From Subsidiarity to Better EU Governance: A Practical Reform Agenda for the EU. CEPS Essay No. 10, 8 April 2014

On 23 January 2014, a group of 73 member states’ officials and representatives from the European institutions and academia gathered at Clingendael Park in The Hague for a day-long seminar co-organised by the Netherlands Institute of International Relations and CEPS for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The seminar’s aim was to discuss whether subsidiarity can offer a way forward that reconciles the need for better EU governance with concerns about legitimacy. This paper is based on subsidiarity literature, on preparatory talks with officials from member states and EU institutions and on the discussions in the seminar in The Hague. In particular, the paper explores the political and practical relevance of some of the ideas currently being considered to solidify the principle of subsidiarity in day-to-day decision-making. It maps the current political contours of subsidiarity as they appear in speeches and policy papers and presents some of the main ideas in the current debate on deepening subsidiarity

Ultrastructural proof of polyomavirus in Merkel cell carcinoma tumour cells and its absence in small cell carcinoma of the lung

Contains fulltext : 81049.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: A new virus called the Merkel Cell Polyomavirus (MCPyV) has recently been found in Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC). MCC is a rare aggressive small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma primarily derived from the skin, morphologically indistinguishable from small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC). So far the actual presence of the virus in MCC tumour cells on a morphological level has not been demonstrated, and the presence of MCPyV in other small cell neuroendocrine carcinomas has not been studied yet. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated MCC tissue samples from five patients and SCLCs from ten patients for the presence of MCPyV-DNA by PCR and sequencing. Electron microscopy was used to search ultrastructurally for morphological presence of the virus in MCPyV-DNA positive samples. MCPyV was detected in two out of five primary MCCs. In one MCC patient MCPyV-DNA was detected in the primary tumour as well as in the metastasis, strongly suggesting integration of MCPyV in the cellular DNA of the tumour in this patient. In the primary MCC of another patient viral particles in tumour cell nuclei and cytoplasm were identified by electron microscopy, indicating active viral replication in the tumour cells. In none of the SCLCs MCPyV-DNA was detected. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results strongly suggest that MCPyV is an oncogenic polyomavirus in humans, and is potentially causally related to the development of MCC but not to the morphological similar SCLC