EU Votes to Tighten Rules on Drilling (fracking) Method - by James Kantner

European Union lawmakers voted narrowly on Wednesday to force energy companies to carry out in-depth environmental audits before they deploy a technique known as fracking to recover natural gas from shale rock.

The technique involves shooting a cocktail of water, sand and chemicals under pressure into shale to break it up and release the gas. France has already banned the technique, also known as hydraulic fracturing. And it has produced protests in Britain. 

The rules were narrowly approved by the European Parliament, which is meeting this week in Strasbourg, France, and still must undergo another round of voting in the Parliament once an agreement on final language is reached with European Union governments. Shale gas projects that do not use fracking would not be covered by the rules, which update environmental legislation in Europe. 

Even so, the result is a setback for the shale-gas industry in Europe, where it is far less developed than in the United States and where many citizens are more concerned about the environmental impact of recovering the gas than about finding new sources of hydrocarbons as a way of combating stubbornly high energy prices.

Recently the Dutch Government postponed their plans to explore Gas reserves in the Province of Flevoland by means of fracking in order to carry out more studies as to the safety of such exploration.

Read more: Europe Votes to Tighten Rules on Drilling Method - NYTimes.com

Netherlands: "The Dutch ‘have no idea’ about the scale of the US espionage activities in the Netherlands" says Glenn Greenwald

American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who helped publish reports on the US’s internet-based spying program, says the Dutch ‘have no idea’ about the scale of the US espionage activities in the Netherlands.

In an interview with the Volkskrant, Greenwald says the revelations about the situation in the Netherlands will be published soon.

‘I have a lot of information about the Netherlands but I cannot go into it yet,’ Greenwald said. 'The tone of debate in the Netherlands may well change when the revelations are published.'

Dutch reaction to the revelations has been fairly muted so far, the paper points out. In mid-September the government published its official reaction, stating that the US has now promised the EU to inform it about its spy programmes and welcoming US discussions about improving transparency.

This, the paper states, is in sharp contrast to the justice ministry’s recent report on cyber security which stated digital spying by foreign states poses a serious threat.

Read more in Volskrant

European Quality of Life Survey 2012

Fieldwork for the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) took place from the end of September 2011 to early February 2012 in the 27 European Union Member States. The survey was published  in September 2013.

The report of the findings, Quality of life in Europe: Impacts of the crisis, is now online.  It can also be downloaded as a PDF file  .

European Quality of Life Survey 2012

Almere cuts budget by another 7 million euro's

Almere

After cutting Almere's budget by 17 million euro's in the spring, councilman Mark Pol of the Conservative VVD announcing the proposed budget for 2014 said the City budget would be cut by another 7 million euro's.

It was also announced that the Dutch Government  had cut Almere's subsidy from the National City Council Fund by 6 million euro's and that the City would receive euro 900.000 less for school housing purposes.

All these budget cuts for Almere come in addition to budget cuts which now total 48 million since 2010.

Presently Almere has 195,000 inhabitants and 14,500 businesses. . It is also considered one of  Europe's fastest growing cities and is well on the way to become the fifth largest city in the Netherlands over the next twenty years.

These budget cuts are seen as potential dangers to Almere's future development and growth. The city is only 38 years old and is seen by many architects around the world as Europe's most modern and environmentally advanced cities

Almere-Digest

Did The Dutch Start The End Of Social Europe? - by Jose Igancio Torreblanca

The Dutch government’s recent announcement that the welfare state will be substituted by an undefined “participative society” may be the news story of the year — or at least deserves to be. No doubt the headlines oversimplify as usual. But the alarm is sounding: if the Dutch, who are a paradigm of wealth, efficiency, and democracy and are at home in the globalised world, declare the European social model defunct, what can we expect in politically hobbled, closed societies like ours? How not to be depressed if we are told that the havoc wrought by austerity policies will mean the unsustainability of the chief hallmarks of the EU social model, which we see as a natural aspiration for any individual or nation? Does this mean that Europe will no longer progress, that it has hit a ceiling and can now only recede?

Society is based on three contracts. The first is between generations: those of working age sustain the rest, both elder and younger. Though this is sometimes forgotten, pensions are not really paid out of the savings of pensioners, but out of taxes on those who are working. This massive inter-generational income transfer (€121 billion in Spain in 2013, 12 percent of GDP) is accepted without question. The old, as the politicians put it, are “our” elders. A pension system based entirely on the recovery of the private savings made by each individual throughout their working life would amount to a radical change in our political, economic, and social model.

The second contract is between classes. Also underlying our coexistence is the acceptance of income transfers from the wealthier classes to the poorer. Progressive taxation, which we also accept, is the proof of this. Why should those who have more pay more? Shouldn’t we all pay the same percentage? These are questions frequently asked by the American libertarians, partisans of a minimal state limited to guaranteeing private property and the fulfilment of contracts. But in “welfare” Europe no party would go into elections with a programme proposing to suppress progressive taxation, and with it the equal-opportunity (education, healthcare) policies that (at least in theory) ensure that one’s position in society will be determined, not entirely by birth and social origin but, at least to some extent, by merit.

The third contract is between territories. Every state has richer and poorer regions, and cannot accept this divide and its perpetuation merely as a symbol of the natural order of things. Independently of the debate on the causes of these disparities and the ways to moderate them, the consensus is that they have to be corrected by means of income transfers, and that without such “territorial cohesion” it is impossible to maintain the stability and unity of a country.

These three contracts express, as the Americans like to say, the European way of life. In Europe, democracy is the result of a broad pact between capital and labour, substantiated precisely in the general acceptance of an economy based on private initiative in exchange for a social state that is redistributive in each of these three dimensions.

The Dutch government now thinks that some aspects of welfare should again be the business of the individual, while others should devolve upon local rather than national authorities.

Read more: Did The Dutch Start The End Of Social Europe?

The Netherlands ranked below average for foreign investors in Grant Thornton annual Global Dynamism Index (GDI)

The  Grant Thornton annual Global Dynamism Index (GDI) rates 60 of the world's biggest economies according to 22 indicators of "dynamism." These include factors such as corporate tax burdens and GDP growth.

According to the survey, Australia was the world's most attractive country for foreign in investment in 2013 among 60 nations ranked .The Netherlands was ranked 38th.
  
The GDI, however rated the Netherlands high in terms of political stability, Business Operating Environment and foreign trade relations. It also gave the Netherlands  high marks for its usage of Internet services.

Almere-Digest

Euro zone morale reaches two-year high in September but mood in the Netherlands worsened by 0.9 points - by Martin Santa

Optimism in the euro zone's economy brightened for the fifth month running and hit a 2-year high in September, driven by improving confidence across all sectors and confirming that a recovery is underway.

The European Commission said on Friday the 17-nation bloc's morale rose faster than expected to 96.9 from 95.3 in August, the best reading since August 2011.

In the wider European Union, confidence was up by 2.4 points to 100.6 points, taking the indicator above its long-term average for the first time since July 2011.

In the euro zone, the positive trend was particularly strong in three out of the bloc's five largest economies, with Spain and Italy rising by 2.5 points and France up by 1.6 points.

Sentiment in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, was broadly unchanged, while the mood in the Netherlands worsened by 0.9 points in September.

Across the bloc, employment plans were revised upwards in industry, services, retail trade and construction, the European Commission said.

Read more; Euro zone morale reaches two-year high in September | Fox Business