Blair vs Juncker: Hot debates for the EU presidency.

A. Gorskiy. Missed in action. in Soviet War Paintings.

MAIN FOCUS: Juncker wants to stop Blair’s march to power | 28/10/2009

The next stage is to work for a stronger Union

Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2009-2010 (PDF; 357 KB)
Source: European Commission

The fifth enlargement of the EU has helped to consolidate democracy and the rule of law in Europe. It has enhanced economic opportunities and increased the weight of the EU in tackling global challenges such as climate change, competitiveness and the regulation and supervision of financial markets. Over the last five years, the enlarged EU has demonstrated its capacity to work together to address the important challenges it faces. Enlargement is one of the most effective foreign policy instruments of the EU.

From Rome to Brussels: Lisbon Treaty ratifications

From the 1957 Treaties of Rome, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom), the ratifications of the treaties marking the various stages of European integration have been deposited with the Italian government in Rome.

Race to be EU president heats up

First Europe, then? the world?

A few vague thoughts towards predicting a new global geopolitics:

Globalisation has been the undeniable trend of the last half century.

As transportation and communication technologies have advanced, the world has got smaller. You can now get from London to Australia in a day where, two hundred years ago ? at the height of the nation state ? it would have taken several times that to travel from London to Edinburgh. A century ago, most goods in your local shop would have been local to your (more or less) immediate area ? even with the expansion of 19th century Empires and the arrival in Europe of affordably-priced exotic fruits and out-of-season vegetables, delivered via early refrigerated ships. Now we have to go to specialist shops to get local produce ? and local today often means little more than ?from the same country?. As for the interconnectedness of the global economy, we have had the ultimate proof over the last year as recession has spread around the world.

?EU President? & 18 Brumaire

What is disturbing about the campaign of Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi, Brian Cowen, David Miliband and their entourages to appoint Tony Blair the first President of the European Council?

BNP more divisive than ever

Hopes that inviting a racist party member to prime-time television questioning would detract from his appeal were dashed last week. Ratings for the far-right British Nationalist Party increased following leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on the influential BBC program Question Time.

European Development Days 2009

For two days last week (22-24.10), Stockholm was a real buzz. The fourth edition of European Development Days was organised jointly by the European Commission and the Swedish Presidency. I was honoured to be asked to participate in this annual event that drew together thousands and thousands of people from all over the world.

The concept of leadership in Central Europe

Here Comes The European Recovery

Can?t you just see it?

According to Eurostat in both the euro area (EA16) and the EU27, the seasonally adjusted household saving rate continued to increase and the household investment rate to decrease n the second quarter of 2009. In both regions the fall in business investment rates and profit shares continued, though at a lower rate. In the second quarter of 2009, the seasonally adjusted gross saving rate of households was 14.4% in the EU27 compared with 13.5% in the first quarter of 2009. In the euro area, the household saving rate was 16.5% in the second quarter of 2009, compared with 16.0% in the previous quarter. In both cases these were the highest rates recorded since the start of the time series in the first quarter of 1999.

European Council top jobs: Procedures, offices and persons

Have we advanced much since I looked at the freshly signed amending treaty in the blog post ?EU Treaty of Lisbon: CFSP implementation? (13 January 2008)? Have our leaders improved the procedures? Have they taken the citizens of the European Union on board?

Everyone must move to Finland right now

So some British think tank called the ?Legatum Institute? has published an index of the best countries in which to live. Apparently they?ve been doing this every year for a while now, but it just now caught my eye.

Let me start by saying that I find this index pretty dubious. (N.B., there are a lot of bad international indexes out there. Don?t get me started on the American Heritage Index of Economic Freedom.) The Legatum Institute?s staff appears to be a mixture of warmed-over Thatcherites and recently-unemployed American conservatives. So it?s not surprising that the top 20 countries are dominated by western Europe and the Anglosphere, while the bottom ranks are all former colonies full of brown folk.