European Union

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, made an impassioned plea for the planet at the European Parliament on Tuesday (16 April), urging MEPs to “start panicking about climate change” rather than "waste time arguing about Brexit".

Several EU member states, including France, have chosen to implement laws that would allow the trading of energy saving certificates, an important shift towards saving energy.

Energy saving certificates, or white certificates, were meant to be the answer to France’s slow progress in reducing energy consumption. However, there is far more demand than supply, resulting in a surge in prices of certificates, which have more than doubled in a year. EURACTIV France reports.

In Strasbourg, President Donald Tusk expressed EU solidarity with the French nation in the aftermath of the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral and addressed the plenary session of the European Parliament on the European Council discussions on the Brexit extension.

Plenary session, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Later this autumn, on 2-3 October 2019, EDA will organise a Workshop on Medical Treatment Facilities (MTF) and Telemedicine in order to support and facilitate future Multinational Medical Modular Unit (M3U) capability development and to foster and establish a dialogue with industry.

The main objective of the workshop will be to identify requirements for development of new MTF and telemedicine solutions as well as advanced products and services within two specific areas:

• Field hospitals for future CSDP operations. The ambition is to look for new systems to realize or provide cost-effective solutions for new generations of MTF in order to support collaborative development of a multinational deployable field hospital capability - ROLE 2 Basic Highly Mobile (Role 3). The workshop will allow the concrete discussions on the way ahead and on how national requirements can be harmonised with a view to moving towards procurement.
• Telemedicine. The main focus here is on IT and advanced technology solutions starting at the point of injury (POI) and continuing through the military medical chain up to developing complete solutions, medical equipment and material development applicable to surgery, resuscitation and diagnostics as well as on computers and robots able to perform telemedicine within MTF.
   

Questionnaire

In order to prepare the workshop and to ensure an objective and balanced discussion, EDA invites industry to provide input and express their views and expectations via a special questionnaire prepared by the Agency. The questionnaire has been also distributed via National Defence Industry Associations (NDIAs) and AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD). EDA encourages industry to participate in the survey as this will contribute to ensuring a high-quality workshop.

Industrial representatives will be invited to the workshop to present their products and solutions, and to discuss and share their views on concrete medium and long-term developments. The eligibility and selection criteria for participation are presented in the questionnaire. Submissions will be judged on their innovativeness and relevance as well as ability to stimulate discussion on the future role of Medical support.

Participation in this call for papers is open to companies of any size as well as academic, semi-governmental research institutes and associations or grouping of industrial suppliers.
 

How to submit 

• The questionnaire can be uploaded here
• Send your response to the questionnaire to CAP@eda.europa.eu, with a copy to Daniel.PETRILAK@eda.europa.eu; 
• Deadline for submissions is 22 May 2019.
  
  

More information: 

• Medical Support (EDA project page);

DISCLAIMER: All opinions in this dossier reflect the views of the author(s), not of EURACTIV.COM Ltd. “Healthy democracies depend on a healthy media sector,” Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel told a recent EURACTIV event. Yet, the media sector consistently faces multiple challenges, notably...

Written by Naja Bentzen and Alessandro D’Alfonso,

© millenius / Fotolia

Having been a part of the European Community since 1973 through Denmark’s membership, Greenland withdrew from the European Community in 1985 after the island secured home rule from Denmark. Since then, Greenland has been associated with the European Union as an Overseas Country and Territory (OCT). The purpose of this association is ‘to promote the economic and social development of the countries and territories and to establish close economic relations between them and the Union as a whole’.

Various documents cover Greenland’s relations with the EU, including the 2014-2020 EU-Greenland Partnership Agreement that aims to contribute to the diversification of Greenland’s economy. The explicit political ambition is to ensure policy dialogue on global issues of common interest. The main areas of cooperation include education and training, energy, climate, environment and biodiversity, natural resources, maritime transport and research and innovation, in addition to Arctic issues.

As part of the partnership, and taking Greenland’s needs into account, the focal point of EU-Greenland financial cooperation is education and training, with a special emphasis on boosting the pre-school and elementary school system, as well as on providing support for vocational education and post-elementary education.

The EU allocates an indicative amount of €217.8 million (current prices) for financial cooperation with Greenland for the 2014-2020 period. The overarching aim of this financial cooperation is to contribute to an inclusive and coherent education system, while specific objectives focus on reducing inequality, improving the quality of the education system, and making it more efficient.

The EU budget channels financial cooperation with Greenland, contrary to the case for all other OCTs, which receive support from the European Development Fund. As regards the aid modality, the European Commission grants budget support for the implementation of the Greenland education programme, which is led by Greenland’s Ministry of Education, Church, Culture and Gender Equality, in cooperation with other ministries and stakeholders.

The evaluation of the 2014 Greenland Decision, which lays down rules for the EU-Greenland Partnership, fed into the mid-term review of the EU’s 2014-2020 external financing instruments (2017). This deemed the choice of education as the focal sector to be relevant to beneficiaries’ needs in Greenland: there is a broad consensus in Greenland that education is ‘the most relevant growth parameter’. The evaluation stressed that the fact that the education sector had been chosen by the Greenland government ensured strong support and ownership.

According to the evaluation, attempts to expand the official policy dialogue to include areas of mutual interest other than education had not yet been achieved. The document added that, while it was still too early to see a significant impact in terms of diversifying Greenland’s economy, the instrument had triggered positive dynamics and contributed to sustainable development by improving educational attainment.

On the basis of the assessment of current external financing instruments, the European Commission has proposed to streamline funding for OCTs and channel it entirely through the EU budget for the post-2020 programming period, with special arrangements for Greenland. The proposed resources for the years 2021 to 2027 amount to €500 million for all OCTs, including Greenland.

Read this briefing on ‘EU cooperation with Greenland‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Plenary session, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

For the first time, people who are in need of full-time care due to severe disabilities are allowed to vote - including in EU elections. This was decided by the Federal Constitutional Court, though the coalition of CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats wanted to postpone the decision due to time constraints. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt warned on Tuesday (16 April) that the decision to grant the United Kingdom a Brexit extension last week could “poison” the European elections, in which the UK is now likely to take part.

The devastation of Paris's Notre Dame cathedral is a blow to all Europe and all Europe will contribute to its rebuilding, leaders of the European Union declared on Tuesday (16 April) at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

As we approach the EU elections, the Eurosceptic political rhetoric in Hungary and Poland is once again rising. This is hardly surprising, given the critical view the governing parties and their leaders, Viktor Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczyński, share towards the EU...

An independent panel of experts in each member state should instead guide the European Commission on legal proceedings and use of EU funds when national governments act in bad faith.

Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg will address MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday afternoon. "I expect them to take action now because there is not much time," she told journalists ahead of the meeting. "We still have an open window that is not going to be open for long," she added. Thunberg helped inspire thousands of young Europeans to protest for more climate action. "They have made history", she said.

Notre-Dame de Paris, one of France's most famous edifices built more than 800 years ago, has been severely damaged in a fire that broke out on Monday evening. Renovation work is thought to have caused the fire. President Macron has pledged that the cathedral will be rebuilt. Commentators lament the destruction of the Parisian landmark and draw parallels with the state of France and Europe.