Inside out

Back page gossip from the 22 June issue of Research Europe

Losing momentum Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker was in Prague this month, receiving a Golden Commemorative Medal from the city’s Charles University. The reasons for the award were not entirely clear; neither were parts of Juncker’s speech. Looking to the future, he said: “Much of the talk has been about the so-called ‘multi-speed Europe’. I prefer calling it the Europe of different speeds, which is not the same. Because whatever the speed, the direction is one.” Perhaps one of the university’s physicists could explain what he meant?

“Surprise!” The start of the Brexit negotiations on 19 June was a happy occasion for British eurosceptics who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU. It was doubly happy for one, UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who celebrated his birthday that same day. Hopes among pro-Europeans that Brexit might be an elaborate fabrication to prank Johnson, similar to the fabrications that peppered his campaigning in the run-up to the vote almost exactly a year ago, appear to have been unfounded.