Videos from the Pan-European Energy Summit in Svishtov (Bulgaria), August 2009

They have not yet taken office – nor even been nominated, yet the new Commissioners have already face a list of demands from some of the European Union’s leading thinkers. The Bruegel Report issues memos to the new Commission and makes interesting read…

While Westminster is still to be roused from its long summer slumber, the European Parliament is back at work. New (and returning) MEPs hit the ground running after the Euro elections in June. Already, new political groups have been formed, senior post…

The Editor in Chief of the Bulgarian web-site europe.bg, Ognyan Boyadzhiev, was beaten up badly in his apartment in Sofia’s Ivan Vazov quarter. The 34-year-old man has been taken to Military Hospital in the capital, Darik radio reported. His condition is stable, and there is no threat for his life. Europe.bg is a project of [...]

We MEPs are all in Strasbourg this week for the final plenary of the European Parliament before the European elections, and there’s a lot to get through. However busy this week is, there will still be a great stack of issues landing in the in-tray for the start of the new 2009-2013 Parliament. It’s up [...]

As the UK’s foremost pro-European organisation aimed at communicating positive ideas about Europe as well as encouraging civil society to take part in debates on contemporary global problems and the role the EU should play in defending its citizens’ interests, the European Movement would like to invite its members and all those with an interest [...]

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was right in his recent LSE speech: there is nothing inevitable about globalization. The current crisis puts its continuation into doubt, as protectionist calls grow louder and the policy response by major international players remains somewhat confused. It is important to recognize that the current juncture is crucial, and that [...]

Is a European superstate even a possibility? Where to look for inspiration?

Bulgarian Interior Ministry will only be able to use electronic communication data stored by service providers in the case of serious crime and computer related crime, Parliament decided on February 19 2009. Amendments to the Law on Electronic Communication further limit access by the ministry by making it subject to the Law on Special Intelligence [...]

Most of the EP 1st reading plenary amendments have not yet been posted on-line. Here are the CO2 amendments, 136-139, for next week. As we understand it at the time of writing, the President’s decisions on admissiblity are still pending.

In the next day or two we’ll be publishing some video conversations we had with French farmers and the general public about their views on pesticides at the Salon de l’Agriculture in Paris last week. In the meantime Pesticide Information has set up a Twitter account to share the latest content published online that we [...]

China’s role in resolving the current financial and economic crisis is vital, and so therefore is the EU-China relationship.  The European Parliament has a history of highly critical resolutions on China, usually focusing on Tibet and human rights and Taiwan.  It rarely debates the broader aspects of the relationship.  However, Parliament is an important player, [...]

After having been cut off twice in the last three years from Russian gas supplies, the EU is getting finally serious with improving its short-term  gas supply security. Member states have started discussing to put in place a system of short-term storage, similar to the emergency oil storage installed after the first oil crisis in [...]

Throughout the last 15 years, Alan Greenspan, the once illustrious FED Chairman, had indulged in an irresponsible deregulation of the American banking system, ignoring occasional warnings from subaltern officials. He had full trust in the self-regulating capacity of Wall Street and could fully rely on the backing of US Presidents, in particular G.W. Bush. Today, [...]

In 2008 the ECB helped to bail out the Hungarian government. At this point, many Hungarian economists made the claim that probably it would be cheaper and better for both parties if they just let Hungary introduce the euro. A few month later, a few billion euros poorer the argument starts to catch on.