E. Commission: take the initiative or face a vote of confidence
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 Posted in Europe english | No Comments »Since the creation of the new Barroso II commission the European Commission doesn’t stop confirming that she is going to be as daring as the Barroso I Commission. That is: not daring at all. Europe continues to be left at ...
New EU economic strategy – Repeating the failure of Lisbon strategy
Thursday, March 4th, 2010 Posted in Europe english | 1 Comment »Remember the slogan of the EU during last 10 years? Yes, that thing about becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world? Well, then get ready to continue laughing –or crying- because the European Commission has published its new ...
Plea for a swap: Barroso for president of the E. Council and Van Rompuy for president of the E. Commission
Monday, November 30th, 2009 Posted in Europe english | No Comments »Apparently, Van Rompuy is an European federalist (see Jean Quatremer's post). This is great news albeit bizarre ones... Isn't it weird that the first president of the European Council, who is meant to represent the interests of the member states ...
SEPARATING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: THE RIGHT WAY TO KILL EITHER OF THEM?
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe english | 2 Comments »In its new European Commission JM Barroso has decided to separate environment from Climate Change; Environment portfolio goes to Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who wad Research in the last Commission, the new ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark. Is this ...
Do you have the swine flu? – symptoms
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 Posted in Brainwashing, Europe, Europe english | 3 Comments »I normally don't write about these kind of topics but since I see the hysteria kicking off in this beginning of Autumn I thought of bringing some information to the issue of swine flu. How to know if you have swine ...
WHY EUROPE NEEDS BALKENENDE AND NOT BLAIR FOR PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
Monday, October 12th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | 4 Comments »After Barroso’s reappointment for a second term as president of the European Commission and having had the treaty of Lisbon finally ratified it is now time to define work-programs, assemble a new –and huge- European commission and start implementing the ...
The new world monetary order and the need for EU foreign monetary policy
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english, Financial crisis, world governance | No Comments »Why the EU needs to reflect on the role of the euro in world politics The monetary policy is an exclusive competence of the eurozone of the European Union, yet it is unclear what role the European currency is to play ...
Barroso: the EP is the wrong audience
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »Having read the program of Barroso and having listened to the debate today (15/09/09) in the European Parliament, and regardless of the result of the vote of tomorrow where most likely he will be confirmed with the new mandate, I ...
How to get a smart-phone 25 times cheaper thanks to the EU common market
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english, Political campaining | 2 Comments »How much would you pay for the iPhone 3G 8Gb? Or the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1? Or the Nokia N96? Thanks to the common market you can chose from a range of 25 to 700 euros. Wait a second, 25 times ...
Why a coalition of conservatives, socialists and liberals to fight eurosceptics?
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »Since the European Elections a new big coalition of conservatives, socialists and liberals has been forged arguing that a strong coalition is needed to fight eurosceptics. Well, coalitions are sometimes good because they bring stability but in the EP this ...
European Socialists – You don’t play, you don’t win
Monday, June 8th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | 6 Comments »Shortly after the results of the European Parliament elections have been made public the most astonishing thing is the defeat of the socialist parties in Europe. Imagine that you have a economic crisis caused by lack of regulation and which according ...
Enjoy Brussels or put worms in your life
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english | No Comments »Today I assisted to a session to learn to do compost at home with worms -vermicomposting- organised by the Inter-Environment Bruxelles and it showed me to which extend we live in a strange world. The session was very entertaining and a huge ...
Barroso “European of the year”!
Friday, May 29th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »[caption id="attachment_466" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Taken by EM Denmark"][/caption] The European Movement Denmark has awarded Barroso as "European of the year". I have to say that I ignore the reasons that led them to this at first surprising -if not shocking- choice ...
EU institutional failure in the management of financial and economic crisis
Thursday, May 28th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »European and world economy are submerged in an economic crisis, direct result of the financial crush of last months. Two comments on this: One; the EU has not fixed the problems that caused the current chaos in the credit market, Two; the ...
The European Commission is -literally- on fire
Monday, May 18th, 2009 Posted in Curiositats/Funny things, Europe, Europe english | No Comments »[caption id="attachment_441" align="alignleft" width="410" caption="Pic taken by Joerg Janssen"][/caption] I was walking by the Commission building today and I saw that the heart of the European Union was burning. Did they launch an impact assessment on whether it is better to ...
Climate Change fever: without a World Environmental Communitty temperature will go up!
Monday, May 4th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english, world governance | 1 Comment »As the economic downturn and the swine flu dominate the pages of newspapers a lot more important issue, for it affects our long term survival in this planet, disappears from the media: the fight against climate change. In December will take ...
