EU budget update: Are Europe’s leaders serious about taking the green shirt off all of our backs?
October 23, 2012
With a key EU summit one month away, how do things currently stand with the tortuous, plate tectonic-esque EU budget 2014-2020 negotiations?
A threatened growth package
July 20, 2012
Shifting gears from the austerity years, EU leaders recently proposed injecting EUR 120 billion into the European economy.
Europe’s energy games are not child’s play
April 23, 2012
A new campaign video illustrates Europe’s self-absorbed approach to its energy policy outside Europe. (A blog entry Cross-posted from the Counter Balance blog.)
Ukraine’s risky nuclear future shouldn’t receive European support
March 9, 2012
Ukraine plans to extend the lifetimes of its fifteen nuclear reactors, most of which will soon pass their expiration date. A new report shows how these plans that are pursued in utter silence have seen only an inadequate assessment.
Oil for nothing: European energy security endangers livelihoods in Nigeria
February 8, 2012
A documentary exposes the practices and disastrous local impacts of oil extraction by European energy companies in Nigeria. Food for thought for ourselves and our political representatives at national and European level.
What’s the real danger for Cohesion Policy: wrong accounting or wrong results?
November 10, 2011
The proper financial management of EU funds is important to avoid fraud and illegitimate spending. Yet more important is the quality of the funded projects.
Haircuts for eurozone citizens? A closer look at the EFSF
October 27, 2011
The European Financial Stability Facility is a crucial element of eurozone leaders’ proposed solution to the debt crisis. But behind the shining EUR 1 trillion armour of the EFSF lurks an institution that could bring further mayhem as a closer look by Bankwatch’s alternative economics coordinator Roman Havlicek reveals.
Video: Polish perspectives on the EU presidency
July 1, 2011
Today Poland takes the helm of the EU presidency, but the country’s recent move to unilaterally block a 25 percent reduction target for EU carbon emissions has solidified expectations that Poland would hinder a more ambitious EU climate policy agenda.
Have you voted in the 2010 worst EU lobbying awards yet?
November 5, 2010
ArcelorMittal, one of the candidates for the worst EU lobby award, is the world’s largest private steel company, producing 10 per cent of the world’s steel. It is also one of Europe’s largest emitters of CO2. Yet the company successfully lobbied the European Commission on behalf of Europe’s biggest polluters to continue getting free greenhouse gas emissions permits until at least 2020.
