The current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiated between the EU and the US has generated a cacophony of negative opinions. It is clear the debate on TTIP has been both hijacked, and polarised by opposing political allegiances. Just this month Obama faced dissent from his own party in trying to fast-track a deal, […]
One of the best things about the debate between believers in the free market over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the so-called US-EU free trade area, is that it cuts to the heart of a larger question: how do we advance freedom in practice? A lot of opponents of TTIP on the left […]
The Transatlantic Trade deal, which would remove custom duties and harmonise international regulations and standards between the US and EU, has suffered a setback, after US senators have voted against giving President Barack Obama the authority to negotiate the deal on their behalf. In order to fasttrack the deal, Obama had hoped to pass a […]
Ever since the new European Commission took over at the end of last year, TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) has been the talk of the town in Brussels. Like Jean-Claude Juncker’s €315bn investment plan and the Digital Single Market, the prospective free trade agreement between the EU and the US is the kind […]
Is globalisation under threat? That may seem like a ridiculous question, especially if you’re reading this on a Chinese-made smartphone, while sipping a Colombian coffee, served by an Italian barista, in an American-owned coffee shop, next to a gaggle of tourists. For decades, the world economy has been growing together as distance-shrinking technology and market-opening […]
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is often described as a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union. If that were true, it would deserve the support of everyone who believes that economic freedom is vital for growth, and offers our best defense against the power of vested interests. But TTIP […]
Tony Blair has given us a preview of how EU supporters intend to fight the referendum campaign. They will avoid awkward data: the fact, for example, that the British exports to the EU are in precipitate decline, that our net budget contribution has quadrupled in five years, that the most successful countries in Europe are […]
‘The market’s open? That’s great!’ The UN guy sitting next to me in a hotel lobby in northeastern Nigeria last week could hardly contain his delight at the news that people in a town recently liberated from Boko Haram had started trading again. When a major disaster hits – whether it’s terrorist attack, natural disaster […]
My elder daughter played Piggy in her school’s production of Lord of the Flies last week. I’m biased, obviously, but I thought she was brilliant, as was the performance overall. Casting some girls in what was originally an all-male story made the audience unusually aware of the difference between the sexes: we all knew that […]
At the UK Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham last October, the Prime Minister declared that he would be prepared to campaign for a British exit from the EU if it is “not in Britain’s interest to be in the European Union.” If Mr. Cameron is returned to Downing Street this May, and his efforts to […]
My response to Daniel Hannan’s article “Pro-EU propaganda film is a disaster for the BBC” about the film by Annalisa Piras, “The Great European Disaster Movie”, will avoid addressing his ad hominem remarks or questioning his merits as a film critic. Rather, I will respond to his assertions about the nature of the European Union […]
For many fans of sports and music, the ticket touts hanging around venues advertising their wares are a ubiquitous presence. Understandably, they don’t have a great reputation. And not surprisingly, consumers have opted for the safe route of buying tickets via a number of online marketplaces which offer more robust consumer protection and fan guarantees. […]
Is there a positive business case for leaving the European Union? There’s certainly a great deal of concern voiced about over regulation, power becoming ever-more distant and detached, and how the UK has to accept the oversight of the the EU’s one-size-fits-all bureaucracy. But are the economic risks not frightening? Do British workers not stand […]
In December, Tory MEP and CapX contributor Daniel Hannan described how Norway beats the EU. He argued that Norway offers “a handy example of how a country can prosper by having a free-trade relationship with the EU instead of joining the Brussels political institutions,” and debunked the claims of the pro-EU lobby that Norway’s strategy couldn’t possibly […]
“If size were all that counted” my friend Dan Hannan writes, “China would be wealthier than Hong Kong, Indonesia than Singapore, the EU than Norway”. History has shown us, on each occasion that we have given it the opportunity, that a free and open society with a free and open market will always be more […]
What? In 2011, the Swiss Central Bank placed a cap of 1.20 Swiss francs per euro in order to prevent the appreciation of the currency and protect Swiss exports. Today, the bank abandoned its peg to the euro in a shock move, despite SNB president Thomas Jordan promising ” to defend [the peg] with utmost […]
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