COVID-19 has had an unparalleled impact on the way in which we work, a survey by Eurofound – a European Union agency focused on research and information and based in Ireland – found that 43% of Irish people began telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. At EM Ireland, our working environment has changed considerably since the…
While we were unable to meet in person over the last few months, we at European Movement Ireland have held and taken part in a number of webinars on various aspects of the EU. Here in this EMI Blog, we’ll be taking a look at three of those events and exploring some of the common…
MOST FILM CRITICS would probably agree that Paul Giamatti is a great actor, admired for his range of roles in a number of films. Think Saving Private Ryan, Sideways, and Cinderella Man, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for best-supporting actor, among others. Giamatti is not as instantly recognisable as most Hollywood superstars,…
In November 1942, following the British rebuff of the German army at El Alamein in Egypt, then-UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill proclaimed this victory as a major turning point in the second World War, adding: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the…
While the economic conditions that Britain will pursue outside the EU remain uncertain and can only be guessed by peering behind the political curtain, it is the EU’s wish to have as close as possible a relationship with the UK. However, one issue that has flown under the radar since the conclusion of the revised…
At the end of the First World War, the official war artist and Irishman, William Orpen, was commissioned to paint the signing of the peace treaty at Versailles. What his employers, the British Ministry of Information, had hoped would be a memorialization of the Allies’ victory, became, in Orpen’s hands, a subtle critique of the…
In April this year, during a visit to Farmleigh House, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke about her experience of borders: “For 34 years I lived behind the Iron Curtain,” she said, “so I know only too well what it means once borders vanish, once walls fall.” On November 9, Merkel’s homeland celebrated 30 years since…
Perhaps the knottiest conundrum of Brexit are the competing dynamics of movement and blockage represented by exits and borders. Though the UK is the only member-state to activate Article 50, it is not the first to seek to leave the EU, e.g. Algeria (1962), Greenland (1985) and St. Barthélémy (2012). Significantly however, none of these…
After five exciting days of counting, the 13 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) elected by people in Ireland have not yet been fully confirmed, and might not be for up to another month. This is because a full recount will be carried out in the Ireland South constituency, since only 327 votes separated two…
Lithuania held two rounds of voting in May to replace Dalia Grybauskaitė, the seventh and first female President since its Restoration of Independence in 1990. On 26 May, the ‘independent candidate’ Gitanas Nauseda was elected as the country’s new President. Background Lithuania operates under a ‘semi-presidential’ system, whereby executive control is split between the President and…