By Laurens Jan Brinkhorst The UK prime minister’s long-delayed speech on his country’s future relationship with the EU was originally to be given in Amsterdam, possibly because he expected a sympathetic reaction from the Netherlands’ present government.

By Shada Islam The Doha round of trade talks has long dominated the agenda of the World Trade Organization (WTO). An urgent priority for the organisation’s 157 members, however, is to appoint a new director general to replace Pascal Lamy.

By Günter Burghardt David Cameron is playing political football with the most important European achievement after the wars - and although he is doing so for home consumption he is dangerously appealing to popularism elsewhere.

Concerns that European competitiveness is being undermining by the application of the precautionary principle were broadly dismissed at Friends of Europe's Café Crossfire Evening Debate on the balance between innovation and precaution.

Friends of Europe’s annual European Policy Summit, “Balkans Progress: Battling to overcome the impact of crisis” brought together key players from the region and EU level to debate some of the most pressing issues facing the Western Balkans, particularly in the areas of political progress, inward investment and energy efficiency.

The ‘40 under 40’ programme brings together 40 of Europe’s brightest minds and rising stars from different countries and a wide range of fields in order to forge a new generation of opinion leaders and to promote a strong European identity.

By Shada Islam Europeans are watching with a mix of admiration and anxiety as China’s cities become big, bigger, biggest. Reasons for the admiration are clear: the dizzying pace and scale of China’s urbanization and transformation from a largely rural to an urban nation is unprecedented in human history.

Pakistan is set to complete the first transition from a democratically-elected civilian to civilian government in its 66-year history. But the landmark polls come with many people feeling disillusioned with the current political system and against a backdrop of rising public discontent with corruption and continued violence.

French military operations in Mali have spotlighted the clear weaknesses of European common foreign and security policy. Despite unanimous EU support for France’s military mission, very little “visible” backing is being provided.

By Robert Cox Cameron’s rambling speech on “Europe” reeks of a certain, familiar arrogance towards the “continent” beloved of Tories and, in the last analysis, is a plea for reducing the entire European project back to the square-one of a common market with little or no scope for any other common European endeavour to build a new society for the twenty-first century.