European Union

Citing human rights abuses, the US is considering not sending an official delegation to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, although US athletes would still be allowed to compete. Europe's press is also alarmed by the disappearance of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai after she made allegations of abuse against a former high-ranking Chinese politician.

The minimum wage directive is a key policy goal for European Social Democrats, but leftist parties and trade unions in Denmark and Sweden see it as a danger for their labour market model. They have collected enough signatures to force a vote in November’s European Parliament plenary, potentially delaying the directive for months.

Plenary session and committee meetings, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The Slovenian government has finally decided to nominate two delegated prosecutors for the European Public Prosecutors Office (EPPO), but the EPPO still has to decide if they are suitable.

Austria will become the first country in western Europe to reimpose a full lockdown to tackle a new wave of Covid infections, and will require its whole population to be vaccinated as of February, Reuters writes. Austria has one of the lowest vaccination-rates in western Europe. Austria introduced a lockdown for all those who were unvaccinated on Monday but since then infections have continued to set new records.

The state of media concentration in France, how the situation evolved, and what lessons can be drawn will be analysed by a new commission of inquiry established by the French Senate on Thursday (18 November). EURACTIV France reports.

Organisers of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) are “encouraged by the number of visits to the platform and endorsements”, a spokesperson for the conference told EURACTIV. This comes following concerns from some participants that the event was not getting enough attention.

While some argue that the next Franco-German power couple could be business as usual, there are some potential sticking points ahead.

MEPs will vote on the EU’s new agricultural policy, discuss reinforcing its pharmaceutical strategy and suggest new avenues for legal migration to the EU 22-25 November.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs will vote on the EU’s new agricultural policy, discuss reinforcing its pharmaceutical strategy and suggest new avenues for legal migration to the EU 22-25 November.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The European Union already has 27 members and other countries want to join, but how does a country join the EU?

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The European Union already has 27 members and other countries want to join, but how does a country join the EU?

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Written by Anna Caprile.

The culmination of two years’ preparatory work and worldwide mobilisation events, the United Nations Food Systems Summit took place on 23 September 2021. The idea behind the summit, initiated by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, was to start a process of transforming the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food – as a crucial step in progressing on all 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The summit was announced in October 2019 – before the Covid‑19 pandemic became a hunger crisis in many parts of the world – and the stakes have since risen acutely, bringing a new sense of urgency and creating an opportunity to boost the level of reform ambition for global food systems.

More than 150 countries took part in the event, which took place entirely on line, wrapping up a process that has generated a remarkable level of mobilisation and public debate through multiple platforms. Although the summit revealed ample consensus on the need for a radical reform of food systems, it also evidenced profound divergences as to how to approach the daunting tasks ahead.  

A follow-up mechanism has been designed to advance the national and global transformative actions announced at the summit, and the United Nations Secretary-General will convene a global stock-taking meeting every two years to measure progress.

This briefing updates an earlier edition, published in September 2021 ahead of the Summit.

Read the complete Briefing on ‘United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021: Process, challenges and the way forward‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

• Why a food summit
• The food system in the context of other systems

A makeshift migrant camp on Belarus' border with Poland has been cleared, Minsk said Thursday (18 November), as hundreds of Iraqis who failed to make the crossing to enter the European Union returned home.

The scramble over the role of gas and nuclear in the EU's sustainable finance rules has become a source of tension in the German government talks as the country's first ever three-party coalition is being negotiated in Berlin.

Street clashes again shook Khartoum as internet services returned to Sudan on Thursday (18 November), a day after 15 protesters were killed in the bloodiest violence since the country’s 25 October coup. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken led a...

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer visiting Warsaw, some Irish vaccination centres reporting that about half of those who booked a booster shot had failed to show up, and so much more.

The European Commission has until February 2022 to comply with the EU Ombudsman’s recommendation to provide data related to the origins of imported Used Cooking Oil (UCO) biofuel in the EU, amid concerns over alleged fraud cases.