In the late 1940s when politicians and academics started seriously thinking about what European unity would look like, they inevitably cast their eyes across the Atlantic. The United States, victorious in the Second World War, was a colossus. It had a continental-sized economy with laws applying from sea to shining sea; constitutional rights for all and courts to ensure states followed the rules; and goods and people moving freely as a result.
It was an attractive vista, especially from a war-torn and divided continent. Divided not just by communism, but by national bailiwicks that meant free exchange, and even community, ended at Europe's many borders.
The idea of a two-tier Europe is back on the agendaIn this unifying spirit, the European Union grew up, including equality of membership (yes, there are some marginal exceptions); a customs union, a passport-free zone, and a single currency; and most of all, the European single market, with common standards from the Atlantic to the Black Sea.
However, another theory on how Europe should develop existed and indeed still exists: a two-tier Europe. The idea is that there would be a vanguard of more integrated nations, a "core" if you will. And beyond that there would be others with a different type of membership. The geometry of how that would relate to the core varied - terms like "concentric rings", "multispeed Europe" and even "New Holy Roman Empire" are bandied about - but the constant is the core and some form of secondary membership.
EU membership is Ukraine's payback for holding the front lineSo why is two-tier Europe in the news again? One word: Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion of that country by Russia, Europe has acknowledged that the Ukrainians are on the democratic frontline. They're owed. As part of that, the post-war settlement will likely mean finding some way of getting Ukraine EU membership.
Accession today works on the basis that an accession country engages in a series of reforms grouped into "chapters". The accession country is then examined on both the law and the effectiveness of its application for its citizens. By the time it joins it effectively applies the same body of law at the same level as the other member states (with some small exceptions). It is an involved process, very much in line with the model of equal membership.
The problem is, Ukraine can't meet the criteriaUkraine is a long way from meeting current accession requirements. However, obligations towards it mean that giving it a promise of joining in 15 or 20 years or whenever it meets the requirements could seem inadequate.
So instead, Europe is exploring the possibility of giving Ukraine membership, and then its fulfilling the necessary reforms afterwards. As part of this, some mooted legal changes include internal review of progress towards completing "chapters"; potential penalties for lack of progress or bad-faith effort; restricted voting rights (in particular no voting rights on parts of the single market Ukraine is not signed up to); and suspension and expulsion mechanisms. In sum, there would be de facto full membership and a second tier.
Nobody wants to be in the second tier, including UkraineIs this a good idea? Nobody particularly seems to want to be in the second tier, including Ukraine. The analogy I like is a railway siding, where Ukraine fears that the siding won't rejoin the mainline. It fears never meeting the requirements once inside, constantly being denied "full" membership.
There is a strong possibility that if accession is transformed for Ukraine, it would be extended to other accession countries. That could institutionalise two-tier membership. Proponents have two main arguments: that this would give benefits to countries that would otherwise be denied them; and that the second tier might provide a berth to countries currently uncomfortable with membership, such as Norway, Switzerland and even the United Kingdom.
Might Britain ever want to be second tier in anything?Detractors point out that this would damage the unity of the single market; and that the transformational current accession system - literally the most effective way in the world of encouraging positive reforms in other countries - might be blunted, with less ultimate commitment to the union overall.
So would a second tier present a possibility for the UK? The idea appeals to some. While there is a lot of Brexit regret, there appears to be trouble assembling consistent support for membership in all its parts. That might be less of an issue if the commitment didn't have to happen up front. And a Westminster system that seems to abhor the idea of an application or being the demandeur might be able to paint this as membership up front without the pain of accession.
Britain would have to stand by while the rules are madeBut the UK's history is different to that of most accession states, many of which have been peripheral to European empires. Could the UK establishment stand not being in the room while decisions they would have to commit to were made? And would this inevitably lead to conflict when UK domestic politics found an incentive to portray new laws as 'imposed'? Worse, imagine if a penalty were given for lack of progress towards, say, the euro.
