Les menaces  sur le Conseil de l’Europe sont bien connues des lecteurs de Nea say qui en a relaté quelques unes. Ce peu de considération pour le Conseil de l’Europe est ancien quasi atavique. Un instant mis en veilleuse car voyant dans cette institution un contre exemple des institutions communautaires, le Conseil de l’Europe aurait [...]

I’ve been looking at DG Sanco’s plans for medicines for 2012, and I am disappointed. Two years ago, DG Sanco took over the medicines dossier in the European Commission from DG Enterprise. Many people, myself included, had argued for years for such a transfer – to separate responsibility for medicines from responsibility for promoting the [...]

The Defense Strategic Review (DSR) released by the Pentagon on the 5th of January 2012 summarises the Obama Administration’s geopolitical agenda and strategic priorities. From it, experts can discern which country is considered the new enemy of the USA, although President Obama’s speech on the occasion does not mention China by name. In France, the [...]

Presentarse campechanamente como si se estuviera en casa, en familia, sin saber idiomas tiene el riesgo de quedar uno como los indios siux y su inefable “how” para saludar al Séptimo de Caballería. Ni que decir tiene que Angela esperaba de Mariano un comedido “Pleased to meet you”. Y algo parecido debió sentir Rajoy antes [...]

L’Europe, l’Europe politique, est-ce bien raisonnable ? Est-ce bien raisonnable d’entretenir cet espoir  par les temps qui courent, face à l’affaiblissement de l’ambition collective. Les signes sont évidents et se sont accumulés au cours de la dernière décennie. Le plus préoccupant est l’accentuation de la distance politique entre le centre de décision que représente, de façon [...]

Ana Maria Anghelescu is an 18 year-old Romanian high school student. Today, she sent a letter to ThinkYoung, hoping to make Europe aware of the protests being carried out in her country. She believes that even if the demonstrations are featured in the news, not enough people pay attention to the underlying motives of the [...]

Monday, January 23rd 2012, the new Belgian Prime Minister di Rupo flew to Berlin for a one-hour working lunch with his German counterpart, Chancellor Merkel, to make her personal acquaintance and prepare for the European Council meeting on January 30th. The visit has been extremely short, no more than two hours in the German capital. [...]

The new threat to European identity Four or five years ago, nearly every European Union official was looking to make national newspaper headlines. Today, the EU is a fixture on the front page — but not in a way we expected. Four to five years ago too, the European Union was encouraging its citizens to [...]

For many British politicians and for much of the UK press, the European Court of Human Rights is the very embodiment of foreign meddling in British life. Two particular findings of the Court have stirred passions in Britain: a 2005 ruling that anyone i…

On 25 January 2012 David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, gave a speech during the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The speech was on one hand full of compassion over the raising backlog of cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), on the other hand it stressed [...]

Readers that are unfamiliar with the soap opera that is politics in Malta, may be unaware that there is something of a political crisis underway. I shall refrain from boring you with the details, but let’s just say that it is less of a storm in a…

Denmark has an excellent track record of commitment and expertise when it comes to helping the world’s poorest. Onlookers have good reason to hope that Denmark will make sure that the EU remains ambitious in its development and humanitarian goals and keeps its promise to place poverty eradication at the heart of EU external action. [...]

With our eyes, ears and souls overwhelmingly focused on the socio-economic crisis and the struggle to fight it, we seem to have neglected the scope of a remarkable transformation that has affected Europe’s traditional political life. In the latter part of 2011, within a matter of weeks, critical political situations have been surprisingly unlocked, paving [...]

As you all know, every year politicians, journalists and capitalists meet in Davos. The capitalists, the richest and most influential ones, are among the best represented. Since four years they have been trying to find an answer on what to do with the ongoing economic crisis. During this time almost everyone was condemned – bankers, [...]

The policies of Merkel do not align with her rhetoric. Image Source: Flickr In her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said among others the following (from euronews): Do we want coherence without ambition? If we do, we will meet somewhere in the middle. Or do we want to [...]