Europe
Apart from a few years in the middle-east, I've lived my whole life in europe; the great majority in britain. I am a european, both from conviction and pragmatism. Europe, of which the uk remains a part, is helping forge a new way forward for the world. It is a lighthouse of how old enemies can become not just new allies, but so closely bound and integrated that their future prosperity depends on them hanging ever closer together. At its best, europe brings real benefits from bigger and freer flowing markets, economies of scale, the circulation of best practice and safety in numbers. I have written a lot about europe, mainly in my guise of new europe, and you can read it all here. Watch the clip, by oscar-winning producer alice doyard
the wages of sin (November 2004)
Saturday 13th December 2008
One day your bags are packed and six lucrative part-time City directorships and a Dukedom await you, and the next you’re back around a Brussels table discussing the 6th amendment to Paragraph 4 of Annex 2 of the Competition in the Markets for Telecommunications Services Directive. Again.
the new jews (October 2004)
Saturday 13th December 2008
High up on a climbing frame with young son, a large and rather strange winged insect lands nearby. Despite the greatest respect for life of all kinds, the first instinct is to kill it...
the toblerones of brussels (December 2004)
Saturday 13th December 2008
A new Directive is being finalised in conference chamber 69b-4 on floor 1.2 of one of those drab buildings which give the impression that some time in the sixties the Russians conquered Belgium and no-one noticed...
the big softie (March 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
"Soft power" is actually a very powerful doctrine, representing far more than a cut-price way to win friends and influence people. The EU is the world’s largest deployer of trade, aid, culture, ideas and international law...
so much further yet to march (May 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
Before fire, murder, rape and massacre became norms of policy, Sarajevo was for hundreds of years the epicentre of tolerance in the Balkans, boasting the most mixed marriages in the whole of Jugoslavia...
the thought that dare not speak its name (June 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
Most on the bus have always known where Europe is going. The only thing is that they have different destinations in mind. The EU has progressed so far not despite but because of this...
moving on (July 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
History and a global view show clearly that blocs are the only way forward in the world today: China will not stop because Europe pauses...
new europe is on holiday (August 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
As ever, a bird in the hand is worth two in the (George W) bush. Real short-term worries trump possible long-term gains. But that’s Europe all over as we, along with everybody else, make the agonisingly slow journey into the post-nation state world.
court in the act (September 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
Once upon a time, the ECJ was a works tribunal for Brussels staff. One day, to little fanfare, it quoted one of its own previous decisions, and so began the extraordinary story of how ECJ jurisprudence transformed a common or garden treaty system into the unique constitutional order that is today’s EU...
warsaw's powerlust (November 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
The generation of laws Poland adopted to join the EU are now biting, and open markets and globalisation are having real effects - all easily termed “Europe”. As ever, losers are bitter, fearful, and better organised to make the most noise...
alea iacta est (December 2005)
Saturday 13th December 2008
A favourite joke that endlessly circles Brussels is that those who speak three languages are trilingual, those who speak two are bilingual and those who speak just one are English...
getting on with it ! (January 2006)
Saturday 13th December 2008
The Margaret Thatcher speech forever remembered by Central Europeans (“We shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities”) is better known elsewhere for making euroscepticism respectable...