Sir, Regarding ‘Commission mulls cap on football transfer fees‘: The European Commission is gong to conduct a study on transfers in professional team sports in 2012. This will, among other things, address questions relating to the transparency and sustainability of existing transfer systems. The Commission is not mulling a cap on transfer fees or player [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU debt talks still ‘a building site’‘: The inter-governmental procedure on the EU debt and competitiveness package is turning into a disastrous quagmire and will probably become a ‘cas d’école’ of inefficient multilateral inter-state bargaining. Several layers of negociations are superimposed: Between France and Germany (on a common ‘non-proposal’). Between ‘liberal’ Eurogroup member [...]

Sir, Mr. Brian Ricketts’ letter, in response to your article on EU financial support to the Sostanj coal power plant in Slovenia, needs rectification. Mr. Ricketts is wrong to write that there is no public funding for the planned 600 MW Sostanj power plant. The European Investment Bank (EIB) itself is a public EU institution. [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Oettinger plans energy roadshow amid doubts on EU communication‘: It is commendable that Mr Oettinger is getting into the energy (roadshow) business, with the aim of linking up the companies that will build infrastructure and renewables with those masters of the universe, the European and global finance community. Last week I attended a [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU subsidies fuel controversial coal plant in Slovenia‘: Your headline of 2 February 2011 suggests that a new coal-fired power plant in Slovenia is, in some way, ‘subsidised’ by the state or by the EU. This is misleading: there is no public funding of the planned 600 MW Šoštanj power plant (TEŠ Unit [...]

Sir, The total cost of EU regulation on SMEs is estimated at 123.8 billion euros or 3.5% of EU GDP. It takes each SME on average seven hours a week to comply with this administrative burden. The European Commission’s own figures show that 44% of SMEs consider themselves as operating in an over-regulated environment. Partly [...]

Sir, Not until the EU starts trying not to copy and think ‘out of the box’ will the innovation might of the EU be released. All that we predominantly do in the EU is copy, as the article underscores. That was fine for the Japanese and the Chinese when they were beginning their economic cycles, [...]

Sir, Studies indicate that there is no correlation between corporate research and development spending and profitability. Indeed it can divert money from other investments that a company needs, and that can of course be fatal. Sometimes, however, it prevents companies disappearing which otherwise would not have survived. Specifying the wrong indicators will mean mis-allocation of [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Britain hosts ‘innovation summit’ with EU Nordic member states‘: Despite all the rhetoric from the UK government this notion that they will help companies in the UK develop green technologies is an absolute farce of major proportions. Most of the ‘green’ developments we have seen promoted in the UK have been those proffered [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU team sent to Greece to curb ‘alarming’ refugee flow‘: Cecilia Malmström stated recently “I invite Greece to continue working to enhance the humanitarian situation of migrants and asylum-seekers”. While Greece is certainly to blame for its government finances, attempting to scapegoat it for the current flood of illegal immigrants across the EU [...]