Image by Ben Beiske via Flickr On the 1st of January a new era will dawn on Hungary. It will take over the Presidency of European Council for the first time and a new law on media freedom will come into effect. While the first thing is something for Hungarians to celebrate, the law on the other hand is not. It has been criticised by the OSCE Media freedom representative who wrote in a report that “Regulating print media...
Image via Wikipedia Are you interested in the European Union? Aged between 18-26? Want to go to Strasbourg to see how the European Union really works? Well heres your chance! Between the 19th to 26th March 2011 a Model European Union will take place in Strasbourg. It will debate two topics a Directive on the application of patient’s rights in cross-border healthcare and a Directive on working conditions of temporary workers. You can apply to be a MEP, a...
Image via Wikipedia Heres another round up of issues making the rounds in the eurobloggerosphere at the moment, with thanks to BloggingPortal.eu Swedish Presidency The Swedish Presidency of the European Council is coming an end, and Spain gets ready to share the reins. A number of blogs look back at the 6 months of the Swedish Presidency. Mats Engström calls the Presidency “Effective” but it wasn’t exciting. (then again name one that was!) The Swedish Europe Minister (and Commissioner...
So as an editor over on bloggingportal.eu I have great access to a huge number of blogs and can help choose what goes on the front page. Unfortunately not everything I would like can go on the front page (there are others there also) I will do a regularish posting like this one to publicise some of the other things going on in the euroblogosophere, whether on the front page or not! Dont expect this daily or weekly mind...
Image via Wikipedia The European Parliament has created a new website to highlight the details of the confirmation of the new commission which will take place early in the new year. There is more information on the candidates as well as the procedure of how they will be confirmed. Here is the step by step procdure as on the website: Parliament receives the Commissioner-designates’ curriculum vitae and their declarations of financial interests. Parliament puts to the Commissioners-designate a series...
So the Telegraph have a story on the fact that the new European Council President, Herman Von Rompuy, wants to bring in a new Euro Tax. This is to “bring transparency” to how the EU operates. This hasn’t gone very smoothly for the new European Council Preisdent, and this really is his own fault! He made the announcement at a meeting of the Bildenberg Group, conspriacy theorists would know of this group very well, which isnt the most transparent...
Image via Wikipedia As well as the appointments made by the European Council last night (more on that later), another recent appointment has come to my knowledge. Dick Roche, the current Minister for Europe, has been made a Vice-President of the European Liberal Democratic and Reform Party (ELDR) . From what I am hearing, a lot of people are not happy about this. Pat Cox, the former President of the ELDR is not a happy man from what I hear,...
Things aren’t looking so good for the Fianna Fail Party in their new Grouping in the European Parliament. At the last plenary session they caused hassle by abstaining on a vote on a resolution by the ALDE, Green and Socialist groups on media freedoms, this caused the vote to be lost. This has causd huge anger in the ALDE grouping. Reports are also surfacing that the Fianna Fail MEP’s tried to scupper a resolution on Gay Rights emerging from...
There has been a lot of talk lately about the collapse of the Tony Blair candidacy for President of the European Council (see Nosemonkey’s recent post for an explanation of all those councils!). I personally am thankful for that, but Blair is still holding out and hoping to get Angela Merkel’s backing for the post. I don’t see him getting the German Chancellors backing due to the whole Iraq War debacle. So who will get it? Paddy Power have...
Taoiseach Brian COWEN, Fredrik REINFELDT, President of the European Council, and José Manuel BARROSO, European Commission President and others I am writing to urge you to do all that you can to ensure the crucial EU Council meetings at the end of October deliver clear EU commitments to deal with climate change. These must put the needs of the world’s poorest people – who are being hit first and worst by climate change, but who are least responsible for...
Recent Comments