The Daily Telegraph – a very Eurosceptic English daily newspaper – today published an interesting article under the above banner. The article conclude that Lady Thatcher of then 1980s might in fact have supported the new Treaty of Lisbon, for the following reasons: The institutional reforms in the Reform Treaty are largely designed to make [...]

I received a provocative note from my good friend and colleague, Eberhard Rhein, and with his permission, publish it below: During their recent visits to Ryadh the French and US Presidents have called on the Saudis to lower the oil price as it hurts American and French families. They received a polite but firm answer [...]

The game of ‘diplomatic whispers’is a reversal of ‘Chinese whispers’ (see endnote). Diplomatic whispers begin with a given country’s embassy in Ruritania routinely sending to its foreign ministry ‘telegrams’ on the political, economic and social happenings and analyses of their implications. These reports are often written by diplomats who are relatively new to Ruritania, have [...]

A new EU Commission takes office on 1 November 2009. The Lisbon Treaty is expected to come into force officially on 1 January 2009 but this date may slip. There is talk of a postponement until 1 November, but this would be of doubtful validity. This gives rise to an intriguing situation relating to three [...]

Philip Stephens, in today’s Financial Times writes that European leaders have a better opportunity than for some time to “stop asking what Washington can do for them and start thinking about what they might do for themselves.” The Lisbon agenda should be ratified and the new leadership is not tainted by the fall-out over Iraq. [...]

Reproduced below are the Contents and the Epilogue of book, edited by Etienne Reuter and myself, which has just been published. “China-EU: A Common Future“, available at amazon, contains a series of original contributions by 35 European and Chinese experts, sometimes joint and sometimes twin, discussing the key issues that are relevant to the EU-PRC [...]

The recent visit of George W Bush to the Middle East confirms the bankruptcy of the current US policy in the region.  In Jerusalem, the president stated, “I believe that an Israeli-Palestine peace treaty will be signed during my presidency.”  Was this mere rhetoric, does he believe it, or is it an expression of faith?   [...]