Blogactiv - EU Blog Platform » lisbon treaty

Nightmare Lisbon Treaty

2010-03-11T20:07:00Z

Today, the Lisbon Treaty has been in force for 100 days. The result? A more democratic and open EU? A Union which voters have an easier time understanding and identifying themselves with? Simpler and more ’streamlined’ institutions? Not quite.On it’s …

Threat or opportunity?

2010-03-09T16:39:00Z

The German-led calls for an IMF-style bailout fund for the EU have caught most people on the hop, including the French, and the lack of detail suggests that the practicalities are only now being worked on inside the German Finance Ministry.French offic…

I-mpressions from the Lisbon Council 2010 Innovation Summit

2010-03-08T12:01:11Z

At her speech to the Lisbon Council’s 2010 Innovation Summit last week, the EU’s highly charismatic and enthusiastic Chief Innovation Officer, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn laid out her vision of transforming Europe into an “I-conomy”, connecting and speeding up innovation all along the whole policy chain from research to retail, building a functional single market for [...]

Jobs for the boys

2010-02-22T17:20:00Z

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…

The B-EU-tiful game?

2010-02-19T12:04:00Z

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…

Whose side would a European army be on?

2010-02-09T14:27:00Z

Following German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle’s speech at the weekend, announcing that the long term goal of EU security and defence policy under Lisbon should be the creation of a European army, the French Defence Minister Hervé Morin today mad…

Ignorance is not bliss for Chris Bryant

2010-02-05T18:06:00Z

The controversial EU-US anti-terrorism data-sharing deal, named the Swift agreement, came under further attack yesterday as an almighty row broke out in the Commons. Labour’s very own Michael Connarty accused the government of treating Parliament wit…

Talk about what?

2010-02-05T17:34:00Z

In a piece for the Telegraph we take a closer look at the “Obama snub”, arguing.Until the EU comes up with something actually worth talking about, it’s not surprising that Obama thinks that it’s more important to travel to Asia, South Africa and t…

Obama’s not the only one confused by Lisbon

2010-02-03T18:00:00Z

The Obama “snub” continues to gather headlines in today’s papers. PJ Crowley, the US Assistant Secretary of State, today confirmed that the uncertainty created by the new posts created under the Lisbon Treaty had been a major factor in Obama’s decision…

Council1 : European Council decides by post and orders the public ‘Stay OUT!’ and ‘No, you can’t see our (public) documents!’

2010-02-03T00:22:51Z

In December — when no one was looking — Member States governments adopted their Rules of Procedure for the new Lisbon Democracy. You missed it? No wonder. This ‘agreement’ was definitely not agreed in public, for the public by the public in a public meeting place in Brussels.
It was all done more or less by [...]

EU-US summit: egotistical wrangling

2010-02-02T02:20:58Z

Everyone agrees that the European Union must get its act together. The wrangling over the next EU-US summit shows that the EU won’t get it’s act together until the egotism of Member State leaders is brought under control.
Now it’s the turn of Spain, the current EU Presidency, which insists on hosting the summit and, thus, [...]

“Figure it out and let us know”…

2010-02-01T13:16:00Z

was the message, according to the WSJ, that the US State Department chose to leave on the EU’s voicemail this weekend, presumably while the Spanish, who hold the EU Presidency, Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso all wrestled with each other as t…

Euro credibility at stake in Greek economic crisis

2010-01-28T12:01:31Z

We’ve heard a lot about banks that are “too big to fail”. Perhaps a more immediate question is whether the sovereign nation of Greece is too big to fail. The risk of default and the threat of Greece quitting the eurozone would have profound implications for Europe’s monetary union, for other European countries wrestling with [...]

Lisbon and the Euroblogosphere: my first use of the “c”-word

2010-01-27T13:47:33Z

That’s right - curation. Now officially Web2.0-buzzword-of-the-month (not quite sure which one).
And here was me thinking that curation was something knowledge workers have been doing ever since there was knowledge to work with.
So stand by for a totally gratuitous use of the c-word later on in this post. Maybe even two. But first, here [...]

Lisbon Treaty : managing expectations

2010-01-23T03:24:34Z

The new treaty entered into force on 1 December; Hermann van Rompuy took office on 1 January; Cathleen Ashton, while already High Representative for Foreign & Security Policy, had to face her Europêan Parliament Hearing on 11 January; and the new Commission does not come into being until February.
And yet, to read the media, and [...]