Romano Prodi, writing in Le Monde, claims that the European Union is inherently a left-of-center project. It’s an interesting claim–certainly one that Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl would probably dispute. But certainly the European institutions have changed since either of those Chancellors’ days, and a contemporary view might lend more strength to Prodi’s views and [...]

Just a bit of background info to accompany Doug’s post on AFOE:
“Everybody in Hungary knows that real income will decrease in the next two years … and very significant social groups will feel their interests hurt. If this simple rejection is transformed and mixed with national radicalism and social populism, then this is a dangerous [...]

An establishment voice casts further doubt on whether French elites see possible progress in the European Union
Jacques Julliard, the weekly’s deputy editor, explains in an interview with François Sionneau that he does not see how the constitution could return to the agenda. “Projecting five to 10 years into the future - the most that is [...]

Germany - Süddeutsche Zeitung. On March 15 the Ukrainian author
Yuri Andrukhovych was awarded the prize for European
Understanding at the opening ceremony of the Leipzig Book Fair.
In a sensational speech, he attacked EU Commissioner Günter
Verheugen who opposes Ukraine’s entry into the EU. The
newspaper publishes extracts of the speech: “European dialogue
has not taken place,” Andrukhovych notes bitterly, [...]

There are opinions to suit all taste this week. According to EurActiv:
EU leaders have almost all declined a proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to save the EU Constitution by splitting it up into single chapters and integrating those into the existing EU framework.
The EU observer puts it more bluntly - The Hague says [...]

Not content with simply being the ‘Energy Presidency’, Austria it seems is hell bent on also moving forward the Consitution issue, even if this is only in the rather tame form of a Brussels debate among Europe’s leaders on the way forward for the new treaty. Actually rather than a constitution per-se, what we may [...]

Well, as we say in Spain: one hot one and one cold one. Last Friday I posted about how Turkey may well be making progress in modernising its legal system thanks to EU pressure. Today the worry is that the information system in Turkey may well still be extremely deficient. This is highlighted by the [...]

According to the Turkish news agency Hürriet Turkish Deputy prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul spoke last night to the NTV news channel regarding:
“the recent wave of legal battles being held against Turkish intellectuals and a senior member of the European Parliament. Gul criticized the actions that were being taken under the controversial article [...]

I have just read this (don’t miss the photo):
Constitution, enlargement and budget: Austria hopes to revive Europe with these themes and infuse it with “energy and confidence” when it takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union on January 1
Am I reading this aright, he says, scratching the dust from his sleep-ridden eyes. Aren’t [...]

This was Tony Blairs view, that ‘very difficult negotiations lie ahead’ on the EU budget. You bet they do. Just look at the list of proposals:
- a cut in the seven-year EU budget to roughly €850bn, or 1.03 per cent of the union’s GDP;
- Britain would give up part of its rebate: €6bn-€9bn is [...]