Hungary has shut its border to Serbia completely. So the refugees head towards Croatia instead (and Croatia then closes its border), and if the refugees do succeed they may need to cross minefields. Then fears are raised in Slovenia that the refugees might well head there – its PM Miro […]
Relating to the Jack Straw lobbying on behalf of Ukrainian sugar firms (background here), a few quick remarks. First, we know from this, that: I got into see the relevant director general and his officials in Brussels … and we got the sugar regulations changed We also know the meeting […]
As regular readers of this blog are surely now aware, I have become quite fascinated by the tricks used by car hire companies to wring more money out of their customers. I first reported on this in summer 2014, and revisited the example in early February 2015. I have since […]
With the European elections now just over a month away, every campaign organisation in Brussels is coming up with its demands for wannabe MEPs before the election. ALTER-EU, the campaign for lobby transparency, has released its campaign site entitled “Politics for People“, with the subtitle “Stop banks and big business […]
So it looks like the European Council has agreed a real-terms cut in the EU budget for the 2014-2020 period. This has, understandably, been labelled unacceptable by the 4 largest groups in the European Parliament. Yet, fearing coercion from Member States, EP President Martin Schulz and leader of the EPP […]
The European Parliament has introduced some new and essentially sensible rules, asking MEPs to declare their financial interests and business dealings prior to their time as MEPs. This is important, as the what a MEP did prior to being elected can impact on their job after election. Work for a […]
It has not been a good few months for the European Parliament, and today probably tops all of the days for stories that show the EP in a bad light. As Jason O’Mahony points out, the EP lost the Toland Case in the ECJ yet still refuses to publish the […]
What’s up with Germany? What do they have to hide? I attended a press conference organised by farmsubsidy.org yesterday entitled “Who wants to be a farm subsidy millionaire?” where Jack Thurston, Brigitte Alfter and others presented the latest data on CAP payments using the latest statistics on agriculture spending due […]