The European Parliament is the greatest place on earth for practising the highest arts of fast and accurate interpreting: hundreds of interpreters are on hand when the Parliament is sitting to help get the 23 official languages each translated as necessary into any one of 22 other languages. Sometimes a […]
Here is a trenchant analysis of the tendency of Bosnia to split in two, written by Matthew Parish, a lawyer who has worked in the divided Bosnian city of Brcko and knows what he is talking about. His basic argument is that step by step Republika Srpska is heading towards […]
I previously briefed you on the machinations behind the scramble for EU Top Jobs and the close relationship between Foreign Policy and Physics. The dramatic result? Not very exciting. Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy is chosen as president of the European Council and the UK’s Catherine Ashton becomes the EU High Represenative (aka foreign […]
The ever-busy International Crisis Group have written quite a good paper about the current Bosnia and Herzegovina interlocking impasses (so to speak). Here it is. One point of interest. Back at Harvard in 1998 I wrote a long paper about the Dayton Peace Process which posed a challenging question: is […]
Some key points about the scramble for the top EU jobs which you will not read about in the media. The Lisbon Treaty creates two new roles: President of the European Council (‘President of Europe’); and High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy (‘EU Foreign Minister’). But with these jobs […]
Back from training EU officials in Mediation techniques, with an eye on the role of mediation at the international level. One of our role-play examples featured an attempt by an imaginary Head of Mission in an imaginary country trying to mediate between his Deputy and a younger Political Officer over […]
Former senior diplomat Sir Christopher Meyer is busy describing what he sees as a decline in the influence and technique of British diplomacy: New Labour’s obsessive reliance on the alchemy of consultants has infected much of Whitehall. The culture of targets, set by the Treasury, has acquired the madness and […]
Here is a must-read analysis by William Voegeli on the long-term results of tax competition between Texas and California. Many tough passages: It’s not surprising, then, that an intense debate rages over which model is more satisfactory and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax […]
Former President of Republika Srpska Biljana Plavsic has left her prison cell in Sweden to return to Belgrade: a land where war criminals are heroes, according to Nenad Pejic: Serbia has been — and continues to be — in a state of denial about the 1990s wars for more than […]
Here for those of you with a few minutes to spare is an eloquent Lord Mandelson pressing the case for Tony Blair to become the first ‘President of Europe’ (and swiping at the UK Conservatives’ EU policy). The politics of it are familiar enough. What struck me was his assertion […]
