European Union

This development appears to end hopes that gas transiting via Ukraine could continue to flow after 31 December, when a long-term gas transit contract between Moscow and Kyiv ends.

The post Azerbaijan-brokered deal to keep gas flowing to EU via Ukraine fails appeared first on Euractiv.

Trump's demand to lift the debt ceiling was resoundingly rejected by the House -- including 38 Republicans. Previous fights over the debt ceiling have spooked financial markets.

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Salvini had tried to prevent the Spanish charity Open Arms from bringing 147 asylum seekers to Italy in the summer of 2019, when he was interior minister.

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Police said the attacker was a 50-year-old male doctor from Saudi Arabia with permanent residency in Germany, where he had lived for almost two decades.

The post Saudi man kills at least two after ramming into crowd at German Christmas market appeared first on Euractiv.

Over 3,300 doctors resignations will be withdrawn. The immediate crisis is avoided, with the stability contingent on February’s parliamentary votes.

The post Slovak doctors’ avoid prison, Fico’s government avoids mass resignations, for now appeared first on Euractiv.

During the press conference held at the end of the European Council meeting of 19 December 2024, President António Costa presented the main results of the discussions. EU leaders adopted conclusions on Ukraine, the Middle East, and resilience, preparedness, crisis prevention and response capacities, amongst other topics.

On 19 December, the European Council adopted conclusions on Ukraine, the Middle East, EU in the world, resilience, preparedness, crisis prevention and response, migration and other items.

On 19 December, the European Council adopted conclusions on EU in the world, resilience, preparedness, crisis prevention and response, migration and other items.

On 19 December, the European Council adopted conclusions on Ukraine.

Before the start of the European Council meeting of 19 December 2024, European Council President António Costa and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the press.

Alice Weidel, AfD's chancellor hopeful, was quick to pick up on Musk's endorsement.

The post Berlin remains calm after Musk endorses AfD appeared first on Euractiv.

Written by Gisela Grieger.

On 6 December 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the four founding members of Mercosur – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – reached a political agreement on the trade pillar of the EU-Mercosur association agreement. Additional negotiations had taken place since March 2023 to address various concerns sparked by an earlier 2019 agreement in principle. While the legal basis of the text, now referred to as the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement, is still unknown, several ratification scenarios could be envisaged.

Background

The negotiations on the EU-Mercosur agreement were based on 1999 Council negotiating guidelines that sought to conclude an association agreement with Mercosur to upgrade the 1995 bloc-to-bloc Interregional Framework Cooperation Agreement (IFCA), in force since 1999. The three-pronged structure of the agreement originally envisaged is similar to other such agreements the EU concluded in the past with Central America (2012) and Chile (2002, modernised in 2024): it comprises a trade pillar, a political dialogue pillar and a cooperation pillar. The Commission, in charge of the trade pillar negotiations, published the chapters of the trade pillar on its dedicated website as agreed under the 2019 political agreement. In contrast, the European External Action Service, in charge of the negotiations on the other parts, has not published the text of the remaining pillars, although the corresponding negotiations closed in July 2020.

Following the political agreement on the trade pillar reached in December 2024 and the publication of its chapters as amended, and of a summary of the changes, the text is now due to undergo legal revision (‘scrubbing’) prior to being translated into the EU’s official languages. Once this is completed, the Commission will submit to the Council proposals for Council decisions to sign and conclude the whole agreement. The agreement will then need to be ratified.

Commission proposals for Council decisions to sign and conclude the agreement

The Commission proposals, expected in mid-2025, will spell out the substantive legal bases that determine whether the EU-Mercosur agreement will be submitted for ratification as a mixed agreement that – next to provisions relating to the EU’s exclusive trade competence (‘EU-only’ agreement) set out in Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) – contains provisions concerning competence(s) shared between the EU and its Member States. It is also conceivable that the agreement will be split into two agreements (one EU only, one mixed) that either: a) enter into force consecutively –first as an interim EU-only agreement, which then elapses once the final mixed agreement has been ratified by the EU Member States; or b) co-exist as legally separate agreements after their ratification.

