I read about the measures now in force covering how a group of people can come together to set up a civil organization or to keep one going, in order either to transmit social, cultural or other messages, or simply to maintain contact among themselves.

If I understood well, they now need to register with the Commissioner in charge of NGOs and follow certain rules while publishing their financial income and outgo.

One cannot but feel surprised that there is a need for such a stringent approach.

If some young people wish to get together to promote a certain way of doing theatre, why would they need to register? Similarly, why would a group of elderly persons need to also do this if they decide to unite and push say, for a change in pension laws?

One understands that registration should be required when the collection of substantial funds is being prospected. However if not, what’s the point?

I may be misunderstanding what’s going on, in which case I’ll admit my mistake quite happily. But one can hardly escape the impression that while measures to monitor ordinary people proliferate, existing rules which supposedly are there to control what the mighty do, are allowed to remain a dead letter.  

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Boeing Boeing

For somebody like me who travels frequently by air, the two crashes of the “new” Boeing airplane, in Indonesia and then Ethiopia, certainly were of special interest.

Air travel has become the easiest and least complicated option you can choose to go from place to place. And it is the least dangerous on average, compared to travel by car, ship or train. This does sound strange when one realizes how much of it happens at some five kilometres if not more up in the sky. Yet statistically, that’s the picture.

Which makes it imperative that Boeing clarify the circumstances that led to the two disasters and that it be open with the rest of the world in explaining how and why they occurred. As well, they will need to make clear what is being done to ensure there won’t be a further repeat.

Actually, I hope what I’m writing here does not end up as an entry in the “famous last words” category...

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European champions

Member states of the EU claim they want to promote full and transparent competition within the European single market.

According to the criteria that usually get employed when competition rules are being enforced, the Commissioner reponsible for the sector Vestager, prevented a huge German company from merging with a similar one in France: both specialise in building hardware for railways. Their merger would have made them a dominant force in the European market.

The governments of the two largest economies of the EU strongly disagreed with this decision and roundly denounced it. In their view, Europe needs to promote its own companies which can become champions in global markets. For this to happen, it needs to let them merge and thereby grow sufficiently to be able to win larger segments of global markets by beating the competition coming from transnational companies based in the US, China and Japan, among others.