Michael Berendt's blog

Can Europe provide leadership in Copenhagen?

February 9, 2009

It’s maybe hard to think of global warming as we shiver in the coldest European winter for two decades, but there are just nine months to go before COP15, the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, which may well determine whether or not the world can respond to a threat to our planet which […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Climate change, Energy, Environment

Everyone a loser in Ukraine-Russia dispute – except EU energy policy

January 25, 2009

The gas is flowing again. The deal signed between Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow on January 21 should at last provide some respite for all those who have suffered severe hardship from the suspension of gas supplier in recent weeks.
In the short term everyone has been a loser from […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Energy, Russia

Troubled year ahead for the euro?

January 19, 2009

On January 16 the euro replaced the koruna as the official currency of Slovakia, bringing to sixteen the number of countries of the eurozone. It was the first country in the former Soviet bloc to adopt the single currency – and just 20 years after the Fall of the Wall. What a great way to […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Eurozone, Finance, UK politics

Russia – Ukraine gas dispute: business or politics?

January 6, 2009

Is it business or politics? The official EU line is that the confrontation between Russia and the Ukraine on gas supplies is a commercial dispute which does not call for political intervention. This is far removed from the accusations of “pipeline politics” directed at Russia during the 2006 dispute.
Requests by the parties for the EU […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Energy, International, Russia, Turkey

Flowers for France’s presidency, brickbats for the Commission

December 18, 2008

It seems that France has had a good presidency. It could hardly have been a more challenging one, but despite the occasional sniff of folie de grandeur, President Nicolas Sarkozy has proved to be the man of the hour, with the élan needed to make things happen.
Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and finance minister Christine Lagarde […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Competition, European politics, Eurozone, Finance, Treaty of Lisbon

Reassuring words for an autumn vote in Ireland?

December 10, 2008

“The way forward is beginning to emerge”. So said Dick Roche, Ireland’s minister for European affairs, on the eve of the Brussels December summit. It looks like a second Irish referendum for the autumn of 2009.
The Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen is expected to tell EU colleagues that he will seek a second referendum in the […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Defence, Elections, European politics, Finance, Kosovo, Treaty of Lisbon, UK politics

Council scuppers transfer of telecoms power to Brussels

November 30, 2008

It seems that any major transfer of power from the national level to the European Commission for EU telecoms regulation has been scuppered by the Council of Ministers.
Commissioner Reding had threatened ten days ago to withdraw Commission proposals if ministers refused to go along with them, but the Council’s political agreement on November 27 was […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Better regulation, Competition, Energy, Telecoms

Bendy bananas and curly cucumbers back on the shelves?

November 20, 2008

In Britain’s popular culture the marketing restrictions on bendy bananas and curly cucumbers have always been associated with the Bureaucrats of Brussels. Nothing so well underpinned a public perception of meddling officials in a foreign country imposing their will on a hapless populace by setting fruit and veg dimensions by millimetre and by degree. The […]

Posted by Michael Berendt

Agriculture, Better regulation, UK politics

Michael Berendt's blog

Blogging commentary on current events from the perspective of someone who has been closely involved with the policies, the policy-makers and the whole complex network of people who make the process of European integration so exciting and absorbing.


Advertisement