be a shepherd in the first century. Our impression of shepherds has been a bit corrupted by too many Victorian pastoral scenes and Marie Antoinette. This fantastic post … Continue...
Coordinating EU Foreign Investment Policy
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As part of its effort to make European Union institutions more effective in their areas of competence, the Lisbon Treaty (prior posts) gave the EU exclusive authority over foreign direct investment. The change, which took effect in 2009, has raised...
What makes a world real? Smell it and see
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I’ve reached 40,000 of my novel now, and was thinking about how to make the places I describe as real as possible. The answer came to me while watching “Horrible Histories” with my son. It’s smells. The world was a … Con...
Russian NGOs as foreign agents?
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As Russia plan to introduce a bill that would label many NGOs as foreign agents, see e.g. NY Times, it seems that the Kremlin is expecting more social unrest in the future and is taking active measures now. Questions: Why is Russia doing this? Would...
Russian NGOs as foreign agents?
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As Russia plan to introduce a bill that would label many NGOs as foreign agents, see e.g. NY Times, it seems that the Kremlin is expecting more social unrest in the future and is taking active measures now. Questions: Why is Russia doing this? Would...
Terminating the European status quo
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There is speculation that Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career will be resurrected - Lazarus-like - in Austria, his abandoned homeland. If he does take the leap, he could find himself playing a walk-on part in the most grandiose story of his care...
REACH-IT Unavailable Due To Upgrade
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REACH-IT will be unavailable over the weekend starting tomorrow, Friday July 6, 2012 at 14.00 hrs (EET). New version of REACH-IT uses IUCLID 5.4. During this weekend, the new version will be installed and tested. The European Chemicals A...
Declare Your Radicalness
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Great post again in the Harvard Business Review blog, written by Umair Haque, on the need for radicalism instead of the pragmatic incrementalism of our crisis management. "Sure, radicalism’s dangerous. But what’s even more is dangerou...
The LIBOR love-in
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The often heated debate on the form that an inquiry into banking practices should take was broken up today by an impromptu display of affection — as Ed Balls blew Kisses across the chamber to Thatcher lookalike Anna Soubry. Scrapbook wonders wh...
Germany would hate to see the UK leave | Pawel Swidlicki
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The nation at the heart of the EU needs allies – it might be more amenable to revised membership terms for the UK than it admitsLast week's EU summit offered a glimpse of what the future could hold for Germany in an EU without the UK. With David Ca...
My report on the OSCE inter-institutional cooperation
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http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29995887/CIO.GAL%3A83%3A12.pdf...
Problematising Security Governance in Africa: A Case for Policy Convergence? Workshop Summary
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Participants to this second workshop were invited to reflect, in their papers, on the issue of convergence between international organisations within the African security regime. Discussions during the workshop were fuelled by the high quality of pap...
Angels and debtors
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Sovereign deficit du jour (all figures in euros unless stated otherwise):The consolidated financial statements of the Holy See for 2011 closed with a deficit of 14,890,034. The...
Pulp Finance
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We think it’s worth noting that the The Economist is now using the Bankster word in its coverage of the Libor scandal, due to be published in print on Friday, but available...
JEF webzine wins European Citizens’ Price
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The JEF online magazine has been awarded the 2012 European Citizen’s Prize by the European Parliament. A great success!
Much Ado About Nothing
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With Kosovo gaining full sovereignty in September, what are the security implications?
