How clean is Clean Sky?
The Clean Sky initiative, backed with enormous bundles of EU taxpayers’ money, published its first call for proposals today. But how clean is Clean Sky? Here is an article I wrote for the UK magazine...
View ArticleStructural funds cashback
The European Commission yesterday (15 July) rather quietly slipped out its 2008 report on protection of the European Communities’ financial interests – in other words an assessment of whether or not...
View ArticleEIB: funding development through tax havens
The European Commission and big member states like France and Germany are planning a crack down on tax havens (while Britain is pretending to). So it might come as a surprise that the EU’s house bank,...
View ArticleFish farce
The European Commission has given its backing to a ban in international trade in the severely endangered bluefin tuna. Sort of. In fact, the Commission has said there should be a provisional listing of...
View ArticleI’m impressed…
…by Connie Hedegaard. Her pronouncements in the European Parliament this afternoon (9 March) mark an abrupt change of direction for European Union climate policy on a number of points. First, she wants...
View ArticleClimate system scandal
Look closely enough at yesterday’s European Commission communication on ‘moving beyond a 20 percent greenhouse gas reduction’ and you will spot a scandal. It’s on page 3 and it reads like this: ‘With...
View ArticleOutrageous FIFA
It seems like a marriage made in heaven: Russia and FIFA for the World Cup 2018. The “mafia state”, as described in the Wikileaks dispatches, and the Swiss-registered, er, non-profit association that...
View ArticlePlanning pollution in Estonia
A European Commission state aid notice published on March 23 has shown how EU member state governments can work directly against agreements they make at EU level, in this case on combatting climate...
View ArticleCorporate welfare gone mad
Visitors passing through London’s Heathrow airport on the way to next year’s Olympics can no doubt have confidence in the airport’s security systems. But they might be surprised to learn that, courtesy...
View ArticleMilitary spending dressed up as research
Great article by Andrew Rettman on EUObserver on the latest no-government-should-be-seen-without-one, public-money hoovering, military-industrial subsidies disguised as research fad: EU firms join gold...
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