My latest piece over at Telegraph Blogs looks at how far if at all we can fathom out whether any given EU Budget outcome represents a ‘cut’, and if so a cut of precisely what: The key thing to look for this time is (a) the baseline used for any […]
My latest piece over at Telegraph Blogs looks at how far if at all we can fathom out whether any given EU Budget outcome represents a ‘cut’, and if so a cut of precisely what: The key thing to look for this time is (a) the baseline used for any […]
Decision time (or not) for the EU Budget for the period 2014-2020. I have written extensively on this subject. Here is my classic analysis (in two parts) from 2010 at Conservative Home on the whole process. Read it to get up to speed. More recently I was opining at Telegraph […]
Here I am after a long gap (spent trying to earn some money) back at Telegraph Blogs, offering my thoughts on the various EU Budget rows now unfolding: The EU has annual budget rows. But the big row comes around every seven years, when the so-called Financial Framework for the […]
Over at the FT is a magnificent article by Samuel Brittan that with unerring precision demolishes certain arguments often put forward for why the European Union ‘must’ be supported. I subscribe to the FT online edition so it may be paywalled and unable to be seen by some readers. If so, […]
Last week I had the pleasure of going to Blenheim Palace to watch Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski deliver a powerful speech about Europe – and the UK’s increasingly unhappy role in it. Here is the full text. Some extracts: While you are an important market for the rest of […]
What would happen if the state took aim at national energy policy where investment decisions and later outputs have to be calculated over decades – and decided to go for something Completely Different? Exhibit USA. Exhibit Europe.
Hmm. Is the UK going to try to ‘repatriate’ powers from Brussels? And if so, what are the chances of success? It isn’t clear to me why the other EU member states would go along with this, unless we block something horribly important to them (such as the next Budget) […]
An interesting and instructive visit to Riga for this year’s Riga Conference. Thoughts. First, Riga itself. Latvia took an enormous (and partly self-imposed) hit as the Euro zone crisis began, opting for radical austerity measures. Views now differ. Yes, the economy is growing once again at a pretty good rate. […]
Off tomorrow to this year’s Riga Conference, the distinguished Northern Europe security and wider policy forum. My first time at this event. Plenty of meat on the menu, including legendary Polish economist and intellectual Lesek Balcerowicz on the subject of the Eurozone. I appear in full hoot at Night Owl […]
Jasmin Mujanovic, a self-styled ‘proud Wobby’ young left-anarchist based in Canada but with Bosniak roots, has written at some length on the problems of the Dayton Peace Accords. He offers his suggestions for making progress, seemingly a BH-wide series of open meetings at which Bosnians define for themselves new constitutional principles. […]