Tell Barroso that: YES HE CAN!
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english, Political campaining | No Comments »[caption id="attachment_373" align="alignright" width="300" caption=" "][/caption] This is weird. Normally you ask opinions when you start something, not right before finishing. Why does Barroso ask us now our opinion now? Has he ...
Barroso, the candidate of all European parties?
Friday, March 20th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | 5 Comments »This is as confusing as it is absurd. In yesterday’s meeting the EPP leaders back Barroso for a second term as president of European Commission but still no party is behind Barroso's ambition to renew his mandate as president ...
Comment on Žižek – Are we free and independent enough to stop and think?
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english, Filosofia | No Comments »(www.vest.si) Žižek na Bledu from Jaka Tomc on Vimeo. Žižek perception of reality is as provocative as enlightening. So many things happen in front of our eyes and we all march blind... In a world of coffee without caffeine, beer with alcohol, ...
The EU – a philosophical player?
Friday, February 6th, 2009 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »"They are always talking about philosophy with us," Deutsche Welle paper reports Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the committee for international relations in the state Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, said about the Europeans. There are two approaches to this: ...
A funny way to explain who is who in EU bureocracy
Monday, January 26th, 2009 Posted in Curiositats/Funny things, Europe, Europe english | No Comments »From my experience, this joke is not far away from reality: A man in a hot air balloon over the Belgian countryside realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. Descending a bit more he shouted, "Excuse ...
EU difficult to understand? Try the UNFCCC!
Monday, December 8th, 2008 Posted in Curiositats/Funny things, Environment, Europe english | 2 Comments »It is nice to see the EU, the G77, the US and all the others gathered in the Poznan UNFCCC to discuss the NAMAs, the NAPAs and the QUELROs both in AWGKP and AWGLCA. As expected CAN and CJN have ...
European political parties: what kind of animals are they?
Friday, November 28th, 2008 Posted in Europe, Europe english | 3 Comments »In view of the forthcoming European Parliament elections and the deep sleep in which EU politics seems to be, a big hope to revitalize the debate lies on the role that the European Political parties can play in the next ...
Where do Spanish millions go?
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 Posted in Europe, Europe english, Financial crisis | No Comments »[caption id="attachment_168" align="alignright" width="318" caption="Spanish government helping banking sector"][/caption] The spanish government is the only european government not openly saying which banks will get how much money in the financial crisis. It is accepted by everyone that this financial crisis is the ...
The excessive carbon footprint of the European Parliament
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 Posted in Coses que pasen, Environment, Europe, Europe english, Viatges | No Comments »The European Parliament -EP- is unique. It is the only directly elected supranational parliament in the world. It is also quite especial for having two meeting places; Brussels and Strasbourg. The recently released study on the carbon footprint of the EP ...
Who would die for free? Who would die for Freedom?
Monday, October 20th, 2008 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english | 1 Comment »Today I visited the american cementery at Omaha Beach, Normandie, where 3000 american soldiers died on the 6th of June 1944 whilst trying to gain the shore in the first step to free Europe from Nazi occupation. Everywhere in this memorial ...
Looking for a president for the European Commission
Friday, October 17th, 2008 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »After two failed referendums in France and Netherlands the European Commission had the chance to intervene in favour of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland. Very little was done. After the results were known does the president of ...
The Economist – “The magazine irrationalis”
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »I'm perplexed by the ideological coherence of this widely read -and respected- magazine that preaches logic, rationalism and economic liberalism. Not too long ago -one month- it was still preaching free market, no regulations, no intervention of the state and that the ...
Don’t vote!
Friday, October 3rd, 2008 Posted in Europe, Europe english | No Comments »We would need something similar for the European Parliament elections...
Ireland neutrality challenged by the the Lisbon treaty or rather the USA?
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 Posted in Europe english | No Comments »After all, it looks like we can blame someone of the NO to Lisbon in Ireland: the USA. The poor americans get blamed by everybody ;-) If it is finally proven that the funding for the NO campaign in Ireland was ...
Lisbon Treaty ratification – What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger!
Friday, June 20th, 2008 Posted in Europe english | No Comments »Stable structures benefit from crisis whilst unstable ones tend to be destroyed by them. The EU was born from a big crisis named 2nd World War and has been forged crisis by crisis. Following the saying “what doesn’t kill you ...
Madness in Dublin – No to Lisbon Treaty… but nice tits!
Thursday, June 12th, 2008 Posted in Europe english | 2 Comments »Below you can find a number of funny reactions I got when campaining in the streets of Dublin for the YES to the Lisbon Treaty. As you will see they are mostly highly intelectual considerations about the meaning of the text ...