Essential Steps for the European Union after the 'No' Votes in France, the Netherlands & Ireland
This Policy Brief outlines a number of steps that need to be taken to make the EU more comprehensible and acceptable to all its peoples – and not only the peoples of France, the Netherlands and Ireland. In the authors’ view, among these steps, three in particular are indispensable: Council discussions must be made public, Commissioners must make a much greater effort to explain EU policies, and one Commissioner for each member state must be permanently assured. In combination, these measures will hopefully address the widespread mistrust that has prevented the EU from having the support it needs to move ahead. The authors are both former senior officials of the EU. John Temple Lang is a lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton LLP, Brussels and London; Professor, Trinity College, Dublin; and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Oxford. Eamonn Gallagher is former Director General in the European Commission and former EC Ambassador to the United Nations, New York.
The Commission, the "Community Method," and the Smaller Member States
This Article discusses several developments concerning the position of the Commission in the institutional structures of the European Union (”EU”) that have occurred since then. It does not touch on the many other matters that influenced the debate on the draft Constitutional Treaty, leading to its failure at referendum in France and the Netherlands; these matters include the scope of the draft Treaty, questions concerning its economic, social, and political benefits or disadvantages, the working of the Stability Pact in the Eurozone and the ongoing debate on freedom of services legislation, the purposes for which the EU was originally created and their modification, further enlargement of the EU, and so on. These subjects require separate treatment. THE COMMISSION, THE "COMMUNITY METHOD," AND THE SMALLER MEMBER STATES John Temple Lang* & Eamonn Gallagher* The Institute of European Affairs in Dublin published in 1995 Occasional Paper 7 by the present authors, entitled The Role of the Commission and Qualified Majority Voting, which explained that the European Commission was designed on the basis of mediation theory, specifically to provide a safeguard for the interests of minorities that might be harmed by qualified majority voting on new policy measures.' The Commission has been given various other tasks, but this is the most important one since it concerns new measures that the Member States have not previously accepted. The role of the Commission, exclusively authorized by the Rome Treaty to propose legislative measures to the Council (and now also the European Parliament), is the key feature of what has since come to be called the "Community Method." 2 This Article discusses several developments concerning the position of the Commission in the institutional structures of the European Union ("EU") that have occurred since then. It does not touch on the many other matters that influenced the debate on the draft Constitutional Treaty, leading to its failure at referendum in France and the Netherlands;3 these matters include the scope of the draft Treaty, questions concerning its economic, social, and political benefits or disadvantages, the working of the Stability Pact in the Eurozone4 and the ongoing debate on freedom of services legislation, the purposes for which the EU was * Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels and London; Professor, Trinity College, Dublin; Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Oxford. ** Former Director General in the European Commission; former EEC Ambassador to the United Nations, New York. 1. See JOHN TEMPLE LANG & EAMONN GALLAGHER, THE ROLE OF THE COMMISSION AND QUALIFIED MAJoITY VOTING 10-15 (Inst. of European Affairs, Occasional Paper No.
Heat Recovery Systems
Geothermal energy is recovered from an underground zone of relatively hot strata via a borehole into which is inserted a heat pipe system containing a working fluid, the heat pipe system comprising an assembly of two tubes in concentric relation, the inner tube being constituted by a relatively small diameter capillary for the return of working fluid to the vicinity of the zone of the relatively hot strata. The working fluid is preferably assisted in its return under gravity by means of a pump. The system includes heat exchange means operable to recover thermal energy from the working fluid. A third and outermost tube may be used to reduce heat losses, this third tube enclosing the two tubes over all but that part of their length which is in the zone of relatively hot strata.