Latest posts
Why the UK’s “audit” of EU law is a waste of time
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So, supposedly in a bid to allow any future in-out referendum on UK membership of the EU to be based on facts rather than ideology (fat chance), Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced an “audit” of the influence of EU … Conti...
Post-Council, what next for the eurocrisis?
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(Sorry for blogging silence – I’ve been asked to write a book on the eurocrisis and European integration, so have been deep in research working out if I understand the current situation enough to do so.) It’s been a bit … Cont...
The eurocrisis: Politics without policy choice
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This piece on Crooked Timber really is superb. A few highlights – but do read it in full: “the fuzzy compromise between supposedly depoliticized trans-national rules (run by the ECB), and national-level responsibility for compliance, is n...
The FP Twitterati 100 – including me, it seems…
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I appear to have been listed among prestigious company in Foreign Policy magazine’s Twitterati Top 100. I’m rather flattered, it must be said – not least because Foreign Policy’s been rather good of late. In fact, I have a dra...
New answers to an old question: the EU’s influence in member states
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This blog’s most popular post ever remains one from June 2009 on the percentage of laws that come from the EU. It’s won me an award and been quoted in numerous follow-up studies, including one by the House of Commons … Continue read...
A rare non-hyperbolic take on the likelihood of a Grexit
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Good stuff from European economics think tank Bruegel: “Commentators, especially from North America, take it for granted that Greece will exit the euro area and will be followed by others… But is a Greek exit really inevitable? “...
Treating the EU & G20 leaders like naughty schoolchildren
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Excellent teacherly putdown in this post from thinktank Bruegel’s blog: “Europe has already expressed its intention to focus [the upcoming G20 summit] on growth and jobs; the deliverable should foreseeably be yet another ‘plan’...
An American view of Europe the UK would be sensible to note
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Once again, no one knows what’s going to happen – yet everyone knows it’s going to be bad. This from The Atlantic makes some good points amidst the “eurogeddon” worst-case scenario act – but this time from an Ameri...
A terrifying but promising sign
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Oh, sure, it sounds terrifying at first: “European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens dec...
How can the EU win the people’s trust?
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Former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio raises some important points: “few official pronouncements, let alone policies, are addressing Europe’s deficit of trust and credibility. The current crisis has exposed the original lacunae and wide...
The failure of European centrism: Towards a hypothesis of historical recurrence
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Likely the first of many posts on this – as a fairly hardcore centrist (arguably a stupid concept in itself, that, if you ask most people today) with a dogmatic refusal to align myself to any one political party this … Continue reading &#...
The eurocrisis as a continental-scale game of chicken
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Good pessimistic (realistic?) piece from Der Spiegel: “The next stage in the crisis will be blatant blackmail. With their refusal to accept money from the bailout fund to recapitalize their banks, the Spanish are not far from causing the entire...
Cameron’s confusing approach to the eurocrisis
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Good points raised by the eurosceptic organisation Open Europe’s blog today about the British government’s rather bizarre, contradictory attitude(s?) towards the eurocrisis: “A German-led superstate still seems years off – if...
Fixing the euro: “It’s very simple…”
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Yeah – sounds like a piece of piss… “Jörg Asmussen, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board and a former official at the German ministry of finance, outlined what Europe needs to do. “‘It’s v...
My return to blogging: A mission statement
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There’s infinitely more being written about the EU these days than when I started this blog 9+ years ago. Some of it is excellent, some of it interesting, some of it utterly fatuous. My aim with this blog has always … Continue reading ...
The euro: A domesday machine
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As a counter to the last post, an interesting from investment banker Marshall Auerback at EconoMonitor, worth a read for a bit of history on the (evidently flawed) economic assumptions underpinning the formation of the euro and some links to …...
An unpopular view: The UK missed out by not joining the euro
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Hell, this would have been an unpopular view at most stages in the last decade and a half, even when it looked like the eurozone was doing well. So it’s a brave British politician indeed to make the argument that … Continue reading →...
EU democracy creeping in?
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Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami makes a good case that the slow advance of the European democratic will is starting to have an impact (hurrah, etc.): “Europe’s experience has shown that the subordination of society to economic...
Is there a plan at last?
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New EU recovery plan, eh? It’s about bloody time, though some areas are likely to scare the usual suspects (emphasis mine)… “The proposals… are said to be focused on 4 main areas so far: structural reforms, a banking union, a...
Krugman on Soros on the eurocrisis
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Paul Krugman: “If there were any villains, they were the architects of the euro”...