Unlike EU-only agreements, mixed agreements not only require Council ratification and European Parliament consent but also ratification by the EU Member States in accordance with their constitutional requirements. The Council adopts its decisions to sign (under Article 218(5) TFEU) and – after the European Parliament has given its consent – concludes (under Article 218(6)) the agreement and, if necessary, agrees on its provisional application. It does so by qualified majority, with Article 218(8) providing a number of exceptions when unanimity is required, including for association agreements.

Ratification scenarios

As the Commission has not indicated the legal basis it intends to propose for the EU-Mercosur agreement, several ratification scenarios used in the recent past could be envisaged.

1) The EU-Canada agreement model: A single mixed agreement

The Commission’s initial proposal for Council decisions to sign and conclude the EU-Canada comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) was subsequently modified to use a mixed legal basis. In its proposal for a Council decision, the Commission states that – since it could not agree with EU Member States whether CETA was a mixed agreement, and since CETA’s provisional application since 2017 was a priority – CETA was based on Article 43(2) (agriculture/fisheries), Article 91 (transport), Article 100(2) (transport), Article 153(2) (social policy), Article 192(1) (environment) and the first subparagraph of Article 207(4) (common commercial policy), in conjunction with Article 218(5), and was thus deemed a mixed agreement. Experts have argued that several legal bases (e.g. for the environment) would not have been applicable to CETA in light of the 2017 Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Opinion 2/15 on the distribution of exclusive and shared competences in the EU-Singapore free trade agreement (FTA). Since CETA’s ratification at EU level, its ratification by EU Member States (17 of 27 have ratified as of December 2024) has been very slow. Mixed agreements bear the risk of blockage by a single EU Member State.

2) The EU-Chile agreement model: Split into an interim EU-only agreement and final mixed agreement

In 2023, the Commission submitted two proposals for Council decisions to sign and conclude the text for the modernisation of the 2002 EU-Chile association agreement. The proposals envisaged an interim EU-only agreement entering into force after ratification at EU level and ceasing to apply once a mixed agreement including the EU-only part enters into force after its ratification by all EU Member States:

• a proposal for an EU-only EU-Chile interim trade agreement (ITA) based on Article 91(1), Article 100(2) and Article 207(4) first paragraph, in conjunction with Article 218(5), adopted by a related Council decision; and
• a proposal for an EU-Chile Advanced Framework Agreement (AFA), a mixed agreement including the trade pillar, based on Article 91(1), Article 100(2), Article 207(4) first paragraph, Article 212 (economic, financial and technical cooperation with third countries), in conjunction with Article 218(5), adopted by a related Council decision. In its proposal for the AFA, the Commission states that the substantive legal basis for the Council decision depends mainly on the AFA’s objective and content. It adds that ‘the AFA pursues two main objectives and has two main components which fall within the scope of the common commercial policy, transport, and of the economic, financial and technical cooperation with third countries’. It concludes that, given ‘the fact that the predominant components of the Agreement are trade policy, transport, and economic, financial and technical cooperation with third countries, the voting rule for this particular case is therefore qualified majority’.

The ratification of the EU-Chile agreement may be seen as a pertinent model, given the considerable similarities in the structure (objectives) and content with the EU-Mercosur agreement, despite the absence of some elements (such as investment protection and far-reaching investment liberalisation) from the latter due to a Council mandate dating back to a pre-Lisbon Treaty era, when investment was entirely an EU Member State competence. Moreover, the Council mandate (Title XI) refers to an ITA.

3) The EU-Singapore agreement model: Split into separate EU-only and mixed agreements

After the 2017 CJEU Opinion 2/15 determined that the EU-Singapore FTA contained elements of shared competences (i.e. provisions on portfolio investment and investment dispute settlement) and therefore would have been deemed a mixed agreement, in 2018 the EU-Singapore FTA was split into an FTA based on Article 91, Article 100(2) and Article 207(4) and into an investment protection agreement (IPA) based on Article 207(4), both in conjunction with Article 218(5). The former entered into force and the latter continues its process of ratification by EU Member States. The EU-Vietnam FTA underwent a similar split, the result of which is two legally separate agreements that remain separate after ratification.

