European Union

Spain's lower house on Thursday adopted, with 172 votes against two, a government decree to exhume former dictator Franco from the controversial mausoleum in the Valley of the Fallen, near Madrid, where he was buried after his death in 1975, along with fascist soldiers. The decree was adopted thanks to the abstention of the centre-right Popular Party and liberal Ciudadanos.

Written by Didier Bourguignon,

© ChrisVanLennepPhoto / Fotolia

Global material use has tripled during the past four decades, in particular as a result of increasing living standards. The use of materials, which need to be extracted from our environment, can pose environmental challenges. It can also be threatened by resource scarcity and price volatility. This is particularly true for Europe, which is strongly dependent on imported materials.

There are a number of ways to consider material use in the European Union (EU). The breakdown of material use by types of materials indicates that non-metallic minerals, which include sand and gravel, account for almost half of the materials used in the EU. Material flows provide an overall picture of how materials enter, are used and finally leave the economy. Some of these materials stay in stocks, which are growing year after year. However, the efficiency of material use, measured through resource productivity, has increased substantially since 2000, in part as a result of the economic crisis.

Material use in the EU is steered by policies related to different areas such as energy, waste and industry. Relevant policy documents include the 2011 roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe, the 2013 seventh Environment Action Programme and the 2015 circular economy action plan.

The EU supports these policies with funding. Funding channels include the Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation, which allocated about €635 million between 2014 and 2020 for research on raw-material-related challenges. The European structural and investment funds also support developing more efficient material use practices.

The European Parliament has advocated making the use of harmonised indicators for resource efficiency legally binding in the Member States and setting targets for increasing resource efficiency. Parliament has also supported broadening the scope of eco-design requirements to gradually include all relevant resource-efficiency features in product-design requirements.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Material use in the European Union: Towards a circular approach‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Increasing the tax take in African countries lies at the heart of the global development goals agreed by world leaders in 2014 and 2015. But progress towards meeting that goal has been slow.

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross cancelled a meeting with member states’ permanent representatives on Thursday (13 September) to discuss EU-US trade talks as he returned back to the US due to hurricane Florence.

Four MEPs have written to Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades warning if he cooperates with Russia on hounding British human rights activist Bill Browder then his country ought to "face consequences for the abrogation of its commitments to the EU...including sanctions available under the EU rule of law framework". The left-wing, liberal, and Green deputies spoke out as MEPs triggered a sanctions procedure against Hungary on Wednesday.

The European Parliament approved on Thursday, with 420 votes against 186, the opening of talks on visa liberalisation for citizens of Kosovo. The vote follows an assessment by the European Commission in July saying that the country, which is still not recognised by five member states, had fulfilled all the criteria.

In his last State of the Union Address, Jean-Claude Juncker has appealed to the EU's sense of self-confidence. Europe must "become a more sovereign actor on the world stage" and take its future into its own hands, the EU Commission president stressed. Hardly a stirring speech, nevertheless Juncker has kicked off the European elections in the right way, commentators believe.

The EU Parliament has voted by the necessary two-thirds majority in favour of opening a punishment procedure against Hungary for breaching the EU's core principles. The member states must now decide which sanctions should be imposed. Some commentators see the vote as a symbolic decision. Others believe that Hungary's government has only apparently suffered a defeat.

The EU Parliament has decided in favour of a new intellectual property law aimed at strengthening the rights of publishers, artists and journalists. Internet platforms must prevent content protected by copyright from being put online. The reform will be put to vote in the member states next spring. How useful are the new regulations?