May
13
Andrew Moravcsik on China (and Europe)
May 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Yesterday’s speech of Andrew Moravcsik at the LSE was in many ways interesting and inspiring. I shall blog more about the substance in the forthcoming entry but thought I share his final remarks first.
When the chair Damien Chalmers intended to close the debate, Moravcsik asked to make a final statement. As a regular professor of [...]
Mar
11
My study on the European Green Collar Economy
March 11, 2009 | 1 Comment
The recently established political foundation of the European Greens (GEF) has asked me to prepare a meta-study on the creation of a European Green Collar Economy. Last week my study was presented at a very interesting workshop on the Green New Deal by the Greens in the European Parliament.
You can find my study here – [...]
Jul
25
The one thing you learn when you spend time around UK politics, is the never-ending talk about the alleged UK-US “special relationship”. Tony Blair sucked up to that with his uncritical support of the US invasion in Iraq and whenever the slightest doubt about European integration is voiced from US politicians, you can be sure [...]
Jun
23
Capping CO2 emissions unilaterally shouldn’t trouble your economy too much
June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The current issue of the Economist (June 21st 2008) has an excellent article in Economic focus on the question of “carbon tariffs”. Apparently there has been very little study so far on the effects of introducing emission caps unilaterally in certain developed countries. Based on a first study by the MIT and a book by [...]
May
18
Half of 15 top CO2 emitting countries hold elections before 2009 Copenhagen summit
May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Friends from E3G mentioned to me an interesting aspect with regards to the run-up of the decisive 2009 Copenhagen conference for a new global CO2-reduction agreement (the “new” Kyoto): Out of the 15 top emitting countries half is holding national elections until December 2009. As we can already see in the US campaign, the climate [...]
Mar
10
US and EU (presidential) elections are really very similar
March 10, 2008 | 3 Comments
Few recent nominations in the US have been as exciting as the current Clinton vs Obama run-off for the Democrats. Equally exciting are current speculations about the first “EU president” (see my previous blog entries about this), a post that has to be filled by 1st January 2009. However, there is a crucial difference between [...]
Jan
18
Understanding the US elections and primaries as a European
January 18, 2008 | 1 Comment
The US electoral system (culture) is probably superior to that of the EU and its member states due to its strong focus on personalities. Thanks to the primary system that stretches from early January into June, media can report on new polls and trends an a daily basis. – And this comes before the real [...]
Dec
26
Steuervergleich USA – Deutschland
December 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In der Frankfurter Allgemeinen bin ich vor vor wenigen Tagen über einen interessanten Artikel (“Keine Steuergeschenke an Reche“, 24.12.07) gestolpert. Der Artikel versucht darzustellen, dass trotz der Steuersenkungen von George W. Bush für die Superreichen ihr Anteil am Steueraufkommen noch minimal zugenommen hat. Interessant ist in erster Linie, dass der allergrößte Anteil der US-Einkommensteuern von [...]
Jul
29
Can European (blog-)journalism learn from the US?
July 29, 2007 | 5 Comments
It was a smooth 6 hour train journey mostly with the TGV and ICE. Coming late (here: one week before travelling!!) meant that I would not get the prefered seat at a table – actually no seat reservatation at all (remember: we are supposed to be in summer time). A good read was what I [...]