Consent by the European Parliament, and formal conclusion

Under Rule 117(7) of its Rules of Procedure (RoP), Parliament decides by a single vote – in accordance with Rule 107 RoP – on a Council request to give its consent to the conclusion, renewal or amendment of an international agreement. It provides that, if Parliament declines to give its consent, its President must inform the Council that the agreement at issue cannot be concluded, renewed or amended. The consent procedure may not be prolonged for more than one year.

Following Parliament’s consent, the Council would be able to adopt a decision to conclude the agreement pursuant to the procedure and voting rules set out in Article 218(6) and Article 218(8) TFEU respectively.

Read this complete ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Ratification scenarios for the EU‑Mercosur agreement‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Animals stuck on a truck for months, an uneven application of EU animal welfare rules, and complex transport costs. Europe’s animal transport conundrums are getting a second look.

The post Trucking horrific animal welfare conditions across Europe appeared first on Euractiv.

The challenges might outnumber the current solutions, but the EU may just get its act together in 2025.

The post The Brief – What to lean on in 2025 appeared first on Euractiv.

Analysts argue that the impact of Trump’s protectionist trade policies on Europe would likely not be catastrophic – although it would probably be bad.

The post Does Europe really face an economic Trumpocalypse? appeared first on Euractiv.

Written by Clare Ferguson and Katarzyna Sochacka.

The European Union’s external relations topped the agenda for the December 2024 plenary session, with several debates on statements by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Vice-President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, attending the plenary for the first time in her new capacity. These included the toppling of the Syrian regime and its consequences; Russia’s disinformation activities and fraudulent justification of its war against Ukraine; the use of rape as a weapon of war (e.g. in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan). The day after Kallas’s remarks on the crackdown on peaceful pro-European demonstrators in Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, President of Georgia, addressed Members in a formal sitting.

Other debates on Commission statements covered, inter alia: the situation in Mayotte following the recent devastating cyclone; a European innovation act; harassment and cyber-violence against female politicians in EU candidate and neighbouring countries; a shared vision for sustainable European tourism; promoting social dialogue and the right to strike; tackling abusive subcontracting; the need to ensure swift action and transparency on public-sector corruption allegations; urgent EU action to preserve nature and biodiversity; and the Commission’s plans to revise outstanding proposals on animal welfare in its 2025 work plan.

Members also debated ahead of the European Council meeting of 19 December 2024 and set out their expectations ahead of the EU-Western Balkans Summit that took place the previous day. Parliament created two new standing committees, upgrading the former sub-committees on Public Health, and on Security and Defence; and set up two special committees: on the European Democracy Shield, and the Housing Crisis.

Sakharov Prize 2024

The Sakharov Prize celebrates those who defend fundamental freedoms and human rights, in often very difficult circumstances. President Roberta Metsola awarded the 2024 prize to María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, leaders of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, recognised by Parliament as the Venezuelan people’s democratically chosen leaders.

Election of the Ombudsman

Teresa Anjinho was elected to serve as the next European Ombudsman in a vote conducted in two ballots. She will hold the office for the 2024-2029 term. Under the incumbent, Emily O’Reilly, the role of the European Ombudsman has seen important changes, with a new statute put in place.

Activities of the European Ombudsman: 2023 annual report

Parliament debated a Committee on Petitions (PETI) report proposing that Members approve the European Ombudsman’s 2023 activity report. The report highlights key issues, including transparency, accountability, and ethical concerns. The Ombudsman’s 2023 report notes that the Ombudsman opened 393 complaint-based inquiries and tackled systemic issues through 5 own-initiative inquiries, further cementing the role in promoting good administration.

Regional emergency support for reconstruction

Climate-related disasters are recurring increasingly often in Europe. To speed up the EU’s support for those affected, Members debated and adopted the RESTORE regional emergency support proposal. It seeks to allow EU countries to re-programme up to €17.7 billion from EU cohesion policy funds for disaster relief and reconstruction. This includes financing reconstruction work by up to 100 %, with 30 % pre-financing to allow funds to be immediately available.

