In his annual address to the European Parliament, European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker set out a blueprint for his final two years in office, covering a wide range of policy areas. On his call for deeper and more inclusive integration for all Member States, I say we are rolling the ball back to the starting point: the avant-garde option remains the only plausible route to closer political unity in the continent.
READ MOREIn 2012, the British Government opened Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Commercialisation competition with a budget of £1billion to support the UK’s first commercial scale CCS projects. However, with the unexpected withdrawal of the funding in 2015, Norway has since developed a strategy aimed at realising a full-scale CCS chain by 2022. Is this yet another British blunder?
READ MOREAfter recent declarations by Theresa May and David Davis, the UK’s conservative government seems to be convinced that a “hard” Brexit is the best option for the country. Discussions with the EU over the UK’s participation in the single market seem to have been halted and the Norwegian European model rejected. This is terrible news for UK trade and especially for the services sector which is the UK’s most important trading sector, with a trade surplus equating to 5% of the national income (about $138 billion).
READ MOREThe eucalyptus – one of the most extended species in warm climate areas – is recently under the spotlight after a tough summer -and autumn- for firefighters in Southern Europe, especially in Portugal, since the tree species is considered to be more fire-prone. Is it time to replace them with local species, or to improve forest management in keeping the current plant masses?
READ MOREFollowing widespread criticism towards the ISDS mechanisms, the search for alternatives is on and different court systems are being considered. On the 10th of July 2017, the UN started discussions on investment dispute settlement and the establishment of an MIC (Multilateral Investment Court). The opportunity to correct the shortcomings of the previous dispute settlement systems, notably, corporate bias and the unfairness that results from it is NOW.
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