Twelve golden stars on a deep blue field. Soon to fly alongside the national emblems in twenty-five states, with more than a dozen more conceivable in the medium term. Why should hundreds of millions of citizens want to join their futures to this project?
Are Europe, and its Union, just shorthand for peace and prosperity? Normality? [...]

Since I’m on the subject of things extra-European today, I note that Le Monde is reporting that there will be a referendum in Guadéloupe and Martinique in December over changing the status and government structure of France’s Caribbean colonies. France has a tradition of being a very centralised state, but the last 20 years [...]

OK, before anyone tries to get us round to the painful reality that I’m a tiresome old bore: some titilation for you. Unfortunately, this is not about ’sexual tourism’, except, that is in the most general sense. (Although if anyone wants to pick up on this in the comments, I think we’re in the same [...]

From John Vinocur in the commentary pages of the Hairy Trib:
“At its most hurtful and remarkable, and yet perhaps its most honest, there is the start of acceptance by segments of the French intellectual community that French leadership, as it is constituted now, is not something Europe wants - or France merits.” …
“Of all the [...]

I was listening to a programme on French radio about whether the government should intervene to prohibit investigation related to genetically modified food when I came across this piece about obesity in the US. Food and the way we eat it seem to constitute an important part of our cultural identity. Do we have a [...]

Via Crooked Timber and Mark Kleinman, I’ve just read this utterly stupid column from Forbes:
Europe’s Utopian Hangover
The EU is built on a fantasy–that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living [...]

Today’s Brussels Metro (bilingual FR/NL - registration required), reports that Belgium’s social security budget deficit may pass the €2 billion mark in 2004, although the relevant Belgian minister claims that these figures are not definitive. The socialist union FGTB/ABVV wants to shift social insurance payments from being a payroll tax to an income tax, [...]

European countries never do very well in the gimmicky league tables or comparative indices of nations that thinktanks love to devise in order to meet the bills. You know the sort of thing ? the World Competitiveness Ratings or the Index of Economic Freedom. I thought it was time to come up with one that [...]