Brussels 12/04/2019. ‘The Clock is Ticking’, a film by Belgian filmmaker Alain de Halleux, charts Brexit from Europe’s point of view. More precisely, it follows the Brexit process as seen from the standpoint of the EU officials charged with negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. To make the […]

Brussels, 05/04/2019. On Wedneday this week, 03/04/2019, the EU Parliament Civil Liberties committee (LIBE) passed a proposal for visa-free travel for UK citizens post-Brexit, regardless of any deal or no-deal decision in the UK Parliament. The proposal had already been endorsed on the Tuesday by the EU Council’s Committee of […]

    Thursday 15/03/2019 should have been a momentous day in the UK’s long-running Brexit saga. The third of three days of key Parliamentary votes, on how the UK withdraws from the European Union, was meant to determine if the political deadlock in the House of Commons and the country […]

Brussels, 12/02/2019. An open letter to the EU Council. The EU is poised to take a momentous step and adopt a new directive to protect whistleblowers across Europe. This could have a dramatic impact on the capacity and ability of whistleblowing to work in all our interests. We know that […]

Brussels, 08 February 2019. While Brussels politicos spent yet another day thrashing about the future form of Brexit amid today’s visit from British Prime Minister Theresa May, the EU Council quietly announced this week that it has reached preliminary agreement with the European Parliament on interoperable information systems in justice […]

Update, 10/12/2018, evening. It seems Prime Minister Theresa May decided to postpone the vote – no surprise there. What happens now is anybody’s guess. Brussels, 10/12/2018. Channel 4’s excellent ‘The Real Brexit Debate’ last night was thought provoking. Four UK Members of Parliament; James Cleverly, Barry Gardner, Jacob Rees-Mogg and […]

Brussels, 09/10/2018. Europe’s pension savings gap remains dangerously large, exceeding €2 trillion a year, which is about equivalent to 13% of Europe’s GDP (Mind the Gap 2016, Aviva). This is by far the biggest financial issue facing EU citizens, their children and grandchildren, believes Better Finance in Brussels. With government […]

Brussels, 19/09/2018. It was at the Byline Festival in August 2018 that I first became acquainted with the term PACs, or Political Action Groups, when American journalist Caroline Orr discussed the baleful influence of so-called SuperPACs on the American democratic process. I had not heard the term before, though had […]

The cellar in my old house has reached a wall temperature of 20 degrees. For the first time in 28 years, it is actually warm. My local climate has changed – does such climate drying warn of future human disaster, or is this too far-fetched? 13/08/2018. The climate change ‘is […]

Brussels, 12/06/2018. The Civil Liberties committee of the European Parliament (LIBE) has called on the EU Commission to suspend the EU/US Privacy Shield agreement on data exchange of personal data, since this (relatively new) agreement still fails to provide sufficient data protection for EU citizens. Privacy Shield should be suspended […]