Az előlegigénylések gyorsabb teljesítése érdekében a Magyar Államkincstár honlapján tájékoztató közleményt jelentetett meg. "A Vidékfejlesztési Program keretén belül benyújtott előleg kifizetés igénylések ügyintézésének és kifizetésének gyors és gördülékeny teljesítése érdekében felhívjuk a Tisztelt Kedvezményezettek figyelmét az alábbiakra:
Az idén 830 millió forinttal támogatja a kormányzat pályázat alapján a Kárpát-medencében működő külhoni magyar vállalkozókat - jelentette ki a Miniszterelnökség nemzetpolitikáért felelős államtitkára csütörtökön az M1 aktuális csatorna műsorában.
Albanie : le gazoduc TAP, une aubaine financière, mais pour qui ?
Énergie : coup d'envoi du projet de gazoduc Trans Adriatic Pipeline
La torchère brûle entre l'UE et la Russie : Moscou arrête South Stream
Après la Russie, l'Azerbaïdjan : gaz, la Bulgarie regarde toujours plus à l'Est
Énergie : le gaz de la Caspienne passera par les Balkans
Énergie : Gazprom annonce le lancement de Turkish Stream « en décembre 2016 »
Fin de South Stream : la Bulgarie se retrouve le bec (de gaz) dans l'eau
Serbie : que faire après l'abandon de South Stream ?
Indonesian navy crew (right) check one of seven fishing boats destroyed in Batam, Kepulauan Riau province on February 22, 2016 (AFP Photo/Sei Ratifa)
With its announcement at a United Nations conference last month, Indonesia became the first nation to commit to publish the exact location and activity of its commercial fishing fleet. The decision was announced at a U.N. conference on the ocean, and calls for Indonesia to publish Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data on the mapping platform of Global Fishing Watch, an independent 501c3 organization founded and supported by Oceana, SkyTruth, and Google.
Solely a tool of transparency, Global Fishing Watch allows citizens, journalists, researchers, commercial interests and governments to track some 60,000 fishing vessels in near real time, using satellite systems and publicly broadcast Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals from ships at sea. AIS signals cover the majority of all industrial-sized commercial fishing vessels (those exceeding a capacity of 100 Gross Tons which average around 24 meters). Smaller vessels are not required to carry AIS, though can be tracked using government-owned VMS data.
Indonesia’s announcement follows concerns over increased illegal fishing activity in the South China Sea, and several incidents of ramming between fishing vessels and coast guard vessels of various nations. Indonesia, the second largest producer of wild-caught seafood in the world, will add some 5,000 vessels to the database of Global Fishing Watch.
Since Beijing claims some 90% of the South China Sea, many Chinese fishing boats operate in the exclusive economic zones of other countries with the support of Beijing. Chinese officials often argue its fishing fleets are operating in “traditional Chinese fishing grounds,” a position which was recently refuted by an international court in The Hague under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) signed by China.
This position often draws the ire of countries such as Indonesia, which has been particularly tough on illegal fishing, following the appointment of Susi Pudjiastuti as Minister of Fisheries and Marine Affairs. Susi has drawn widespread support from Indonesians for her crackdowns on illegal fishing, after years of the government downplaying incidents (especially in 2010 and 2013) over concerns Beijing could cut investment in Indonesia.
The decision by Indonesian authorities to support better fishing transparency may help prevent confusion over incidents such as last year’s ramming of an Indonesian Ministry of Fishery and Marine Affairs patrol ship by a Chinese coast guard vessel in March 2016. According to media reports, a 300-ton Chinese fishing vessel had been illegally fishing about 4 kilometres off Indonesia’s Natuna island chain. The Indonesian patrol ship confronted the Chinese fishing vessel, detained its crew, and proceeded to tow it to Indonesian shores. Before they reached shore, a Chinese coast guard vessel came to the rescue, ramming the Chinese fishing boat, and eventually prying it free, boarding it, and sailing it away. The Chinese Foreign Ministry argued the incident occurred within “traditional Chinese fishing grounds” and the Chinese coast guard ship assisted the seized Chinese fishing boat without entering Indonesian territorial waters.
Beijing is not expected to publish the location and activity of its commercial fishing fleet anytime soon, but other nations’ efforts toward greater transparency of their own fleets may help protect their fishermen when operating in their exclusive economic zones. Indonesia’s intention to map its own fleet is an effort toward much-needed transparency, and by working with an independent organization, Jakarta could effectively set the standard in the South China Sea and shame any further efforts by Beijing to claim “traditional fishing grounds”.
The post Indonesia Leads the Way on Mapping Fishermen appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.
Frankreich will noch in diesem Sommer sogenannte Hotspots für Flüchtlinge im nordafrikanischen Krisenstaat Libyen einrichten.
The post Frankreich will Hotspots für Flüchtlinge in Libyen ab Sommer appeared first on EURACTIV.de.
Brigitte Zypries warnt angesichts der von den USA einseitig auf den Weg gebrachten Sanktionen gegen Russland vor einem Handelskrieg mit der EU.
The post Bundeswirtschaftsministerin warnt vor Handelskrieg mit USA appeared first on EURACTIV.de.
The year 2016 will go down in European history as a time of striving to maintain the political, systemic, and social unity of the European Union as a community of countries, people, and values. It was a time of uncertainty and highly visible failures. But it was also a year marked by real achievements.
Above all, the United Kingdom's vote in June to exit the EU stands out as a bitter disappointment. And yet a new pan-European consensus on the protection the EU's external borders, together with the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada, warrants cautious optimism.
