Digital business is Europe’s best hope to get back to growth

Digital market has received a lot of interest lately in Europe. Not only by the market players that have always lobbied more favourable or less regulation in general, but most importantly by the EU leadership. New Commissioner, new priorities Jean Claude Juncker, new President of the European Commission, seems to have ‘bet all his money’ […]

Look Mom, even the House of Lords says the #righttobeforgotten is not right

The relation between the UK and the EU is like that passionate thing usually developped between a cat and a dog. Historically since the very beginning of this love and hate affair in 1973, when London realized that the European project is a ‘good’ one, the UK always seeked to receive special attention, reminding to […]

European Court of Justice to Google: It is #righttobeforgotten but not #righttoberemembered

Did you always feel bad about that weird drunk photo your girlfriend had taken a few years ago and was posted on your Hi5 profile? How disappointed did you feel when you saw that if you Google your name, that horrible photo is still at the first 10 results even though you have today lost […]

The next EU President will first have to drink his tea at Downing Street

The fierce political race for the top EU job is heading to its climax lately. Roughly one month away from the European elections of 22-25 May and even the pigeons at park Leopold can feel the sigh of each and every of the 766 Members of the European Parliament. Many of them will have to […]

Obama, Crimea and the TTIP pill

It was two days ago, Wednesday 26 March, that the President of the USA paid us a visit here in Brussels and caused a congestion chaos in the Belgian capital. The reason of his visit was to sell. To sell ideas about freedom, NATO membership ‘upgrades’ and a bit of shale gas. As sales are […]

Crimea, a wicked game of political chess and a ‘big’ coincidence

Last Friday, 21 March, was a historic day in modern geopolitical proceedings. A former Soviet Union member was opening its door to the European Union while just a few hours later a significant part of the same country was being annexed by Russia. The former sentence on its own could have been taken from a […]

MEPs Anti-fraud votes for more votes?

Fellow Europeans, you don’t have to worry any more about corruption in the Old Continent. Our MEPs voted yesterday, Thursday 20 March, in favour of the penalisation of the action of stealing your paid taxes. Can an imprisonment penalty of up to 5 or 10 years really stop the “bad boys” from usurping the EU […]

Snowden is the “EU nomination” for this year’s Oscars

After last June’s revelations about the PRISM scandal you can actually feel it that the air in world politics has less oxygen. The leaders of the major world powers, EU, USA and Russia faced severe respiratory issues during this period. Obama is still suffering from severe panic attacks, Putin broke the window to get some […]

Merkel, Mercedes and Volkswagen to abolish European democracy

That the German automotive industry is one of the strongest in the world is not news. Most Europeans are rather content in the idea that Europe is well represented in the fierce global automotive arena, not because we are or will ever be shareholders of Mercedes or Volkswagen, but rather because when we see an […]

Is Data Privacy really safe seen through Commissioner’s PRISM?

It was last Friday that the European Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, had a ministerial meeting in Dublin with Mr Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General. The topic of the meeting would have normally been the ongoing discussion on the transatlantic data privacy agreement. That would have been effectively the 15th round of negotiations to bridge […]

Pharmaceuticals conceal drug side effects with the EU’s Court blessing

When was the last time you heard about a famous drug that had to be withdrawn from the market after it had cost hundreds or thousands of lives to the patients who had been prescribed with? Did you think it was due to an accident or human error during production? How would you feel if you found […]

The European Internet is not neutral and neither is the Commissioner

How many times were you out with friends and wanted to show them a new cool video on Youtube through your smart phone but buffering was unbelievably slow? What about the time you had a cheap pay-as-you-go subscription and you wanted to save money using Viber to call your friends for free instead of giving […]

European Commission: the LED lights of your Audi A6 shall save our planet

How many of you took your stunning black Audi A6 3.0 liter for a ride on the evening of the 11th of April? Do you remember the moment you switched on the LED driving lights and you felt an unprecedented bliss thinking that you are not only rich but you are also protecting the environment? […]

The EU Diplomacy in North Korea promotes peace or war?

It was last Friday that the seven EU embassies located in Pyongyang received a formal warning by the North Korean regime to evacuate the premises and leave the country as soon as possible. As it was explicitly stated by the world’s most obscure totalitarian regime, the local authorities could not guarantee their safety after the […]

Amazon, a pair of shoes and my Data Privacy walks away

Try to remember the last time you shopped from Amazon. Most likely you are another happy consumer that has enjoyed the benefits of e-shopping in terms of service, price and delivery time. It is also highly possible that you already master the plethora of reasons not to get into your car and experience all that […]

E-Government can be a remedy for the crisis

Since the dawn of the 21st century it has been clear that Information Communication Technology (ICT) would be a significant driver of modern society. Let’s not go far. Think about your first cell phones at the beginning of the millennium that were as big as a ping-pong racket, indeed very inconvenient, while mobile communication was […]

To Bing or Not to Bing? That is the question

It was earlier today that the Vice-President of the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia, received an open letter signed by a dozen complainants that ask for the strictest possible punishment in the long pending Google Antitrust case. This letter signed by 11 internet companies came as the next strategic move of the fierce Anti-Google lobby that […]

Commissioner sings “Volar-e” but the European driver no “Cantar-e”

It was the last day of February when the European Commission decided to organize a pompous event to test the “amazing” performance of a new electric race car in the Formula 1 Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Its name is Volar-e and I am sure Antonio Tajani, the Commissioner responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship that […]

The European Commission to stop Buffering

At last some good news for the European online gamers and Skype users. The European Commission has decided to fund a big research on how to fight internet lagging and make European Internet move faster without the need to have expensive changes in the network infrastructure. Following the steps of the increasing American research on […]

Ship Recycling is the Commission’s Titanic

It was the symbolic date of 12/12/12 that the international NGO, Center for International Environmental Law, decided to publish a legal opinion denouncing as 100% illegal the European Commission’s proposal for a new regulation on ship recycling. This coincided with the legal analysis by the former chief counsel of the European Commission , Dr. Ludwig […]

Novartis and Johnson & Johnson to deprive Europeans of their right to Health

It was the last day of January that the European Commission decided to send a formal complaint against two pharmaceutical giants, Johnson and Johnson and Novartis, over an illegal secret deal that made European cancer patients suffer while it brought huge profits to the American and Swiss multinational accordingly. After the meticulous research of DG […]

Facebook and Google to treat Europe as the 51st State of the USA

On the 4th of February 2013 seventeen prominent US consumer and civil liberties organizations addressed a strong petition letter to highly ranked executives of the American government in Washington and to one American in Brussels, Mr. William Kennard, American Ambassador of the US Mission to the EU. Every European needs to know what all those […]

It ain’t over until Google says it’s over

The deadline EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia set to Google to answer the Commission’s investigation expired yesterday and, since no answer had been filled, people in the DG Competition decided to throw a party. They thought that these would be the easiest €4 billion the European Commission had ever made. Mr. Almunia even rushed to brag […]

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