• Insight by Hugo Brady, 10 June 2009

    EU policies were not the issue that guided most voters in last week’s elections to the European Parliament. The economic crisis and job safety were uppermost in people’s minds.

  • Insight by Hugo Brady, 29 May 2009

    Between June 4th and June 7th, Europeans will cast their votes to elect a new European Parliament (EP). Recent opinion polls indicate that they will do so without much enthusiasm.

  • Insight by Charles Grant, 21 May 2009

    If the Irish people vote yes to the Lisbon treaty at the second attempt, and the Czechs, Germans and Poles also ratify, the EU will set up an ‘external action service’ or EAS. This new institution promises to make the Union’s common foreign and security policy more effective.

  • Insight by Charles Grant, 29 January 2009

    One Frenchman, Jean Monnet, invented the European Commission, and another, Jacques Delors, was its greatest president. Yet the French are increasingly hostile to this Brussels institution.

  • Insight by Katinka Barysch, 16 December 2008

    The EU summit on December 10th-11th 2008 was a success in so far as EU leaders managed to agree on all major agenda items. The fact that there was a lot of bitter wrangling and a big dose of compromise was only to be expected against the backdrop of a rapidly worsening European economy.

  • Insight by Hugo Brady, 08 December 2008

    Ireland’s parliament – the Oireachtas – recently published a lengthy report on where the country’s relationship with the EU stands after the country’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty by referendum.

  • Insight by Simon Tilford, 07 November 2008

    On the face of it, it appears churlish to accuse the Commission of complacency when it is forecasting no growth in the eurozone economy in 2009 and a deep recession in the UK.

  • Insight by Hugo Brady, 24 October 2008

    The financial crisis is challenging many of our assumptions about the course of politics and world affairs. Gordon Brown – only weeks ago portrayed as nearing the end of his time as UK prime minister – has been elevated to European, even global leadership status.