Monday, March 19, 2007

Interesting book on how Europe works and cross-border payments became cheaper

This wednesday Mr Eppink, former civil servant in Brussels, will publish a book on how Europe really works. It should contain lots of behind-the-doors anecdotes, of which one is mentioned in this article. It outlines that supposedly Regulation 2560 came into being as a result of a talk of Commissioner Bolkestein with Mr Prodi (where Prodi fell asleep) but later on the chief of cabinet of Prodi outlined that the end result of the meeting was that cross-boder payments charges were to be made equal to similar charges for domestic payments.

Similar anecdotes show how it is not the Commissioners that are in charge but the civil servants surrounding them. Well, not really news of course. But it does make one wonder where the checks and balances are in Europe.