I digress … thoughts on fish & the environment
A cold weekend is the perfect time to finish Vaclav Smil’s new book. Smil restores your faith that complex issues can be communicated clearly and with real evidence. People working in public policy and lobbying would be well served by reading Smil and emulating his style. Those who did so would stand out in Brussels … Read more
Trust is the gel that binds effective law and policy-making. It manifests itself in a simple operational rule that “your word is your bond”. If you give an undertaking to take a position or a voting line, you don’t back down from it. The idea of keeping your word is ancient. It is mentioned in … Read more
I gave a talk last month on influencing the new Commission’s agenda. My main message was that the direction of travel (in policy terms) was set and we are now down to the end game of refinement. I’m sure I saw some faces go pale. In the main, a few core documents lay out where … Read more
What can a new commissioner do on day 1 One of the big challenges a new Commissioner faces is bring their DG under control. They’ll need to make sure that the DG works to deliver on the new Commission’s mandate. It won’t be easy. Officials have spent the last 5 years being instructed to push … Read more