And still it goes on. Readers will recall Spain’s recent successful attempt to claim authority over Gibraltar’s territorial waters under EU environmental protection laws, and their ongoing attempts to assert that authority using armed fast patrol boats. The excuse from Whitehall for accepting the EU directive was that they hadn’t […]

The history of democracy in Europe is a mixed bag. In Great Britain we have been (broadly) free for a thousand years (give or take a few decades, and the bit since 1997). Other countries have been free for about as long as it takes to soft-boil an egg. And still […]

Those of a certain era might associate stockpiling with the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the days when the unions would start a strike if the beer ran out in the workers canteen. This is not one of those occasions. Instead, that insidious organisation determined to irritate us in every nook […]

Who remembers the EU budget meeting in 2005 when that nice Mr Blair went to give those nasty men in Brussels a firm talking to? He went strongly demanding that the French please possibly accept opening talks about fiddling with the Common Agricultural Policy. Not ‘reforming’ it. Oh no. Not […]

No surprise here: New guidelines for Irish media to cover the Lisbon Treaty referendum [took] effect at noon Friday (7 August). Announced by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI), the new guidelines clarify that there is no requirement to allocate an absolute equality of airtime to opposing sides of the […]

Research from the European Commission and reproduced on The Register has found that one in three Europeans (probably “users within the EU” to be pedantic but accurate) have never used the internet. This is considered an improvement from 2007 when 40 per cent had never been online. 38 per cent […]

Just as you’d expect from two unelected unwanted dictatorships, the EU is cuddling up to Cuba. You know, the same Cuba voted a few months ago as 7th Happiest Place To Live – a fact neatly explaining the hordes of Cubans trying to leave the place on converted lorries, surfboards […]

Athough this has been extensively blogged about at A Tangled Web and elsewhere, TheEye decided to wait until the moment of truth to comment. Farewell, then, Iceland. We are going to miss you. Okay, we won’t miss arguing about cod. Or about Rockall. Or your habit of creating new volcanic […]

Did you see that the Parliament in Iceland has voted by a narrow majority to set in motion an application to join the European Union, after five days of gruelling debate? Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir of the Social Democrats has also been pushing for the adoption of the euro as […]

Did you read that the unemployment rate in the 16 countries that use the euro rose more than expected and to the highest level for a decade in May as more companies laid off staff in a bid to survive the deepest recession since World War II? The euro-zone jobless […]