Sir, Regarding ‘Belgium wants citizens’ initiative deal by December‘: There are already reasons to doubt that citizens’ voices will be heeded. In 2007, persons with disabilities, united in Europe under the umbrella of the European Disability Forum, pre-empted the legal right to a citizens’ initiative later awarded by the Lisbon Treaty. In the space of [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU mulls beefing up energy savings policy‘: With the announcement that Danish MEP Bendt Bendtsen is to prepare recommendations for improving the EU’s energy savings policy, Europe’s half-hearted approach to reducing energy consumption could be about to change. Reducing energy consumption – as opposed to simply improving efficiency, which has historically rebounded in [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Serbia, Croatia to stop ‘looking back at the past‘: The problems between Serbs and Croats do not just date back to Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1991. They go back much further to World War II, when Croatia was a willing – nay, eager and enthusiastic – satellite state of Nazi Germany with [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Serbia, Croatia to stop ‘looking back at the past‘: To address these issues properly it is essential to delve into history prior to the 1990s. Surely you know that the real history of genocide goes back to 1940s Yugoslavia and WWII. That is when Christian Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were massacred simply for [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘: As a European I would like to state that I am extremely disappointed with the current situation in the EU. Europe is currently in a state of confusion. Corruption, a general lack of sensibility and nationalism is emerging in all EU countries, old and new, of course [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘ : As has repeatedly been said, the Macedonia name dispute is a matter of culture and history. And yes, these factors determine the future trajectories of both the countries concerned. The majority of FYROM’s population has nothing to do with Macedonian culture, which is Greek and reached [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Macedonia name dispute inspires exotic idea‘: It is not true that “Macedonia is recognised as the country’s constitutional name by all EU countries except Greece”. In addition, it states that “most Europeans find the Greek position puzzling or irrational”. It is impossible to know exactly what most Europeans think. No-one can read minds. [...]

Sir, Our Swiss institution has just completed MoUs and cooperative agreements in Vietnam (at deputy prime minister level) and Kazakhstan (National Innovation Foundation). This is in the sphere of independent leading-edge advice and joint-ventures dealing with new world-leading technologies and their distribution and sale. The reason why these countries have engaged with our institution is [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU, US try to defuse Turkey-Israeli tensions‘: 21st-century geopolitics might just be unwinding before our eyes with the watershed politics of the Turkish flotilla to Gaza and its massacre by Israel/IDF. The level of military and security cooperation between Turkey and Israel hitherto was the envy of regional politics. Now Arabs can count [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Brussels steps up efforts on pension reform‘: The problem of pensions for longer-living members of the EU is a mounting and unanswerable poser for our leaders. Additional problems are apparent in that: approximately 10% of the potential workforce that will eventually collect an OAP [old-age pension] do not work for their entire lives, [...]