European Union

Boris Johnson’s UK government put itself on collision course with the EU on Wednesday after publishing a bill that would breach key parts of its Withdrawal Agreement with the bloc.

EU diplomats are keeping a round-the-clock guard at the home of Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian writer and opposition activist, amid fears for her safety.

Moria is burning, and with it, the European values we pretend to uphold. This is how Green MEP Philippe Lamberts described the tragic events at Greece’s overcrowded migrant camp of Moria after a fire broke out there on Tuesday night....

Germany's ruling coalition has reached an agreement on the amendment to the 62-year old Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB). In the future, authorities will take stronger action against online giants that abuse their market power. EURACTIV Germany reports.

The risk of climate change and the spread of infectious diseases are seen as the top threats by the majority of people in 14 economically advanced nations, a recent study by the Pew Research Center has found.

For two years now, French association Pépite Sexiste has been fighting against gender stereotypes in advertising. It has now decided to go international and has even launched one of its subsidiaries in Germany called Servus Sexismus. EURACTIV France reports.

Mission accomplished for EDA’s ‘Enhanced RPAS Automation’ (ERA) project launched in 2016 by EDA on behalf of Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Sweden. The project aimed at standardising a set of key technical enablers for the operation of both civil and military RPAS in Europe and was formally closed at today’s 4th online stakeholder workshop, where its results were reviewed. 

ERA has contributed to setting industry standards that provide the technical and procedural baseline for the certification in Europe of automatic take-off and landing, autotaxi and automation and emergency recovery functionalities. The validation activities required for standardization purposes were successfully carried out and nearly all performance and functional requirements were validated by the simulations, review, analysis, and flight tests. 

The relevant information for standardisation has been provided to the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE). Finally, ERA’s consortium has led the standards’ development, following EUROCAE’s standardisation process and involving a broader stakeholder community, including the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). In the safety context, ERA has proposed the bow-tie methodology for the Operational Safety Assessment, as requested by the current EUROCAE guidelines. This methodology offers the advantage to get a complete picture of the hazards relevant to the whole operation, which include, but are not limited to, system failures.

These standards will be published by EUROCAE towards the end of 2020, once the open consultation, the last step in EUROCAE’s standardisation process, is accomplished. This would enable both Civil and Military Aviation Authorities to recognize these EUROCAE standards and include them in their certification basis for RPAS operations in Europe.
Follow on activities

The project originally involved a test campaign with an ultra-light manned aircraft that could not be accomplished due to several technical issues with the test aircraft in the final phases of the project. These problems together with the COVID-19 crisis during this period, forced the cancellation of the ‘Automatic Take-off and Landing’ and ‘Autotaxi’ demonstrations. These tests to be performed with a representative RPAS are now proposed as a follow-on activity.

Furthermore, regarding the Operational Safety Assessment, supporting EASA on the definition of Safety Assessment guidelines for RPAS in the certified category could be also envisaged for a potential next phase of the ERA project.
 

Background

The ERA industrial consortium was led by Airbus Defence and Space, and composed of sixteen partners from five EDA Member States: Airbus Defence and Space and ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH  from Germany; Safran, Thales and ONERA from France; Saab from Sweden; Leonardo from Italy; and nine partners from Poland: Air Force Institute of Technology (leadership Polish consortium), Institute of Aviation, Hertz Systems Ltd., EUROTECH, PIAP (Przemysłowy Instytut Automatyki i Pomiarów), Eskadra Grzegorz Trzeciak, Politechnika Rzeszowska (Rzeszow University of Technology - RUT), WB Electronics S.A., Asseco Poland S.A.

 

While waiting for the go-ahead to the overhauled Drinking Water Directive (DWD), some EU member states, as well as the UK, have already started implementing methods for microbiological analysis of water quality suggested in the new rules.

A broad spectrum of stakeholders have spoken out on EU plans to regulate the online ecosystem as part of its forthcoming Digital Services Act package, with fierce jockeying over the extent to which the EU will introduce new rules for the digital economy.

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday (9 September) it has suspended global trials of its coronavirus vaccine, in a fresh setback for the global race to find a vaccine.

Europe’s largest and most influential political faction, the European People’s Party (EPP), has rallied behind an EU objective of curbing greenhouse gas emissions 55% by 2030, anticipating an announcement next week by the European Commission.

EU leaders will ask the European Commission later this month to develop an EU-wide public electronic identification (e-ID) to access cross-border digital services, according to the draft summit conclusions seen by EURACTIV.com.

The poisoning of Alexei Navalny and Minsk's brutal treatment of members of the opposition have upped pressure for a joint reaction in Brussels. Commentators seize the occasion to reflect on how the EU positions itself in relation to autocratic rulers. Which standards apply to which countries, and might the EU not itself be promoting some unjust regimes?

In the run-up to the eighth round of negotiations on future EU-UK relations which began this week on Tuesday, the British prime minister threatened to break off talks if an agreement is not reached by October 15. London is also apparently planning laws that run counter to the 2019 agreement with Brussels. Europe's press looks for the motives behind this U-turn.