EU governance 

Prosecutor seeks jail term for fraud

The Belgian public prosecutor is pushing for a man once tipped to become president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to be jailed for two years.

Charting an energy-efficient career path

A Polish head of unit in the European Commission's environment department relishes the progress made in those EU member states that were once in the [...]

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News 

European courts' backlogs worsen despite reorganisation

President of European Court of First Instance says tide could turn in ‘late 2008'; European Court of Justice fares better

Spain facing court over Endesa case

European Commission threatening to take Madrid to the European Court of Justice.

Comment 

Like it or lump it – the truth behind EU aid

What follows is a true story.

Europe's ‘parallel' civil service?

A thorough evaluation of existing decentralised agencies and inter-institutional dialogue will help answer the question of how to organise European administration.

An angel and the devil in hell on earth

Timur's first memory was the sound of Russian bombs smashing Grozny. At age one his father, a Chechen resistance fighter, was killed in a rocket attack. At age three his mother died. At age five, when the second Chechen war started, he and his grandparents lived in a cellar for months to hide from the bombardment. At age seven he was sent back to Grozny to live with an uncle, where he and a long-lost half-sister were savagely abused and forced to beg on the streets. At age 11 Timur ran away to live in a rubbish dump, strangling pigeons for food. Eventually he was taken in by Hadijat, a local woman who with her husband runs an unofficial home for Chechnya's lost children. Locals know her simply as “the angel of Grozny”.

Transport 

US, EU begin fresh ‘open skies' talks

Second phase of liberalisation talks focuses on mergers and aligning rules governing the US and EU aviation markets.

Commission calls a halt to noisy tyres

Tyre firms say targets are 'technically unfeasible"; proposal will also cover braking systems.

Satellites of (institutional) change

Galileo's new-found status as an EU-funded project has brought changes to the institutional structures charged with its oversight.