It’s just three weeks since I wrote this entry about the prospects for EU expansion in the Western Balkans. And in that short time, several of my predictions have been proven wrong.
– Croatia’s has been allowed to start negotiations for candidacy.
– Serbia has been allowed to start negotiations for a Stabilization and Association Pact.
– [...]

Something is happening. Although not in Berlin, apparently. The SPD’s steering committe has not (yet officially) accepted what appeared to be an offer from Mr Schröder to pursue coalition strategies that would not include him. Since the SPD’s chairman, Franz Müntefering, explained later that the party’s goal were still a government led by Gerhard Scröder [...]

Just a quick update on Croatia’s EU candidacy.
Eight countries have signed a letter to British PM Tony Blair supporting Croatia’s membership. The letter was presented to Blair — who currently holds the rotating EU Presidency, and will until January 1 — in the recent confence at Newport, in Wales.
The signing countries were Austria, Greece, [...]

The EU’s tug of war with Turkey over human rights continues. This weekend attention has been focused on an academic conference held at Istanbul Bilgi University to discuss issues arising from and surrounding the massacre of Armenians which took place following the collapse of the Ottoman empire.
The most surprising thing in fact may have [...]

The IMF has just published Chapter One of the autumn 2005 edition of the World Economic Outlook. The key section on the eurozone economies can be found between pages 25 and 29 (including the interesting Box 1.3). The Table where you can find the information on German debt projections is on page 15, and there [...]

Germany isn’t the only EU country where serious ongoing economic problems are leading to political gridlock. Italy’s situation is no better, and arguably worse. This ‘worse’ aspect was pushed into the headlines yesterday by the resignation of Economy Minister Domenico Siniscalco. This is sending shock waves throughout the entire Italian political system. It still isn’t [...]

Handelsblatt reports that Joschka Fischer, one of the Greens’ two co-leaders and the Red-Green government’s foreign minister and deputy chancellor, has announced his resignation from both his party and state offices. He will, however, take up his seat in the Bundestag. Apparently he thinks the Greens need “a new formation” (eine Neuaufstellung) and that “clarity [...]

CDU advertising for SchröderBeing stuck in a traffic jam is probably not the best place to be to blog about the German election. On the other hand, it may well be an excellent metaphor for the result of today’s German elections, which Mrs T sketched below. Hearing the results on the radio, the first thing [...]

Earlier in the week Doug Muir posted on the generally negative attitude most Austrians seem to have towards EU enlargement. Others in comments have been suggesting that it is important not to go soft on human rights issues in the case of Turkey’s application. Well……
According to the French newspaper Le Figaro (as reported in EUPolitix) [...]

Before anything else, the Federal Constitutional Court in fabulous Karlsruhe has ruled that publishing the election results from everywhere else before the delayed Dresden poll is indeed legal.
Minister-President of Rheinland-Pfalz, Kurt Beck, has done it again. This time he burst into the headlines by attacking the Greens. He told the Rheinische Merkur that the continuation [...]