Shankill Road and Falls Road in Belfast – Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement

10 April 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  20 minutes

Shankill Road © geograph.org.uk - Eric Jones/cc-by-sa-4.0

Shankill Road © geograph.org.uk – Eric Jones/cc-by-sa-4.0

Shankill Road
Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are among the last remnants of the British colonial empire in Europe. Although membership of the EU has brought Northern Ireland modest prosperity, the Brexit vote narrowly ended in favor of “Leave”, meaning that Northern Ireland is set to once again become the poorhouse of Western Europe. Since then, violent conflicts between Unionists and Republicans have increased again, as was to be expected and thus jeopardize the successes achieved in resolving the conflict after the Good Friday Agreement.   read more…

Tower Hill in London

30 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London Reading Time:  5 minutes

Tower Hill and Tower of London © flickr.com - Sheri/cc-by-sa-2.0

Tower Hill and Tower of London © flickr.com – Sheri/cc-by-sa-2.0

Tower Hill is a complex city or garden square northwest of the Tower of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets just outside the City of London boundary yet inside what remains of the London Wall – a large fragment of which survives toward its east.   read more…

The European Union: The Brexit

23 July 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Editorial, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  734 minutes

Dover - Brexit by Banksy © Paul Bissegger/cc-by-sa-4.0

Dover – Brexit by Banksy © Paul Bissegger/cc-by-sa-4.0

(Latest update: 23 August 2022) Brexit, not even legally binding (insofar, the Brexit vote has about the same weight as if the British would had voted on the weather, with the result that from now on the sun would have to shine 365 days a year over the island – but at least there would be a chance to get upset about heaven’s mistakes, instead of trying to blame Brussels for any wrong decision by the British government) and at best a recommendation (while the actual conduct of the referendum was a big foolishness by David Cameron, just to calm down a few ultranationalistic backbenchers from within his own party (YouGov, 24 February 2015: Record support for staying in the European Union, Forbes, 20 January 2016: Brexit Is All About Taxation And Regulation Without Representation, The Guardian, 31 August 2017: Will Brexit boost or hurt the economy? (“Economists for Free Trade”, a pro-Brexit lobby initiative), The Guardian, 17 January 2019: So what is David Cameron really doing now?)), already causes some turbulences even before the actual execution (once scheduled for 29 March 2019), not least because the British government doesn’t have enough experts to negotiate Brexit adequately. Negotiations with third countries are negotiated by Brussels for the EU, so that member countries were able to reduce their competences (in the United Kingdom, 30,000 additional civil servants have to be recruited following Brexit. That’s another reason why the Tories should actually have serial heart attacks). In the case of an exit from the EU, this obviously has a very unfavorable effect on the future third country.   read more…

Transatlantic relations

2 June 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Editorial, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  633 minutes

Transatlanticism symbol: a hybrid out of the Europa and Stars and Stripes © Patrikpluhar/cc-by-sa-3.0

Transatlantic symbol: A hybrid of the European flag and the Stars and Stripes © Patrikpluhar/cc-by-sa-3.0

(Latest update: 23 August 2022) Transatlantic relations refer to the historic, cultural, political, economic and social relations between countries on both side of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes specifically those between the United States, Canada and the countries in Europe, although other meanings are possible. There are a number of issues over which the United States and Europe generally disagree. Some of these are cultural, such as the U.S. use of the death penalty, some are international issues such as the Middle East peace process where the United States is often seen as pro-Israel and where Europe is often seen as pro-Arab (Arab–Israeli conflict), and many others are trade related. The current U.S. policies are often described as being unilateral in nature, whereas the European Union and Canada are often said to take a more multilateral approach, relying more on the United Nations and other international institutions to help solve issues. There are many other issues upon which they agree. This article refers to the relations between the EU (Culture of Europe, Economy of the European Union, History of Europe, and Politics of the European Union) and the USA (Culture of the United States, Economy of the United States, History of the United States, and Politics of the United States).   read more…

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