European Union

The EU Commission should table a plan in 2017 to cut delays in EU-funded projects that aim to reduce disparities among EU regions by stimulating growth and job creation, say Regional Development Committee MEPs in a resolution voted on Tuesday.
Committee on Regional Development

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 26 January, Dirk Dubois, Head of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), Michael Swann, Chair of the ESDC Steering Committee and Antonio Missiroli, Head of the ESDC’s Academic Board will meet with the SEDE committee to discuss the contribution of the college to the EU's CSDP activities. The college's training activities prepare both policymakers and mission staff for the activities involved in the full life-cycle of CSDP missions and aim to create a European security culture.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Dear family of President Herzog, Excellencies, dear friends,

Shortly after taking office as President of the German Federal Republic in 1994, Roman Herzog was invited by the Polish President Lech Wałęsa to take part in a commemoration, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. It was a time of heated historical debates and discussions about the wounds that could not heal. Not everybody in Germany thought that an inexperienced president should choose Poland, and specifically such a ceremony, as the destination of his first foreign visit. And not everybody in Poland accepted the participation of a German president in such a commemoration, in such a place. Newspapers published opinions of Polish citizens, both for and against. And then President Herzog came and offered Polish people words which were surprising, honest, bold and deep. He used language which won over many sceptics. Newspapers were now printing statements by Polish citizens, including veterans of the Warsaw Uprising, expressing respect for the President and taking back their earlier objections. We know that this doesn't often happen. This is one of the reasons why we consider Roman Herzog's Warsaw speech extraordinary and historic. And so, if today we refer to him as a president of 'open words', who did not like to 'beat about the bush', we in Poland understand this in a very specific way.

It is worth recalling this now, a few days before the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism, which was initiated by President Herzog himself on the twenty-seventh of January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Roman Herzog belonged to a generation that had a living memory of the bad past - which for them was a source of motivation to reinforce European integration. This generation knew how high the stakes were. That is why President Herzog made calls not to treat the unification of the continent in terms of a 'technique of living together', 'eine Technik des Zusammenlebens', but in terms of a political and cultural identity. Only then would Europe be able to survive in an increasingly diverse and volatile world - and to counter external threats. Those words from 1997 take on new substance and a sinister relevance today. It can be added, following President Herzog's argumentation, that Europe cannot remain only a project of older people, who have memory. What about the young ones, who do not remember? They will never produce this specific motivation to support a unified Europe. But since they do not remember, they should use their imagination.

It was already many years ago that Roman Herzog advised his compatriots to stimulate their imagination with the idea of freedom, that extraordinary experience from the Autumn of Nations of 1989. Freedom is our collective gift. Perhaps it is worth following his advice today, when we need to rebuild unity and trust in the European Union. If 1989 is considered the most European year since the Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, then perhaps it will provide a strong impulse for a discussion about why we must defend our community, its principles and institutions. And we will better understand that behind the often very technical debates in Brussels, there is actually much more at stake.

A prominent lawyer and a constitutionalist, Roman Herzog would be able to demonstrate to us for example that freedom is indispensable to the reconstruction of a European sense of community. Without it, any alternative attempts at unity, based purely on 'identity', would have no reference to civil liberties. They would not create sufficient justification or instruments to protect human rights or the rights of minorities. Roman Herzog chaired the First European Convention, which in the years 1999-2000, drafted the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, of which I would like to quote - and stress - the following words:  "[…] the Union is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity; it is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law" With you, Mr President, it would be much easier to continue to uphold and defend these values. With the Charter, President Herzog equipped us with an important instrument in the fight against national egoisms and populism. Until his last days he spoke about fundamental issues of integration. And his words were always meaningful and carefully listened to.

At the same time, Roman Herzog was a sober pragmatist, a critic of a European construction struggling to free itself from excessive regulation and ambition to standardise everything. He made calls to focus on the issues that really mattered, to discourage any hard feelings from Europeans disappointed with a Union that interferes in issues that could be solved on a local or national level. He would certainly agree with the realistic approach that European politics will always be a matter played out between Member States and the EU institutions. There are enough roles and tasks for both sides in it. And there is no need to bring down all the partition walls of the European building to reinforce that integration.

As already mentioned here today, everyone in Germany remembers Roman Herzog's famous speech from 1997, about the need for a 'jolt', for a refreshing shock to inspire the country, which, as he said, should make better use of its obvious advantages. His diagnosis of the situation resonated far and wide also outside Germany. It can also be applied to a large extent to the present situation in the European Union. In a similar way to President Herzog in 1997 in Berlin, also in Brussels we say today that it is not the ideas we lack, but the determination to implement them. In a similar way to him, we seek more trust in our capabilities as well as recognition of our achievements. And we understand him well when he complained that the German word 'Angst' had appeared in other languages, as a symbol of a general mindset.

