Sir, Regarding ‘An EU patent without Italy? Member states turn up the heat‘: What seems to be the issue here for us in our company is the fact that every year we have to re-register the use of the patents that were developed by our parent group in the USA and that this incurs upon [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU officials win pay rise battle with EU member states‘: I have no doubt the Irish people will have an even warmer glow about being in the EU, in the knowledge that EU officials will now get a 3.7% pay rise in addition to job security, perks and benefits and little accountability. Charles [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU officials win pay rise battle with member states‘: I would like to make the following additional points: The Court’s decision was fast because the breach of EU law by the Council was obvious and flagrant – as the legal services of both the Council and the Commission had warned beforehand. The progressive [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Single market delays draw fire in forum‘: A lot of internal market problems, especially the lack of economic transparency, were never acted upon after Maastricht Treaty came into force under Jacques Delors’ presidency of the European Commission. Following the publication of Mario Monti’s recent report, which reviews the single market, it may be [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Sports policy to fall victim of EU budget row‘: it is surprising that in a society that is complaining about demographic ageing, mass sports is not among the most pressing priorities. I mean, when we’re old we’d better be healthy if there is no baby boom generation to look after us. Doing sport [...]

Sir, Concernant ‘L’UE et l’Irlande se mettent d’accord sur le fonds de sauvetage‘: Certes l’Union a les moyens de sauver de la banqueroute ce mauvais élève de la classe européenne. Car les difficultés irlandaises ne sont pas seulement dues à ses banques, mais bien à la politique économique et fiscale de son gouvernement. Voila un [...]

Sir, Concernant ‘L’Acte sur le marché unique attire les foudres du forum public‘: L’article d’EurActiv.com paru suite au débat public organisé par Confrontations Europe ce jeudi 18 novembre est inacceptable. Alors que tous les participants ont souligné la formidable opportunité qu’ouvre cet Acte pour le marché unique, le titre laisse penser que nous sommes opposés [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Smart grids could save Europe €52bn‘: The linking of ‘smart grids’ and ‘energy saving’ is often done by those with an interest in selling equipment that ranges from remote-controlled meters (the people that design these are smart, the meters themselves are pretty dumb) through to capital equipment for power networks (similar comments on [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Bulgaria surrenders to ‘South Stream’ pipeline‘: It seems like a very bad idea to put all your eggs in one basket. Both the Nabucco and South Stream gas pipelines are already at the mercy of the Russians even before they start: so when they are pumping and the infrastructure moves towards relying on [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Carbon capture and storage‘: I find the whole saga of the CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) issue entirely distasteful. The oil industry magnates and the coal industry giants must be laughing all the way to the bank and their shareholders must be agreeing with them that they can make a huge killing with [...]