Likely overall, this new arrangement would be an easier sell to the British electorate. All sides, however, should hope for an in-depth debate that examines the real pros and cons of this arrangement for the UK, so that politicians, and particularly voters, understand the nature of the commitment they would be making.
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Bylines Network Gazette is back!
With a thematic issue on a vital topic - the rise child poverty, ending on a hopeful note. You will find sharp analyses on the effect of poverty on children's lives, with a spotlight on the communities that are on the front line of deprivation, with personal stories and shared solutions. Click on the image to gain access to it, or find us on Substack.
Journalism by the people, for the people.
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I left dinner at the Uptown to stand at the corner of Kirkwood and College in downtown Bloomington, Indiana, to shoot the tornado my phone just told me had formed eight miles west of there. That's where I was facing when I shot this video, from which I pulled a bunch of screen grabs in Photos' edit view. This covered about four minutes starting at 7:03 PM.
Earlier, when we got the first tornado warning, I went out and shot this video, from which I have a similar series of screen grabs:
That was about five minutes, starting at 6:42 PM.
Both these videos and all these screen-grabs are free to use, and Creative Commons licensed to only require photo credit. And I'm also not prickly about that. It's just fun to see where they prove useful. Have at 'em.
And if you're interested in news, and how we can start remaking it, starting here in Bloomington and towns like it, see what I've been writing about that, with a big hat tip to Dave Askins of Bloomington's B Square Bulletin.
It is my pleasure to publish this extract from Gillian Tindall's novel Journal of a Man Unknown which describes a nocturnal vision that is granted to the protagonist in Mile End
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'It was a fine night, though chill, and the stars were out. I went walking on, beyond the Spital Fields and Brick Lane, out into the countryside to Mile End and beyond, to where there were few houses along the highway, out to where the Jews have made a burial ground. (I had met a few, newcomers to London like to the Huguenots, and they were very much the same manner of decent, hard-working people, for all their Spanish names). I had my knife in my belt as usual, but there was nothing to fear that far east out of Town: no-one about at all.
The moon was shining over St Dunstan's, out at Stepney, and I lent a while against the dead Jews' wall, watching it. I even contemplated walking yet further, so full of a strange energy did I feel. It was as if something that had been in the bottom of my mind for years, vaguely troubling me from time to time but ever quietly dismissed, had suddenly risen to the top that evening like liquid over a fire in a pan.
Jews, I know, have their own God whose son has yet to appear on earth. The Saracens have another one, of much the same kind by all accounts. The Huguenots, Protestants, Puritans, Catholics, Greek Christians and all the rest are supposed to believe in One God and His Son, but that has not stopped them from fighting and killing each other in the most un-Christian way in every century of which I have heard account. They were at it here in England all my childhood years.
How much fervent, angry, desperate praying goes on by all sides, many of the prayer-sayers wishing damnation on the others. And how little of it ever truly produces a result, except by ordinary life chances that are then falsely claimed as 'prayers answered'?
And in that moment I knew, in a burst of freedom, like a man before whom a door that he believed firmly locked and forbidden is suddenly open - that I did not believe in any of it, and had not done so for many years.
And as for the idea that the great Maker of the construction is perpetually watching each of us separate persons, intent on testing every one of his multitudinous subjects' loyalty with particular troubles and griefs, like a bad tempered and unjust King doling out unmerited torments to some on purpose to 'try them', while occasionally and unexpectedly bestowing blessings on others no more deserving - this was suddenly revealed to me as a story for badly behaved children.
And I strongly suspected in that same moment, that a number of the men whom I had met in London, and whom I most respected, had secretly come to the same never-to-be-spoken conclusion. Unbelief is contrary to the Law of both God and Man. But surely honest.
