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.
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Copernicus & Brexit
The 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.
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On AI Regulation
Some people are thinking very hard about this, here are my notes.
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EES/ETIAS
EES 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…
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The next EU budget
The 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…
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Reset or Roadbump
On 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…
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An EU Army?
Not 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 …
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The Media and election interference
Some notes and links on regulating the media and election interference …
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About the Sahra Wagenknect Alliance
There is an election coming up in Germany, and both the Free Democrats and die Linke are polling at under 5%, which means they’re out. The BSW is seen as Left Populist, with a lot of focus being put on their position on immigration. This article i.e. mine, starts with a look at an interview…
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EU Commissioner confirmation hearings
I volunteered to watch some of the commissioner confirmation hearings, and write them up. I started with McGrath, Commissioner Designate for democracy , justice, and the rule of law; to get a full picture of my notes, see also Digital market regulation in the EU elsewhere on this wiki. See also Democratising the EU, Democratic…
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The next Commission
I was looking at a piece of project work, considering the next Commission of EU . It seems that either part of VdL’s manifesto for the 24/29 programme or her letters to Commissioner designates contains the sentence as follows, “We will build on the Conference on the Future of Europe to instil a true and…
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Sir Keir goes to Brussels
Starmer met Ursula Von Der Leyen in Brussels yesterday. It seems they couldn’t agree on what to say. Here are my notes and links …
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European Conservatives and Reformists
I had some interest in the ECR after the European Parliament elections, as they became the third largest party, and so made this page. The group was jointly founded by the British Tories as they build their off-ramp to Brexit and left the EPP. The parliamentary group is constructed for each parliament; in the 10th…
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EU Citizen? Vote!
Some EU citizen’s residents in the UK will be able to vote in the upcoming #EuropeanParliament elections. The infographic below, shows which countries are offering to permit this, and how they mean to make this happen. Some will offer postal votes, some will organise polling stations in the UK and Estonia is offering internet voting….
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EP Elections 2024
A note on the political manifestos of the EU parties.
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