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Antitrust: European regulators have slapped Microsoft with the biggest fine in history. If any group other than a government entity forced the company to hand over money, its members would be guilty of robbery. After previously fining Microsoft the equivalent of $1.2 billion, the European Commission last week dinged the software giant for an additional $1.4 billion. Snip... Proving that compliance isn't the regulatocracy's real goal, the commission levied the fine just days after Microsoft reportedly surrendered to the shakedown and promised it would do more cooperating and less competing with rivals. Regulators and busybodies on both sides of the...

Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, is assessing the humanitarian situation in the Middle East, in the context of a five day visit to the region. In a speech on the humanitarian dimension of the Middle East Peace Process, delivered today at a conference in Jerusalem, the Commissioner underlined the need for all parties involved to respect the core element of international humanitarian law, the protection of civilians. In particular, he recalled the need to ensure access to the victims of conflict, and urged all parties to respect the humanitarian space. "I am more and more...

Dismantling of the nation-state is not intrinsic to the European Union. Nonetheless, the prime idea behind the EU project is to, once and for all, do away with the traditional orientation towards autarchy and economic self sufficience that once was the name of the game among European countries (and an underlying cause to WW1 and WW2 and many other wars). The EU is a free market project - as opposed to obsolete national Mercantilist and Protectionist strategies. In many ways, The US serves as an impressing prototype for the EU. Europeans ought to look up to the US because it...

The EU disposes of 154 nuclear reactors altogether. The US has 104, Japan 55 ones. This more or less goes hand in hand with the respective populations (in neither case a number of reactors very far from one for every 3 million inhabitants). Is 154 reactors enough for 496,000,000 Europeans? More and more EU citizens are beginning to think it's NOT. The biggest non-EU European country, Russia apparently want more nuclear power too. Russia are presently more than DOUBLING their number of reactors, going from 29 to 59 ones. This is being accomplished with giant loans from the EU. The...

Geoff Hoon is evidently not familiar with that classic work The Raspberry Ice-Cream War. He has plainly not spent hours with a gleeful four-year-old, cackling like a hyena at what must be one of the unintentionally funniest books ever written. If he had, he wouldn't be calling for children to be taught about the benefits of European integration. The Raspberry Ice-Cream War, published by the European Commission, tells the story of a group of intrepid youngsters who travel back through time to a land where there are still nations and borders. They explain to the ignorant inhabitants that, where they...

BERLIN, June 28 — Germany, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in Europe, announced changes Wednesday that would allow increases in its emissions — a move that is expected to be challenged by the European Commission. The German cabinet decided to exclude the coal industry from the European Union's carbon trading program, under which companies must buy permits before they can release higher-than-mandated levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The move could persuade other countries to loosen their controls, critics said. Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Conservative, and her Social Democratic coalition partners agreed to cut Germany's emissions...

The European Commission has refused to give a green light to Romania and Bulgaria joining the EU. Both countries are due to join on 1 January but the EC has refused to sign off on both countries' membership applications, deferring a decision on the enlargement until October. The EC's progress report marks a dramatic reversal of fortune for Romania, which had been seen as the problem country all along but has now overhauled Bulgaria in the race to the finish line. The change is thought to be mainly because of Bulgaria's lacklustre efforts at controlling organised crime and tackling official...

Just days before the European Commission unveils its evaluation of member states' reform plans on boosting the bloc's economy, the business community argues that they lack ambition and will result in limited growth and few extra jobs. The commission is to adopt on Wednesday (25 January) a report to present to member state leaders at the March summit, in which it will point out the strengths and weaknesses of the 25 national plans. The plans are part of the Lisbon agenda, the project aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the EU's economy. According to commission officials, these schemes, outlining concrete...

BRUSSELS, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Microsoft said on Wednesday it sued the European Commission in an EU court to gain quick resolution of a question surrounding sanctions imposed by the Commission on the company. The Commission has required Microsoft to share communications protocols -- or software rules of the road -- with rival makers of computer servers, ruling that it abused its dominance of the Windows operating system. Microsoft does not want to share that information with "open source" publishers who might make public what it says is confidential information. "This filing is the result of the agreement reached...

