Tag Archives: Bruges

So College of Europe funding is safe then?

Seems that BIS has had a re-think and reckons that the UK should still provide some scholarships to the College of Europe in Bruges, as reported in today’s FT. This is an issue that I first covered here on 29th January this year, so the change of heart has also happened rather swiftly. Interestingly today’s FT article makes the same connection between the European Fast Stream scheme and the College of Europe finding as my blog entry did, and they have also this time avoided the branding the College as a bastion of federalism as they did last time. So good news all round!

All that now needs to happen is for the College of Europe to get its act together and make the place a lot better… That, I suspect, will take quite a lot longer than a BIS u-turn.

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If you want to be a Eurocrat you have to be an arch-federalist – FT just uses the same old broken frames

It’s good to see that the story that the UK government is cutting funding for the College of Europe is starting to be seen more widely – today’s FT has a story entitled “Funding cut for places at Eurocrat college“. I first wrote about the issue on Friday last week – maybe the FT Brussels people do keep an eye on this blog? Anyway, the FT has a quote from Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg who is an alumnus and he criticizes the UK government’s position – good.

There is one line I really dislike in the FT piece though:

Based in Bruges, it has for 60 years fed prospective civil servants an unabashedly federalist diet of courses for a post-graduate degree in political studies.

Oh come on folks, is that the best that FT journalists can do?

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How much does it cost a country to buy some influence in Brussels?

It’s one of Tony Blair’s best known phrases, a promise to put Britain at the heart of Europe. Leaving the big issues (Euro, Iraq) to one side, any relationship with the European Union needs people to make the relationship work, and that’s the focus of this blog entry – where are those people, and how can you (should you?) support them?

The decision to look at this was prompted by an open letter to all UK alumni of the College of Europe (I have a MA from Bruges, 2004), informing us of the decision of the UK government to stop funding the 28 annual scholarships for Brits. I’m not sure exactly how the cash allocation is worked out, but the total cost of this will be something in the region of £300000/€350000 a year.

David Lammy, the BIS minister responsible, gives some flimsy legal reason for why the funding cannot be maintained (more in the letter), but essentially it must be that they are looking for ways to cut the Higher Education budget, so why keep funding scholarships to small colleges in Belgium and Poland that train people who mostly end up working as eurocrats…

But hold on a moment. Haven’t I heard that recently? That Brits are underrepresented in the institutions? Hence the European Fast Stream scheme has been re-introduced within the UK civil service, promising a posting to Brussels and enhanced training to allow participants on the scheme… to become eurocrats.

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