No, I haven’t given up writing this blog. I’m just really busy right now, writing papers, doing funding applications, and all other sorts of stuff. I’ll be back in due course. Anyway, here are some things that I would comment on if I had more time and energy:

The recent NATO summit and its implications (especially [...]

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has ceded ground on his Mediterranean Union initiative, El País reports. After a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, he has agreed to inscribe it within the EU framework of the Barcelona Process.
In a very Sarkozy fashion, the Mediterranean Union was intended as a French initiative outside the EU framework - [...]

The US have already done it. Russia refuses to do it. So does Serbia. And in the middle, as so often, a headless EU that can’t agree on what to do, so in the first instance the member states are not doing anything but negotiate amongst themselves. We’re talking, of course, about the recognition of [...]

I’ll refrain from making snide comments about “typically American ignorance” here, because my own knowledge of Geography is more than appalling (I actually believed for a while that Saas-Fee was in Hungary, based on the sound of the name… erm…). Still, I couldn’t resist - this is quite amusing!

Via La fábrica de las cosas pequeñas.

Madrid bajo la contaminación. (Fuente: El País).
Con la llegada del verano, llega también la estación de la contaminación. El País nos acerca hoy este artículo inquietante sobre la situación en España.

All those of us worried about the lack of sex appeal of the European Union need not worry. The EU’s film programme, Media, is bringing sexy back with two wonderful videoclips to launch its new media support programme, Media 2007.
Both of them incorporate scenes from European film projects of the past, including classics such as [...]

American paranoia about terrorism is reaching a new level. Two days ago, the EU “agreed” to supply details of transatlantic flight passengers. Here are a few things the US customs authorities will know about us in the future:

Ethnic origin
E-mail address
Seat number/location aboard the plane
History of missing flights
Political tendencies
Sexual preferences

Very comforting. I would feel so much [...]

Here it is: the much expected Berlin Declaration of the EU marking the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome.
In my humble opinion, many big words and little substance, although in the realm of EU declarations, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise…
The Berlin Declaration does hold some particularly fabulous goodies in stock, though. Here [...]