Oh come on, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun is probably shining all over continental europe, and you’re all probably off away from your desks for a weekend in the country or on the beach. So why spoil the fun. I’ll save my piece on Portugal till Monday. And meantime, you deserve something better than ‘gloomy [...]

The euro reached its lowest level against the dollar in seven months last week dropping from a valueof $1.311 a month ago to $1.255 on Friday. This was the lowest level since last October. Undoubtedly there are a confluence of factors at work here: yesterday’s French growth numbers, longer term stagnant growth [...]

Last week, on a visit to Germany, Henry Kissinger stated that Europe “now has a number”. Well, I’m not sure which one in particular he was referring to, or if the CIA’s decision to list the EU in its world fact book has anything to do with Kissinger’s realisation - but depending on the outcome [...]

Vladimir Putin, speaking in Moscow today, paid tribute to the courage of “all Europeans who resisted Nazism.” He also stated something which for my generation seems to be simply a fact: that the war?s most ?ruthless and decisive? events had unfolded within the Soviet Union, whose sacrifice of 27m citizens had underpinned the Allied [...]

Just a quick follow up on the state of play with opinion poll outcomes in France. Le Monde today reports that of four polls published yesterday two gave a majority for the ‘yes’ vote, whilst the other two suggested a significant decline in ‘no’ support (details in fold). Since the shift is partly among socialist [...]

On Thursday it was John Thornhill in the FT, then yesterday Stephen Castle of the Independent joined in. Topic du jour: the battle in cyberspace for the hearts and minds of the French voters.
Conspiracy Theory One: the US administration wants Europe to adopt the constitutional treaty because it would kill off nation states and allow [...]

The Financial Times quotes former EU Commission President Romano Prodi on the consequences of a French rejection of the constitutional treaty.
?There would be no more Europe. We will pass through a long period of crisis.
?The problem will not only be a catastrophe for France, but the fall of Europe.?
This is arrant nonsense.
Nor is it [...]

Speaking of the Classics, I recently discovered to my shock and amazement that in Belgium, students still study Latin in secondary school. My Dutch teacher was talking about the structure of secondary school, and described how there is still a Latin/Classical Greek track, as well as a Latin/Math track that students almost have [...]

The always readable Timothy Garton Ash has another good column in today’s Guardian discussing how Europe’s inability to speak with one voice on the international stage weakens its impact. As he points out, the sheer number of people waiting to meet with President Bush this week help to show what the problem is:
Who knows what [...]

Having missed my flight from Salvador back to Rio de Janeiro, I find myself in the airport?s cyber-caf? with a little extra time to spend. Alas, not enough to finish and type the lengthy post commenting on Amitai Etzioni?s thoughts about guilt and responsibility ? I began hand-writing it on another flight, but finding the [...]