European Union

One country after another is making moves to ensure that diesel and petrol engines become a thing of the past: Paris, Madrid, Athens and Helsinki plan to ban their production by 2025, with London following suit in 2040. In Germany the cartel scandal that has hit the automotive industry has added fuel to the debate. But commentators see bans as the wrong approach for various reasons.

The US Senate has followed the lead of the House of Representatives and approved by a large majority new sanctions against Russia. The corresponding legislation will now be presented to US President Donald Trump for signing. The EU Commission has threatened to react with countermeasures if Trump signs the measure into law. Europe's commentators view the developments with concern.

The EU Commission has shown understanding with Eastern Europeans who refuse to be fobbed off with supermarket products of inferior quality. The Commission now plans to develop guidelines banning double standards on food products. With this measure Brussels is reacting to a complaint brought by the Visegrád states. The media of these countries are full of praise for the initiative.

Bulgaria and Macedonia plan to sign a "good neighbours" agreement at the start of August. This is intended to mark the beginning of a new chapter in relations between the two countries. In concrete terms the construction of a new railway line is in planning. Bulgarian journalists are delighted.

EU regional policy spending accounts for about a third of the EU’s total budget. It is the EU’s main mechanism for financial redistribution. In addition to supporting jobs, economic growth, sustainable development and so on, one of its key stated aims is to underpin European solidarity. In this way it is a key part of the European integration project. This is why the Commission places a lot of emphasis on how its regional spending is communicated to citizens, and it’s why they are particularly concerned with how spending is perceived and making sure it is well publicized. For this reason, recipients of EU funds are required to acknowledge the EU’s contribution on public signage and in literature.

 

A Huggins family day out funded by EU regional policy…

 

Despite these efforts, communication of EU regional policy is far from perfect and awareness of EU spending varies significantly across the EU. To get a feel for how it is doing on this front, the European Commission sporadically looks at public opinion about EU regional policy through the Eurobarometer survey. The results of the latest survey were published last month. There are some interesting findings when looking at the UK.

 

In June 2015, just 9% of UK respondents said they had “heard about any EU co-financed projects to improve the area where you live”. This was the lowest level of awareness among any EU member state (the EU average was 34%, Poland had the top spot at 76%). In March 2017, however, this had doubled to 18%. This is still very low (though no longer the lowest), but on a percentage point basis this represents the joint highest increase (with Ireland) in the EU.

 

Large increases are found in other measures in the survey too. 35% had heard of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in March 2017 (EU28 average 28%), compared to 29% in June 2015. Again this 6 percentage point difference was the highest increase across the EU28.

 

27% said they were aware that EU funding fosters cross-border co-operation between regions (EU28 average 22%), up 13 percentage points from June 2015 and again the joint highest increase across the EU28.

 

Of the respondents who had heard of either the ERDF or Cohesion Fund, 22% felt they had benefited from an EU funded project (EU28 average 24%), up 12 percentage points from June 2015 and the second highest increase across the EU28.

 

What accounts for the increased awareness of EU regional policy in the UK between 2015 and 2017? The survey itself does not answer this question, but one obvious possibility is the EU referendum and Brexit. EU investment in UK regions was a feature of the referendum campaign, and was frequently linked to wider debates about the overall costs and benefits of the UK’s membership.  In this way Brexit may have given EU regional policy an unintended publicity boost.

 

The potential impact of this shouldn’t be over stated, though. At 18%, the overall level of awareness is still low and behind the EU average of 35%. Indeed, this overall lack of awareness might be part of the reason why areas which received relatively large amounts of EU investment (Wales, Cornwall, the north-east) nevertheless voted to leave. It is also entirely possible that increased awareness of EU funding may have had a negative impact on support for EU membership. There were, after all, many more respondents stating they had not benefited from an EU-funded project (65%) compared to those that said they had (22%). Nevertheless it may indicate that part of the solution to raising EU citizens’ awareness of EU regional spending may be to incorporate it into national discourses.

The post Brexit boost? Did the EU referendum improve the awareness of EU regional policy in the UK? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The EU has added 3 Russian nationals and 3 companies involved in the transfer of gas turbines to Crimea to the list of persons subject to restrictive measures in respect of actions undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. 

The EU has not recognised the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by the Russian Federation. As part of its non-recognition policy, the Council has prohibited the supply of key equipment for infrastructure projects in Crimea and Sevastopol in important sectors, including gas turbines in the energy sector. Establishing an independent power supply for Crimea and Sevastopol supports their separation from Ukraine, and undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Gas turbines are a substantial element in the development of new power plants. 

The 3 persons have been added to the sanctions list for their responsibility in supplying Crimea with gas turbines from Russia. The turbines were originally sold by Siemens for use in the territory of the Russian Federation. The subsequent transfer of the turbines to Crimea was in breach of contractual provisions covering the original sale by Siemens. The companies placed under sanctions are the contracting party which purchased gas turbines and is responsible for the transfer, the current owner of the gas turbines, and a company specialising in control and communication systems for power plants, including in Sevastopol and Simferopol.  

These sanctions consist of an asset freeze and a travel ban which will now apply to a total of 153 persons and 40 entities. The measures were introduced in March 2014 and were last extended in March 2017 until 15 September 2017. 

The legal acts, including the names of the persons and the statements of reasons for listing them, are available in the EU Official Journal of 4 August 2017. The Council adopted these legal acts by written procedure.  

Link to official journal 

Other EU measures in place in response to the Ukraine crisis include:   

• economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the  Russian economy, currently in place until 31 January 2018; 
• restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until 23 June 2018.