Brexit Shorts – being a compilation of instant, sometimes off-the-cuff reactions to the day-to-day Brexit saga …… Brexit could be delayed? Next Euro elections are 2019 24/07/2017. Unfortunately, Andrew, we may have to make a start before knowing the destination: We can’t prepare to leave Europe until we know where […]

Update 08/12/2016. Recent research under the EU’s Graphene Flagship programme (http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=170781&CultureCode=en) has shown how graphene’s electrical properties can underpin much more powerful sensors. The benefits of such sensors can be double-edged. Graphene’s ability to sense impact could be used in a very positive way – for example enabling an in-helmet […]

        “Besides journalists’ legal protections, equivalent protections should be extended to the people who risk their livelihoods, and lives, to bring this information to light in the first place,” wrote Lauren Kirchner, reporting on Columbia Journalism Schools’ seminar “Journalism after Snowden” in January 2014. See this piece […]

          Tales from a Brussels bar – Brexit 3 The bar was quieter tonight. The usual suspects were there – we had planned to discuss Brexit again. But no-one wanted to tallk about it immediately – Maj and co. had gone off to play darts, others […]

          Tales from a Brussels bar – Brexit 2 Stassos was quoting Shakespeare, but in slightly modified form. “Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of European fortune – or to take arms … that’s what you want to do.” He […]

          Tales from a Brussels bar – Brexit 1 It was a fine Spring evening in Brussels, the sun lingering on the pavements – quite the best time of the year in the city. Steve the Bar had put a couple of barrels and stools outside, […]

Brussels, 02/03/2016. The European Parliament’s car-pollution inquiry committee (better known as Dieselgate), set up to investigate last year’s scandal on particulate pollution from cars, has just met for the first time. The committee is set to deliberate for 12 months. Its brief is to investigate the regulatory breakdown in the […]

Which EU country lays claim to being the “largest outgoing investor in the world”? The Netherlands, according to Amsterdam-based NGO SOMO (the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations). Are the Dutch proud of this? Apparently not. The problem is, says SOMO, that the source of Holland’s world-beating level of outgoing […]

Brussels, 29/10/2015. European Parliament MEPs today called on EU member states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties.” The call, carried by a narrow margin (285 to 281), is stated as “in recognition of his status as […]

Brussels, 06/10/2016. Europe must immediately suspend the ‘Safe Harbour’ data agreement with the US and initiate a new, more ‘solid’ data-protection framework, says the Chair of the European Parliament’s LIBE civil liberties Committee Claude Moraes. His statement follows the latest ruling from the European Court of Justice in the case […]