The school strikes and new environmental social movements have raised awareness of climate change and pushed it higher up on the political agenda. In some countries, it has changed public opinion, for example in Denmark where climate change was the main topic in the Spring European and national parliamentary elections. Indeed, the elections are known […]
Air pollution and gridlocked traffic is part of the daily life for many people living or working in major cities around the world. Unsurprisingly, cities around the world have increasingly taken drastic measures to reduce both pollution and traffic. Many of these climate initiatives are miles ahead of national governments. The latest initiatives by four […]
The revelation of Volkswagen’s deception has left consumers, politicians, national authorities, and environmental organisations reeling. Trust in big business and industry has taken a nosedive, but it is not the first time a big company has deceived consumers and authorities, and it is unlikely to be the last scandal. Given the lobbying power of car […]
The European Parliament’s first reading on the fourth railway package (26 February 2014) has watered down both the Commission’s proposal and the TRAN committee’s report. The adopted report opens for more differentiated governance structure, where the member states can decide to create an integrated governance structure where the infrastructure manager and rail operator belong to […]
My previous blog post focused on the Commission’s problems of implementing its infrastructure strategy due to strong and diverse national interests. This blog post focuses on two different national discourses – the Danish and the British – on infrastructure investments and argues that national infrastructure investment are rooted in different state traditions, in relation to […]
The Commission has recently revised the Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T). Similar to previous TEN-T revisions, the new TEN-T priority projects focus on investment in new cross-border rail infrastructure aiming to connect Europe and alleviate road congestions. Interestingly the new TEN-T map emphasises the increased east-west trade – thus recognising the eastward enlargement. The first […]