NOTE: The first version of this post contained a factual error. I’ve corrected it. The Hungarians and Poles did, in fact, successfully negotiate a transition period for their VAT laws.
One of the big items in the Czech papers yesterday was the fact that most restaurants and bars will raise the price of food on [...]
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the female Iraqui blogger River Bend, but my feeling is that those of you who aren’t would do well to make her acquaintance. Juan Cole describes her in his blogroll as an Iraqi nationalist, but reading the posts she doesn’t seem to be a [...]
No this is not (yet) the title of one of my new pages (although we were looking into living in sin, but unfortunately it’s already taken). No the denial I am referring to is much nearer home for most of us, since it is up there in Brussels. “European Union nations are dragging [...]
Say hello to another 1,276,000 inhabitants of the EU in 2003, bringing the total to 380.8 million people on January 1st 2004. Most of them were immigrants, out of the total increase of 3.4 people for every 1000 inhabitants, 2.6 was down to net migration while only 0.8 was accounted for by natural increase (births [...]
Latest figures from Automotive Industry Data (AID) show that in 2003 diesel accounted for 44% of the West European car market, up from just over 20% ten years’ ago. In some markets, such as Austria, Belgium and France, diesel penetration is now 60% to 70%, while in Sweden it is under 8% and Greece only [...]
A post today on The Final Word, a Prague-based email bulletin put out by a local English-language Czech news digest, got me thinking. Titled “PPF spreads its tentacles,” it’s about the secretive Czech corporate conglomerate PPF and how it uses its media holdings to advance its numerous business interests.
It’s long been the Czech Republic’s [...]
After 25 years in the European Parliament, Iain Paisley has announced that he will not be standing for re-election as an MEP this year.
This means, of course, that the Parliament will be losing one of it’s more colurful characters whose explits included (as Anthony Wells reminded me) being forcefully removed from the chamber by Otto [...]
Somewhere down below, Doug Merrill was perceptive enough to notice a remark - easily overlooked but of fundamental importance - by Renate Schmidt, Germany’s Minister for Puppies and Sad-Eyed Children (or something like that). In short, the minister signalled, in a roundabout way, that the end is nigh for conscription to the Bundeswehr. The German [...]
On thursday a split European Commission “decided to launch unprecedented legal action against member states over their effective suspension of the euro rules last November.”
“The Commission will now ask the European Court of Justice to rule on a procedure taken by finance ministers last November to avoid disciplinary action being taken against France and Germany [...]
Feed: A Fistful of Euros