I have written a lot about the European Union and its democracy and its easy to get lost so I have made this page which is meant to be a start page/index.
- Subsidiarity and proportionality basically my comments, notes and links on the treaties and constitution of the EU, you can see where it started, but now includes a number of paper links on democracy in the EU including references to those who want to reverse the centralising tendencies.
- Digital market regulation in the EU includes the Democracy Shield and some brief comments on the Media Freedom Act, see also Democratic renewal in the EU focuses on the Democracy Shield and the DSA, with some comments on some of the Techo politics. (Possibly these should be merged.)
- Sailing the high seas reforming and enlarging the EU on the late 2023 attempts to agree or head off significant reform to the institutions and competencies, interesting because the two initiatives show the two approaches of increasing federalism and/or reverting to a two speed Europe.
Also possibly less central to understanding the EU
- An article called, Media and election interference covers the UK and EU, catalogues and comments on the laws I think needed to understand the challenges of the Democracy shield.
- How much has the EU changed since Jan 20?, unfinished, maybe I should put the UKICE material in this page.
A list of all the articles tagged “europeanunion” can be found here, and here is a rendering of the last 12 item in the list in Feedzy. There are a number of articles also tagged on my blog. and a Feedzy render of those is available below.
- Two speed E.U.
by Dave on February 18, 2026 at 4:18 pmOne of the reform proposals at the end of the last EU mandate, was a multi-speed Europe. I reported on the most explicit initiative https://davelevy.info/wiki/sailing-the-high-seas-reforming-and-enlarging-the-eu/ . Has the time come again to look at this as an answer to the EU’s sclerosis. The challenges are clear, with the federalists or federalist adjacent players looking at…
- What the EU thinks of the “reset”
by Dave on December 12, 2025 at 1:26 pmA transcript of Ambassador Serrano, and Commissioner Šefčovič’s introductory speech/letter to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly’s 6th meeting. Meta This transcript of Ambassador Serrano, and Commissioner Šefčovič’s speeches/letter to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly’s 6th meeting in the Palace of Westminster was constructed by scraping the transcript from the youtube stream which is the UK’s…
- Rolling back the tide
by Dave on November 12, 2025 at 9:23 amThe EU is rolling back some of its corporate regulatory measures in the areas of sustainability reporting, and coming soon, simplifications in the digital economy laws. Here are some notes and links … Links
- What are the politics of the EU Commission?
by Dave on November 5, 2025 at 11:47 amThis explains a lot. This is a chart of the EU commissioners by political party, I made this today and it includes a few judgements. The EPP have a voting majority on the Commission. In addition, there is a creeping Presidentialisation of European politics which in my opinion concedes too much power to the singular…
- IT Sovereignty
by Dave on September 26, 2025 at 4:57 pmVarious things have taken me to considering the EU stack, these include the issues raised in this article On cloud operating systems and security of supply and the Bastani/Hao interview. The EU is considering these issues, in defining an EU stack, which does include networks, storage, and systems (and thus presumably CPUs and ASICS). The…
- My EU Start Pageby Dave on September 24, 2025 at 10:56 am
I have written a lot about the European Union and its democracy and its easy to get lost so I have made this page which is meant to be a start page/index. Also possibly less central to understanding the EU A list of all the articles tagged “europeanunion” can be found here, and here is…
- Copernicus & Brexit
by Dave on August 13, 2025 at 2:35 pmThe European Space Agency celebrated its most recent launch of a Copernicus Sentinel Satellite, which made me wonder how Brexit had impacted the UK’s participation in the EU’s space programmes. This post looks at what I found. On visiting the Design Museum’s Living on Mars exhibition (a couple of years ago, I was surprised to…
- On AI Regulation
by Dave on June 26, 2025 at 6:35 amSome people are thinking very hard about this, here are my notes. Links I posted some thoughts on my blog; https://davelevy.info/thoughts-from-gmb-25-on-privacy-law/ and others (including Linkedin article mirrors) at https://davelevy.info/tag/ai/ Does DUAB change the landscape?
