EU Reporter

Eurosceptic manouvres

December 27 2008
Only days after multi-millionaire Declan Ganley held a prestigious lunch in Brussels to announce that his political party Libertas EU will campaign across Europe in the coming June European elections someone appears to have stolen a march on him. Bridget Rowe, self styled dynamic newspaperwoman and close friend of Nigel Farage the charismatic leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, is listed as “leader” of newly registered Libertas UK on the electoral commission’s website registe... Read more

Pope stokes controversy

December 27 2008
As Pope Benedict declared in his Christmas message that saving the world from homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the rain forests a storm was brewing in the corridors of the European Parliament. It threatens to become a cause celbre when parliament reconvenes due to the Pope’s declaration. The Christian Democrat dominated parliament is set for continuing guerrilla war over a “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) exhibition held in the parliament from December 10 – Hum... Read more

CENSORSHIP IN THE EP

December 17 2008
On the same day that Chinese dissident Hu Jia was honoured by the EU with its 'Sakharov Prize', the institutions showed a distinct failure to allow European citizens the same rights that they demand on behalf of the citizens of China, writes Gary Cartwright. Opening the Sakharov prize ceremony, Mr Pöttering claimed this as "a day when we recall the fundamental principles of our Union as a force for peace, progress and human rights. As Dr Andrei Sakharov said, it is impossible to achieve any on... Read more

Hunger and democracy – an apology

December 16 2008
STRASBOURG - Ralph T. Niemeyer reflects on a curious ad campaign: I am a touch embarrassed by an advertisement I found in the Financial Times. The aggressive message from one of the world's leading ethanol companies has caused me to reflect on some of the allegations I have made in articles about food inflation and bio fuels. Clearly the advertisement is aimed at me, and those like me that have linked the race for bio fuel production to rising food prices. It is not nice to be blamed for all th... Read more

Libertas: a tangled affair

December 12 2008
After Declan Ganley finally launched Libertas as a pan-EU party on 11 December, with the intention of fighting next summer's European Parliamentary elections right across the member states, a rattled Nigel Farage was quick to rubbish it. The UKIP leader was quoted as saying there was "absolutely no common ground on Europe" between his party and Libertas. But there are a few problems in this approach for Mr Farage, who is also co-president of the Independence and Democracy Group (Ind Dem) in the... Read more

FRAUD BUSTING NOT A SIMPLE AFFAIR

December 11 2008
CHRIS WHITE REPORTS ON A QUESTIONABLE PRESS CONFERENCE (11/12/08) - Paul van Buitenen, now a Dutch Member of the European Parliament, is nothing if not an opportunist. Officials of the European Union describe him as a man with a mission. Probe a bit deeper and they will tell you that his mission is to advance his own interests not, as an incredibly naive media appear to think, as a man solely bent on cleaning up fraud and corruption. Back when the Santer Commission resigned en masse Paul ... Read more

Who will rid us of this turbulent priest?

December 10 2008
ADRIAN MULDREW DISCUSSES THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE WAY UK MP DAMIAN GREEN WAS ARRESTED AND HAD HIS PARLIAMENTARY OFFICES SEARCHED BY POLICE WITHOUT A WARRANT:10/12/08 It’s not too difficult to imagine Damian Green as a man of the cloth. Admittedly, it’s his mild manner that does it, rather than anything that could be described as “turbulent”. Still, when one considers some of the things that have been said, during the strange affair of Mr Green’s arrest, it is possible to glean a sort o... Read more

The Mumbai toll grows

December 10 2008
RALPH T. NIEMEYER - MOSCOW: DECEMBER 10,2008   President Medvedev just returned from his trip to India where he met with President Singh over the weekend. As trade between the two nations is expected to have risen by two billion in 2008 to seven billion dollars there is the added dimension of an intensification of military cooperation. Read more

Death of a Patriarch.

December 08 2008
Patriarch Alexis II, the spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, died last Friday of heart failure. He was 79 years old.An immensely popular figure in Russia, he is credited with guiding the Church, and indeed reviving its position in society, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. During his 18 year tenure, he also helped to heal a rift between Orthodox Christians in the west, descendants of those who fled the Bolshevik revolution.One of his strategies was to build closer ties bet... Read more

Black Gold

December 07 2008
 But, oil prices are likely to soar again in the near future despite decreasing demand. Not a contradiction if one reads a study of the German geological institute Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, a government body that calculates that within the next 12 years half of the world’s economically exploitable oil reserves will be used up. Read more

FRAUD SCANDAL SET TO ROCK THE EU

December 05 2008
 The EU institutions look set for a major scandal, as Dutch MEP Paul van Buitenen levels accusations of fraud against the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF.   Claiming in a letter to commissioner Siim Kallas that his attempts to force OLAF and the commission to address his allegations are being ignored or thwarted, he is resorting to holding a press conference, to be held in Brussels on Tuesday December 9th.... Read more

Democracy to order

December 03 2008
The European Commission, the EU executive body, is to take an active role in the European election campaign from January 1 at an admitted cost of 17 million euro. For the first time Europe’s civil service will participate with national governments and the European Parliament in profile raising activities from national to local levels.  Read more

HONG KONG: EVERYBODY'S PACKING UP!

December 02 2008
The only business that seems to be flourishing in Hong Kong at the moment, is that of removals. Expatriate workers are leaving in droves, with one firm reporting a 65% jump in "outbound" business compared to last year. The same firm expects the rate of increase to reach 100% by Christmas.Hong Kong officially went into recession last month, and has seen property prices slump, and shares losing almost 40% of their value since September. Nearly 6,000 jobs have been lost in the last six weeks, and a... Read more

RUSSIAN OIL TRADED AT $10 A BARREL

December 02 2008
  Last night (1st Dec), TNK-BP, the Anglo-Russian oil company announced the lay off of 390 management staff, and the closure of 200 vacancies. This represents a cutback of 19% of its total staff. This follows the loss of 148 technical staff in April of this year.The group has been enmired in controversy, as the controlling oligarchs have sought to squeeze out their British partners and take control of the venture, and Chief executive Robert Dudley also formally stepped down from his positio... Read more

RUSSIA ON THE BRINK?

December 01 2008
The Governor of Russia's Central Bank, Sergei Ignatyev and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin were summoned to the Duma on November 19 to explain their stratagy for weathering the current financial crisis. Russians were recently scandalised to learn that Russia's international reserves have been deposited abroad. Ignatyev and Kudrin assured the parliamentarians that this is the surest way of protecting national assets. Interestingly, the Central Bank has been ditching dollars and investing in the E... Read more