Free Republic

The European Commission was wrong to refuse to release text messages sent by Ursula von der Leyen to the head of Pfizer during negotiations to secure Covid-19 vaccines, the EU's top court has ruled. The General Court said the commission had not given a plausible explanation as to why the exchanges between its president and Pfizer's Albert Bourla could not be made public when an investigative journalist requested them in 2021. That year, Pfizer signed billions of euros in vaccine contracts with the EU, including a deal for 1.8bn extra doses. The content of the messages between von der Leyen...

EU Commission NGO manipulation highlights decade-long corruption in plastic policy, says Symphony Environmental With NGO financing from the EC coming to light, plastic policy needs greater transparency to remove corruption and confusion from legislation. Recent reports from the “Brussels Morning” newspaper said that the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf had uncovered findings that are now shaking the entire European Union. They discovered that the European Commission had been financing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lobbying for the policies of former EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans and influencing politicians to push through his “Green Deal.” It has now come to light that the EU commission...

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.

The economy is experiencing a golden moment thanks to exports and tourism after cleaning up its accounts. But the country has paid a price in migration of qualified workers and reduction of public services. Ten years after the departure of the “men in black” — the international managers of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank who cleaned up Portugal’s accounts with a machete, the country has emerged as the most diligent student in southern Europe. In 2023, for the first time, public debt fell below 100% of GDP (it stood at 98.7%) and there was a...

“Your job is to take in migrants and welcome them because they come out of love. And whether you like it or not, we’re an aging continent so you have to let them in,” Ylva Johansson, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs. Two years after his departure, Fabrice Leggeri opens up about his time at the EU border guard agency, Frontex. As the boss, he desperately wanted to protect European borders against illegal migrants strictly, but according to him, this was explicitly halted by the European Commission. Frontex, officially known as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, is an...

Technology company iRobot is undergoing major layoffs after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European regulators opposed its acquisition by Amazon on Monday, multiple outlets reported. Amazon had planned to acquire iRobot, which is most known for making robot vacuums, but the deal could not go through because of regulatory hurdles, according to a press release announcing the termination. iRobot immediately disclosed impending layoffs affecting about 350 employees, constituting 31% of its total workforce, after the termination announcement. The companies primarily attributed the dissolution of the deal to the European Union (EU), stating in the press release that “Amazon’s proposed...

The nabobs and panjandrums of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet up at Davos, Switzerland, the next several days to lay plans for their latest assault on humanity. This year’s theme is “Rebuilding Trust.” Did you just blow your coffee through your nose? The outfit that coordinated the world-wide Covid-19 response (that perhaps birthed the very concept of Covid-19 itself), and especially pushed mRNA vaccines on the credulous global public — this gang of super-wealthy, super-connected, super-important celebrity punks, poohbahs, pricks, and predators wants a cuddle. This Davos crowd — moiling around the opening soirée amid drool-worthy trays of crab...

The vote passed with a razor-thin majority of 291 votes in favour to 274 against, with 44 abstentions. The main proposed changes include the abolition of the principle of unanimity in a total of 65 areas of law, as well as transferring competencies from the member states to the European Union. These include the transfer of inclusive competency on the matters of environmental protection and biodiversity, meaning that law pertaining to those matters would be entirely set at the European level. In addition, the shared competencies would be expanded to seven new areas, those being foreign and security policy, border...

STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a 300-mm semiconductor manufacturing facility that will help develop the fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology ecosystem. The new facility will represent a multi-billion–euro investment and is expected to create about 1,000 jobs. The jointly operated fab will support GlobalFoundries’ 22FDX FD-SOI process technology and STMicroelectronics’ technology roadmap down to 18 nm for automotive, industrial, IoT, and communications infrastructure applications, companies said. The facility, which will be adjacent to STMicroelectronics’ existing 300-mm manufacturing site in Crolles, France, is set to reach full capacity by 2026, with up to...

Vladimir Putin's horrendous war in Ukraine has revealed just how united and decisive we can be in the face of a crisis. Europe has once again flung open its doors to refugees fleeing destruction. Rousing gestures of humanity are seen every day. And this is despite the enormous economic costs — energy bills are surging, public money is pouring into Ukraine, sanctions are biting here as well as Russia. But it's the right thing to do and we know it. So why can't we do the same when faced with crises that threaten the existence of everyone on the planet?...

