A happy New Year to you !

David Cameron's speech about Europe is tomorrow at 9am from Amsterdam

It is very hard to know what Cameron can say - with so many different audiences to satisfy : his own eurosceptic Conservative MPs, the other EU leaders (for whom he has changed the date and the location), our business leaders and the British public.

It will only be his view as a beleagured Conservative party leader, not as Prime Minister, and irf it fails he may not survive until the next general election. On his radio phone-in this morning, Nick Clegg said "'Cameron is delivering much of the speech as Tory leader...I'm waiting with bated breath like everyone else to hear what he says'

"Europe" seems to be like "the Irish question" which dogged British national politics for well over a hundred years, which ended many political careers, and which arguably only ended in 1998 (but still lingers about flags in Belfast even now).

Cameron has put a gun into his own mouth. He had no need to make the speech. All three major political parties are in favour of us staying in the EU. The UK has an incredibly favourable situation in the EU - being already exempted from the Euro, from the Schengen arrangements for open borders, from the the charter of fundamental rights, is self-marginalised from European defence and from European diplomacy arrangements, and from the future European banking union, and threatening to withdraw from police and justice cooperation. If his speech is weak, it could threaten the financial markets' view of the UK's dire financial position and lead to a run against sterling.

Philosophically, this is a discussion about "states' rights". The same discussion has been continuing in north America for two hundred years - how much power shall the centre have, and how much power shall the individual states have. Now the argument is raging in the UK - with influential voices like Obama and Branson advising strongly that it would be very stupid indeed for the UK to leave the EU.

Croatia will be - probably - the 28th member of the EU.

Croatia is expected to join the EU on 1st July 2013. But the treaty to ratify its accession still has not been ratified by its former Yugoslavia neighbour Slovenia. And that has not been done because there are lingering disputes about the precise border between them. Now an investigation has revealed that almost all the party leaders in Slovenia are corrupt. The Prime Minister has resigned and nobody is able to form a new Slovenian government.

The Irish government has taken over (from Cyprus) chairing the ministerial meetings of the other chamber, the Council of Ministers, from January until June.

The Irish prime minister made a very good impression in his speech in the parliament.

This month, the new EU Cyber-Crime centre has opened in The Hague. It is another example of how joint spending through the EU budget saves taxpayers' money instead of the 27 member states trying to do the same work separately.

Meanwhile, a lot of work continues to create the Banking union, and reforming the Agricultural policy - about which more news as the year unfolds.

But Fisheries reform is at an impasse between the two EU chambers. The 27 national Fishery ministers and their officials always used to decide Fishing questions among themselves in private. Now, with the Lisbon Treaty in effect, they are only co-decision-makers with MEPs, and in public, but ministers and officials in the Council do not like it and are reluctant to adapt to parliament's proposals.

All the best, and another report will follow in early February