Eurobloat #0067 • November 2015
The month Brussels invented a pan-European constituency nobody asked for, paid Ankara three billion euros to mind the door, and decided the cure for collapsing borders was more Europe.
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Eurobloat
A monthly, sceptical look at what the European Union got up to last month. The promised paradise that never quite arrives, told one directive, regulation, and ruling at a time.
192 posts
Eurobloat #0066 • October 2015
October 2015: the judges shred the Commission's data deal, the regulators quietly let diesel poison the air, and Brussels goes courting Ankara to clean up its own border mess.
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Eurobloat #0065 • September 2015
The month Brussels discovered solidarity, by which it meant outvoting the nations that disagreed, and an Advocate General quietly admitted the data deal protecting half a billion people had never been worth the paper it was printed on.
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Eurobloat #0064 • August 2015
The month Brussels handed Athens another 86 billion euros, lectured Hungary for building a fence while its own borders dissolved, and discovered that nobody could find the off switch for a crisis it had spent a decade designing.
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Eurobloat #0063 • July 2015
The month Brussels strapped Greece to the gurney, billed solidarity on migration as a triumph while two members walked out, and the Parliament voted that photographing a building might one day need a licence.
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Eurobloat #0062 • June 2015
The month a court told Germany to stop worrying about money printing, five presidents drew up plans for a eurozone treasury, and Greece prepared to vote on whether it still wanted to be in the club at all.
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Eurobloat #0061 • May 2015
The month Brussels promised to abolish twenty-eight digital markets, grade its own members like errant schoolboys, hand out migrant quotas nobody wanted, and call all of it simplification.
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Eurobloat #0060 • April 2015
The month Brussels rationed your shopping bags, charged Google, lectured Turkey, watched a thousand people drown and then proposed bombing boats. Spring in the Union.
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Eurobloat #0059 • March 2015
The month the central bank switched on the printing press, the Commission president called for his own army, and Brussels discovered that the cure for opaque tax deals is to share them only with itself.
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Eurobloat #0058 • February 2015
The month Brussels squeezed Greece, launched an Energy Union, an investment fund and a Capital Markets Union all at once, and demanded your travel records to keep you safe.
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Eurobloat #0057 • January 2015
A central bank prints a trillion euros, ministers reach for everyone's flight records after Paris, and Brussels celebrates its nineteenth euro recruit. January 2015 was a busy month for the people who know better than you.
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Eurobloat #0056 • December 2014
December 2014: the Court ruled that it answers to nobody, including the human rights court, Brussels conjured 315 billion euros out of 21 billion, and a fresh team promised to do less while quietly grabbing more.
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Eurobloat #0055 • November 2014
A new Commission took office promising to conjure 315 billion euros out of 21, survived a censure vote over its president's tax-haven past, and ordered Google broken up between sermons. Brussels also decided your olive oil needed a back label telling you to keep it in the dark.
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Eurobloat #0054 • October 2014
The month Brussels handed Britain a 1.7 billion pound bill, crowned a fresh Commission nobody voted for, and decided that rescuing drowning migrants was somebody else's job.
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Eurobloat #0053 • September 2014
The month Brussels outlawed the powerful vacuum cleaner, eyed your kettle and hairdryer next, and unveiled a brand new Commission to think up further things to ban.
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Eurobloat #0052 • August 2014
The month Brussels banned your vacuum cleaner, flung two satellites into the wrong orbit, carved up its top jobs over dinner, and handed out cheques to the farmers its own sanctions had ruined.
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Eurobloat #0051 • July 2014
The month the Parliament crowned Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission billed Servier nearly half a billion euros, and Brussels found time to redesign your bin, your vacuum cleaner and the entire energy mix while it was at it.
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Eurobloat #0050 • June 2014
The month Brussels installed a Commission president nobody had voted for, charged banks to hold money, and handed Google the job of deciding what the public may remember.
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Eurobloat #0049 • May 2014
A month when Brussels invented the right to scrub the internet of inconvenient facts, watched a record-low turnout reward the parties that want it gone, and still found time to write a fond essay about its own flag.
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Eurobloat #0048 • April 2014
The month Brussels spent building a single market for everything from your mobile bill to your bank account, while its own court tore up the surveillance machine the EU had insisted every member state must run.
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Eurobloat #0047 • March 2014
March 2014: Brussels built a brand new central authority to wind up your bank, voted itself a continent-wide rulebook for your data, and lectured Moscow with a guest list. More Europe, as ever, was the only answer on offer.
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Eurobloat #0046 • February 2014
The month a small democracy voted to control its own borders and Brussels promptly froze it out of student exchanges, then graded all twenty-eight members on corruption while quietly omitting itself.
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Eurobloat #0045 • January 2014
January 2014: Brussels opened its borders, lectured Malta for selling passports, set itself a 2030 to-do list, and decided which European banks were allowed to be too big to fail.
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Eurobloat #0044 • December 2013
The month Brussels built a bank-rescue machine no voter understands, signed off a 960 billion euro budget, and saw its own lawyer admit the data-hoarding regime was illegal all along.
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Eurobloat #0043 • November 2013
The month Brussels signed off a 960 billion euro cheque, told sovereign nations how many women their boards must hold, and explained that you cannot stop welfare tourism because it does not exist.
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