Today we should promise the President that we will take his message to heart and we will take advantage of the instruments he co-created for Europe. And that 'Angst' will not be an expression of our European mindset today. Yes, Mr President, 'auch durch Europa muss ein Ruck gehen'.

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The EIB provides finance and expertise for sound and sustainable investment projects which contribute to furthering EU policy objectives.

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The Informal Meeting of EU Ministers and State Secretaries for European Affairs is held on 24 January in Valletta.

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The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which aims to boost goods and services trade and investment flows, was approved by the International Trade Committee on Tuesday. The full House is to vote on the deal in February.
Committee on International Trade

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which aims to boost goods and services trade and investment flows, was approved by the International Trade Committee on Tuesday. The full House is to vote on the deal in February.
Committee on International Trade

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Nausicaa Anadyomène and Banque d'Escompte v ECB
Law governing the institutions
The ECB is not bound to make good the loss allegedly sustained in 2012 by commercial banks holding Greek debt instruments in connection with the restructuring of Greek debt

Private industrial involvement in designing, building and operating space assets isn’t new. Large European companies like Airbus Defence and Space can boast more than 50 years of involvement in manufacturing space hardware, and smaller ones like Austria’s Magna Steyr can enthrall audiences with the story of how they came to be a world expert in building cryogenic feed systems for Ariane rockets.

What is new is the leadership the commercial space sector is showing in setting the space agenda. They are finding solutions to problems of space sustainability. They are shouldering serious business risk. And they are boldly identifying business opportunities worthy of substantial private investment.

As recently as a decade ago, it was rare to see private businesses represented at international gatherings focused on multilateral space policy. Today they are active participants in briefing United Nations forums such as the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the High-level Forum preparing UNISPACE+50 – often there by invitation as others seek their expertise and insight.

The recently-founded Hague Space Resources Governance Working Group, which looks to identify policy building blocks to facilitate fair and orderly development of raw materials in space, has a wide range of members, including businesses. The government members of the Group on Earth Observations are actively considering giving business a greater say on the GEO’s work.

Winston Churchill likened private enterprise to a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. But space businesses are increasingly involved in designing the cart and setting its direction.

“The commercial space sector is showing leadership, finding solutions to problems, shouldering business risk and identifying business opportunities”

As private industry becomes more heavily engaged in space as a business opportunity, it also becomes less willing to wait for governments to overcome barriers to operating a successful business in the harsh environment of space. This phenomenon has been a driving force in the emergence of the European-born Space Data Association. This association adds member-provided ephemeris data (on location, timing and ‘health’ of objects) to government-generated surveillance and tracking information, dramatically improving the ability of satellite operators to make informed decisions about avoiding collision with the orbiting assets of other operators.

There are also a growing number of private solutions being proposed to address the hazard that space debris presents to space activity. The days when we look only to government laboratories for this kind of research are behind us – even if space entrepreneurs have yet to show that they can close a debris removal business plan without substantial public investment.

There are important changes in the way the private space commerce community is reacting to, and with, public investment. Where once the holy grail of space commerce was a government contract that covered costs and guaranteed a profitable return,  businesses and governments are increasingly seeking more traditional purchase contracts for space services and assets.

When the American company SpaceEx lost a rocket and its payload to a launchpad explosion in September 2016, the company and its financial backers had to accept the resulting loss of income as a cost of doing business. That loss has been estimated at US$250m. Had the company’s return to flight in January 2017 not been successful, there is a chance that the company could have suffered irreparable damage. SpaceX clearly benefits from large government contracts, but what is changing is that it also shoulders considerably more business risk than was the case for space companies a decade or two ago.

“Private business’s greatest contribution to the human experience of space might prove to be its creativity”

What may yet prove to be private business’s greatest contribution to the human experience of space is the creativity with which this part of the space sector turns technical and scientific discoveries into business ideas. Private funding, creativity, and capital are moving ahead with plans that are pressing frontiers and, presenting challenges that were not part of the space activity environment until very recently. Virgin Galactic is pressing forward with a vision of suborbital space flights for private citizens in spite of reversals. Swiss entrepreneurs at S3 are seeking to demonstrate active debris removal capability with their robotic space plane. The Sierra Nevada Corporation is converting an abandoned NASA lifting body project into a Dream Chaser spacecraft with the potential for worldwide service.

All of these trends taken together have implications not only for the future of privately-funded, profit-seeking operations in space but for public space programmes as well. As private initiatives make progress on the ways to provide reliable space activities at reduced costs they increase their attractiveness to national space agencies and publicly-funded space projects. Former European Space Agency director Jean-Jacques Dordain made this point very clearly several years ago at a Global Networking forum sponsored by the International Astronautical Federation. Acknowledging the ESA’s support for the trend toward greater involvement of the private sector in publicly-funded space projects, he also noted pointedly “We want reduced costs.”

