These extracts from the German Bundesbank August Outlook (via Guido) capture something as basic as basic can be in the way Germany looks at the Eurozone’s problems. The Bundesbank says almost in so many words that if EU member states want the benefit of the full weight of German financial discipline […]
That letter from President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel to Herman van Rompuy (President of the European Council) has shaken rather than stirred the word’s financial markets. I thought it worth a detailed look. But Protesilaos Stavrou has done it for me. Here is his thorough and interesting fisking by someone close […]
Here is a long and generally brilliant analysis of the Eurozone’s predicament by Edward Hugh. I especially like the way he explains deftly the hard realities and policy paradoxes we all now face, in one hard-hitting paragraph after another: It is not simply a question of “closet” (or open) eurosceptics […]
Lots of things are incredibly complicated and yet oddly simple when you strip down the issues to the basics. Such as the Eurozone drama. Amidst all the swirling technical/clever analysis of bonds, treaty provisions, sovereign debts and so on, Marshall Auerback gives us this lively thought: Germany is in effect […]
Here is what the Express says is the text of a strange letter from PM David Cameron’s political private secretary Laurence Mann to a ‘Conservative activist’ (that one seems like a contradiction in terms, but never mind) on the subject of the UK’s membership of the European Union and why an […]
Andrzej Lepper, turbulent leader of Poland’s left-populist Self-Defence party, yesterday was found dead. Apparently by hanging himself in his party office in Warsaw Where to start? The English Wikipedia page gives the basics of his lively career, describing how he came from a modest rural family background and with little formal education […]
A handy round up of some of my wise and prescient thoughts from the past year on the state of the European Union. 1 18 October 2010 … Which prompts me to post this extract from my Krakow presentation, a slide entitled Will EU Diplomacy Survive? Indeed, such are the […]
Julian Borger at the Guardian has written a long and well-sourced piece about the hunt for Bosnian war crimes suspects. It even quotes me a couple of times (no great surprises for diligent readers of this site). The key policy dilemma point is here, tucked away in the middle of the […]
Many of my loyal readers will not follow cricket. Nor do I, tuning into it fleetingly every few years when England manage to do something better than hopeless. But now, armed with Sky HD TV, a fiery England side and nothing else to do, I am enthralled by this England v […]
Here we are, back from Turkey after the Mother of All Horrible Flights thanks to Thomson Airways, which diligently contrived an 18-hour information-free delay. Details to be written up when I have the strength. For now have a look at my latest DIPLOMAT piece on Diplomatic Technique. It helpfully includes the answers […]
