Brussels is sparing a thought for filmmakers in the newly acceding member states, reports the Independent. The idea is to facilitate subsidies to help films from our soon-to-be brother countries stand up to the Hollywood juggernaut.
But off in one corner there’s a villain twirling his moustaches. That would be France, which doesn’t like the idea. [...]

I don’t know if one day when historians come to examine what exactly happened (or should I say what went wrong) with the EU they will be able to identify that defining moment, the decisive hour, when everything went sailing down the river. If they are so able I wouldn’t mind a quick bet that [...]

On thursday a split European Commission “decided to launch unprecedented legal action against member states over their effective suspension of the euro rules last November.”

“The Commission will now ask the European Court of Justice to rule on a procedure taken by finance ministers last November to avoid disciplinary action being taken against France and Germany [...]

The recent biography of Mrs Thatcher by John Campbell (in particular volume one, The Grocer’s Daughter) did a good job of setting out just how much Hayek’s writings shaped Thatcher’s political outlook from her student days in Oxford onwards, in particular by paying close attention to her political speeches around 1950, when she was running [...]

I was reading the new almost-worthy-but-dull Fabian Society pamphlet by Gisela Stuart MP on “The Making of Europe’s Constitution” on a bus-ride yesterday.
“There were moments in the sixteen months I spent in close proximity with my fellow Europeans when I had great sympathy with the suggestion of my laptop spellcheck; which, whenever I typed in [...]

Writing in The Guardian under the headline ‘Why I am no longer a European’ Max Hastings explains why, though he remains committed to the idea of Europe, he can no longer support the Constituion. His feelings, I think, represent a growing tendency of people throughout current and future members of the EU to support the [...]

European summit ends in failure
EU constitution talks set to fail
Es ist vorbei
Echec des n?gociations sur la Constitution europ?enne
Wlosi oglaszaja fiasko negocjacji
Update:
Liberum veto, an old Polish custom with unfortunate precedents and consequences.

Is that there won’t be a compromise under the Italian Presidency. I remeber hearing a few weeks back that the Irish government has been making plans to finish up the IGC’s business during its six months at the helm.
How much of the current worry is due to Berlusconi’s initial fumbles? Six months disappear awfully [...]

As next weekend’s Brussels EU summit about the constitution is approaching quickly, it’s only too normal that all national players are digging their trenches and defence lines by publicly downplaying the importance of an agreement if the “national price to be paid is too high” while Europhiles of all nations are trying to increase pressure [...]

British MEP Nick Clegg has an article in today’s Guardian, putting forward the argument that MEPs and the European Parliament are a lot more powerful than people give them credit for.
But the parliament most certainly isn’t irrelevant or unimportant. In the four years I’ve been an MEP, we have adopted legislation stopping cosmetics being tested [...]