UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband provided indication today of the emerging EU strategy for dealing with the Irish No to Lisbon: it’s being left up to the Irish government to sort it out, but with a reminder of the high stakes should they choose to accept the referendum result.  Or, as Miliband colourfully put it [...]

As I have just indicated in my last post Hungarians went to the polls yesterday in a vote over whether or not to scrap government-imposed fees on visits to doctors and hospitals introduced as part of a belt-tightening adjustment programme, designed to bring what was at the time of its introduction [...]

Our next anniversary guest post is written by the the great Jonathan Edelstein.
It’s starting to look like the season of referenda in the near abroad.
On September 17, less than a week from today, voters in the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, located between Moldova and Ukraine, will be asked to vote on whether to “renounce [their] [...]

Well, we are united in our diversity here at Fistful. I have to say I disagree with almost every point Doug made about Montenegro in his last post, and will respectfully dissect his arguments below. But first off, a plea for some sanity here. Too many people seem to think that the break-up of [...]

So, Montenegro.
Little mountainous state on the Adriatic. Six hundred thousand people, mostly Montenegrins, a few Albanians and whatnot. Was an independent country until 1919, when it got swept up into Yugoslavia. Now it’s part of the “Federal Union of Serbia and Montenegro”, which consists of (1) Serbia, and (2) Montenegro.
And [...]

Last Monday I had some ironing to do. Then I remembered that television still has one advantage over surfer-blogging: you can do the ironing at the same time. Of course the upcoming referendum was on several channels. I could not stand more than 20 minutes of it though (neither the ironing nor [...]

The press this morning are busily assimilating the result of yesterday’s Netherlands referendum. The FT reports on a survey by Dutch polling organisation Interview-NSS, which identified up to twenty different issues which influenced the no vote.
Top of the list the list was a fear that the Netherlands would lose influence in a Europe that would [...]

People will vote no for many different reasons, some for opposite reasons. But it seems clear to me some complaints will be shared by nearly all no voters, as well as many yes voters. Namely, that the EU is undemocratic, that the elites don?t care what the people say, that integration has been pursued without [...]

I’m quite fond of representative democracy, and don’t think replicating the Swiss or Californian system would be a particularly good idea. I do however think that referendums are an occasionally vital and necessary part of democracy, and to do away with them, like the German constitution does, would be a great mistake.
There are situations where [...]

The referendum battle continues its course. Le Monde notes the importance of the fact that whilst the ‘no’ vote seems to be consolidating its lead in France (see this FT graph), with only one week to go one fifth of the votes still declare themselves to be ‘undecided’.
Meantime the normally sobre EU Observer, lets it [...]