European Council blogging: Part Four (11042011)

Previous round-ups of my blog entries were published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March, and Part Two, which took us from 27 to 29 March 2011.

Part Three corralled the blog posts published from 30 March to 1 April 2011.

My blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Part Four brings together the European Council and economic reform aims in the EU. The blog entries were published between 2 and 5 April 2011.


Describing and reforming the European Council

The procedures of European Council, the European Semester, the summit priorities and guidelines (if any), the Annual Growth Survey (AGS), the contributions by the Ecofin Council and the EPSCO Council, the synthesis report from the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council and thoughts about improving the governance, transparency and closeness of the European Council were discussed in a series of entries on Grahnlaw.

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities I (2 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities II (3 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities III (4 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities IV (5 April 2011)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. The five-language family of the Euros du Village in French, Gli Euros in Italian, Die Euros in German, The Euros in English and Los Euros in Spanish is a real fountain of European news and opinion, a treasure trove for interested EU citizens and language students alike.

Alain Lamassoure on the next challenges for the European Union

Euros du Village is an important provider of information, comment and analysis related to the European Union. In addition to the French web pages, they produce information in English (theEuros), German (dieEuros) and Italian (gliEuros). The Euros are well worth following.




This time, we recommend their French pages, where they have a long interview with Alain Lamassoure, a veteran of the European Parliament and EU politics. Lamassoure represents the French UMP (Sarkozy’s party) and the European People’s Party (EPP):

Alain Lamassoure : « Le front anti-Barroso n’existe que dans la tête de Daniel Cohn-Bendit »



Lamassoure presents partisan, but extremely well informed opinions on a host of themes, including:

• The European election campaign
• A grand coalition between the EPP and the Socialists (to be renamed ASDE) in the European Parliament
• The election of José Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission
• The increasing homogeneity of the EPP group in the spirit of the founding fathers and the social market economy, when the UK Conservatives and the Czech ODS leave the EPP-ED
• The need for a real budget for the European Union and budgetary powers for the European Parliament
• The incredible lack of discussion about the (socialist) President of the European Council, even if the Lisbon Treaty might be in force in a few months time


Whatever you think about Lamassoure’s opinions, don’t miss the interview.




Ralf Grahn