Once again the European Commission stands accused of doing something of which we are all guilty: not putting its money where its mouth is. It calls for Europe-wide smoking bans while subsidising tobacco farmers; it throws money at poor countries while reducing their chances to enrich themselves by blocking some of their products.

The latest alleged hypocrisy is giving billions in aid to recent joiners for projects that will contribute to big greenhouse gas emission rises.

Continue reading "Commission’s sins of emission?"

If there’s one thing that Brussels can teach the world, it’s how to move VIPs around fast.

Most days you’ll hear sirens as elite police outriders clear the roads so that motorcades of black Mercedes and Audis can whisk visiting presidents and prime ministers to meetings.

The police teams are certainly effective at sweeping through the city’s clogged streets. One diplomat told me of a hair-raising seven-minute journey in a convoy from the airport to the EU district during rush hour. Ordinarily, that car ride would take 25 minutes in light traffic.

Continue reading "Carbon reduction begins at home"

David Cameron’s new Movement for European Reform is a strange thing. Launched by the British Conservative leader on Tuesday in Brussels, there were several things which struck me as slightly unusual about the inauguration of this new centre-right group.

The first was the fact that the Conservatives had gone to the trouble to bring along about 90 students from London schools to "see at first hand" Europe’s future being discussed: they also performed the useful role of filling empty seats at the back of the hall and looking youthful.

The second is the fact that the Movement for European Reform - which is intended to pave the way in 2009 to the creation of a new political group in the European parliament - does not actually really exist.

Continue reading "David Cameron’s strange bedfellows"

Even in this age of putting a price on hot air, words come cheaper than carbon emissions. So not a few MEPs are unimpressed by a resolution on climate change to be approved on Wednesday.

This resolution calling for political leadership comes while the full parliament sits in Strasbourg, having been followed there by a convoy of lorries carrying documents and other essentials from Brussels and Luxembourg, its other seats.

Continue reading "Do as we say, not as we do …"

As previewed on Tuesday, the European parliament passed its resolution on climate change on Wednesday, calling for a unilateral 30 per cent cut in carbon emissions below 1990 levels by the EU by 2020, higher than the 20 per cent sought by the European Commission: The sponsor of the resolution, Karl-Heinz Florenz, is certainly doing his bit. For a year he has been energy self-sufficient:

"It is an individual responsibility: Everybody has a roof over their head and this roof could have solar panels on." He has solar panels and a wood-fired boiler fuelled by deadwood from the wood on his farm. "I use no oil," he says proudly:

Florenz, who was chairman of the environment commitee until last month; also takes the train to Strasbourg from his home in Germany, just over the Belgian border:

Fellow promoters of his resolution had less to boast about. Fellow German Peter Liese has bought a VW Lupo low-emission car, which is being withdrawn from production because of poor sales.

British Conservative John Bowis says he was examining his carbon footprint. "If we don’t do it, someone else will," he said.

Europe’s vets are more worried than they admit publicly about the outbreak of bird flu in the UK. Until now, there has been a familiar pattern. Wild migratory birds start dropping out of the sky, having brought the virus from Asia, and then their domestic farm cousins start keeling over too.

However, despite extensive searches around the Bernard Matthews turkey farm on the east coast of England, no infected wild birds have been found. There are some sea gulls, which can carry the disease without succumbing to it. Nor are there infections on nearby farms. Of course this could happen any time.

But it’s a long way from Hungary, where the same virus has been found among geese, and Hungary is a long way from the sea. Is there another explanation?

Continue reading "Headless chickens"

There is a new odd couple at the centre of the EU – Gabriel and Glos. You often have to pinch yourself to recall that Sigmar Gabriel and Michael Glos are members of the same government – Germany.

Gabriel is the up-and-coming environment minister from the centre-left Social Democratic party. Glos is the Christian Social - for which read Christian Democrat - economics minister from Bavaria,  a conservative heartland and one of the richest areas of Europe. He wants it to stay that way. So he has no time for eco-warriors wanting to dent its way of life. The two are strange bedfellows in a grand coalition government and Tuesday once again proved why.

Continue reading "Who will control the G-men?"

Are Europe’s governments just blowing hot air when it comes to climate change? On Tuesday it was the turn of Belgium and the Netherlands to be told by Brussels that their proposed greenhouse gas emissions were too high.

Slovakia, meanwhile, is mulling over whether to take legal action after a similar order.

Last week the European Commission called for ambitious targets to reduce emissions by at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 but national governments seem reluctant to agree, undermining efforts to persuade George W Bush and others to join in a global scheme.

So far, the Commission has found 11 of the 12 plans for 2008-12 capped emissions at too high a level.

Continue reading "Hot air"