Readers of this site usually have some interest in central Europe and/or the great battles of ideas which ‘Europe’ represents. One of those battles, perhaps the central battle in that it defines the intellectual space upon which all the others are fought, is the ‘comparison’ between Communism and Nazism, between […]
Renewed talk of changing the core EU Treaties, this time to strengthen sanctions against countries which show themselves unworthy of being in the Eurozone? The problem with changing one part of the EU core structure (this time to meet German demands that Germany and its banks be protected from being […]
The worthy newspaper Blic in Belgrade asked me for a short commentary on my recollections of the Fall of Milosevic a decade ago. Here is the result. All in Serbian and with an eccentric picture of me by way of bonus. But Google Translator should help you get the gist. Of […]
I have been writing a piece for Business and Politics on Greed. It has involved intensive research on the Internet. I thought I would share with my loyal readers my core findings. Thus: Let’s run some Google searches and look at the Top 10 Greedy Grabbers: Greedy financiers: […]
Here is a fascinating piece over at Spiegel Online describing the ambitions of the EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs (sic) to punish those EU member states which have the temerity to sell products which people want to buy and threby run a nice export surplus: According to draft […]
Daniel Hannan MEP berates the fact that UK contributions to the EU Budget are rising steeply at a time when all Government Departments in the UK are being forced to look for deep cuts. (Note: a terse video clip showing Mr Hannan orating in the European Parliament, a melodrama not improved by an […]
The WSJ does a good job at shining a light on the top-level secret machinations which have been trying to keep the Eurozone from falling apart. Some vivid descriptions of how our beloved leaders behave towards each other: When Mr. Sarkozy barreled into one meeting with camera crews and photographers in […]
I was back stalking in the long corridors of the Foreign Office today, to give a talk on behalf of ADRg Ambassadors. I put in a word for Mediation as an example of the hard-edged soft power tool the UK now needed to be ffective at a time of growing global uncertainty […]
The EU is busy setting up its new External Action Service. Vital to make sure from the outset that some of Europe’s brightest diplomats get key positions on merit, not on the trivially irrelevant criteria of where they were born? Hey, we’re all Europeans together after all! Of course not. Let’s […]
A delicious insight into the way EU leaders squabble with each other when we can’t watch what they are up to is given to us by Le Monde, as borrowed by Open Europe. The top-level ghastly personal row breaks out over the French moves to deport Roma people. The various […]
