The Economist: Certain ideas of Europe
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A farewell post
Our Europe blog is closing IN THE nearly two years since its inception, this blog has considered the demise of many things: the European constitution, French culture, Belgium. Today, however, we look inward, as our blogging here comes to an end. Created in Febru …
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Is class back?
Posh v plodding with the masses A poll published by the Independent on Sunday shows the double-digit lead that Britains Conservatives had over Gordon Browns Labour team has nearly evaporated. Tory support fell to 37%, down 6 points from a month earl …
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Special offer: one-way ticket from Guantanamo to Europe
Offering a port in a storm AMID all the European summitry and finger-pointing on climate change, the Lisbon Treaty and the economic crisis, with the French, British, Germans and (again this week) Irish grabbing the limelight, it was easy to overlook a tantalising …
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Ireland braces for a Lisbon do-over
Charges of conspiracy over a rerun IRISH pig farmers may be consumed by a crisis over contaminated pork, but many on the Emerald Isle think the real smells are coming from Brussels. The Irish Independent is reporting that a second vote on the EUs propose …
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Spare a thought for Edison
Is the incandescent bulb worth saving? SPARE a thought for Thomas Edison. The European Union is expected to phase out incandescent lightbulbs, which the inventor introduced in 1879, in a bid to increase energy efficiency and meet climate-change targets. …
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Where do expats get more bang for their buck?
Making a dollar (or pound or euro) go a little farther SHORTLY after moving to London a few years ago, an American journalist was invited to lunch by a British colleague. The well-meaning Londoner, thinking the American might be craving some familiar comfort …
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Dimming Amsterdam's 'red light' district
Cracking down on sex, drugs and crime AMSTERDAM wants a new image. Long a magnate for college boys on break, stag parties and assorted drifters, the city is cracking down on its red light district. Officials reportedly plan to close half the citys brothels, s …
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Beijing turns up the heat (again) on Sarkozy
Stamping its feet over the Dalai Lama IF Nicolas Sarkozy goes ahead with plans to meet the Dalai Lama in Poland on Saturday at a gathering of Nobel Peace Prize winners, as expected, China is ready to impose trade sanctions on France. That was the not-very-subtle m …
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Will a tortured past colour Anglo-American relations?
Uncomfortable details about Obama's grandfather WEVE known for some time that Barack Obamas paternal grandfather worked as a cook for the British in Kenya during colonial rule. Now comes a more harrowing report about Hussein Onyango Obamas treatment at the hands o …
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Does Europe matter enough to China?
Battling irrelevance Chinas decision to cancel a planned bilateral summit with the European Union this week is raising questions about just how much Beijing cares about Europe. John Fox, an Asia expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, writes that …
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Er, Britain may not actually qualify for the euro
An awkward reality check FROM our European Union correspondent in BrusselsTHERE HAS been a certain amount of frothing, this morning, in the bubble within a bubble inhabited by British officials and diplomats posted to the EU capital. The cause is an interview give …
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Treating addicts as patients, not criminals
Handing out free heroin MORE than two-thirds of Swiss voters support formalising a programme to give prescription heroin to drug addicts. Some 68% of ballots cast favoured making the programme, which lets addicts inject heroin under medical supervis …
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Mixing sport and politics
Protection against trafficking of players, or unnecessary meddling? CONTROVERSY is brewing in European football, as politicians are being urged to intervene in the sport. The president of the football association UEFA, Michel Platini, appealed to the sports m …
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Instead of turkey in November, how about coq au vin in June?
A French thanksgiving in America ON this day when Americans at home and abroad gather round a turkey give thanks for their blessings, spare a thought for how different things might have been if the French notion of thanksgiving had taken hold in Ame …
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Tapping solar among the tombstones
Are Spaniards turning in their graves? BLESSED with more sunshine than many of its European neighbours, Spain seems a perfect place to harness solar energy. Now a suburb of Barcelona has added a new twist the renewable-energy effort by installi …
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A crashingly successful start for digital culture
Is this the way to kick off a 'Renaissance'? WHO says interest in culture is dying out? Just ask the creators of Europeana, who have built a new digital collection of European culture for online users. The prototype website had to be shut down after just …
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France's suicidal Socialists
Or how to put off even your own voters IT COULD not have been a worse outcome. French Socialist Party members voted by a wafer-thin margin of just 42 votes, out of 134,784 cast, for Martine Aubry as their next leader. The party has not won a presidential election …
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France's Suicidal Socialists
Or how to put off even your own voters IT COULD not have been a worse outcome. French Socialist Party members voted by a wafer-thin margin of just 42 votes, out of 134,784 cast, for Martine Aubry as their next leader. The party has not won a presidential election …
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Camouflage capers
Keep an eye out for Russians in the Finnish forest OBSERVING a pack of teens loping along a shopping street over the weekend, their belts hanging precariously half-way down their backsides, your correspondent noted that although Europes younger population is …
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Cracking down on pirates
Why can't the navies stamp them out? HEREs a thought from a frustrated European shipping executive to deal with increasingly audacious pirate attacks off the Somali coast and in the Gulf of Aden: regular naval escorts for commercial vessels. "Right …
The Economist: Certain ideas of Europe
