In an attempt to showcase the EU’s foreign policy ambitions, Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker made the case for the creation of an EU army in an interview published last Sunday in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. According to Juncker, the European military force would demonstrate to Russia that the EU is serious about defending its… [Read More]
The US has often served as an economic barometer for the world. Owing to its size and influence, it signals economic downturns – ‘when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold’ – and can be used to track significant trends: Offshoring, the process by which economies were deindustrialised began in the… [Read More]
The home affairs commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos (Greece), has proposed to use EU offices in non-EU countries like Niger, Egypt, Turkey or Lebanon, to consider applications for asylum and refugee status from outside the EU. This seems to draw inspiration from the Australian policy of detaining and processing ‘boat people’ on Christmas Island, Papua New Guinea,… [Read More]
In June 2014 the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health published a paper listing 13 recommendations that would lead to better, more effective A&E departments. A ‘follow up’ report from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine was… [Read More]
France is forcing manufacturers of appliances like TVs, phones and white goods to display the life expectancy of their products. The law is part of a raft of measures including requirements for vendors to tell customers how long spare parts for an appliance can be bought. More significantly, a new law is being planned which… [Read More]
On Saturday the German group Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) hosted its first event in the UK. It has already had small showings in Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden.