It looks like to UK is introducing Dutch (Verdonk) like measures.
Do national payment systems get another chance?
The EU’s antitrust chief Neelie Kroes warned banks on Monday that a new payment system should not be allowed to cut down choice or increase costs for customers.
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Kroes suggested that national card payment schemes should be encouraged to join the SEPA scheme because that would introduce and increase competition to the benefit of merchants and customers.
The EU competition commissioner said she was working hard to wrap up an ongoing antitrust case against MasterCard Inc. The European Commission last year charged the credit card provider with illegal price fixing for setting the fees retailers must pay for accepting MasterCard and Maestro branded cards, saying this limits competition between banks who use the xservice.
“We want this decision to provide the industry with a solid competition analysis of the MIF as applied by MasterCard,” she said.
Kroes earlier signaled that Visa may also face further trouble ahead. In 2002 it won a temporary exemption from EU antitrust rules that allowed it to strike deals on interchange fees with banks that it might usually compete with.
This exemption expires at the end of the year and Kroes said in October that she was unlikely to simply extend it, warning that she had “the feeling that something should be done.”
Regulators have criticized the high level of these fees, saying card networks like Visa, MasterCard and American Express have failed to explain why they need to charge so much for handling payments.
This could mean that national systems could get another chance. Good!
McLaren bashing continues
Bernie Ecclestone warns FIA over title reversal
If a formula 1 car uses a front wing which does not comply with the regulations then the results are scrapped. If a car uses full which does not comply with the regulations then nothing should happen?
Chicken gone bankrupt
The manufacturer of the Kip caravan has gone bankrupt due to bad results in Belgium where other models (Beyerland and Chateau) are made. This won’t mean that the number of caravans on the road during the summer will go down.
Hirsi Ali Offered a Safe Haven in Denmark
It is good to see that Denmark is offering Hirsi Ali a safe haven to stay (link). Criticism that the Dutch government is failing in this area is not completely fair and correct.
Hirsi Ali was protected in the Netherlands during the time she was receiving threads and would she have remained in nthe Netherlands she would have received protection during that stay. She decided to move to the US partly because she was offered a prestigious job in a conservative Think-tank, partly because if she would have remained in the Netherlands she would have had to live here under a constant protection program.
She was told that if she was moving to the US she would have to consider that the US wouldn�t automatically protect her and that she would have to hire her own protection. That Denmark is offering Hirsi Ali a safe haven is more a criticism towards the US that they are not providing a safe haven than the Dutch government is lacking.
Personally I would have preferred if the Dutch government would have given her some kind of protection in the US, maybe in collaboration with US government.
Two blunders of the Dutch government
In the past couple of weeks the Dutch government, lead by Balkenende, has made some blunders. First they let the Dutch princess Maxima make an highly controversial remark about the absence of a Dutch identity. Secondly, the moment that Hirsi Ali shows her face in the Netherlands she is being told that she could better go back to the US because she could have handled the issue around her protection from there.
Two mistakes that show that the Dutch government has no idea what the feelings and ideas are within the Dutch society.
Dutch Identity
The WRR (Scientific Council for Government Policy) recently presented the result of a study about the Dutch Identity. The report, entitled “Identification with the Netherlands”, was presented to the public by princess Maxima, the wife of the Dutch crown prince. Central point in her speech was the conclusion that “the typical Dutch identity” does not exist and cannot be captured in one dimensional characterizations.
Unfortunately, the report also made a connection between Dutch Identity and having more than one passport, something which I think is not related.
What is an Identity? Is it the common habits of a group of people, the language, the food they eat, the history they share, their religion? Yes and No. Identity is something you feel part off or you feel related to.
Just make the suggestion to a Dutchman that the Netherlands should be disbanded and made a province of Germany. Then you will see what the Dutch identity is.
McLaren bashing continues
I have read the transcript of the World Motor Sport Council about the spy case between Ferrari and McLaren (link to the document). It is a very interesting document because it give you an insight in the way the Formula 1 business is run which you normally do not see.
The statement gives you a nice insight on how all teams look at each other what everybody is doing, how they can copy successful designs and learn why some teams are more successful than others. It also gives you an insight view on the engineering side of the business and how that process is being run and how close that engineering community is.
As far as the spy issue. Judging from the evidence presented in the hearing I can only conclude that there is no factual evidence that McLaren has used data and / or designs from Ferrari in the design of their car.
What is disturbing in the ruling is that the McLaren 2008 car has to be checked for Ferrari design components but that the council has no indicated when this is going to be done en when. So in theory McLaren could be refused to participate in the 2008 competition one day before the start of the first race.
As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, I find this an internal HR problem of Ferrari which they have mishandled and which completely went out of control. Ferrari accusing McLaren of spying is completely misplaced.
Old man at the top
Jan Pronk is going for the leadership of the PvdA.
Some time ago the complete management of the political party PvdA resigned. This was as a result of the assessment of the loss at the elections of 2007.
Now some ‘young’ members of the PvdA have asked Jan Pronk to go for the leadership of the party. They even have opened a website where people can support the candidateship.
Question: will this bring the voters back from the SP?
Answer: No, it will scare away a lot of voters. Pronk can be described as being a difficult person, a polititian not a leader of a political party, somebody with it own agenda.
Racist or ….
Kuifje: Racist or Cartoon
Wilders: Racist or Idiot
Europe: New Treaty
From the website Open Europe:
“The analysis finds that only 10 out of 250 proposals in the new treaty are different from the proposals in the original EU Constitution. In other words, 96% of the text is the same as the rejected Constitution.” [link]
From the Former President of Germany Roman Herzog about the European Union and the constitution:
“People have an ever increasing feeling that something is going wrong; that an
untransparent, complex, mammoth institution has evolved: divorced from practical
problems and national traditions; grabbing ever greater competences and areas of
power; that the democratic control mechanisms are failing – in brief, that it cannot go
on like this.” (Die Welt, March 2007)
