It seems that any major transfer of power from the national level to the European Commission for EU telecoms regulation has been scuppered by the Council of Ministers. Commissioner Reding had threatened ten days ago to withdraw Commission proposals if ministers refused to go along with them, but the Council’s political agreement on November 27 [...]

In the US, twenty-nine of the biggest NGOs published a 391-pages policy document with recommendations for the new Obama administration on how to start the transition to a green and clean economy. The impressive report includes detailed proposals on how to endorse legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35% before 2020 and and 80% [...]

Radical Islam is again in headlines thanks for recent attack in Mumbai.  Already during battle discussion had started about foreign connections of terrorists.  Besides  Pakistan also British and Bosnian connections were mentioned.  The question is mostly related to Muslim immigrants living in West.  As far as Bosnia or western Balkans is concerned the core problem [...]

Which countries have a female majority, or a roughly equal level of involvement in the legislative power? Here is a world map compiled by the data of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The question was raised by Doug Merill of afoe when it turned out that New Hampshire in the U.S. has now more female senators than [...]

The American president-elect has two sites: change.gov to help the transition to his administration, and change.org to maintain involvement in his campaign. Foreign nationals, including us, Europeans, can join in and try to influence the new American policies. The idea that a president-elect is fishing for policy ideas on the internet sounds a bit scarry to […] [...]

Dans, le Talk, le faux “chat” du Figaro.fr (1), Vincent Peillon déclare: Et nous concevons qu’aujourd’hui il faut quand même se mettre au travail, être plus présent dans le débat politique français, européen et international, et préparer une alternative pour 2012. Là, c’est vraiment l’hôpital qui se fout de la charité. Quand on regarde les [...]

With the kind help of those nice folks at Blogactiv, I’ve added a new picture to the top of this page. (Previously there was just a standard image.) The image is of one of the CO2 injection wells connected to the In Salah natural gas plant in Algeria, a joint venture between BP, Statoil, and Sonatrach. [...]

This week, finally, and for the first time in EU history, has the EU taken the bold step (according to EU standards) to freeze Structural Funds payments to a country on grounds of rampant corruption. The laggard identified, named and shamed was Bulgaria. Altogether 560 million Euros have been withheld, which are a relatively small [...]

International oil prices have declined to < $ 60/b, the lowest level since early 2007. But in the future demand will keep rising, especially in emerging countries while supply will have increasing difficulties to keep pace. No surprise that the EIA expects a price of $ 200/b in the not too distant future. This is [...]

As the final deals on the Package near, Poland (27 votes out of 345 in total) remains the most awkward negotiator. In particular, the unique Polish response to the ETS proposal was influence significantly on a now infamous report by EnerSys, which predicted much economic damage. That report, swallowed i.a. by Ernst & Young in September, has [...]

Next week’s COP-14 meeting in Poland is likely to go down in history as the top where the European Union’s self-proclaimed global leadership on climate and energy policy got sacrificed on the altar of economic growth fundamentalism. With Poland and most of the new EU member states in opposition and their unholy alliance with Berlusconi’s [...]

A week ago I wrote here an article “UN deciding over plan for Kosovo – which plan to select?”. On the table was a 6-point plan negotiated between UN and Serbia, and a 4-point plan, a declaration by Kosovo’s separatist government. Now we know the answer – 6-point plan was selected unanimously in […] Original [...]

European Cohesion Policy is becoming ever more important in strengthening competitiveness and innovation capacity in our regions. Compared to other important instruments such as the Research Framework Programme or the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme it does not only have ‘critical mass’ in terms of budget allocation, but it is also crucial in aligning national and [...]

While we should be cautious in letting our politicians use the current crisis to return to free-wheeling Keynesianism creating an ever-increasing financial burden for future generations, money spent on technology and on enhancing research and innovation seems to be a good investment in the future as, for instance, lessons from Finnland’s economic glut and rise [...]

Dans le cadre d’un débat organisée par le Mouvement Européen – France, j’ai posé quelques questions à Margot Wallström sur les européennes à venir. En particulier, j’étais curieux d’entendre son point de vue sur la lâcheté du PSE. Même si elle ne le dit pas clairement, elle semble regretter le fait qu’il n’y ait pas [...]