Sir, Regarding ‘Kroes: Interoperability at heart of Digital Agenda‘: The Internet Society (ISOC) welcomes the perceptive comments by EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes this week on the importance and success of a transparent, multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance. The Internet Society believes that these proven principles are one of the reasons why the day-to-day [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Food industry wins battle on ‘traffic light’ labels‘: CIAA’s [Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of Europe] €1-billion campaign to promote the GDA [guideline daily allowance] labelling system was clearly a key element in its political strategy to combat other, stricter labelling options, which it feared would damage sales of unhealthy food, [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Governments want research funding at heart of innovation plan‘: European research ministers are right to insist upon research funding to drive the EU’s innovation policy, but there is an additional side-benefit worth mentioning: retention of research academics. A recent survey of 1,800 EU academics completed at the Vienna University of Economics and Business [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU sees solar power imported from Sahara in five years‘: Desertec is a German idea. It has mostly German companies taking part and thus it is hardly surprising that a German politician – albeit one that now happens to be a commissioner – supports it. The concerns with respect to using power links [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Romania has EU’s deadliest roads, study reveals‘: The article on Romania’s road seems correct. Last weekend, we hired a car and drove to Sighisoara, less than 100km from Sibiu, where we are volunteer pastors of an English-speaking congregation. On Saturday, we drove an American-Romanian woman to her family’s home and saw one head-on [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU leaders to end dispute over 2020 targets‘: On 17 June the European Council adopted the long-awaited new EU strategy for jobs and growth. So what is this ‘Europe 2020′ strategy? It is presented as a 10-year strategy and a set of targets to rejuvenate the EU economy and equip Europe with the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU to overhaul GM crop approval system‘: The European Coordination Via Campesina is dismayed at the proposal of the European Commission to restructure decision-making processes between the EU and member states, which will result in more GM crops being grown and used in Europe. The Commission’s proposal to allow countries to implement strict [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Brussels steps up efforts on pension reform‘: I would like to share with you and your readers my frustration at the lack of common sense demonstrated by the suggested reform. For that, I would like to refer to a document entitled ‘Interim EPC-SPC Joint Report on Pensions’ that I read some time ago. [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU promotes ‘green jobs’ as way out of crisis‘: Let me first agree on the importance of the discussion presented in the article, and also on the role of climate and energy policies in catalysing the economic recovery and as a source of ‘green jobs’. In relation to this, I would also like [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Kroes presses ahead with open IT standards‘: Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes is right to ask for disclosure rules by standards bodies in order to make it easier for others to use and adapt technologies based on such standards. OASIS – which you quote – already has the most comprehensive and up-front disclosure [...]