Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

January 9, 2014
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Britain: Hiding under a duvet of doubt and debt

Britain: Hiding under a duvet of doubt and debt

Genuinely superb column by Mary Riddell in the Telegraph today. Read in full. Considering the Telegraph’s decades of hostility to the EU (it’s the paper that employs the hard anti-EU Tory Tea Partier Dan Hannan, after all, and owners the … Continue reading

June 12, 2012
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Treating the EU & G20 leaders like naughty schoolchildren

Excellent teacherly putdown in this post from thinktank Bruegel’s blog:

“Europe has already expressed its intention to focus [the upcoming G20 summit] on growth and jobs; the deliverable should foreseeably be yet another ‘plan’ without specific deadlines or commitments, along the lines of previous summit discussions. Growth and jobs are obviously fine in principle, but adopting such broad focus is likely to divert attention from the immediate challenges and even more from the actions to be undertaken. It is a pity, because Europe, while being ultimately responsible for its own actions, badly needs to explain itself and convince the global community that it is doing its best to resolve its problems.”

Reads like many a school report*: “It is a pity… Must try harder… We wouldn’t mind if it were only himself this behaviour was affecting, but he’s disrupting the whole class…” (etc. etc. etc.)

* Not one of mine, obviously… *ahem*