Sir, Regarding ‘EU seeks to shift freight to rail and shipping’: The pro-’Gigaliners’ lobby is arguing that the possible admission onto European roads of trucks of up to 25.25m long and weighing up to 60 tonnes would provide an increase in freight capacity while reducing transport costs. But are these supposed advantages real? In fact, [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Teachers back ‘personal adoptive language proposal’: I am writing to you (in English as the lingua franca) because you attended the public hearing on multilingualism in Brussels on 15 April. I would like to point to the fact that in the whole discussion, there is a widely neglected aspect: character sets. Our modern [...]

Sir, In response to David Egan’s letter dated 21 May and entitled ‘Ireland and Lisbon: Time for some democracy’: Mr. Egan appears to object to the idea that politicians should give some leadership. Having been a politician for 21 years, I can assure him that if politicians only did what the electorate tell them to [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘The Irish EU Treaty Referendum’: Voltaire once said: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” How can this be possible when less than 10 TDs (MPs) in the Dail (Irish lower chamber) out of 166 are concretely questioning the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Parliament under pressure for shunning free software’: While we sympathise with the FFII petition to the European Parliament on streaming plenary sessions, we are equally concerned about broad categorical mandates with regard to software procurement. While the notion of “non-discrimination” is worthy, the idea of mandates is a slippery slope. If I only [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Parliament backs calls for EU anti-discrimination law’: Millions of young people in Europe face discrimination every day in access to goods and services, such as healthcare, education, insurance and banking products, and access to participation in policymaking. I support the European Parliament’s strong call for comprehensive legislation to combat discrimination covering a range [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Green Light from the Emerald Isle? Questions and Answers about Ireland’: In their paperPdf external , Hierlemann and Heydecker underline the important duty of Irish politicians to ensure that their citizens approve the Lisbon Treaty. So politicians should tell us ho to vote. How interesting. What happened to democracy? I thought the electorate [...]

Monsieur, Concernant ‘La Commission hésite à autoriser plus de cultures GM’: Pour quelles raisons l’Europe semble-t-elle faire le jeu de l’OMC dans le dossier des OGM? Pourquoi veut-elle imposer des législations favorables aux cultures OGM alors que la balance bénéfices/risques n’est même pas clairement établie et qu’il semble impossible de maîtriser les croisements avec les [...]

Sir, Regarding Reinhard Lauer of the BBFU’s letter dated 8 April (‘Mercury use in dental amalgam’): The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) shares the concerns of Bundesverband der Beratungsstellen fuer Umweltgifte about the use of dental amalgams containing mercury. However, we were surprised to learn of their doubts regarding the scientific basis of our work. [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Interview: Russia not to blame for Caucasus war threat’: Ambassador Chizov obviously lives on a different plane from those of us who choose to base our judgements on facts and not propaganda. When the NATO secretary general offers to eat his tie in reaction to outrageous Russian claims (“NATO chief offers to eat [...]