On his CAP Reform blog Jack Thurston has a story that illustrates one of the many reasons why reforming the EU’s wasteful and protectionist farming policies is so difficult. The post centres on Henrik Høegh, Denmark’s newly appointed Farming Minister,…

EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton is absent from the meeting of EU defence ministers in Majorca today - the first to be held since the Lisbon Treaty came into force.AFP reports that the defence ministers will be considering increased permanent struc…

EUobserver today reports that Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has written an angry letter to EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton demanding to know why Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has appointed ‘his man’ as the EU’s new ambassador to W…

A leader in this week’s Economist looks at one of the areas where the EU is rarely criticised: its competition policy.EU Competition policy can broadly be divided into two main areas.The first area deals with state aid - it is the job of the EU to prev…

As we never tire of pointing out, the Lisbon Treaty has made sport an EU competence, which means various EU initiatives, decided on by majority voting, in this area are sure to be coming our way soon. The Commission is due to carry out a consultation w…

Interesting article from Economics Professor and heavyweight Martin Feldstein in the Financial Times this morning - suggesting a temporary vacation from the single currency might be a plausible solution to the Greek debt crisis.It’s one we haven’t hear…

The EU’s finance ministers, and a handful of heads of state, are meeting today in another attempt to come up with answers to the ‘Greek question’. No details are expected to be announced, although an agreed declaration will give Greece a month to get d…

The comment pages of today and the weekend’s papers were understandably filled with reflections on a potential Greek bailout and the wider implications for the euro and the EU as a whole. We argued in our recent briefing that a bailout would have far-r…

It seems that yesterday was a rather gruelling day for EU leaders with hours of squabbling over how to handle the looming Greek tragedy. Then cue left enters EU President, Van Rompuy, who, we assume, wanting to lighten the atmosphere, decided to announ…

Latest word is that the eurozone group is holding an emergency video conference this afternoon to discuss Greece’s economic situation and possible ways to go ahead with a much anticipated (read: much feared) bailout of the country. This morning’s press…