9 11, 2020

Get ready for friction?

By |2020-11-14T13:14:41+00:00November 9th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Europe, Europe, Trade|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

Political slogans, by their nature, often tend to over-simplify or even deceive. This tendency is presumably eternal and certainly preceded the Brexit experience. However, the insistence on certain questionable mantras has been exceptionally prominent to the project of removing the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). They have [...]

2 11, 2020

They come to bury the European Convention on Human Rights, not to praise it

By |2020-11-14T13:01:17+00:00November 2nd, 2020|Categories: Citizens’ rights, Europe|Tags: , , , , , , , |

70 years ago, on 4 November 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights was signed in Rome. The ECHR was a remarkable achievement. Like its better known cousin, the EU, it has become a foundation stone of post-war peace and stability in Europe. We should heap praise on the ECHR, [...]

2 11, 2020

Event video: The US Presidential Elections 2020 – What’s at stake?

By |2020-11-14T12:58:55+00:00November 2nd, 2020|Categories: 2020, Europe, Foreign Policy & Defence, Global, Video|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

"The US Presidential Elections 2020 - What's at stake?" 28th October 2020 Joint webinar organised by The Federal Trust with Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation  and Global Policy Institute Speakers: Professor Anatol Lieven Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar, Visiting Professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, and [...]

27 10, 2020

Time to get serious about the Future of Europe Conference

By |2020-11-14T12:54:54+00:00October 27th, 2020|Categories: Citizens’ rights, EU Policies & Institutions, Future of Europe, Views from the Federal Trust|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

This article was first published by Euractiv with the title "We need to talk about the future of Europe". Our online world lends itself well to a conversation with citizens about the future of Europe. And yet, European leaders have so far failed to reach agreement, even on who should [...]

22 10, 2020

A Difficult Choice for Johnson: A Brexit deal or no deal

By |2020-11-14T12:42:26+00:00October 22nd, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Europe, Europe|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

News that the Brexit talks were to be resumed sent the external value of the pound back up again. Political commentators, especially in the UK, began to predict the relatively rapid conclusion of an agreement on future trade relations between the UK and the EU. They pointed in particular to [...]

13 10, 2020

Germany’s miles better…

By |2020-11-14T12:34:49+00:00October 13th, 2020|Categories: Europe, Europe, Views from the Federal Trust|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

This article was first published on Sceptical Scot. Thirty years ago, on October 3 1990, I was standing among a million people in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin observing and reporting on the ceremonies celebrating the rebirth of a united Germany. A streaker briefly interrupted the profoundly good-natured, [...]

13 10, 2020

Brexit: removing the connective tissue of the United Kingdom?

By |2020-11-14T12:25:11+00:00October 13th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Devolution, Europe, Europe, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

The United Kingdom (UK) and what is now the European Union (EU) were intertwined for nearly half a century. Consequently, Brexit means more than the UK removing itself from the EU. It involves extracting the EU from the UK. The four years after the EU referendum of 23 June 2016 [...]

12 10, 2020

Replacing the Westphalian system – Essay on the Identification of the EU as a democratic Union of democratic States

By |2020-11-14T12:14:05+00:00October 12th, 2020|Categories: Citizens’ rights, EU Policies & Institutions, Future of Europe, Reports & Policy Briefs, Views from the Federal Trust|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

by Jaap Hoeksma Philosopher of law and director of Euroknow Author of “The Case Bundesverfassungsgericht versus EU Court of Justice – Can the EU function as a democracy without forming a State?”, which can be downloaded for free here: https://www.wolfpublishers.eu/futureofeurope Executive Summary Since its foundation in the middle of the previous century, the EU and its [...]

2 10, 2020

EU-UK talks look like “tunnelling” toward a fudged deal

By |2020-10-09T11:46:02+00:00October 2nd, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Europe, Trade, Trade & Financial services|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Will there be a No Deal Brexit or a Free Trade Agreement, of some kind, by 15th October 2020?  This was the date by which UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted an accord should be reached or, as he put it, Britain would simply walk away. Regaining British sovereignty? Given [...]

1 10, 2020

Don’t just blame Johnson, blame the Brexit he enabled

By |2020-10-09T11:24:51+00:00October 1st, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Europe, Europe|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Photo credit: Steve Nimmons / CC BY There is a celebrated passage in Marcel Proust’s “Sodom and Gomorrah” where the narrator sums up the nature of a character, Charles Morel, who in some sense encapsulates all that is vile in the values of his milieu. Morel, we are [...]

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