The process of EU enlargement took a major blow when it became apparent that once in the union, countries like Bulgaria and Romania can not be forced to comply with higher standards in fighting corruption and organized crime. The integration of different Western Balkan states (plus Turkey) is stalled...

  No more meter readers... Loads of initiatives are being taken by European Union member states to fight climate change. Personally, I strongly believe that Brussels should focus on energy efficiency and alternative energies. Following the 27 EU leaders endorsement to the European Commission’s proposed...

As I have already written, the speculations about the figure of the Bulgarian representative of the 2009-2014 European Commission have been going for quite some time now. The parliamentary elections in Bulgaria (held on July 7th 2009) have reduced the list of possible candidates to just two. The electoral...

If you want to keep in touch with journalist David Christopher you can do so here: David Christopher Journalisted profile www.davidmchristopher.wordpress.com www.twitter.com/davidmchris www.facebook.com/davidmichaelchristopher

Preparing my favorite cooked breakfast of bacon & eggs with fried tomatoes and baked beans on toast I stumbled upon another sign of food inflation. While this depicted can of baked beans costs an unchanged 89 Euro cents in my local supermarket I get less product for the same price. Opening the 10...

The “European perspective” is key concept for integrating western Balkans into EU. The main carrot for ordinary people during this millennium has been visa-free travel after some 17 years of isolation. On 15th July 2009, the European Commission submitted its proposal on visa-free travel for citizens...

ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet was quite complacent at the last council meeting. And for the first time since the beginning of what was first called subprime, then credit crunch, only to morph into a recession by now, markets seem to agree with Trichet. There is a glimmer at the far off end of the...

The “Srebrenica massacre” is the greatest triumph of  propaganda to emerge from the Balkan wars.(Edward Herman) The Srebrenica case is in headlines again – like during every anniversary – and also the story seems repeat itself from year to year. More light is however coming and the real...

So Jerzy Buzek was elected without any problems as the new president of the European Parliament. Of course, there are a few immediate things that can be said about this. He is the first president from the new EU states, his election is a clear evidence of the dominance that the EPP (and the right-wing...

Catch this graph of brand new credit rankings by European credit insurer Coface: Stable at lower levels at best, no positive outlook anywhere. This chart found in Austrian daily “Der Standard“: GRAPH: European map by credit rankings. The eventual bottoming out of the global margin call is...