The Economist published this week a lengthy and well-reasoned guess at the type of extreme options that some within the German government may — with emphasis on ‘may’ — be considering in response to the Eurozone crisis: namely, to break up the Eurozone by forcing a Greek exit, or even by forcing a multi-state exitContinue reading “Pure fantasy or realistic forecast?”
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Ireland and the big game changer
Here is an essay I have done on Ireland for the Heinrich Boell Stiftung in Brussels as part of a commissioned series on the euro crisis. I emphasise how closely Ireland’s decisions on European integration are entangled in its relations ns with the UK, a consideration coming once more into clear focus. Paul Gillespie http://www.boell.eu/downloads/Gillespie_Ireland_and_the_Big_Game_Changer(2).pdfContinue reading “Ireland and the big game changer”
On economic crisis, democracy and European integration
The European media’s obsession with reading tea leaves from Frankfurt and bond yields from Madrid has blinded the public to the more fundamental issues at stake in the current crisis. This essay on the relationship between economic crisis, democracy and European integration by Nobel Prize-winning economist-turned-philosopher Amartya Sen helps to refocus the discussion.
Must the EU choose between effectiveness and legitimacy?
Commentators on European affairs, including myself, have often argued that the EU can and must attend to its democratic deficit at the same time that it seeks a technical solution to the Eurozone crisis. But a recent essay by Princeton political theorist Jan-Werner Mueller finds it “hard to see how proposals for European democracy couldContinue reading “Must the EU choose between effectiveness and legitimacy?”
The Brussels Insider 