EU conclusion of the UN Mauritius Convention

Investor-State dispute settlement, used to resolve disputes in international investment agreements, has long been criticised for its opacity. New rules came into force in 2014 to address the transparency issue, by mandating public access to proceedings and documents, bolstering legitimacy and public trust. Those rules apply only to post-2014 agreements, but the 2014 United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Mauritius Convention would extend their scope to earlier treaties. The EU sees the convention as a key step toward modernising the process. Following a Committee on International Trade (INTA) recommendation, Parliament gave consent to the EU’s conclusion of the Mauritius Convention.

EU priorities for the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Members debated EU priorities on gender equality. The plenary adopted a recommendation from Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) which urges the EU to lead by example on addressing gender-based violence, ensuring healthcare access, promoting gender equality in decision-making, and applying gender mainstreaming across policies, ahead of the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The session will mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted by 189 countries in 1995, which provides a global roadmap for gender equality.

Misinformation and disinformation on social media

Romania recently annulled its presidential elections due to foreign interference linked to disinformation campaigns. Intelligence reports revealed thousands of accounts, many associated with foreign influence, amplifying political messaging. Following a Commission statement on the misinformation and disinformation on social media, Parliament debated measures to ensure that online platforms conform to the rules under the Digital Services Act, as well as strengthening EU resilience against election interference.

Improving EU farmers’ and agricultural workers’ working conditions and wellbeing

Following a statement from the European Commission, Members debated measures to improve working conditions and mental wellbeing for farmers and agricultural workers. Farmers face significantly higher risks at work than in other sectors, with fatality rates at 233 % above average, and elevated stress leading to higher suicide rates. Parliament has already called for improved working conditions in the sector, particularly for those working in remote regions.

Updating the European strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities

Parliament heard and debated a Commission statement on the need to update the EU’s 2021-2030 disability rights strategy, to focus on new initiatives for 2025-2030. While progress has been made on accessibility, employment, and inclusion through flagship action like the Disability Employment Package and the AccessibleEU resource centre, challenges remain for disability rights in areas including poverty, education, housing, and healthcare.

Right to clean drinking water in the EU

Access to clean drinking water is a fundamental right long championed by Parliament, but water scarcity, microplastics and other contaminants persist in the EU. Members debated a Commission statement on the right to clean drinking water , where updated EU rules under the Drinking Water Directive aim to enhance water quality and improve access for vulnerable groups.

Opening of trilogue negotiations

One decision to enter into interinstitutional negotiations from the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL), on the establishment and functioning of European works councils, was approved by a vote. Another, from the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON), on the framework for financial data access, was approved without a vote.

Corrigenda

Following committee approval of the corrigendum on the European health data space legislative file, voted in plenary before the end of last term, it was approved, under Rule 251 of the Rules of Procedure.

Read the complete ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Plenary round-up – December 2024‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Naja Bentzen

The role of information integrity in the proposed European democracy shield, announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, was the subject of a roundtable discussion organised by EPRS on 10 December 2024. The notion of information integrity has been gaining ground in multilateral and international forums in recent years. The panel connected multilateral and European diplomatic perspectives on how to make our information ecosystems healthy, while protecting fundamental rights. Etienne Bassot, Director of the Members’ Research Service, opened the event, which was moderated by Michael Adam, Head of the Digital Policies Unit.

In her keynote speech, First Vice-President of the European Parliament, Sabine Verheyen (EPP, Germany), built on the EPRS motto, ‘Empowering through knowledge’. She underscored the importance of empowering citizens to navigate the digital landscape and resist the flood of manipulative content. She emphasised the need to build and maintain a resilient and trustworthy information sphere, in line with the announced European democracy shield. This includes strict enforcement of the EU’s digital regulation, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the work of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and its regional hubs. It also includes the Artificial Intelligence Act, alongside the European Media Freedom Act and the regulation on political advertising.

Arvin Gadgil, Director of the Global Policy Centre for Governance, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), underlined that no aspect of information integrity can be limited by borders – and neither can the solutions. With UNDP the biggest development programme in the UN system ( present in 170 countries), he noted information integrity will become an increasing programming area for the UNDP. In the future, more countries will likely ask for UNDP assistance to build information integrity. The EU supports much of this assistance. He also underlined the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, which requires long-term collaboration with trusted partners to find solutions, for example via the Global Action Coalition on Information Integrity (supported by Denmark’s Tech4Democracy Initiative). 

