Fast and loose

Stavros Dimas (no really) is the European Commissioner for Global Warming and it appears he has been a little economical with the actualite. Chris Horner spots the deliberate mistake here,
According to EU Observer he claims,

“‘Our emissions are currently 2 percent below [1990] levels (…) while our economy has grown by more than 35 percent over the same period.”

The point being is that Kyoto was agreed by the then EU 15, the 35% growth rate is essentially just adding the GDP of the accession countries, with no real growth required, and of course the collapse of the Eastern European manufacturing industry immediately after the fall in the Berlin wall has meant that the 27 overall have had a reduction. Not the EU 15 which is way over target.

This conflation of "we" (15) and "we" (27) is a pernicious mistruth.