Sir, Regarding ‘Eurosceptic Czech senators put Lisbon Treaty on hold‘: I am just an amateur historian, but I try to learn history so that I avoid committing the same errors made in the past. From the little I know, the Czech Republic is a rich and industrious land which was in the world’s top five [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU to declare war on business trips‘: Video-conferencing is a subsection of the more general category ‘teleworking’. The rules governing successful teleworking were formalised in the 1970s and 1980s. Early adopters included ICL who used it extensively amongst its programmers. Teleworking tends to work best with functions that are not ‘customer facing’. Where [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Can the EU pave the way for electric cars?‘: 1. The range of noticeable electric vehicles (EVs) are sufficient to meet the daily driving needs of more than 95% of drivers. The vast majority of people (95%) drive less than 100/km a day, and 82% drive 40 miles or less a day, with [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU policymaking: Rooted in science?‘: I really do think that politicians will arguably look to their interests in winning votes before anything else. We can sadly translate this into he who better lobbies or markets his ideas the right way will decide the future (although this is unproven). The ‘precautionary principle’ adds to [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Dutch PM said to be eyeing EU president job‘: Rumours of all kind exist in this world. We cannot fight them, we can only check reality. Who is the Jan Peter Balkenende, and why are his ambitions newsworthy? Well, the answer is simple: he is competent, efficient and effective, and besides all that, [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Dutch PM said to be eyeing EU president job‘: As an Englishman, I think that the Dutch prime minister would make an excellent first president of the European Union. The Netherlands was one of the original founding nations of the EU. A president from one of the smaller member states would also bring [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Cameron confirms Tories’ Lisbon referendum plan‘: As a British expat living in France, I would like to express my indignation to the way Mr. Cameron is trying to impose his Eurosceptic views on the pro-European side of the Conservative Party. I am very involved with French politics and I would like to invite [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Germany ends Lisbon ratification saga‘: If the UK wants to “un-ratify” the Lisbon Treaty after it has formally entered into force as Mr Cameron rather pompously annouces, it would not undo the Treaty. It would just mean that the UK would no longer stick to it. This would means the exit of the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Can the EU pave the way for electric cars?‘: Over the past two years, PWR has looked at the issue of electric vehicle (EV) development, specifically with respect to infrastructure. This week, we have been talking to distribution engineers in the UK (in fact some of my ex-colleagues). EVs are often linked to [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Barroso II must turn carbon cuts into growth‘: You say climate campaigners are arguing that the European Commission must support energy efficiency and renewables rather than nuclear and clean coal. This is true of some climate campaigners, but not all. Some of us now accept that the climate crisis is so great that [...]