The coronavirus crisis really brings into question what the EU is all about. Clearly not a United States of Europe, as eurosceptics have often claimed. Far from it. Right now, every European government is struggling to protect their populations - their jobs, their health and their economy. But rich, europhile countries like Germany are not yet digging deeper in to their pockets to help out poorer Italy and Spain. There's little sense of the responsibility West Germany felt towards the East after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why would there be, you might ask. Germany is a sovereign nation,...

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union has faced and survived a series of existential threats over the years but the coronavirus epidemic has exposed old wounds that could yet prove fatal. A debt crisis in Mediterranean countries, a series of refugee influxes and the ongoing saga on Brexit all rattled the European project but did not sink it. They may, however, have left it vulnerable to a new disease. "The germ is back," former European Commission president and one of the modern union's chief architects, Jacques Delors, told AFP on Saturday. "The climate that seems to hang over the heads...

The EU alleges that the "Interpretive Notice" has nothing to do with a boycott of Israel, and the U.S. has officially concurred in that assessment. The EU says the Interpretive Notice merely responds to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities." But this is disingenuous. There is a long list of separatist movements in the EU, some demanding independence, others demanding greater autonomy. It is easy to imagine that some Jews in Israel have corresponding sympathies with such movements and "demands for clarity" about the products of the respective European states. Surely some Israeli Jews would...

EU FURY: 'Appalling' Juncker snubs millions as he celebrates Karl Marx's 200th anniversary JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER is set to pay tribute to Karl Marx at a celebration of the father of Communism’s 200th anniversary in Germany, leading to accusations he has forgotten about the many millions of victims of his ideology. ... The European Commission President will travel to Trier, Germany, where he will give a speech to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth. Mr Juncker has invited to the celebration because he is an honourary citizen of the small German town, which is also the birthplace of the German...

The head of the European Union’s executive body denounced the bloc’s parliament as “totally ridiculous” during a spat over the meager attendance at Tuesday’s plenary session for the prime minister of tiny Malta. After EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker thanked the few dozen of the 700-plus legislators in the huge atrium for showing up, he insisted that the “parliament is not serious” since lawmakers failed to attend the day’s keynote debate in larger numbers. The session centered on Malta’s 6-month presidency of the EU, which ended last weekend. Malta has 415,000 people in contrast to the EU, which has half...

Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, has rejected calls to rethink the European Union’s open doors policy on migration. Dismissing suggestions that open borders led to the attacks, Mr Juncker said he believed “exactly the opposite” – that the attacks should be met with a stronger display of liberal values including open borders. Speaking at the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Mr Juncker said that the perpetrators of Friday’s terrorist attack in Paris, which claimed more than 125 lives, should not be confused with genuine asylum seekers or refugees. Addressing an audience of journalists in both French and English,...

The European Union won’t change its strategy for dealing with refugees arriving from the Middle East and elsewhere in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, the president of the bloc’s executive arm said Sunday. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, also urged citizens and politicians not to confuse the Paris perpetrators with those seeking shelter from war and terror. People familiar with the matter have said that one of the terrorists who killed more than 100 people in coordinated attacks in the French capital Friday had entered the EU via Greece on a Syrian passport. That revelation...

Reports in the press over the last day or two have suggested that the EU intends to bring forward “formal proposals this autumn” to introduce automatic speed controls -known as “Intelligent Speed Adaptation” or ISA, into cars. This is quite simply not true and the Commission had made this very clear to the journalists concerned prior to publication. The Mail on Sunday for example (the only one of these articles online with no paywall), uses a quote from a Commission spokesman but chooses to leave out the first and most important sentence given to the paper’s reporter, which was this:...

The EU has launched a campaign aimed at showing how low-carbon solutions can improve quality of life. The European Commission believes that policies to cut greenhouse gases will only work if individuals share the vision of a low-carbon society. "It's perhaps been a bit too much doom and gloom in the past on climate," one official told the BBC at the launch in London. "We are now emphasising the need to inspire people." The EU-wide campaign runs until 2014. The campaign title "Worldulike" will doubtless raise eyebrows. The name is uncomfortably reminiscent of the British baked potato restaurant chain Spudulike....

The European Commission has claimed it has secret information about the positive state of EU countries' finances, following a shock downgrade of core member states. Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly made the statement at a regular press briefing in Brussels on Monday (16 January), two days after US-based agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded nine EU countries, including France. "We have more information than the ratings agencies and we think there are elements missing in their analysis ... We have monthly updates from member states. We share this information on a confidential basis. The ratings agencies do not have this information,"...