Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Massacre of the Innocents, 1565-7. In Bruegel to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting Exhibition Opens at The Royal Collection
MAIN FOCUS: Climate debate postponed | 17/10/2008
The EU has postponed its climate debate until December, but despite the financial crisis is continuing to adhere to its emissions reduction targets. This has annoyed Poland and Italy in particular, which have repeatedly warned that climate protection must not overburden industry. The European press is at odds about what the EU summit has actually achieved for the climate and how the EU should now proceed.
Summit: Minor progress on banking supervision
Despite pleas to go further, EU leaders gathering in Brussels for the European Council only managed to agree upon limited steps to improve the cross-border supervision of banks, widely seen as one of the missing links behind the current financial crisis.
Brussels readies for tough climate negotiations
After being given a mandate by European leaders to finalise climate and energy measures before the end of 2008, EU lawmakers are running short of time to seal a deal that satisfies Europe’s ecological and industrial ambitions simultaneously.
Interview: EU ‘key’ to promoting sport’s social values
A potential future EU competence on sport should be based on social, educational and citizenship values, argues a sports NGO in an interview with EurActiv.
French culture’s existential angst
France is coming to see that it is not so much a protector of minority cultures as a minority culture itself, writes Christopher Caldwell
This Weekend in Thrilling European Administration
There are essentially two basic critiques of the EU’s institutions; one is the classic, Monnet/Schuman house ideology view that its problems are simply because there isn’t enough of it. If it was more like the US federal government, it would work better; and, as we designed it to get more like that, it must be somebody’s fault. The British are usually the somebody, but Italy, Spain, Germany, and the new members are all candidates.
Eastern Europe’s economies
(from economist.com today)
A chill wind blows east
From Economist.com
Emerging markets in eastern Europe, battered by financial turmoil, may soon need outsiders’ help
WHICH country will be the next Iceland? The dramatic collapse of the Nordic country’s economy has concentrated international attention on other risky but obscure corners of the financial system. The stability of the Ukrainian hryvnia, the ill-regulated Kazakh banking system, and Hungarian borrowers’ penchant for loans in Swiss francs are subjects crowding on to policymakers’ desks.
US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Security Relations after the Elections
SWP Comments 2008/C 23, October 2008, 8 pages
The election campaign rhetoric on foreign policy issues is no direct
indicator of the strategic priorities a new US President will set later –
nor is it indicative of the actual policies which will… more
Towards a Common Transatlantic Strategy in Dealing with Russia?
SWP Comments 2008/C 22, October 2008, 4 pages
The conflict over Georgia has had one positive implication: the United
States and Europe are forced to think strategically in dealing with
Russia. Since the end of the cold war, Russia – and this is… more