Tag archive for ‘Barroso’
A European Economic Government Could Solve Europe’s Democracy Deficit
Europe has come to praise democracy and is about to bury it. The Greek crisis, caused by the uncooperative behaviour of different nation states, has been a wake-up call showing that monetary union without an economic government will not work in the long run. Reforms are needed. Yet, because they widen the democratic deficit, the [...]
The very real Powers of the European Parliament
As 2009 draws to a close, a new European order is taking shape, although admittedly with a whimper rather than a bang. The Lisbon Treaty has finally staggered into life. The member state governments have chosen the first ever full time Council President and a new and more powerful High Representative for Foreign and Security [...]
The Winner is: Democracy!
Habemus Presidentem. With the Lisbon Treaty ratified, the European Council appointed the Belgian Prime Minister Van Rompuy as its President, and Lady Ashton as Vice-President of the European Commission. The echo has been devastating. The Financial Times has called it ‘a colossal failure of ambition’. However, the decisions by the heads of states and governments [...]
Taking Democracy in Europe seriously
Emanuel Barroso has been re-elected President of the European Commission. How strange! Why has the politician, who bears the largest individual responsibility for the steady decline in the efficiency and popular approval of European policies, been endorsed by all EU governments and obtained 382 votes of the 718 MEPs who participated in the election? This [...]
Testing the European Parliament
Europe returns from the summer vacation and a busy schedule starts in Brussels. The most important issue is the election of the President of the next Commission: who will it be and how will he be appointed?
The two questions are, of course, related. For the moment only the incumbent José Manuel Barroso is an official [...]
Tasks of the New European Commission
The study group Europe of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has drawn up a list of tasks to be incorporated in the programme of the new European Commission over the next few years. Its detailed proposals should serve as a blueprint for political decision-making, as well as a set of benchmarks for the European Parliament and the European [...]
