EU

Good law-making should allow citizens to contact the politicians and officials working on a law. The European Commission allows anyone to go to this website and, with a few clicks find out who to ask a question by email or call. In my experience, any good civil servant will respond quickly with an answer. The MEPs … Read more

Today, European Commissioners met at 1 pm and adopted their Annual Work Programme for 2023. The Work Programme was adopted without discussion. Heads of Cabinet will have done the lifting last Friday. The Commissioners focused instead on the adoption of a package of measures to address rising energy prices in the EU and a citizens’ … Read more

This evening, there was an interesting exchange of views with Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans on the effects of the war in Ukraine on climate policies and on the European Green Deal. There were some surprises. Not so much from Commissioner Timmermans, who confirmed that Europe would accelerate climate actions, and would not shift on the … Read more

The UK’s leaving the EU at the end of the month has some practical impacts. The UK’s 73 MEPs leave.  TMany of their seats will be replaced by MEP’s in waiting in other countries. First, the Environment Committee goes up  ENVI up to 81 seats. That means one in ten MEPs now sit on the … Read more