Most of the problems the EU has been grappling with for some time now have not been fully resolved. The migration crisis, tensions with Russia over Ukraine, and other external and internal security threats continue to test our unity and efficiency - and will continue to do so in the year ahead.
What we know from 2016 is that great change lies ahead - disconcerting, still unidentified, but nonetheless clearly palpable change. Indeed, the type of change that has been happening, and will happen in the future, is baffling political forecasters. It has been a long time since reality made such a cruel mockery of pundits and pollsters' predictions, even in the short-term context of upcoming elections or referenda. Politics has become as unpredictable as the weather in Brussels. And as with weather forecasts, if any predictions proved correct, it was the pessimistic ones.
The political tectonic shifts (and what else can one call the sudden drift of a huge island away from the continent?) now occurring are not just aftershocks of the financial crisis. Their source and essence are deeper than the anger of unemployed youth or the dissatisfaction with stagnant economic growth among European and American middle classes, although no sensible person would downplay these sentiments. But we all feel that these tremors may signal a more profound change: the end of an era, which in Europe could be called the Era of Great Stabilisation.
It is an era that has lasted 70 years, based on three pillars: an international order, in which the domination of the West commanded respect for rules and agreements, and which has protected Europe against global conflict; liberal democracy; and the relative prosperity of European societies.
The widespread anticipation of change should not frighten or, still less, paralyze us. As historians know all too well, it is stability, rather than crisis, that is transitional and short-lived. And, just as it is beyond our power to prevent crises, as they are inevitable by nature, it is not in our interest to cling to the status quo, as stabilisation sooner or later enters a phase of stagnation, when expectation of change becomes universal. This does not necessarily lead to catastrophe. But it may.
Everything depends on our collective ability to navigate stormy seas. The first prerequisite is to maintain the EU's basic unity. I will repeat this like a mantra: an internally broken EU will be incapable of rising to any of the challenges it faces, as will its member countries, including the largest.
The foundations of European solidarity remain fragile, and the real tests lie ahead. Without solidarity, Europe will have no influence over the direction of future changes, becoming their victim rather than their co-author. In order to avoid this bleak scenario, we must once again seek what connects us, what we have in common, what we are ready to defend with full determination, equal to that demonstrated by our opponents. We must once again define our territory, not geographically, but in a civilizational, cultural and perhaps even symbolical sense.
What we are observing today is that people, nations, and states are discovering the power of myth and simplification. This may foreshadow a politics, which is more brutal, rather closer to nature than to culture. The most important thing will be to distinguish accurately between what is shallow and unimportant in European tradition and what is lasting, valuable, and unique - what the historian Jacob Burckhardt called the freedom of spirit.
It is precisely in culture and freedom, where we will rediscover the essence of Europe. In politics this should mean that we must be prepared for change, on the condition that it does not restrict freedom as a core value. Before we overhaul the EU's structure, before we start solving fundamental dilemmas about the extent of integration, we must all agree that we want to carry the ideal of Europe as a continent of freedom from the past and into the future.
Today's world is full of barbarians, for whom freedom and culture, as we understand them, have become main targets of attack. Europeans will be able to overcome their current challenges only when we agree that we will not compromise in this confrontation. Symptoms of barbarity are around us, among us and within us. If we give in to external pressure and internal weakness, the coming changes may thwart Europe's most important political invention: the power of majority, the rule of law, and limited government, which only together guarantee human freedom and civil rights. This is why we must bravely and consistently defy those who stand up against our freedoms, whether from within or without.
During the extended period of crisis and recession which has eroded more than a quarter of its gross domestic product, Greece has gone a long way towards correcting its severe macroeconomic imbalances and implementing the structural reforms necessary to achieve economic stability and growth.
During 2016 fading fears over a possible Greek departure from the euro, or ‘Grexit’, and the easing of capital controls have helped release the growth potential generated by the adjustment process, bringing the country closer to what seemed like a turning point towards recovery. In the third quarter of 2016 a strong rebound in private consumption, investment and exports pushed the country’s rate of change of real GDP to an eight-year high – up 2.0% against the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Substantial improvements were recorded across indicators related to industrial production, retail trade, business and consumer expectations, and labour market conditions.
Although these developments suggest that Greece is moving towards recovery, more recent trends in both GDP and key indicators underline persistant fragility. Current provisional GDP data points to a fall-back to negative growth during the fourth quarter of 2016 while the latest economic sentiment, consumer and retail confidence indicators show signs of weakening, in reaction to the uncertainty induced by delays in the completion of the second review of the Greek bailout programme. Nevertheless, recent official forecasts from domestic and international institutions agree on a positive outlook for the Greek economy, with the European Commission estimating GDP growth at 2.7% in 2017 and 3.1% in 2018. Some of the requirements to fulfil these prospects are already in place, including improved competitiveness and considerable opportunities for investment and exports. But other crucial pre-conditions are yet to be satisfied, with decisive policy action urgently required from both Greece and Europe.
There are immediate policy changes that could curtail uncertainty and provide a much-needed liquidity boost to the economy, such as completion of the bailout review and the inclusion of Greek sovereign bonds into the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme. Progress with structural reforms and major privatisation projects could promote investment and signal positive change.
Finally, the importance of deciding on a set of medium-term debt relief measures cannot be emphasised enough. This will be crucial for restoring confidence in the Greek economy and adjusting primary surplus targets to levels compatible with a sustainable economic recovery. Although debt relief will undoubtedly require some difficult decisions to be taken, it will ultimately be in the interests not only of Greece but of Europe as a whole, enabling Greece to safeguard the interests of Europe in a volatile region.
IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – Michael Korcuska
The post Emerging economic recovery depends on urgent policy action appeared first on Europe’s World.