Barroso faces business backlash

Business leaders put pressure on the European Commission president over draft plans on climate change.

EU treaty 'same as constitution'

Parts of the Lisbon Treaty, signed by Gordon Brown, are the same as the abandoned EU Constitution, UK MPs say.

Musharraf begins European visit

The Pakistani president begins an eight-day trip to Europe, with democracy and terrorism likely to top the agenda.

EU climate policy 'too negative'

Green groups accuse the EU of planning for failure in international negotiations to tackle climate change.

China & the EU: A common future

China and the European Union have an "inescapable common future", with no alternative but to co-operate more closely for the sake of their peoples' well-being and prosperity as well as world peace and stability, writes Stanley Crossick on Blogactiv, quoting from his latest book "China-EU: A common future".

Serbia’s presidential election: the best-laid plans..., Eric Gordy

In Eric Gordy

The best-laid plans of the unpopular party in power came to nothing in the Serbian presidential election on 20 January 2008, mostly because the voters decided to surprise everybody by turning out in large numbers. In the immediate aftermath, the hadlines report that Serbian Radical Party (SRS) candidate Tomislav Nikolic "won" the first round against incumbent president and Democratic Party (DS) leader Boris Tadic with a 39.6% plurality of the vote to the 35.4% received by Tadic

Serbia, Round One

By Douglas Muir on Serbia

So Serbia held Round One of their presidential election yesterday.

A little background. It’s only three and a half years since the last election (June 2004), but the secession of Montenegro in May 2006 caused the Serbs to adopt a new constitution. That provided for a new Presidential term, which required a new election. But the constitution wasn’t very specific as to when. A long wrangle ensued, with Prime Minister Kostunica’s party trying to put the election off as long as possible, mostly because Kostunica has come to hate incumbent President Boris Tadic a lot, and he thought later elections would get caught up in the Kosovo wrangle, putting Tadic at a disadvantage. Which is pretty much what has happened.

Serbia: ¿Cuánto costó "acabarlo"?

By Francisco Veiga

El candidato Tomišlav Nikolić: aunque todavía cuesta verlo como un político refinado de maneras occidentales, la asesoría norteamericana puede obrar milagros

Europe and Islam

by Shirl Kennedy

Europe and Islam
Source: American Enterprise Institute

This pamphlet is the text of the 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture, delivered at the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., on March 7, 2007. The Irving Kristol Award, named for the eminent author and intellectual and longtime AEI senior fellow, is the Institute’s highest honor, bestowed annually by its Council of Academic Advisers. The Irving Kristol lectures (and their predecessors before 2003, the Francis Boyer lectures) are posted on the AEI website at www.aei.org/kristolaward/.

European Union: A decade and more of monthly construction statistics

by Gary Price

European Union: A decade and more of monthly construction statistics

Thanks to the efforts made by the Member States and Eurostat during these last years, the availability of short-term statistics for construction has been improved. In particular the EU index of production in construction recently became monthly instead of quarterly. This SIF presents a decade and more of short-term construction statistics: it provides an overview of the last ten years in that sector and also a brief analysis of the recent developments in this important activity.

Europe, the EU and Its 2050 Energy Storylines Clingendael



The race for the EU presidency Blair for president?

Another copy paste from TurcoPundit :

EU and Japan's Demographic Challenge By: Vladimir Spidla | The Japan Times
The biggest challenges facing both Japan and Europe today are remarkably similar: How do we adapt to the huge changes in our countries brought about by globalization and by an aging population?

EU's Russia Question By: Giles Merritt | The Moscow Times
Friend or foe, or something uneasily in-between? That's the question Europe is asking about Russia, and Russia about a newly aggressive Europe.

Greek Daily Comments on Updated EU Terrorism List

Sarkozy's Philosophy for the World - John Lichfield, The Independent

Mardell's Euroblog
So which is it to be? Serbs choose between East and West

President Blair can make Sarkozy's dream come true Martin Kettle: The French leader has the classic Gaullist vision: Europe, with our former prime minister in the chair, shaping the world

Christian Noyer sees 'partial decoupling' of U.S. and EU economies The Bank of France governor said consumers and financial institutions in the euro zone appeared relatively insulated from effects of the subprime mortgage market meltdown.

Russia Fires Back

2008 will unfortunately be marked by a new conflict - the one in Kosovo. This small Southern Serbian region of 2-million-population is a challenge to any state's foreign policy; even to those that are not directly linked to the conflict. The fact is that many countries want borders in Europe to be newly mapped. This article will handle the positions of most of the poles of power in the world plus, it will include a presentation of my point of view on this issue.