- EES/ETIAS
by Dave on June 19, 2025 at 11:54 amEES is coming this year, allegedly, while ETIAS will wait ’till 2026. EES is an automatic registration and will eliminate the need for passport stamps for short stay visitors to most of the EU; ETIAS is the pre-travel authorisation system, travellers will need to apply for permission to enter prior to visiting the EU, as…
- The next EU budget
by Dave on May 27, 2025 at 7:13 amThe EU is preparing its next medium term budget. This is an act of legislation but they have convened a European citizens panel https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/index_en on the topic; its rercommendations are documented here. No matter the cynicism and valid criticisms aimed at these panels, this must be a good thing. The process continues and this page…
- Reset or Roadbump
by Dave on May 25, 2025 at 12:56 pmOn May 19th the European Union and the UK at a summit made a series of agreements. The UK government heralds this as a “Reset”. The European Commission have issued a press release, which has been agreed with the UK. The press release covers Defence, Connecting People, Trade and Economics, & internal security and judicial…
- An EU Army?
by Dave on March 5, 2025 at 12:10 pmNot yet, but the US administration’s behaviour over Ukraine is leading the rest of NATO to ask how real US defence guarantees are. The EU Commission has announced a funding route for arms and Germany is looking to exclude defence expenditure from their “debt ceiling rules”. My notes and links … On the lead up…
And the Feedzy of my blog, tagged “European Union”
- More on the “Reset”, progress over Xmas?
by Dave on February 7, 2026 at 5:02 pmMy Union branch has passed a motion for GMB Congress calling for the Labour Government to rejoin the single market and customs union now, and for the Party to ask for a mandate to rejoin at the next election. Is this needed? I am of the view that the speed of the “Reset” is glacial and that without a change in attitude they will not achieve anything of significance or notice before the end of the parliament. For the whole article, use the “Read More” button …
- Single market, customs union and a poison pill.
by Dave on January 15, 2026 at 1:01 pmIn an article, Starmer prepares for parliamentary battles over imminent EU ‘reset’ bill, jessicaelgot suggested that there is movement on the “red lines”. It is clearer on reading that this is an attempt to accelerate UK agreement to the currently
- A breeze in Downing Street
by Dave on December 23, 2025 at 9:40 amAre we moving closer to joining the EU? It’s been quite an eventful month, culminating in Wes Streeting’s call for the UK to join the EU’s Customs Union. This article looks at the current state of thinking of HMG on negotiations with the EU, comments on the velocity and direction of travel, contrasting the red lines vs the numerous programme adoptions, recent polling evidence that a majority of people in the UK now want to rejoin, the House of Commons vote on rejoining the customs union, and the announcement of the UK’s rejoining Erasmus+, the EU’s student exchange scheme. It concludes looking at a Guardian EB piece questioning if British Politics is fit to survive the current challenges and the Labour Party’s abysmal response. The full article, is overleaf, use the “Read More” to see it …
- UK–EU Defence: Stronger Together
by Dave on December 11, 2025 at 6:29 pmHow damaging is the European union’s rejection of the UK’s attempts to join its SAFE programme; SAFE Is the European Union’s new defence funding programme. I quote, Euroweekly News who describe it as a significant blow to the UK’s “Reset” ambitions. For more, use the “Read More” button. …
- Digital Justice in the EU
by Dave on November 24, 2025 at 9:21 amThe Commission of the European Union has issued a report proposing what they call the digitalization of justice. At the moment, this is mainly about best practise, although it seems they plan to improve digital access to the European court’s
- The EU Hokey Cokey
by Dave on November 21, 2025 at 10:35 amI watched the first day of the EU UK parliamentary partnership assembly. The first session was on general issues & trade and the second on defence. I made some notes which you can read overleaf. Following the agenda of the meeting, I talk of Trade and Defence in two parts. Throughout, I question the UK’s half hearted commitment. Use the read more button to see the whole article. …
- Tariffs and other trade barriers
by Dave on July 11, 2025 at 9:14 amLast night I watched a video about Canada raising a large toll on lorries travelling from the Lower 48 to Alaska, and it documents and forecast the impact on the fragile Alaskan economy. It reminded me of the trade barriers
- Human Rightsby Dave on June 25, 2025 at 8:25 am
At a meeting yesterday, I asked about/EU/UK cooperation within the justice pillar. I asked if in order to develop further cooperation, the UK would need to sign up to the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. The senior MEP present stated
- Thoughts from GMB 25 on privacy law
by Dave on June 12, 2025 at 12:21 pmThis article is a summary, I say, over the last week, at GMB Congress, three reasons to rejoin the EU or at least the single market have, in my opinion, been exposed. These are the highlighting of the GDPR as defence against AI, the second is the new EU Pay transparency directive, together with the EU’s AI Act. The full article is overleaf …
- Labour’s NPF and the EU
by Dave on May 30, 2025 at 12:16 pmI made a submission on rejoining the EU to Labour’s NPF. This article documents both how to, and my words of the submission. To see what I’ve said and/or download the text, use the “Read More” button. …
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