Archive
Year: 2010
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We’re tickled pink by Julien’s fish and mash-ups
April 26, 2010
An interesting post over on Julien Frisch's blog who shows yet again how online tools out there for free can help all of us seeking to understand and explain the EU's legislative processes - whether to clients or just because we are tickled pink by fishing regulations like Julien. It's a pity that the Council's website doesn't allow one to follow the discussions from WP to COREPER to Council with links to documents attached as...
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Big changes on the way after UK election?
April 26, 2010
There’s never been a British general election campaign like this one! With just over a week to go before the May 6 election day it seems from the opinion polls that big changes could be on the way. Here the Brits stand, midway between a Continental tradition of coalition government with multiple parties, and a US-style presidential battle between party leaders. The talk in Britain is of a hung parliament with no clear majority, of...
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Big Changes on the Way After UK Election?
April 26, 2010
There’s never been a British general election campaign like this one! With just over a week to go before the May 6 election day it seems from the opinion polls that big changes could be on the way. Here the Brits stand, midway between a Continental tradition of coalition government with multiple parties, and a US-style presidential battle between party leaders. The talk in Britain is of a hung parliament with no clear majority, of...
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Belgian Government Crisis: Once more, but this time on Twitter
April 23, 2010
Yesterday it became clear that the Belgian federal government is yet again mired in a deep crisis. What is perhaps even more remarkable than the fact that the Belgian government is in crisis, is that the first reports of the crisis appeared on Twitter, by the politicians involved. Of particular interest was Belgian Telecoms Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne’s Twitterfeed, who was perhaps the first politician in history to announce a government collapse on Twitter. So...
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Dutch Disease
April 22, 2010
Have you ever heard of a condition called infobesitas? It is an addiction to information due to the many drugs out there: internet, mobile phones, television and radio. According to youth trend watching/communications company YoungWorks in the Netherlands they are not addicted out of boredom or out of sincere interest to know things. Teenagers/youngsters/adolescents (or how do we call them these days? People like me who are wondering are definitely no longer in that category) are...
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Twitterers cast first vote in UK elections
April 21, 2010
This year’s UK election is full of landmarks and firsts. Not only did we witness the first ever televised debate with the top candidates but this year’s election has also attracted a growing number of digitally savvy citizens. This was made no more apparent than during last week’s debate between top candidates for Downing 10 - the most-tweeted ever. The 90 minute debate was followed by 38,000 twitterers who busily wrote over 180,000 tweets. Okay, the...
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Twitter: Social media for social good
April 20, 2010
There's lots of chat about how trivial Twitter is. Who's interested in the minutiae of all these daily lives? How can you say anything sensible in 140 characters? How can anything emerge from this huge, constant, global clamour? And then something comes along that reminds us that actually any medium can be a force for good if used properly. This campaign was started in the Netherlands to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence...
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Airport Lounge = Norwegian PM’s office?
April 19, 2010
"The show must go on," "the world stops for no man (or woman)"... just a few clichéd phrases that seem to apply to everyone in the world... everyone that is, except those relying on planes operating in and around the general European airspace. With the ash-spewing volcano, Eyjafjallajokull (and no, my fingers didn't slip on the keyboard, that is really what it's called), bringing most European and trans-Atlantic travel plans to a crashing halt, tourists, business people, and even world leaders have been...
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Posts I’ve enjoyed on this blog
April 9, 2010
After nearly eight years in our Brussels office and coming up to three years posting on this blog I'm off to our Washington D.C. office for a couple of years at the end of the month. Before I leave I thought it not a bad idea to indulge myself just a tad, forgive me folks, and point to some of the blog posts I've enjoyed writing or reading on this blog. I say enjoyed because...
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Zero growth offers no relief in euro crisis
April 8, 2010
Zero GDP growth in the eurozone for the last quarter of 2009 and a feeble recovery in the first quarter of 2010 is not what Europe’s finance ministers might wish to hear, but that’s the latest message from the OECD. It just shows what a challenge Europe faces in restoring the strength of public finances, most especially in Greece and other eurozone countries facing massive budget deficits. There is certainly no sign of growth in...