EC's 'sordid accounting' damned in email from top auditorBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, European Business Editor(Filed: 15/03/2005) The European Commission has a "chronically sordid" accounting system and is still unable to keep track of the EU's £73billion budget after a decade of financial scandals, according to a top EU insider. An internal email obtained by The Telegraph paints an ugly picture of an autocratic body with an "incestuous esprit de corps" that uses its bureaucratic muscle to "trash" any official who dares to question its methods. It said the Budget Directorate was in "persistent denial of the real nature and depth of...

Opposition to Italian appointee delays EC vote(Filed: 27/10/2004) Jose Manuel Barroso, the incoming European Commission President, has called for a delay in a controversial vote to appoint the next list of commissioners. A new team of 25 commissioners is waiting to get parliamentary approval before they can take up their jobs. But opposition has been so strong against one of the nominations - Italian Rocco Buttiglione - that Mr Barroso has been forced to delay the vote to allow him to make changes. The executive must be appointed as a whole by the EU's 732-member assembly. It had increasingly become...

... As Jose Manuel Barroso read the names of the Commissioners he had chosen for the key portfolios, it became clear that the center of gravity has shifted. France and Germany are no longer calling the shots. Almost none of the duo's central demands were met while all important economic positions went to avowed free-marketers. It all began when 10 new members, mostly from the former Communist East, joined the EU in May. In contrast to Paris and Berlin, the newcomers pursue largely free-market policies and support the U.S. war in Iraq. Heralding that tectonic shift in the balance of...

Brussels proposes series of anti-terror measures The Commission has proposed a wide-ranging set of security measures for the EU amid a state of nervous tension in the aftermath of the Madrid attacks. The proposals, which will be discussed today (19 March) during an extraordinary summit of EU justice ministers to deal with the terrorist threat in Europe, were presented on Thursday afternoon to member states. A senior Commission official said that they marked the beginning of a few days of "extremely intensive discussions on the issue". The European Commission has put heavy emphasis on intelligence sharing - something member states...

Jan. 6, 2004 EU suspends anti-Semitism seminar By DOUGLAS DAVIS European Commission President Romano Prodi has suspended a seminar on anti-Semitism after World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman and European Jewish Congress President Coby Benatoff accused the commission of encouraging anti-Semitism. Prodi, who declared himself to be "both surprised and shocked" by the charges, told Bronfman and Benatoff that the seminar will not now go ahead as scheduled next month: "The attitude you have shown forces me to suspend the preparations," he wrote them. In a letter to the Financial Times, published Monday, Bronfman and Benatoff accused the commission -...

BRUSSELS - The European Commission rejected any suggestion on Thursday that its determination to hit back at the United States in a steel row was flagging, but some EU diplomats said a decision to retaliate might be delayed. The EU has threatened to slap $300 million of sanctions on the United States after Washington launched new duties on steel imports in March. The Commission has set a July 19 deadline for a decision on whether to impose the sanctions by August. But the Financial Times said this week Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy was looking for a way to avoid confrontation...

Brussels, 7th May 2002 VAT: Commission welcomes Council adoption of rules for application of VAT to electronically delivered servicesThe European Commission has welcomed the Council's adoption of a Directive and a Regulation to modify the rules for applying value added tax (VAT) to certain services supplied by electronic means as well as subscription-based and pay-per-view radio and television broadcasting. The new rules, based on Commission proposals of 7 June 2000 (see IP/00/583 and MEMO/00/31), will create a level playing field for the taxation of digital e-commerce in accordance with the principles on the taxation of e-commerce agreed at a...

EU leader attacks Britain over links with United StatesBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels and George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 30/04/2002) ROMANO PRODI, the president of the European Commission, rebuked Britain yesterday for lacking the courage to embrace the euro and play a full part in Europe.   Romano Prodi speaks at the opening of the Said Business School at Oxford University He angered the Government and Opposition politicians by claiming that Britain's attachment to the United States was built on wishful thinking and twisted notions of Europe."I wonder what makes this great nation so confident when dealing with a...