What do you think?
-
Join our mailing list
What this site has written about recently
accountability - borders - Britain and the EU - Britain and the euro - coalition government - Conservatives - death penalty - democracy - demos - economic policy - electoral reform - euro - European foreign policy - European Parliament - eurosceptics - eurozone governance - financial crisis - fiscal compact treaty - Germany - global parliamentary assembly - Greece - history - House of Lords - human rights - IMF - Ireland - Labour party - languages - Libya - multi-level democracy - national identity - national sovereignty - nature of the EU - political parties - referendum on Europe - rule of law - Scotland - single market - social Europe - sovereign debt - subsidiarity - Switzerland - tax - tax havens - transport policy-
-
Latest News
- In this new book, Brendan Donnelly and Hugh Dykes, both former Conservative parliamentarians, critically review British attitudes towards the European Union, particularly those of the media and political classes. They...
- Federal Union held its AGM and annual conference on 17 March 2012. The morning session, entitled “Can the European Union be saved?”, looked at the European treaty agreed at the...
- By John Parry Review of “The Council of Europe” by Martyn Bond (Routledge Global Institutions Series, price £75 hardback) It was summer 1949. In the village of Le Hohwald, tucked...
Latest Blog Entries
- How the world turns - 20/05/2012It is not only the world of politics that is turned upside down by the European banking crisis and the ineffectual way in which political leaders are dealing with it. ...
- Authentic euroscepticism - 20/05/2012A very interesting article in the Daily Telegraph last Friday by Jeremy Warner (read it here) sums up the eurosceptic dilemma and reveals the perverse nature of the way they...
- Overwhelming - 18/05/2012This blog has described before the difficulties associated with Greek departure from the eurozone. It would reduce the Greeks to a cash or even barter economy for a while, and...
Federal Union on Twitter
- Twitter is loading...
diplomacy Archive
-
Transparency & privacy, diplomacy & secrecy: where lies the “Common Good”? Exploring the Wikileaks phenomenon (2 June 2011)
Posted on 27/04/2011 | No CommentsThe Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust invites you to a meeting to discuss the relative claims and limitations of “freedom of information” in our modern world Date : Thursday 2 June 12.30-2.00 pm Place: to be announced Our invited speakers will present different perspectives and a... -
Moral right
Posted on 18/04/2011 | No CommentsFormer head of the army, Lord Dannatt, says to the BBC that: “If we thought that Gaddafi had lost the moral right to rule this country a month ago, he has lost it in the last 24 hours, that’s for sure.” But when did Colonel... -
Lessons from WikiLeaks
Posted on 30/11/2010 | No CommentsThe classified documents leaked from the US State Department will cause a lot of embarrassment for a lot of people – the British government minister denounced as a “hound dog” around women, for a start – but is there anything to be learned beyond simple... -
Feeble argument by Frattini
Posted on 05/11/2010 | No CommentsItalian foreign minister Franco Frattini has spoken out against the apparent joint preparation of EU decisions by Germany and France. “Pre-cooked decisions” are not acceptable, he says. Indeed, the whole point of the EU institutional system is to ensure that decisions are taken by all... -
What does the Manifesto Club propose instead?
Posted on 08/12/2008 | 1 CommentA new publication denounces the European Union’s Brussels establishment (or perhaps that should read Establishment) for its contemptuous attitude towards the public. Bruno Waterfield and Chris Bickerton are critical of the way in which the EU institutions represent the member state governments and enable them... -
A visit by the Saudi king (continued)
Posted on 31/10/2007 | No CommentsIt is one thing to note how the Saudi king can be invited to make a state visit; it is a different question as to whether he should be. If diplomacy can sometimes be useful, there are degrees of diplomacy and degrees of usefulness. Do... -
A visit by the Saudi king
Posted on 30/10/2007 | No CommentsI have written before on this blog about the drawbacks of diplomacy. The state visit by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia seems like a good occasion to write about the positive side. It is a simple fact that the world contains many countries with whom... -
Elevated principles
Posted on 03/02/2007 | No CommentsThere are times when I wonder whether the debates we have about federalism and the international system really are as novel as we sometimes imagine. Maybe a lot of what we are saying has been said before. A good example is the latest book to... -
Diplomacy
Posted on 12/11/2006 | No CommentsAn interesting talk yesterday by Carne Ross, formerly of the Foreign Office and now acting as an “Independent Diplomat”. (You can read about him here) He had an engaging and powerful case to make, and an engaging and powerful style with which to make it.... -
Morality in foreign policy
Posted on 31/07/2006 | 1 CommentAmid all the debate about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the consequences, civilian and political, that have followed, I was prompted to have another look at an old article by Sir Samuel Brittan, “Morality and foreign policy”, written shortly after the disaster at Suez....
Loading ...
PDF 
