Category: European Politics
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Danube is flowing into a new Europe
Richard Berstein from the NY Times has a good article in the IHT today. He talks about the river Danube, its history and the history associated with it. I do see one small error in his piece. Well its actually a big error, and one I wouldn’t expect to see in the Herald Tribune. After…
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Secular Europe: Regis Debray
In this thought-provoking piece, Regis Debray, a former adviser to President Mitterand, essentially argues that the US has yet to mature as a political entity. I am inclined to agree about the religous zeal coming from the Bush administration. I am not sure however if you could apply that to the entire nation of America.…
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Irish economy in the doldrums
A story from yesterday that I forgot to post. Interesting if not depressing.
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Europe just can't unite: Burkard Schmitt
Burkard Schmitt writes about the lack of consensus within Europe. He also argues in favour of a more powerful foreign and security policy, and more united European decision making. Worth a look.
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God in the constitution?
Not that many Irish people know it, but the European constitution is currently being drafted – if only they had known that before the Nice Treaty referendum. This article reports the arguments over whether the divine entity himself (if one does exist) should be, or how it should be, placed in the new constitution. Interesting…
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Why now? – The threat is real: Julian Lindley-French
Julian Lindley-French, a member of the faculty at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, argues that Europeans should stop their “security vacation“. He also argues that it is the job of European leaders to their people back to “strategic reality”. I think Julian is mistaken – I think it is the job of European leaders…
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Joyriding Irish politicians
My favourite writer on Sundays is Mr Gene Kerrgian. In this article he takes on the ‘cream’ of Irish society, our politicians. You don’t have to be from Ireland to relate to this story, minister (secretary of state- lower level) Noel Treacy was in a rush to make a parliamentary speech, and told the driver…
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Neutrality in a time bubble
The ever learned Tom McGurk has an article today on the controversial question of Irish neutrality. Besides commenting on Rugby matters on Irish television, McGurk is a skillful writer – and I almost always agree with his views. Here again he writes with clarity on the issue, my views with differ from his slightly though…
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Romanians jailed in 'Minority Report' style
Top billing today is the story that 4 Romanian men were found guilty for commiting a crime they have yet to commit. Yes, in Ireland we are way ahead of the times, who needs Minority Report when you have the real thing here in Ireland. Because 4 Romanian guys were acting suspiciously in a Wicklow…
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NATO and EU join forces: Joe Fitchett
A writer for the IHT, Joe Fitchett, has an interesting story about some little known about goings on over at the EU summit in Copenhagen. Yet another step in the integration of NATO assets into an emerging European army. This follows on from previous stories I posted by Javier Solana (Dec 8) and Giles Merritt…