Fortunately, that’s what the commercial space sector wants too. In 2004 SpaceX founder Elon Musk told participants at the International Space University’s symposium that he expected to reduce the cost of launch by an order of magnitude and “maybe by two”.

Proposed new architectures, techniques or approaches are increasingly presented in terms of their promise to offer increased value and broader benefit at reduced cost. Businesses that deliver on these promises have a solid foundation for success.  Those that don’t are likely to fail. Business is like that.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – NASA Johnson

The post Space becomes a new frontier for business activities appeared first on Europe’s World.

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The parliament of French-speaking Wallonia, a region of Belgium, last year came perilously close to derailing years of work on an EU-Canada trade deal that may turn out to be the main achievement of Ms Malmström’s time in office.

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Downing Street has been accused of covering up a Trident missile malfunction weeks before a crucial Commons vote on the future of the submarine-based missile system.

A Trident II D5 missile test ended in failure after it was launched from the British submarine HMS Vengeance off the coast of Florida in June 2016. The weapon is 13 metres long, weighs 60 tonnes and can carry nuclear warheads with up to eight times the destructive capacity of the bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the second world war. Trident missile can hit a target 4,000 nautical miles away and be accurate to within a few metres.

The problem is that when HMS Vengeance, one of the UK’s four nuclear submarines, test-fired the missile off the coast of Florida, the missile was not out by a few metres but several thousand miles. It had been targeted at the southern Atlantic off the coast of west Africa. Instead, it was heading in the opposite direction, over the US.

The four previous UK tests – in 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2012 – were successful, it was the only firing test of a British nuclear missile in four years and raises serious questions about the reliability and safety of the weapons system. But the error was hushed up. The cause of the failure remains top secret, but quotes a senior naval source saying the missile, which was unarmed for the test, suffered an in-flight malfunction after launch. According to defence sources, the missile did not veer off in the wrong direction because it was faulty but because the information relayed to it was faulty. This explanation is not reassuring.

It was reportedly intended to be fired 5,600 miles to a sea target off the west coast of Africa but may have veered off towards America instead. There was a major panic at the highest level of government and the military after the first test of our nuclear deterrent in four years ended in disastrous failure. In July, MPs voted by 472 to 117 to back the renewal of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrence. The overwhelming vote supported the Government's plans to spend up to £40 billion on four new Successor-class submarines.

Some analysts say the fact that UK tests are infrequent is not important because the US tests much more frequently and both share the underlying technology. There are over 150 tests over almost 30 years, with a sub-3% failure rate, and well under 1% since British submarines began carrying the missiles.

Source
http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
https://www.theguardian.com

Tag: HMS VengeanceTridentnucléaire

General : Parliament’s environment committee votes on Tuesday 24 January to amend a European Commission proposal on waste management, the so-called waste package, which is a priority for the EU for this year. In previous resolutions Parliament has called for more ambitious targets. This vote is the first step towards entering negotiations with the Commission and Council.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : Parliament’s environment committee votes on Tuesday 24 January to amend a European Commission proposal on waste management, the so-called waste package, which is a priority for the EU for this year. In previous resolutions Parliament has called for more ambitious targets. This vote is the first step towards entering negotiations with the Commission and Council.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 229 - Draft report Constitutional, legal and institutional implications of a common security and defence policy: possibilities offered by the Lisbon Treaty
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : The international trade committee votes on 24 January on the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement or Ceta, but this free trade agreement with Canada is far from the only deal the EU is working on. Various deals are currently being negotiated right across the globe, but they can only enter into force if the European Parliament approves them. Read on for an overview of the negotiations in progress and an explanation of how the process works.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : The international trade committee votes on 24 January on the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement or Ceta, but this free trade agreement with Canada is far from the only deal the EU is working on. Various deals are currently being negotiated right across the globe, but they can only enter into force if the European Parliament approves them. Read on for an overview of the negotiations in progress and an explanation of how the process works.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : This week members of Parliament’s international trade committee vote on whether to approve Ceta, the EU-Canada trade deal. The environment committee votes on measures on waste reduction and recycling. Newly-elected Parliament President Antonio Tajani opens an event on Wednesday marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : This week members of Parliament’s international trade committee vote on whether to approve Ceta, the EU-Canada trade deal. The environment committee votes on measures on waste reduction and recycling. Newly-elected Parliament President Antonio Tajani opens an event on Wednesday marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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The second “Union for the Mediterranean Regional Forum. Mediterranean in Action: Youth for Stability and Development” is held on 23 and 24 January 2017 at the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona.

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