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The Irish Times (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
POLITICAL HAGGLING over the selection of the first full-time president of the European Council and new foreign policy chief is set to culminate within days as EU leaders seek to forge a consensus on the appointments.
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 12 hours ago
EU president Fredrik Reinfeldt sounds out fellow leaders over choices for president of the European council and EU foreign secretary European leaders launch a week of summitry tomorrow consumed by secret wrangling over who should get the two top jobs in the EU created by the union's new rulebook. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister and current EU president, has been sounding out fellow leaders...
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Diplomatic Blogoir (Free subscription) | 13 hours ago
Some key points about the scramble for the top EU jobs which you will not read about in the media. The Lisbon Treaty creates two new roles : President of the European Council ('President of Europe'); and High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy ('EU Foreign Minister'). But with these jobs come all sorts of other jobs and roles and reorganisations and opportunities for long-term patronage....
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EU Referendum (Free subscription) | yesterday
Although blogging is somewhat difficult at the moment, I really cannot resist a belated comment on the EU presidency charade, and in particular the Guardian report . It notes that, while the "ideal appointment" has been suggested as "someone who could stop the traffic in Beijing", with the emergence of the Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, as frontrunner, "Europe"...
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TechConnect Magazine (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Yesterday, after a couple of years of going back and forth on it, members of the European Parliament and European Council have agreed on a final draft of the telecoms package. The new internet and phone legislation was held back mostly by concerns over digital user rights, with copyright groups all lobbying like heck for more stricter rules and punishments for file sharers. With EU countries tackling...
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Graham Pointer's Blog (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
Hair blows in the wind After years there is still wind Sadly no hair Now, that might go down in history along with "I have a dream", "We will fight them on the beaches" and the Gettysburg Address. Or it might not. There's plenty more where that came from- the pen of Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister, and apparently now the front-runner to be President of the European...
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SNOPPER SAYS..... (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
A RANT A DAY.... I was talking with one of my neighbours yesterday morning and he told me that he hadn`t bought a newspaper for years and years. The reason? Because they were always full of bad news. So too is the news on television and radio; it seems impossible to avoid it and the really depressing thing is that the more you listen, look and read, the worse the news seems to get. Almost to prove...
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The Economist (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
Lessons from the unedifying fight over top Brussels jobs IN THE end, Tony Blair’s great European adventure seems to have been a balancing act too far. As prime minister, Mr Blair built a career on political acrobatics. He was the Labour politician who left in place great chunks of Thatcherism. As prime minister, he swore he was a true European (the “most European of Englishmen”,...
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The Economist (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
The European Union is likely to choose weak leaders. It needs strong ones THE ratification of Europe’s Lisbon treaty, now completed by the reluctant signature of the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, has been dispiriting. The treaty does little to make the European Union any simpler or more transparent, two supposed goals when the negotiations began eight long years ago. Nor will it make the EU...
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The Irish Times (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
THE RACE for the first presidency of the European Council is intensifying ahead of an informal gathering of EU leaders at celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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The Irish Times (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
BELGIAN PRIME Minister Herman Van Rompuy is the latest EU leader to emerge as a front runner for the first full-time presidency of the European Council.
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Labour.org.uk (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
David Miliband MP, Labour's Foreign Secretary, said in response to David Cameron's U-turn on the Lisbon Treaty: "British people now know what to expect when they hear a cast-iron guarantee from David Cameron on Europe: nothing. "This is not about taking back powers from Europe, it is about transfering power to the Eurosceptics on his backbenches. "David Cameron's proposals to opt out...
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GalliaWatch (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
You may be aware that Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal now writes also for the Hudson Institute, "a non-profit, non-partisan policy organization" in New York. This can only benefit (and possibly demoralize) the people who will be reading Paul and thus learning some exceedingly unpleasant truths about the situation in Europe. Despite the grimness of his mission, we all wish Paul great success...
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EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
When the Nazis marched into Paris in June 1940, the newspapers were not full of explanatory notes, outlining the minutia of the legal changes under the occupation. Quite rightly, they focused on the main event – that the government of the nation had passed to the German invaders and that supreme authority rested in Berlin. Remarkably though, in anticipation of the coming into force of our new,...
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Eco Friendly Mag (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
EU Puts Bulgaria on Notice Over Enviro Negligence The Pirin mountains are among Bulgaria’s threatened natural habitats. Photo by Marin Nikolov via Flickr. Come December, the European Council will assess Turkey’s slow, sometimes stumbling efforts toward EU accession. If the country gets a decent grade, the next chapter of negotiations to be opened is likely to be [...]
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patrickguillard | 06/23/2008
EU leaders unanimous in favour of mitigating effects of high food and oil prices