Sir, Regarding ‘EU plans to review mortgage access rules‘: A 40% cap on loan-to-value (LTV) to obtain a mortgage, as mentioned in the article, would be a vast overreaction when one thinks of the millions of successful borrowers and mortgage products as compared with the far smaller number of bad debts and repossessions. As the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Lawmaker: ‘Financial regulation must be tailored’‘: There is so much speculation on how best to proceed in regulating the financial sector it is hard to know where to begin. However, it appears to me that the main criterion is not one of regulation but one of consumer confidence. To this end, what the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Slovakia could follow Czech Lisbon demands‘: Neither Slovaks nor Czechs need to worry and complicate the Lisbon Treaty ratification process. The European Charter of Basic Rights, which Mr. Klaus wants to suspend in the case of the Czech Republic, cannot be used retroactively, and therefore cannot be used for any property right claims. [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Hunt continues for women to fill top EU posts‘: Why not invite Arianna Huffington to be EU president. She is Greek, educated in England, politically savvy, extremely well-connected globally, a businesswoman, started up and runs a large, complex, organisation (The Huffington Post), is multilingual, etc. She would add a touch of class and [...]

Dear Mr. Miliband, Regarding ‘Copenhagen needs CCS‘: While I agree that CCS appears to be an attractive technology, which could one day make significant contributions to reducing emissions, it is also being used as a Trojan horse by energy companies. By promising future reductions in emissions (say in 10-15 years time), they seek to get [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘IEA calls for massive investments in carbon capture‘: It is interesting to do the maths on some of the roadmap proposals from the International Energy Agency. 100 operational CCS plants by 2020? The EU is struggling to have 12 demonstration plants by 2015. So? 3400 CCS plants worldwide by 2050: that’s one every [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Commission must address ‘rigid’ recruitment system‘: The first question to ask is: what is the Commission for? Then it can be decided who is to be recruited and how. If the commissioners are to be all political, and composed of national or even nationalistic representatives (as national politicians decided secretly in the Council [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Commission must address ‘rigid’ recruitment system‘: Is the European Commission an institution which requires civil servants or should it be run as a task-driven agency? This is the question and Mr Kallas gives a clear answer: it should not be more than an agency of the Council. This is truly a dangerous idea. [...]

Sir, In recent years several politicians have proposed the use of border measures or border tax adjustments in case of disagreement over measures to protect the climate. The latest suggestion can be found in a joint letter by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The principal justification [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU, US mayors stress cities’ role in global warming fight‘: Perhaps in the drive for increased efficiency and with the prospect of making a real impact on global climate change initiatives, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs should consider the idea of ‘twinning’ with cities in the developing world. This would serve several purposes. [...]