Charles Baubion, Head of the Information Integrity Team, Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development (OECD), cautioned never to take democracy for granted: upholding the values of democracy requires constant attention and continuous reflection, leveraging democracy’s ability to self-improve. Earlier this year, the OECD report ‘Facts not fakes: Tackling disinformation, strengthening information integrity‘ emphasised the urgency of boosting ‘the integrity of information spaces and combating disinformation’ to reinforce democracy and strengthen the fabric of open societies. In November 2024, the OECD invited stakeholders to comment on draft recommendations on information integrity, aiming to promote information integrity in line with the universal human rights of freedom of opinion and expression. Similar to the UN and EU approaches, all stakeholders and all levels of society are factored in. Charles Baubion emphasised that social media company self-regulation is not enough, more transparency and accountability is needed, not least with the added challenge of handling the role of AI. The Digital Services Act is a good example of EU leadership in this area.

Filip Grzegorzewski, Head of Information Integrity Division, European External Action Service (EEAS) started by defining foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), a pattern of behaviour that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact our values, procedures and political processes. The EEAS focuses on behaviour rather than on narratives. Triggered by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, the EU has built a comprehensive toolbox to address the challenges. The work includes cooperating with all 27 Member States to reinforce internal defence against FIMI. Moreover, the EEAS expands these efforts across the world through its external network of 145 delegations and 24 common security and defence policy (CSDP) missions and operations. The EEAS also helps build resilience against FIMI in regions closest to home, via four task forces for the immediate neighbourhood: East, South, Western Balkans and Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, the EEAS helps tackle FIMI globally, including via cooperation within the G7’s Rapid Reaction Mechanism.

Seemab Sheikh, Acting Deputy Tech Ambassador, Denmark, explained that the Danish tech ambassador (the first such post in the world) moved from San Francisco to Copenhagen last year, to expand the focus beyond the US, including Europe and the Global South. In addition to the work on the UN Global Digital Compact, Denmark, alongside the Netherlands and Wikimedia, is leading a multi-stakeholder task force for the Freedom Online Coalition, working towards a blueprint for a holistic and positive online information ecosystem. She noted, in the face of the erosion of information integrity, which AI is accelerating, tech companies need to take greater social responsibility. Information integrity will be a high priority during Denmark’s presidency in the second half of 2025, prioritising cooperation with private companies and with a special focus on AI, as well as enhancing resilience against hybrid threats. Seemab Sheikh noted the potential of the announced European democracy shield initiative to further strengthen and coordinate the EU’s response to FIMI.

Naja Bentzen highlighted the increasing influence of ‘corporate diplomacy’ on our information ecosystems, or our collective cognitive infrastructure. In some respects, the very large online platforms and search engines, with more than 45 million users in the EU, wield more geopolitical and geostrategic influence than most nation states. In the next years, underlying tension between what Anu Bradford sees as three different models for tech regulation (the EU’s rights-driven model; the US market-driven model; and China’s state-driven model) is likely to become even more visible. Brussels will face serious challenges in enforcing its rights-driven digital regulation, which is directly linked to the European democracy shield initiative.

The roundtable discussion took a bird’s-eye view of the challenges to our global information sphere, as well as the solutions. Meanwhile, current developments underscored the pertinence of the topic: Just four days before the event, Romania became the first EU country to cancel an election over foreign interference, following reports about information manipulation on TikTok. Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) held an exchange of views with TikTok over compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). On 17 December 2024, the European Commission made statements, accompanied by a debate, in Parliament on misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms and risks to the integrity of elections in Europe. The following day, Parliament voted to establish a new Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield.

Indeed, as the exchange with the audience at the EPRS event also illustrated, democracy cannot be taken for granted. Against this backdrop, the discussion on the role of information integrity in a potential European democracy shield – and how to link such a shield with the rest of the world – could hardly have been more timely and relevant.

In the Avignon rape trial, the main defendant Dominique Pelicot has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Over a period of 10 years he drugged his former wife Gisèle Pelicot on a regular basis and offered her for rape to strangers on the Internet. Through video recordings 50 of these men were identified and tried, almost all of whom were also given harsh sentences. A glance at Europe's opinion pages shows why the case cannot be forgotten now.