EU institutions & treaties

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The Dis-Uniting Kingdom?

30 June 2009
The Wall Street Journal
Britain's European debate has gone septic. More than half of British votes cast in recent European elections went to euro-skeptic parties ranging from the mad, bad political fringes such as the British National Party to a Conservative Party promising to claw back powers from Brussels.

Guest column: Spain's muted EU voice

09 June 2009
Financial Times
There are several paradoxes about Spain’s global role. Its business leaders have built up many world-beating companies, but its politicians tend to be parochial.

Por qué pesa poco España?

08 May 2009
ABC.es
El papel de España en la UE encierra una extraña paradoja. Aunque se trata de uno de los Estados miembros más europeísta, es el que menos influencia tiene de los seis países más grandes. Pero esto no siempre ha sido así.

Defending European defence in partnership with NATO, strengthening the EU's military muscle is the right idea

Tomas Valasek
09 December 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Ten years ago in St. Malo, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac launched the European security and defence policy, or ESDP. They had the right idea: The European Union needs a defence arm if it is to play a global role, and with the demand for peacekeepers rising, ESDP could give a needed boost to the efforts of NATO and the United Nations. Or at least that was the theory.

Brussels's Bad Medicine

Simon Tilford
02 October 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Europe's prosperity depends on its developing and sustaining high-tech businesses. Twenty years ago, Europe was the center of the pharmaceutical industry, which invested roughly 30% more in R&D here than in the U.S.

The era of the grand treaty is over

16 June 2008
The Guardian
Ireland has sent Europe into tumult by garrotting the Lisbon treaty at the ballot box. The possibility of resuscitating the treaty is slight. Given the large turnout, a second referendum on the text is likely to be ruled out by Irish politicians as unfeasible.

The exit beckons for Britain

18 October 2007
New Statesman
As EU leaders gathered for their latest summit, Britain's Euro sceptics fired their heavy artillery rounds. The Conservatives, the Sun, Mail and Telegraph whipped themselves into a fury, convinced that if they took their analysis of the EU reform treaty to new hyperbolic heights, they could force the government to offer a referendum.

Why all the angst?

18 October 2007
The Guardian
As EU leaders meet to agree a new reform treaty in Lisbon this week, I am struck by the level of angst in Britain over what, to my mind, represents a fantastic negotiating success.

What impact will the EU reform treaty have?

17 October 2007
Financial Times
The European Union’s 27 member states expect to approve a ”reform treaty” in Lisbon on Friday, whose birth pangs have caused the bloc perhaps more distress than any episode in its 50-year history.
Yet European leaders regard the treaty as an essential starting point for strengthening the EU’s internal mechanisms and...

State of the Union: The good deal

25 June 2007
The Wall Street Journal
The deal in Brussels on a new treaty this weekend is good news for those who hope the EU can become a more confident and effective contributor to global security.

We do not need a referendum

23 June 2007
The Guardian
Thank goodness for the agreement in Brussels last night. Without a deal, the EU would have been mired in arguments on treaties, institutions and process for a prolonged period.

Treaty would not concede new powers on foreign policy

21 June 2007
Financial Times
Sir,
Martin Wolf's critique of the proposed new EU treaty ("This is a cynical plan for an unnecessary European treaty", June 20) wrongly asserts that the new posts of "president" and "foreign minister" would "centralise decision-making in areas affecting security".
Each would replace the rotating presidency as, respectively, chair of the European...

Constitutional fudge

19 June 2007
The Guardian
So far, Britain's stance on the German attempt to revise the EU treaties has been - from a British perspective - broadly reasonable.

Britain would be unwise to thwart Europe's treaty

03 April 2007
Financial Times
Germany's ambition to salvage large parts of the European Union constitutional treaty may provoke a serious rift between Britain and its partners. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown may be heading for a collision over what to do about the German plan. But the general view in Britain seems to be...

The European Union at fifty: A second life

Aurore Wanlin
15 March 2007
Open democracy
On 25 March 2007, the European Union will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the treaty of Rome, the founding document of what became today's union of twenty-seven member-states.

Get with it, Europe

Simon Tilford
09 March 2007
The International Herald Tribune
It is seven years since the European Union launched its Lisbon agenda of economic reforms aimed at transforming the competitiveness of the European economy by 2010. Despite the pessimism, there has been much to cheer.

Adieu, Europe?

29 June 2006
Open democracy
The machinery of the European Union has recovered from the shock of the failed French and Dutch referenda, but not the heart that pumps it, says Aurore Wanlin.
When the French and the Dutch voted against the draft European Union constitution in May 2005, many thought this was an unprecedented crisis...

Sluggish EU 'Lisbon Agenda' bodes ill for modernisation

Aurore Wanlin
01 June 2006
European Affairs
Europe has gotten off to a bad start in 2006 with a fresh battering of the 'Lisbon agenda.' Protectionism is on the rise across the European Union.

What new transatlantic institutions?

Charles Grant, Mark Leonard
01 June 2006
European Affairs
The last two years have seen a rapprochement across the Atlantic. The elevation of new personnel – such as Condoleezza Rice to the State Department and Angela Merkel as German Chancellor – has helped to remove some of the bitterness that the Iraq confrontation had left behind.

Viewpoints: Europe's way forward

Mark Leonard
30 January 2006
BBC News
Confidence - A lot of the sense of crisis is self-generated. As soon as European leaders start dealing with pressing problems in a visible way, like building up the foreign policy machinery, dealing with migration and terrorism and modernising their economies and welfare states, then citizens will be less sceptical.