Latest posts
Shaped by social media? Not yet, but it’s coming!
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Number of View: 367A few days ago at the Commission’s first Digital Competence Day event, I issued a call to exchange best practices and experiences in the field of modern e-technologies. Neelie Kroes was the first to respond. No surprise...
Thank you Oslo!
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Number of View: 15I was very pleased to be invited to join the delegation of European leaders who earlier this week accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. After many months of criticism, difficult negotiations and often the tense atmosphere that I h...
ECI – the first step towards trans-European e-democracy
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Number of View: 11The European agenda has been overshadowed in recent years by the impact of the current crisis and by the need to take unprecedented measures to overcome it, many of which have often been poorly received by citizens. The solution...
A year of living transparently
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It is a year since the European Commission and European Parliament launched our joint transparency register – an appropriate time to take stock of our collective efforts to make EU policy-making more transparent. The new register builds on th...
Times are tough – but this could still be the EU’s decade
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Here’s a controversial prediction for the future: by the end of the current decade, we will be able to look back on the current economic and political situation and see it not as a threat to the continued success of the European project but as...
EU-Asia relations: so much to learn from each other
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I’ve just returned from a trip to China, Korea and Singapore, the main focus of which was to maintain the positive momentum in EU-China relations that has been driven by a number of successful summits with our Asian partners. Indeed, over the l...
Budget oversight gives Europe scrutiny but not sovereignty
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One of the things I like most about my role as the Commissioner responsible (among other things) for relations with national parliaments is the opportunity this gives me to visit the Member States and get a real taste of what issues are of concern to...
European Citizens’ Initiative: epic fail or real tool for change?
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The thing that struck me the most at last week’s conference on the European Citizens’ Initiative that I hosted in Brussels was the sheer enthusiasm shared by so many of the speakers and delegates about the democratic possibilities that th...
Modern Europe = eEurope!
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In my numerous meetings with politicians and citizens, I am often faced with the question of how we can overcome the crisis and boost growth in times of cuts in public finances and state expenditure. My usual answer is that we have to look at new way...
A roller-coaster ride towards a new EU
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The impact of the economic crisis on EU economies has resembled something of a roller-coaster ride over the last few months. No sooner had we got to grips with the mortgage and banking crisis that came to us from across the Atlantic than we were face...
Bureaucrats don’t rule Europe, we’re all in this together
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’Brussels’ is often blamed for making unnecessary regulation, or for making life more complicated for citizens and businesses. Yet Member States themselves are sometimes guilty of ‘goldplating’ EU legislation – adding clau...
Let’s be fair (and more optimistic) on Europe!
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Part of the daily routine of a Commissioner is to explain how the European Union functions, what value added it brings to European citizens and, increasingly, to fight off unfair criticism or even outright lies. Last week, in the country I know b...
