You have to hand it to George Soros. When he goes for it, he hits the target big. Look at this speech arguing that the introduction of Eurobonds is by far the best way to solve the Eurozone’s (and EU’s existential crisis). I myself have no idea what a Eurobond […]
Here is an interesting (but not altogether clear) piece about Cyprus and ‘national insolvency’ by Stephen Kinsella at Harvard Business Review: … national borrowing on the modern scale really only began around the seventeenth century. Before that in the monarchical era, so-called “court bankers” provided cash-strapped sovereigns with loans and […]
Back from sharing with the Croatian Diplomatic Academy some training thoughts on Lobbying and Negotiating in the European Union. With the Cyprus drama helpfully unfolding before our startled eyes. These fiendishly complex financial/banking negotiations are impossible for normal people to follow, although anyone following my Twitter feed will have seen […]
Here’s my Telegraph Blogs piece this morning on the news coming from Brussels that mirabile dictu the EU Budget may in fact not grow over the coming seven year financial cycle: The French have made the usual belligerent noises, feigning to champion increased spending that they too can’t afford. As […]
My piece for The Commentator on the PM’s UK/EU speech as a speech: … Those sentences, like the opening blather about the origins of the European Union, are intended to send a strong signal to other European capitals: You won’t get a better UK Conservative leader than me who has […]
Here is my Telegraph Blogs take on The Speech: The core Cameron calculation turns on his probably shrewd calculation that the centre of gravity of the British people’s position on “Europe” is that they want Some EU, but Not Too Much. He therefore has promised them a referendum on a […]
Here is an elegant bit of work by Jonathan Golub (golub means pigeon in Serbian, by the way) attempting to measure which EU member states are better at getting their way within the system. I could add all sorts of glosses, but read the whole thing and see for yourself […]
Imagine you’re a member of the public mulling over EU issues and the future of the UK/EU relationship. Your heart must sink at the prospect of assorted former Ambassadors hooting mournfully at each other on these questions. Over at Telegraph Blogs is my latest piece on this subject, pointing to […]
Just when you thought it safe to return to the water, here’s me over at Commentator on the astounding idea of the Consent of the Governed: Back in Europe the many issues arising from the UK/EU debate are no less far-reaching, and boil down to this ‘consent of the governed’ […]
The Climate Summit at Copenhagen was a supreme example of collective European negotiating incompetence: Copenhagen was a startling example of how this big tent approach to agreeing global issues is unworkable. It predictably slumped into an uncontrolled haggle which as each day passed grew more and more detached from respectable […]
