Rhein on Energy and Climate

Archives for English

18 years ago, on September 13th 1993, Rabin and Arafat, the two outstanding political leaders of their communities, solemnly signed the “interim agreement” at the White House in Washington, ushering in a short period of hope for a peaceful settlement of their 60 year-old conflict. But in fact, the 18 years since the Washington ceremony… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The rise of global population by another three billion people and the accompanying economic development until the middle of the century will exclusively take place in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Europe’s population and economy will at best stagnate. It can maintain its exceptionally high living standards only if it invests massively in education, research… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

On April 1st 2012 an interesting innovation of the Lisbon Treaty will see the reality. At that date, the implementing legislation for Art. 14 EUT will enter into force and enable a minimum of one million citizens from at least seven member countries requesting the European Commission to launch legislative action in areas of common… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Four years after the Commission proposals for a CCS Directive and two years after its adoption in April 2009 half of the member states have transposed the directive into national law, thus creating the regulatory framework for applying carbon capture and storage under safe conditions. According to IEA estimates, humanity will need to install 100… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The biggest socio-economic problem North Africa will face in the coming 20 years is to put its millions of young people to work. Egypt alone will need to absorb one million youngsters newly arriving annually at labour market, in addition to several million chronically unemployed. To that end it will have to engage in massive… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

After months of consultations and preparation the Commission has tabled its proposals for the 2014-20 financial framework which contain four major changes compared to the 2007-13 framework : Small increase in overall expenditures; Small cut in agricultural expenditures; Significant efforts for simplifying spending procedures; System changes on the revenue side. Judging by the initial reactions… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

Never before in the last 50 years have European political leaders spent so much energy and time on the solution of a problem that should never have arisen: the Greek debt crisis. The Greek debt crisis has occurred because of serious shortcomings in economic governance in Greece, with a good deal of co-responsibility by EU… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The EU is the most advanced part of the world in terms of energy efficiency. But there remains a substantial potential for improving its record beyond past achievements. Following the guidelines established by the European Council in February 2011 and the Commission policy paper of March 2011 the Commission has submitted a draft directive on… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein