Burning Europes lignite reserves would wipe out carbon budget from 2020 until the end of the century, says Greenpeace New coal power stations designed to burn Europes massive deposits of lignite pose a serious threat to the continents decarbonisation efforts, according to figures released on Wednesday. Analysts from Greenpeaces Energydesk compiled data from the German government that shows burning...
My friend Michael Palmer, who has died aged 81, was the consummate European. He was born in London, but after getting a first at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a spell at the thinktank Political and Economic Planning, he worked successively for the parliamentary assemblies of the Council of Europe, Western European Union and Nato before becoming a director in the European parliament in 1973,...
If Scotland opts for independence, the UKs divorce from Europe would swiftly follow The referendum on Scottish independence , due on 18 September, comes at a time of growing opposition in the UK to remaining in the EU. This is significant because Scotland is the strongest base of pro-European sentiment in the UK. A poll conducted earlier this year determined that if a referendum on continued EU membership...
Halfway through his term of office the president needed a more aggressive policy from the ECB, but errors were repeated It was late April 2017 when the penny finally dropped in Berlin. Until then, the assumption in Germany had been that despite 10 years of virtual stagnation and unemployment at 14%, one of the mainstream parties would emerge victorious in the French presidential elections due the following...
The Lib Dems' EU election trouncing shows they would have been better off leaving the Tories in minority government The Liberal Democrat party is looking this week like the Glasgow school of art. Ruined by fire, its charred remains are picked over by firefighters while onlookers weep in despair. Could any of the great Victorian masterpiece be salvaged? And who is that, staggering from the smoking ruins?...
Christian Democrats claim mandate for Juncker to head commission as nominee of parliament's largest caucus Europe's leaders were plunged into a power struggle over who gets the biggest job in the EU late on Tuesday, with David Cameron seeking to drum up support to prevent a veteran insider becoming the new head of the European commission. He won cautious and qualified support from the key...
Establishment parties in Britain and across the EU are facing an unprecedented challenge after this week's results. Our writers examine the reasons and consider what lies ahead for Europe's democracies Continue reading... ...
Podemos, the recently formed anti-austerity and anti-elite group, with a tiny campaign budget, won more than 1m votes in Spain The disturbing advance by the far-right in Britain, France and Denmark in this week's European elections has been linked to a reaction against established politics . Specifically, it is against two political convergences by the mainstream left and right. First, over neoliberal...
This political earthquake comes at a time of huge national doubt about France's future and its mainstream parties, both right and left In the 10th arrondissement of Paris where I live, Front National scored only 6% of the vote in Sunday's European elections, against 25% nationally. The ruling Socialist party came first in this "bobo" area of central Paris, but only managed a humiliating third...
Autonomous Spanish city, a piece of European territory in north Africa, is becoming popular target for asylum seekers More than 1,000 sub-Saharan migrants rushed the six-metre razor-wire fence that marks the border of Spain's North African enclave of Melilla early on Wednesday morning, with some 400 managing to make it over the towering fence, yelling with joy as they touched Spanish soil. "There...
You may not agree with his analysis of the European elections, but the sincerity and quality of his argument is undeniable Nowadays, when Tony Blair comes on the news I make grunting noises. Involuntary, guttural, audible grunting noises. The hope I felt that night in 1997 is as emotionally accessible as if it were last year and the betrayals, the most unforgivable of which was the Iraq war, as painful...
Ukraine crisis forces bloc to seek diverse sources of gas, but green groups complain ignoring renewables is a mistake Europe will need to tap more diverse sources of gas and develop more supplies of controversial shale gas within the continent, amid concerns over the Ukraine crisis, according to a new energy security strategy unveiled by the European commission on Wednesday. But green campaigners pointed...
Front National leader partners with Italian, Dutch, Austrian and Belgian parties and says she is confident of adding others Marine Le Pen is confident of forming a powerful Eurosceptic bloc before the first meeting of the European parliament at the beginning of July. The Front National (FN) president appeared buoyed up and determined as she led a press conference with the leaders of four other far...
Ed Miliband must resist the temptation to take a right turn on immigration. He won't win an election fighting on Tory ground Abbott warns Miliband against edging towards Ukip The leader of the Labour party, Ed Miliband, is a well-meaning man. So his speech in Thurrock was a largely thoughtful one. But throughout it you could hear the steady drumbeat of pressure from his paid advisers, most of his shadow...
Decision to leave the party in the wake of disastrous European election results follows long opposition of Nick Clegg Matthew Oakeshott's opposition to Nick Clegg's leadership of the Lib Dems has never exactly been a secret. The peer led the charge for Clegg's rival Chris Huhne ("a leader with energy and elan for the long haul") in the 2007 leadership contest, and though his friend lost that...
The prime minister got off lightly post-election, yet the Tories' position still refuses to add up to a winning hand If modern politics still ran on the old rails, this would be David Cameron's moment. A gradual but steady economic recovery, widely held to be the essential precondition of Conservative success in 2015, is growing stronger. Compared with Ed Miliband's and Nick Clegg's, Cameron's ratings...
Timothy Garton Ash is right to say ( Comment , 27 May) these elections may well be dubbed "the wake-up call from which Europe failed to wake up". The EU was founded to bind Europe together, to make future European wars unthinkable and to foster working together for our common benefit. Instead, the imposition of the euro has raised the threat of civil war both within and between states. The...
Business secretary admits he knew of polls suggesting he should be leader, after close ally Lord Oakeshott resigned Vince Cable is facing questions over his loyalty after one of his closest allies resigned over a failed attempt to get Nick Clegg sacked, claiming the business secretary had been aware of secret polling that undermined the Liberal Democrat leader. In a day of chaos for the Lib Dems, Cable...
The weight of the recession and the eurozone crisis has been disproportionately borne by the poor of Europe. That was and still is unfair After last week's elections , it cannot be business as usual, David Cameron told his fellow European leaders on Tuesday. The prime minister is undoubtedly right about that and his colleagues should listen to him. It is essential that the response to the election...
David Cameron arrives to meet with EU leaders at a dinner in Brussels, to digest the results of the European elections which saw a widespread vote against the pro-European establishment. Tuesday's informal summit is the first opportunity for all 28 leaders to discuss the way forward after last Thursday's elections, where populist and far-right parties from some EU nations saw their positions in the...