I went on standing there for quite a while, I think, trying to take in my new-found freedom. It felt right and just. But lonely, if - from - henceforth, there were none but myself in charge of my fate. Also a sense of my consequent, helpless separation in my secret heart from all others. For a few minutes my desolation recalled my first weeks alone in London. And I had no one at that time with whom I felt intimate enough to admit my new conviction.
And then something odd happened while I stood there. One of those moments, like the one in the night before I left the Forest (which I had dismissed as a dream). Although the Mile End Road was deserted, the few cottages around shuttered and none about but a half-grown fox in the Jews' cemetery, who had caught sight of me over the wall and had scampered away, I suddenly became convinced that I was surrounded. By houses and people that I could sense but could not see. The moon at that moment had gone behind a thick cloud, a country-dark descended. Yet I felt as if I were standing in a City street. Voices, passing by, that I could not hear properly, and footsteps on stone and other sounds of rushing or roaring that I could not identify. Such as the sound of machines. But my strongest sensation was that I was hemmed in, crowded.
Cravenly fearful, as if my ungodly thoughts were somehow visiting on me a revenge, I clutched the top of the brick cemetery wall with my hands. That at least seemed solid and of all time. Fearful of what the returning moon might reveal, I shut my eyes for a while. I believe that by habit I even cravenly and illogically prayed 'Keep me safe, Lord!'
I opened my eyes again at last when the sounds had faded away. The moon had returned. The Mile End Road was its peaceful, deserted, night-time self. The clock of St Dunstan's struck twelve.
Suddenly very tired, I must have made my way back to the Spital Fields, though that I do not remember.'
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This tiny banana photo collection looks like it was taken in a dollhouse orchard. The bananas here stopped growing early, leaving behind perfect little replicas that seem designed for playing with rather than eating — small enough to feel like a trick of perspective. — Read the rest
The post These Tiny Bananas Look Like They Came From a Dollhouse Orchard appeared first on Boing Boing.
The FBI interviewed a woman four times in 2019 after she claimed Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was underage. Now, as Attorney General Pam Bondi howls "no evidence," independent journalist Roger Sollenberger has found that the record of those interviews has mysteriously vanished from the government's publicly available Epstein files
Yet last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi insisted that there was "no evidence" that Trump had committed any crime—adding to the growing pile of denials from Trump officials that constitute a sweeping cover-up of the president's alleged wrongdoing.
The post Bondi says "no evidence," while DOJ quietly edits the index appeared first on Boing Boing.
Attempting to be funny, JD Vance was once again awkward. Also, the target of his derision slapped back so hard that Just Dance Vance may not know what day it is.
Vance attempted to make a joke, somehow comparing his own intelligence to a Congressperson who paused to think before answering a question. — Read the rest
The post JD Vance gets zero laughs appeared first on Boing Boing.
The Adv Cardputer from M5Stack retains the best features of the previous version, and adds some sensible upgrades.
The post Review: M5Stack Cardputer Adv Version (ESP32-S3) appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
TL;DR: Get these eight CISSP exam prep courses covering all domains for $19.99, down from $424. No coupon needed.
We all know that one friend who's constantly paranoid about getting hacked. They use seventeen different passwords, won't connect to public Wi-Fi, and probably have their laptop camera covered with electrical tape. — Read the rest
The post Master CISSP certification prep for $19.99 with this eight-course bundle appeared first on Boing Boing.
A March 2025 Trump executive order that instructed our national parks to ignore or attempt to change history has sparked a chain reaction of stupidity.
Democracy Forward, a coalition of historians, scientists, and advocacy groups, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration directed the removal or flagging of dozens of interpretive signs at National Park Service sites nationwide. — Read the rest
The post Outside Magazine's list of NPS signs altered by the Trump Administration appeared first on Boing Boing.
This country/gangsta rap mash-up is a lot of fun:
It seems turning NWA into country is not an isolated thing:
Be there
Surveillance-based pricing (just for you!) will be the subject of this talk at 4pm Eastern today. Register and attend at that link.
