This week we had a kick-off meeting in Brussels for Ecolink+, an eco-innovation project supported by DG Enterprise under the umbrella of Europe INNOVA and the CIP programme. In this project ERRIN is partnering, among others, with Eurada, EBN and two expert consultancies in the area of innovation management and early stage investment, Meta-Group and [...]

Here’s another thought for the weekend.
Apart from the legal obstacles (at least on paper) involved in giving emergency support to Greece - something we’ve touched on many times before - there may be a second legal hurdle that EU leaders have to pass i…

Check out this video interview with Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment. The Lisbon Council hosted Andreas for the launch of his new study on the huge cost of low performance in education. The study holds important lessons for Europe, especially as we reflect on the substance of the EU [...]

1. The lost lorry
How do you solve the following problem? A large lorry from a Member State of the EU arrives by ship at a port in Cyprus with goods for delivery. All the custom documents are in order according to EU legislation. Unfortunately the goods were intended for the Cypriot Greek south of the [...]

The rash of recent reports highlighting the issues of European farming and the environment, European farming and climate change and the pressure of population and urban growth on farmed land all concentrate attention on the basic dilemma of European agriculture policy development. The challenge can be reduced to one question: how to get more for [...]

I have been to Moldova a few years ago and I realised that I speak one more language. My Romanian is good, and the people in Chisinau I met spoke the same language. However, officially, it was not called Romanian, but “the State language”.
No problem for me, it means that I can write in my [...]

Joint Programming involves Member States engaging voluntarily in the definition, development and implementation of common strategic research agendas. It may involve strategic collaboration between existing national programmes or jointly planning and setting up entirely new ones. In both cases, it entails putting resources together, selecting or developing the most appropriate instrument(s), implementing, and collectively monitoring [...]

Plans to publish a European Innovation Act ahead of the spring meeting of EU leaders are on hold.
The new innovation strategy is now more likely to be published this summer.
In the meantime, the new European Commissioners - particularly those responsible for industry and innovation - are trying to redraw lines of responsibility which have [...]

MEPs on the European Parliament’s Budget Committee voted on Wednesday to award themselves an extra €1,500 in cash and to hire an additional 150 staff. MEPs say they’re in desperate need of more money because the Lisbon Treaty is now in force which me…

Forum for the Future of Agriculture presents the 2010 conference - Mark Titterington, European Public Affairs Director at Syngenta and Thierry de l’Escaille, CEO and Secretary General at the European Landowners Organization introduce the upcoming FFA2010.
To register for the event, please follow instructions on www.forumforagriculture.com. We look forward to your participation!

Un mois seulement après la Conférence de Copenhague, Michèle Sabban, Présidente de l’Assemblée des Régions d’Europe, organise le « Sommet de la Mer Noire » à Paris les 15 et 16 février prochains. Cette conférence sera consacrée aux problématiques environnementales de la gestion de l’eau et du tourisme durable, dans les régions du pourtour de [...]

For centuries Europeans have argued: where are the limits of Europe? Professors and writers have battled on the subject. So have armies. Europe as a political and organisational entity would never exist if citizens had had to wait for experts, academics and politicians to agree.
“The definition of Europe as a geographical entity has long been [...]

This article about European innovation strategy was published by EurActiv on 29th January 2010.
Plans to unveil an Innovation Act in time for the spring meeting of EU leaders have been stalled while the new European Commission beds down and looks at broadening the scope of the strategy.
The document is now expected to be published [...]

Tuesday March 16th 2010 will be the third time the Forum for the Future of Agriculture is being held in Brussels. As in previous years, it opens the floor to thinkers from around the world to debate, discuss and offer new points of view.
This year’s focus is on The Economics and Politics of Food vs. [...]

Tuesday March 16th 2010 will be the third time the Forum for the Future of Agriculture is being held in Brussels. As in previous years, it opens the floor to thinkers from around the world to debate, discuss and offer new points of view.
This year’s focus is on The Economics and Politics of Food vs. [...]

By Roland Rudd, Chairman, Business for New Europe
As world leaders gathered in Copenhagen last December for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, President Sarkozy of France delivered a rallying call urging those gathered – including over 120 leaders - to put aside their differences and agree upon the instruments necessary to tackle climate change. He [...]

We’ve heard a lot about banks that are “too big to fail”. Perhaps a more immediate question is whether the sovereign nation of Greece is too big to fail. The risk of default and the threat of Greece quitting the eurozone would have profound implications for Europe’s monetary union, for other European countries wrestling with [...]

An interesting article in the European Voice today, which claims that the Spanish will not advance the Commission programme on Information to Patients during their Presidency.
The article states that:
“A Spanish health ministry spokesman said it was not proper for information on such medicines to go direct to patients without the filter of a health professional. [...]

The following article about the Spanish Presidency of the EU was published by EurActiv on 28th January 2010.
Dismayed by the lack of a social dimension to the European Commission’s draft ‘2020 Strategy’, centre-left MEPs and trade unions told EurActiv that the Spanish EU Presidency was their best hope of securing a genuine social commitment in [...]

Schuman’s report on the Holocaust may not have been the only one to be brought to the attention of the Allies in August 1942. At least one other independent testimony of the systematic extermination of Jews arrived at that time. Professor Howard M Sachar wrote:
‘The first reliable information of the ‘”Final Solution” evidently [...]