Opinion pieces

  • Why the EU needs a migration organisation, by Hugo Brady
    European Voice, 01 June 2011

    A European Migration Organisation would help the EU develop clearer responses to migration. EU leaders will discuss reform of the Schengen area at their summit next week (23-24 June).

  • Greece and Portugal should both go gracefully, by Simon Tilford
    Financial Times, 12 May 2011

    Even as the ink is drying on Portugal's European Union and International Monetary Fund bail-out agreement, evidence is mounting that last year's bail-outs of Greece and Ireland have failed. Far from improving their access to the financial markets, Greece and Ireland face record borrowing costs.

  • Sarkozy-Berlusconi: A border control farce, by Hugo Brady
    The Guardian, 29 April 2011

    When Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi announced plans to weaken passport-free travel in Europe this week, many onlookers concluded that the EU's most tangible achievement, the Schengen zone, was going the way of the single currency.

  • We have reached a share it or lose it moment, by Tomas Valasek
    Defence Management Journal, 26 April 2011

    Despite all the cuts to defence budgets, Europe's militaries are not doing enough pooling and sharing of equipment and personnel; that is the opinion of Thomas Valasek, author of "Surviving Austerity - The Case for a New Approach to EU Military Collaboration".

  • Is Germany flipping the bird at Europe?, by Katinka Barysch
    The Guardian, 22 April 2011

    It would have caused a chuckle among British tabloid readers. In Germany (and Greece) it caused a storm. On February 22 2010, the German news magazine Focus published a cover that depicted the Aphrodite of Milos with an outstretched arm making a very rude gesture at its readers.

  • The EU needs to woo Israel if it’s to be a peacemaker, by Clara Marina O'Donnell
    Europe's world, 01 April 2011
    Sharon Pardo highlights a number of important ways in which the EU can support the Middle East peace process, not least by encouraging internal Palestinian reconciliation. But if the EU wants to play a larger role in the peace process it also needs to improve its image in Israel.
  • Stopping the transatlantic rift, by Tomas Valasek
    International Herald Tribune, 26 January 2011

    You might call it the Obama paradox: Atlanticists on both sides of the ocean were certain that this president, inaugurated two years ago, would renew the transatlantic alliance.

  • Save and secure? , by Clara Marina O'Donnell
    E!Sharp, 03 January 2011

    At a bilateral summit in London on November 2 last year, Britain and France embarked on what their leaders described as a "new chapter" in defence co-operation.