DOSSIER: Nokia closes plant in Germany | 18/01/2008

Finnish mobile telephone manufacturer Nokia has announced that it will close its plant in Bochum. The jobs are to be shifted to Romania and Hungary. This step has triggered criticism, particularly as the corporation had received a subsidy of 88 million euros for locating the works in North Rhine-Westphalia.

German politicians ditch their Nokias

German politicians declared that they were ditching their Nokia mobile phones as anger grew over the Finnish company's decision to move a factory from Germany to Romania at the cost of 2,000 jobs

Caravan capitalism

Germany, arguably the biggest winner in the globalisation stakes among rich countries, is also one of the richest sources of petulant epithets against the source of its riches

Outside Edge: Gross national 'joie de vivre'

Nicolas Sarkozy is planning to update the way France measures economic activity to take more account of quality of life, writes John Thornhill

Sarkozy gambles on happy ending

If Mr Sarkozy succeeds politically, l'affaire Carla will be remembered as rather endearing. If his reforms falter, it will be seen as the sorry tale of another middle-aged man seeking to reclaim his youth with a younger woman, writes Philip Stephens

Foreign policy differences hit Merkel coalition

New foreign policy differences emerged on Friday between Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier as the chancellor indicated she had opposed the foreign minister's decision this week to welcome Syria's top diplomatic envoy to Berlin

Try and sing the Spanish national anthem

Talks of a European anthem were recently dropped, but to some Spaniards it seems a shame to splice lyrics and lose what makes their country’s anthem unique

This week in Network Europe

 

Europe is a Threat to the United States

By Joerg Wolf

Asked by the BBC (video) where he sees the biggest threat coming from, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff answers that the US is increasingly concerned that "Europe will become a platform for terrorists." Chertoff said he had seen "home-grown terrorism begin to rise in Europe".

Remembering the important things

Slovenia remembers

The Reform Treaty: Its Impact on the EU Institutions

By Brendan Donnelly

Introductory Comment

Many institutional provisions of the Reform Treaty are framed, perhaps deliberately, in general, permissive or tentative terms. The real impact of these provisions will therefore only emerge in the course of their implementation. This implementation will be influenced by the personalities involved in the workings of the new structures and the general political background against which implementation takes place. As a result, some uncertainty must still attach to many answers offered to the Committee's questions.

[Comment] Power is slipping from the commission to the council

The case for adapting the policy framework in the euro area

Maintaining a learning mindset and showing willingness to adapt the policy framework of European monetary union is "crucial" to the euro's long-term success, according to a January report from Bruegel.

UK Parliament ups pressure on EU Treaty referendum

Rebel Labour MPs are expected to join forces with the Conservatives today (21 January) in a bid to force through a referendum on the new EU Reform Treaty, after a report by the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that the text is the same as the abandoned EU Constitution.

Daily Mail excerpt from New Cold War

By Edward Lucas

Putin: the brutal despot who is dragging the West into a new Cold War

By EDWARD LUCAS - Few things embodied Stalinist terror more than the midnight knock on the door.

For millions of innocent victims it heralded interrogation, torture and a lengthy - and all too often lethal - sentence in the Communist concentration camps of the Gulag.

Now the heirs of Stalin's secret police are running Russia - and there could be few clearer signs of their true nature than the British Council's Russian staff being hauled from their beds to answer for the "crime" of working for a foreign employer.

Kosovo: Making the Transition

Members of the Atlantic Community are mostly optimistic about the future of Kosovo and conflict resolution in the Western Balkans. The EU has a key role in this region and policy is in the right track, but, of course, big challenges still lie ahead.


Guido Steinberg

The Return of al-Qaida

Current Developments in International Terrorism and Their Consequences for Europe

SWP Comments 2007/C 22, December 2007, 8 pages

Daniela Kietz (ed.) | Volker Perthes (ed.)

The Potential of the Council Presidency

An Analysis of Germany's Chairmanship of the EU, 2007

SWP Research Paper 2008/RP 01, January 2008, 112 pages

Growing old gracefully: How to ease population ageing in Europe
essay by Alasdair Murray, January 2008

Hervé Devillé,
"Unemployment in Brussels: between skill mismatch and job competition. About the need to combine selective and comprehensive employment policies in the Brussels-Capital Region"

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