Teutonic telecommunications troubles

As I've been discovering this week, German prepaid mobile plans leave much to be desired.

In 1999, when I moved from Boston to New York in order to transfer to a different university, there were a lot of logistical hassles along the way. I remember that one of the worst was changing my mobile phone.

Back then in the US, our mobile phone plans still had 'home ranges' outside of which you would pay a roaming surcharge to use your phone. This range was usually your state, or maybe a zone of three states. My mobile phone with a Massachusetts number would have been roaming in New York. So I had to change my phone plan. I also had to change my Massachusetts phone number to a New York one so that when people called me in New York they wouldn't be charged for a long-distance call.

So Dave, what's all this about you moving to Berlin?

Today begins a new chapter in my life as I search for an apartment in a new city.

I've arrived in Berlin for the first day of my German adventure. I'm here to cover a climate conference and then look for apartments, getting ready for the big move here next month.

I'm a journalist, originally from outside New York City, and I've been covering EU politics in Brussels for the past six years. It's been a great experience, but after so many years in the 'Brussels bubble' I realised I needed to get out and really see what's going on in Europe. The European elections last year really drove that message home to me. I've been trapped in the bubble too long and have lost touch with what 'real Europeans' are thinking.

And...we're back!

I've decided to burst out of the Brussels bubble and head for Berlin. I would say this calls for reviving the blog!

One year ago I put my blog Gulf Stream Blues into retirement. Today I can announce some exciting news, I'm moving to Berlin!

More details to come, but for now I'm taking the ol' blog out of retirement and relaunching it as 'From Brussels to Berlin'. The reason is that I will be based between both cities.

I'm very excited! Watch this space.

Gulf Stream Interrupted

Gulf Stream Blues is going into retirement, while I concentrate on launching the new EuropeanVoice.com.

Regular readers may have noticed that my blog entries have been few and far between over the past months. Last year I was promoted to being editor of EuropeanVoice.com, the web site of the newspaper of the same name which was launched by The Economist 20 years ago.

It's an intense time, as we work to relaunch the web site and prepare for coverage of the European elections this month. I have to face facts and acknowledge that I just don't have time to write in this blog any more.

I launched this blog in 2006 while living in New York, in preparation as I struggled to find some way to get to Europe. I had been consumed by an interest in the European Union since reading a book called The European Dream by former New York Times reporter Jeremy Rifkin.

A noisier EU Quarter in Brussels

Since 6 February, planes have been rerouted from their route over the leafy suburbs of Flanders east of Brussels to straight over the EU quarter. People in the eurobubble say it's another example of Belgium dumping problems on people who cannot vote in general elections.

Today, members of the European Parliament rejected a European Commission proposal that would have allowed the European Union to overrule local authority decisions on the banning of flights at certain times.

The vote was only a rubber-stamping of a decision taken back in January to reject this part of the airport noise proposal. However, some MEPs saw this week's vote as an opportunity to bring up an airport noise issue closer to their hearts – new flight plans in Belgium that send planes from Zaventem airport straight over Brussels city centre and the EU quarter.

Since 6 February, planes taking off from Zaventem have been using a new route ordered by the Belgian federal government. The ‘Wathelet plan' – named after its designer Melchior Wathelet, Belgium's secretary of state of environment, energy, mobility and institutional reforms – has rerouted 80% of flights that used to fly over sparsely populated areas of Flanders east of Brussels. One hundred flights a day are now flying at low altitude through Brussels city - straight over the EU institutions.

The greenest government ever?

British Conservatives have among the worst voting records in the European Parliament on climate issues, according to a new analysis.

In May 2010, David Cameron, the UK's prime minister, made a bold claim. As he finalised talks on forming a governing coalition with the Liberal Democrats, he told an audience of civil servants that his would be “the greenest government ever”.

It is a claim that Cameron may have come to regret. Over the past four years, the quote has been repeatedly thrown back at him by environmentalists upset over a variety of issues – whether cuts to renewable energy subsidies or fracking for shale gas. Yet Cameron has maintained that his government is doing more to combat climate change than any previous UK government, and that the UK is playing a more constructive role in the climate fight than other European countries.

But green campaigners say this claim is hard to justify when you look at the voting record of Conservative members of the European Parliament. An analysis by campaign group CAN Europe published this week, scoring MEPs based on how they voted on ten key pieces of climate legislation over the 2009-14 term, ranks the British Conservatives among the worst parties in the Parliament for climate action.