I was recently reminded of the effects of the long-lasting Diesel controversy on a trip to the Netherlands. The city centre of Amsterdam is a restricted traffic zone for certain types of engines, for the purpose of protecting air quality. The website of the city government says: “City traffic is a major polluter of the […]
The European Commission is setting itself up for creating new legislation regarding freelance work. In many European countries, services such as Uber, Bolt, or Deliveroo are coming under fire because they practice working with freelancers. For instance, the Uber app matches passengers with self-employed drivers.. The driver gets the fare payment via Uber after the […]
The EU has long considered levying a tax of between two and six percent on the local revenues of platform giants. The prospect of trade talks with the US has brought this topic back into the spotlight. However, an EU-wide digital tax would limit potential future innovation. As it stands right now, the European Commission […]
New episode of ConsEUmer with these topics: 💉 EU member states fight over extra doses of COVID-19 vaccines 🔌 Electric car sales drop in the Netherlands 🪧 Fridays For Future is back (yay…?) 🇷🇸 Serbia’s business with vaccines (w/ Ivana Jeremić)
Streaming platforms and consumers should make their own decisions… A number of countries and regions are already applying entertainment content quotas. This means that a certain percentage of audiovisual content on broadcasting channels needs to be local. This rule already exists in France, for radio broadcasters. For private radio stations, there are rules on the […]
April Fool’s ! Got you good, didn’t I? In this week’s episode of ConsEUmer: 🥩 Meat consumption might peak in 2025 🇷🇸 Luca Bertoletti goes to Serbia ☢️ Nuclear power qualifies as green 💉 Export bans are a bad look for the EU (w/ Pieter Cleppe)
Last October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron ought to seek “some sort of mental treatment,” after the latter had announced a tougher stance on radical Islam. Tensions between Turkey and France have been rampant since the beheading of French civics teacher Samuel Paty, who was targeted for showing caricatures […]
Consumers will foot the bill for extravagant organic goals As I’ve previously explained on this website, the EU’s organic ambitions are seriously misled, because contrary to popular belief, organic food is neither environmentally friendly, nor better for consumers. Research has established that moving all current farming to organic farming would increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions […]
Anti-lockdowners were opposed in promoting cost-benefit analysis, now everyone else will suffer the consequences Which shot did you get?” has become a recurring question in Europe, where many vaccines are now available on the market. After Pfizer/BioNTech became the first to be approved by the European Medicines Agency, European countries are also using the AstraZeneca […]
Protecting brands is not just about economics, it is also about human rights The hardships in factories around South-East Asia aren’t new to European media consumers. Thousands of workers all around the continent are affected by adverse living and work conditions — particularly in those factories that make counterfeited goods. In 2016, counterfeited goods amounted […]
