Archive
Year: 2010
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Hague endorses EU foreign policy approach
July 7, 2010
So the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has approved the set-up of Europe’s foreign service, as negotiated in Madrid two weeks ago. Formal agreement is expected in plenary after the holidays, allowing the European External Action Service (EEAS) to be operational by the end of the year. Creation of the EEAS is potentially the most significant of the innovations brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, and it is a nice irony that British foreign secretary...
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Why the shortage of influential policy bloggers in Brussels?
June 30, 2010
Some people will tell you there are scores of influential policy bloggers in Brussels. Unfortunately, they’re wrong. There’s an active throng of smart and passionate Eurobloggers who write about the EU and a number of issues surrounding it. Most are aggregated on bloggingportal.eu and many of them are influential: some are being treated in line with members of the press and even being mentioned by Commissioners. But most influential Eurobloggers are individual citizens who write...
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A Very Belgian Contribution
June 23, 2010
It has always seemed a curious paradox that the major policy-making institutions of the European Union should have settled in Belgium, a country with a political system in a permanent state of turmoil, deeply divided on political and linguistic grounds, yet somehow able to keep functioning as coalitions come and go and politicians struggle with the issues of national and regional identity. One might ask what sort of precedent that sets for trying to resolve...
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Belgian elections: a new start?
June 15, 2010
On June 13, federal elections took place in Belgium. The results are along the lines of the predictions. Both the Flemish nationalists of the New Flemish Alliance (NV-A), headed by Bart De Wever, and the Francophone Social Democrats (PS), led by Elio Di Rupo, emerged as the winning parties. With only 2 weeks before the start of the Belgian EU Presidency (starting July 1), it will be interesting to see which direction the government formation...
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Kroes will stay
June 10, 2010
In recent weeks there have been rumours in Brussels circles saying that Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, might become the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands, should her party, the VVD, come first in the elections. Yesterday it was election day in the Netherlands, and a long one at that, as initial results showed such a thin difference between the centre-right VVD and the centre-left PvdA that neither side could claim victory until...
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A Globetrotting Career
June 10, 2010
Fleishman-Hillard Brussels Director Dan Baxter talks to the European Voice about providing public affairs services to clients across three continents. Read the interview online or as a PDF...
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And the winner is …
June 10, 2010
Election night in the Netherlands was quite ‘hot’; at some point the NOS television program ‘election night’ announced that Twitter was overloaded and inaccessible due to the vast interest of the people in the probable results. The Dutch parliamentary elections on 9 June in all probability resulted in a victory for the liberal VVD in terms of the most seats and a victory for Geert Wilder’s party PVV in terms of the most seats...
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FH Athletes storm the Brussels 20km
June 9, 2010
On 30 May, six of FH Brussels’ finest athletes (?) took the streets of Brussels alongside 30,000 other participants to face the annual Brussels 20km run. A great race was had by all, with some of the more seasoned runners breaking personal bests and the newbies simply surprised they had survived the ordeal. A massive round of applause goes out to ‘FH Marathon Man’ Donald Ricketts who ran a stonking time of 1:19:07 – just...
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BHV: Not just a French department store
June 9, 2010
One of Paris’ largest department stores is the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville or ‘BHV’. Women’s fashion, decoration, furniture and DIY material…you can all find it at BHV. The slogan of the Paris BHV is ‘Tout pour trouver son bonheur.’ Translated ‘Everything to find happiness.’ One can hardly think of a worse motto for the Belgian electoral district of BHV. Unless you replace ‘bonheur’ with ‘malheur’ and ‘happiness’ with ‘misery’. BHV in Belgium Is called...
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Tough home truths in IMF report
June 8, 2010
It was evident from the beginning of the eurozone crisis that the only way to discipline recalcitrant member states in the face of enormous budget deficits was to involve the International Monetary Fund, an independent, external organization which was definitely not part of the family, a body which could lay down tough conditions for winning its support, and could pull the rug out if necessary. So it was little surprise to see the forthright tone...