France’s “Romagate”: The blessings of humour

I don’t know if humour is a divine gift, but it makes life easier on Earth.

Despite the sad events, some Euroblog writers have been able to find comic aspects surrounding the French government’s demolition of Roma camps and mass repatriation of EU citizens.



The European Tribune community presented and translated into English a “news report” depicting France as a rogue state (état voyou) or “-stan”, with warring clans and corruption. It was originally written by Daniel Schneidermann and published on Arrêts sur images.



Berlaymonster imagined a new gravy train, this time repatriating Brits with second homes in France, leading to angry reactions from London and Brussels.



The Brussels Jungle purported to detect moves by 24 French UMP (EPP) members of the European Parliament to restore the ‘gloire’ of France by defecting to the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, where they would join the British UKIP, the Italian Lega Nord and other interesting elements.



On L’expérience européenne, J S Lefebvre described the hard life of a freelance journalist, who has to find interesting stories and market them to editors in order to get money for the rent. Suddenly – thanks to the French government, Chantal Brunel and Viviane Reding – everything became so much easier. They changed his life (at least for a few days).


A “Romagate” with a silver lining.




Ralf Grahn

European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG)

The UK Conservatives have announced the establishment of a new political group in the European Parliament: the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG).



At least the following Euroblogs have commented: Jon Worth, Nosemonkey, Julien Frisch, Coulisses de Bruxelles and La Oreja de Europa.



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At the latest count the new group seems to have 56 MEPs, and it may pick up a few more before the inaugural session of the EP on 14 July 2009. The ECRG will probably be the fourth largest group in numbers.

There is no group in the European Parliament with enough votes to amend legislation on its own, so a majority of the component members (736) has to be sought over party lines. These coalitions will be formed among the four groups in the European mainstream.

According to the Wikipedia article European Parliament election, 2009 these probable groups and sizes are the following (latest update 23 June 2009):



• European People’s Party (EPP) 263

• Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (PASD) 183

• Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) 82

• European Greens-European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) 53


The European Parliament is going to function through the mainstream groups. The British voters have backed only 29 MEPs (out of 72) who will exert real influence by sitting in the groups with power.

Opposition groups to the left and the right of the European mainstream will be able to table and to air their alternative proposals, or vote with the majority, but they are going to remain marginal.

British business interests and the US administration have seen the first omens of a future Conservative government led by David Cameron and William Hague.

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By the way: Looking at the make-up, the addition of the word “Reformists” to the name of the ECRG expresses a profound sense of humour.


Ralf Grahn

Humorous side of EU: European Light

Despite the European elections – or perhaps exactly because of them – a few of us might need to look at Europe from a more humorous side.

The picture blog European Light does just that. Take a look!




Ralf Grahn