October 25, 2010
The past week has seen the EU come under immense pressure, from press and politicians from across member states, as negotiations for 2011’s budget come to a head. However, criticisms have seemed to fall on deaf ears, as the Commission and the European …
Posted by Open Europe blog team
Hats off to the House of Commons.Earlier today it grasped the nettle and employed the Lisbon Treaty’s ‘yellow card’ procedure for the first time (if nine national parliaments object to a proposal from the Commission on ‘subsidiarity’ grounds, within an…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
October 22, 2010
The excellent WSJ Real Time Brussels blog notes that EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski isn’t entirely happy with the amount of money that potentially can be lent to struggling governments, using the EU budget as a guarantee.Mr. Lewandowski told…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
October 21, 2010
As we’ve noted before, Germany’s attitude to the EU and the famous Franco-German alliance is changing (plug: we will be organising a debate in Berlin next Tuesday on that very topic). Take German liberal MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin (photo) for example. Sh…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
We’ve said a thing or two in the past about the wonders of EU spin ‘communication’. But the European Parliament’s attempted defence of MEPs’ decision to increase the EU’s 2011 budget by 5.9% is a stretch so far that it has descended into farce.
Firstl…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
October 19, 2010
We take another look at this question over on the Spectator’s coffee house blog. With the risk of sounding repetitive, we argue,Rather than instinctively reaching for the veto, David Cameron should back Merkel’s demands, in return for the repatriatio…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
October 18, 2010
As we anticipated in our previous post, it appears as if Germany has won French backing for a change to the EU treaties in return for greater flexibility on sanctions for eurozone countries which run excessive deficits.France and Germany have agreed th…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
While hundreds of journalists from all over Europe descended on Luxembourg, hoping to find out what the future of EU economic governance holds, the real decisions were taken in Deauville – a small village in Lower Normandy where Nicolas Sarkozy and Ang…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
It is hard to think of a better example of how not to run a large-scale infrastructure project than the EU’s Galileo satellite system. In a new briefing we set out the latest cost over-runs and delays to a project that is now expected to be completed a…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
October 15, 2010
Conservative MEP Ashley Fox may have thought of a practical plan to reduce some of the ridiculous cost of the European Parliament’s travelling circus from Brussels to Strasbourg each month.There have been many previous attempts to abolish this hugely w…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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