A friendly reader asks: Thank you for producing such a thought-provoking and readable blog. I thought you may be interested in this link to a press release from the Swedish MFA. They plan to close 6 Posts and open 10. https://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/12653/a/138250 Several of these post closures are in the EU. […]
Adam Jasser (Polish, Reuters journalist-turned-pundit, good egg) argues that the grim problems besetting Greece and its public finances could lead to the Eurozone getting even stronger: The argument goes that a default would require Greece to leave the euro zone and increase pressure on other peripherals such as Spain or Portugal. […]
Here from euobserver is a detailed account of the goings-on behind the EU scenes, as everyone tries to work out how the new EU External Action Service will be structured. And who will get which jobs, since that will have a huge influence on the way it all works (or […]
European Voice looks at the humiliation of the Eurozone if Greece has to go to the IMF for help with its uneconomic economy, and the different schemes being cooked up by other EU members to try to manage the problem: There is mounting concern in Frankfurt, Brussels and in other eurozone […]
I have been asked by the FCO to give a talk there later in January to a group of foreign visitors about Using Democracy for Peace. Or maybe it was Using Peace for Democracy. I forget. One or the other. As always the Balkans is/are a laboratory for cutting-edge research […]
Derek Tonkin, former British Ambassador to Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, knows a few things about that part of the world. Hence it is good to see him helping with this lively site, Network Myanmar. See for example this page with a long list of handy links to articles about Myanmar […]
A reader says nice things about my long posting on the Copenhagen Negotiating Disaster (for the EU at least) but also asks a terrific question: A remarkable piece of analysis, Charles, with fascinating insights for the outsider. I detect a theme emerging in your posts – a sort of neo-realpolitik […]
Who does not remember that back in 2005 the witty literati on the Blair team at No 10 affectionately used to call Chancellor Gordon Brown Mrs Rochester, in honour of his wild shrieks from the Whitehall attic against the emerging EU Budget deal, under which the UK surrendered part of its […]
A very powerful piece in the Guardian/Observer (yes!) decribing the grisly fate of official useful idiot Malcolm Caldwell, whose banal self-delusion about communist crimes led to his banal murder in Pol Pot’s Cambodia. But this is astounding – can it really be true? The UN-supported court (ECCC) investigating communist crimes […]
Remember drippy Comparative Politics? Now with added EU! New EU High Representative Baroness Ashton: The EU is now in a position to assume a "stronger, more credible role in the world," the nominee for the EU’s top foreign policy post says… Aargh. Who drafts this lame stuff for her? This person? […]
