Latest posts
Poisoning the well for EU social media
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PR firm interns posting fake reviews about iPhone clients. Ghost blogging and tweeting, including by though-leaders in social media. Bloggers not disclosing sponsorship. It’s just a matter of time before someone poisons the well for EU social...
My new friend on Facebook: the EU
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My new Facebook-friend is not like my other friends – in fact, I’m not really sure if it’s a man or a woman. Certainly, I’ve never had a friend like this before. He’s quite a popular guy – he has almost 600 friends, although he barely has...
A blank cheque
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While the Irish government continues to play down the EU’s ambitions in defence policy in order to get the Lisbon Treaty safely passed, some telling comments have been forthcoming from other Europeans this week, which give us some insight into...
Mr. Barroso, be fair to the East
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The Commission is transparent enough to make obvious the huge East-West gap in the EU administration highest posts’ distribution. The data are appalling. At the highest level of the administration, AD16, there are 37 civil servants from across the...
Copenhagen Follow-up: A Remodelled International Energy Agency
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The Copenhagen Climate Conference is most likely to end in a failure, due to the complexity of the proposed solutions and the diversity of positions of the key actors. But this must not be the end of the story. Humanity has no option but to continue...
G20: ‘It’s the jobs, stupid!’
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After a fruitful meeting with the Americans for Financial Reform, I briefly met Richard Trumka, the newly elected President of AFL CIO - the largest federation of trade unions in North America - and delivered a speech at a meeting with the ITUC. Here...
Kroatien nähert sich der EU-Ziellinie
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Wohin geht die EU-Erweiterungsreise in den nächsten Jahren? Olli Rehn hat gestern in einer Grundsatzrede an der Princeton University wenig Neues gesagt. Lesenswert ist die Rede dennoch - das betrifft die klare Ansage, dass sich Kroatien der Ziellini...
Conference of Chiefs of Defense of US-Adriatic Charter Member States held in Montenegro
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XI Conference of Chiefs of Defense from US-Adriatic Charter 5 member countries was held in Montenegrin city of Budva this week. Adriatic Charter is association of countries from Adriatic (Balkan’s) region with purpose of fostering their attempt...
Confusion over enlargement
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I was recently involved in a special working group under the Council on future EU strategies. Believe me or not, the group’s hands are tied, because it has no mandate to discuss enlargement. Why? Because countries such as France don’t want to hea...
Asian Union Plans Attract Japan
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The plans for creating an Asian economic community grouping China, ASEAN and Japan have received an important boost recently. During his informal meeting in New York with Chinese president Hu Jintao, the new Japanese premier Mr. Hatoyama has proposed...
Humanity Needs A Universal Carbon Tax
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Whatever the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, humanity will need a simple and effective tool for making fossil energy increasingly more expensive and renewable energies relatively cheaper. An excise tax on coal, oil and gas would constit...
Exempting micro-entities from accounting requirements is not progress but risks fragmentation of the single market
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While welcoming the Commission’s “European Economic Recovery Plan” to restore consumer and business confidence - in which the Commission pledges to reduce the burden on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) - and supporting init...
A Week to Go
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I spent much of the past week in Ireland in Dublin, Clare and Galway. There were more Yes than No posters wherever I went, apart from teh outskirts of Limerick. This is in sharp contrast to the last time around, when the No posters dominated the sce...
We need energy efficiency, renewables, nuclear and CCS
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Sir, Regarding ‘Barroso II must turn carbon cuts into growth‘: You say climate campaigners are arguing that the European Commission must support energy efficiency and renewables rather than nuclear and clean coal. This is true of some cli...
A NEW GUARANTEE: Turkish Cypriots and the EU umbrella
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EU can be proven an effective alternative guarantee to the Turkish Cypriots within a new united Cyprus ...
Don’t count those chickens
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Reuters has the story that Ireland’s largest independent bookies, Boylesport, is already paying out on a Yes vote for the second Lisbon Treaty referendum, to be held on 2 October.Apparently their spokesman said, “With odds at 1/12 a posit...
Failure of the Western Statecraft Model in Afghanistan
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The number of corpses of European soldiers sent back home from Afghanistan continues to rise without an end to the conflict in sight. Only this Monday, the Italians have buried six soldiers killed in action there, amid calls for concluding a peace so...
President Obama with a clear message
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President Barack Obama is still strong and very convincing when he talks. He is sending a clear message as when I saw him during his inauguration in Washington. Yesterday, during Bill Clinton’s global initiative conference, his message was again ve...
EU happy to ignore patent crisis
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Patent reform shelved pending European Cout of Justice decision European member states have found a new excuse for their failure to agree on the community patent system which all are agreed is essential to the much-vaunted “knowledge economy...
Congratulations Bokova!
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My compartiot and good friend Irina Bokova was elected yesterday night Director General of UNESCO. You can find details here. I have worked under Bokova in the mid nineties, when she was deputy foreign minister, responsible for European integration,...
