Gavinsblog.com

Category: European Politics

  • EU blogging

    I should have mentioned this earlier, Margot Wallstrom, Vice-President of the European Commission, has started a blog. She really needs to start categorising, and posting a little more regularly if she wants to build a readership.

  • Le Pen WWII remark triggers probe

    The French investigate something Le Pen said.

  • Do we want the Turkish peasantry here?

    Kevin Myers, this time spouting his outlandish views in the Telegraph: Within the EU, Sweden and Germany have received most Turkish immigrants – and most of them are not the cosmopolitan sophisticates of Istanbul, but are from the relatively backward communities of Anatolia. Young Swedes and Germans of Turkish extraction usually marry back into their…

  • Embraceable E.U.

    Robert Kagan has this interesting article in the WP last week. He is worth quoting at length here: But the crisis in Ukraine shows what an enormous and vital role Europe can play, and is playing, in shaping the politics and economies of nations and peoples along its ever-expanding border. This is no small matter.…

  • Is Turkey the next Argentina?

    Could Turkey be plunged into a fiscal nightmare? Erinc Yeldan, professor in the department of economics at Bilkent University in Ankara and Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington seem to think so. Will this threaten future Turkey accession to the EU? They note: But beneath these numbers, a…

  • Europe: Al Qaeda's next target?

    Will Europe see more Madrid and Istanbul style attacks? Many analysts are saying that Europe is at greater risk than the US. Ursula Mueller, a German diplomat with terror expertise, said that European-based terrorists were under pressure; terror operations have been averted in London, Paris and Madrid. “But they continue to focus on catastrophic attacks,”…

  • Poland chases after Ireland's pot of gold

    Kevin Cullen in the IHT writes about Poland, and their aspirations to copy Ireland’s success. Among some of the similarities between Poland and Ireland: Patrycjusz Sliwinski, 23, who proudly explained that he was named after Ireland’s patron saint, is writing his University of Wroclaw master’s thesis on Oscar Wilde. He became an Hibernophile by reading…

  • Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded

    Jonathan Steele argues for the disbandment of NATO: We must go all the way, up to the termination of Nato. An alliance which should have wound up when the Soviet Union collapsed now serves almost entirely as a device for giving the US an unfair and unreciprocated droit de regard over European foreign policy. As…

  • Is Europe ready for Turkey?

    Dominique Moisi questions whether the EU is ready for Turkey, and cites three likely factors involved. Polls show that at least in France, 75 percent of the population is not ready to accept Turkey – it is a refusal based on ignorance, stereotypes and prejudices disguised as common sense. And without the support of France,…

  • What is this 'European Union'?

    Anne-Marie Slaughter in the IHT, with a piece on the EU. She cites the number of times both George Bush and John Kerry have referred to the European Union – and it’s not often. This bit is good: Suppose the citizens of Ohio or Oregon or Alabama understood that the EU has a larger population…