On Sunday, 28 April, Spain held its third general election in just over three years. Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister and leader of the socialist PSOE (Spanish Social Workers Party), called a snap election after his budget was rejected in February. Background Spain is a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI serving as the official…
Introduction On Friday, 8 March, just one month before Finland’s Parliamentary Elections, Finland’s coalition government collapsed. Prime Minister, Juha Sipilä announced his resignation taking the blame for his government’s inability to reform Finland’s health care and social systems. With one of the most rapidly ageing populations in the world, reform of its health system has…
Brexit has become a journey as much as a destination. At their emergency summit in Brussels this week, the UK and the 27 remaining EU governments agreed to delay Brexit – for a second time – until 31 October (with some caveats). This new extension means that the Brexit journey now resembles travelling on a…
The Slovakian electorate went to the polls over two rounds in March to elect Slovakia’s 5th President since gaining independence in 1993. On Saturday, 30 March Zuzana Čaputová became the country’s first ever female president. Background Slovakia is a parliamentary republic with a prime minister, who holds most executive powers, and a president, who…
The weekend just gone was supposed to be Brexit weekend. But the UK government and the EU agreed at a recent summit to shift the Brexit date to at least April 12, and perhaps longer depending on what happens at Westminster. Even so, it is worth reflecting on the lessons of Brexit since the 2016…
Have you ever noticed, when posters for Member of European Parliament (MEP) candidates appear on lampposts around the country, not only do they bear the logo of their national party, but usually also that of their European political grouping too? Ahead of the European Parliament elections on 23-26 May (Ireland votes on 24 May), it…
The UK House of Commons has voted overwhelmingly to delay Brexit. The UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March 2019 but last night, Thursday 14 March, MPs voted by a hefty majority of 413 to 202 in favour of the UK seeking an extension of the article 50-based Brexit negotiations with the…
On 6 February, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs (OJCEA) met with the Director of Eurofound Juan Menéndez-Valdés to discuss that agency’s social research findings on Ireland in comparison to EU Member States and five candidate countries. Eurofound is an EU research agency, based in Dublin, working on developing better social, employment and work-related…
Estonians went to the polls on Sunday, 3 March to elect a new Parliament, known as the Riigikogu. The current opposition centre-right party, Reform, defied pre-election opinion polls, winning 28.8 per cent of the vote and 34 seats (just over a third of the total). Pre-election favourites, Estonia’s current governing centre-left party, Centre, came second,…
With only 30 days until 29 March, the current official date for Brexit, both Ireland and the EU are preparing for a very undesirable but still-possible outcome: that the United Kingdom would leave the EU without ratifying the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement. Without that agreement, there would not be the legal arrangements in place (as today)…