"These are MAGA airwaves now," seems clear enough that no one has to doubt FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's intent to keep an already reeling media landscape deep in the yellow.
During a Thursday interview on the Charlie Kirk Show, co-host Andrew Kolvet asked Carr why CBS had prevented Colbert from airing the Talarico interview.
The post FCC Chair wielding equal-time rule in service of Trump's agenda appeared first on Boing Boing.
Trump's white power-loving "Secretary of War" invited his white supremacist pastor to speak at the Pentagon. Doug Wilson is a guy who says slavery was just fine, women shouldn't vote, and that Muslim and Hindu folks are parasites.
"Doug Wilson routinely mocks the pope and the Catholic Church," the Catholic writer and Democratic operative Christopher Hale wrote on X.
The post Whiskey Pete invites a white supremacist to the Pentagon appeared first on Boing Boing.
You've seen the claim on TikTok, in parenting forums, and in roughly a million Instagram infographics: "Your brain isn't fully developed until you're 25." It's the go-to explanation for everything from bad relationships to impulsive tattoos. The number 25, though, has almost nothing to do with neuroscience. — Read the rest
The post The "brain isn't done until 25" factoid is based on a funding cutoff appeared first on Boing Boing.
Your colon is lined with a layer of mucus. It's wet, it's slimy, and it keeps your stool hydrated enough to, you know, move along. Without it, everything dries out and gets stuck. Researchers at Nagoya University have now identified two species of gut bacteria that team up to devour this protective slime — and they think it could be the root cause of chronic constipation that laxatives can't fix, according to findings published in Gut Microbes. — Read the rest
The post Your chronic constipation might be caused by mucus-eating bacteria appeared first on Boing Boing.
Shelby McSwain was driving past a Wendy's on East Franklin Boulevard in Gastonia, North Carolina, with her parents on Thursday evening when she spotted something through the window: a blue-haired customer, shirtless, hunched forward in a booth while a second person — gloved up in blue latex — worked a tattoo gun across their back. — Read the rest
The post Video catches someone getting a tattoo in a Wendy's dining room appeared first on Boing Boing.
Pollan's new book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, goes after a favorite Silicon Valley assumption: that if you build a machine complex enough, awareness will eventually boot up inside it. In a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, he argues that feelings are "very tied to your vulnerability, to your having a body that can be hurt, to the ability to suffer and perhaps your mortality." — Read the rest
The post Michael Pollan thinks your chatbot has fewer feelings than a houseplant appeared first on Boing Boing.
This $70 million Boeing 737 Max 8 has a bedroom that Ice Barbie will certainly put to service in the name of the taxpayers. Wonder if this expense is being discussed as her department remains unfunded.
The grift never stops. You would think puppy slayer Kristi Noem would lie low after turning the entire country against her, but nope. — Read the rest
The post Ice Barbie wants another airplane appeared first on Boing Boing.
"I don't worship a man, I'm not in a cult, and I refuse to fight for a team that refuses to win." That's former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on February 17, turning on the president she once literally fawned over at rallies. — Read the rest
The post MTG says she's "not in a cult" after Trump brands her a "low IQ traitor" appeared first on Boing Boing.
Three states are now trying to make 3D printers police themselves. Washington's HB 2321 requires printers to ship with anti-gun software so effective that even users with "significant technical skill" can't circumvent it — on machines that run largely open-source firmware. — Read the rest
The post "Stupidity on steroids" — three U.S. states want your 3D printer to snitch on what you print appeared first on Boing Boing.
Amid his odd ramblings and bizarre insistence that his wife is a movie star, convicted felon, and addled old man, Donald Trump gave another embarrassing performance. Someplace in the hours of rambling, he promised to use his stable genius to decide if we're going to war with Iran. — Read the rest
The post Grandpa Pudding Brains and the escalator of doom appeared first on Boing Boing.
