European Union

Reaching a deal for the full normalisation of the relations between Belgrade and Pristina is of crucial importance also for the EU, although time is running out, writes Bekim Çollaku.

The EU is willing to strike an "ambitious" deal with post-Brexit Britain far beyond any agreements the bloc has made with other countries in the past, the European Union's top negotiator reiterated Wednesday (29 August).

Standard political arguments of dependence are ineffective in times of a well-developed and diversified EU natural gas market. In the mid- to long-term, Trump's approach will damage European-American relations, Matthias Dornfeldt writes.

Rome will today (30 August) ask the European Union to rotate the ports where migrants rescued at sea disembark, Defence Minister Elisabetta Trenta said, with France and Spain expected to top the list.

The European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) organises a public event in Brussels, Belgium on 19 September.

The more discord persists in the West over the means of responding to Iranian covert operations, the more impact these operations will have, writes Alejo Vidal-Quadras.

EU border guards are interviewing migrants arriving to the continent to gather “valuable” information to fight against the smugglers and human traffickers.

Spanish ethanol producer Abengoa and Belgium peer Alcogroup have been charged by European Union antitrust regulators with rigging ethanol benchmarks and are likely to face fines next year, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday (29 August).

Panasonic Corp is to move its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam in October to avoid potential tax issues linked to Brexit, the Nikkei Asian Review said on Thursday.

By 2030, global greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by up to an additional 2.2 Gigatonne CO2 a year compared to what would be achieved through current national policies if individual commitments from nearly 8,000 non-state actors are fully implemented, a new report published today (30 August) shows.

Spain will not tolerate violent attempts to enter the country, the government said on Wednesday (August 29), in response to criticism of its swift return of 116 illegal migrants to Morocco after they stormed the fence bordering one of its North African enclaves.

Macron has said he was happy to play "main opponent" to new Hungary-Italy axis of anti-migrant politicians, as EU prepares for next year's elections.

The EU machinery is slowly returning to activity this week after the summer pause. Juncker’s last State of the Union address to this Parliament in two weeks will guide the final period of his Commission. But above all he will polish his record and offer his farewell vision about the future of Europe.

The Liberal and Democrat group in the European Parliament has called to revoke the Sakharov prize for human rights which the parliament awarded to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990, when she was a political prisoner, because of the current repression of her government against the Rohingya minority. The parliament should "send a clear message that these horrible crimes will not go without punishment," said MEP Urmas Paet.

Louisa (26, Germany) is a pedagogue, passionate about music and environment, whose goal is to raise awareness on the need for sustainability on the music festival scene. For a month, she has been one of the travellers of the Road Trip Project financed by the European Commission.

Struck in 2000 in Benin, the Cotonou Agreement has shaped relations between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) for nearly 20 years. The accord expires in 2020 and negotiations between the European Union and the ACP on its successor will begin in the coming weeks.

The Cotonou agreement has regulated cooperation between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries since 2000. With negotiations on its successor about to start, the results so far seem mixed. EURACTIV France reports.

The European Commission called on France and the UK to resolve "in an amicable way" a dispute between fishermen of the two countries over scallop fishing. A British boat has been filmed colliding with French boats while French fishermen, who have to wait until 1 October to fish scallop, tried to prevent Brits from fishing in international waters off the Normandy coast.

Thd European Commission will "soon" publish policy recommendations on whether and how to review legislation on daylight-saving time and maybe scrap summertime changes. The recommendations will follow a public consultation that ended earlier this month with a record 4.6 million answers. "It's not the only element that we will take into account", the commission spokesman said Wednesday, adding the EU executive will talk with the European Parliament and stakholders.

Written by Angelos Delivorias (1st edition),

© nito / Fotolia

As a part of the European regulatory responses to the financial and sovereign debt crises, the European Commission has proposed a regulation on sovereign bond-backed securities (SBBS), a new class of low-risk securities backed by a diversified pool of national government bonds. The proposal seeks to provide an enabling framework for a market-led development of SBBS, thus encouraging banks and investors to diversify their holdings of euro area bonds. The proposal is meant to address a weakness that appeared during the aforementioned crises, when banks’ high exposure to their sovereigns’ own debt, coupled with deteriorating creditworthiness of those sovereigns, led to balance sheet strains for banks. This in turn put pressure on government budgets, thus creating mutual contagion and financial instability. The procedure is currently at the initial stage in the European Parliament and the Council.

Versions

• August 2018: ‘Sovereign bond-backed securities: Risk diversification and reduction‘ (1st edition)

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on sovereign bond-backed securities Committee responsible: Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) COM(2018) 339
24.5.2018 Rapporteur: Jakob von Weizsäcker (S&D, Germany) 2018/0171 (COD) Shadow rapporteurs:

 

  Fulvio Martusciello (EPP, Italy)
Bernd Lucke (ECR, Germany)
Enrique Calvet Chambon (ALDE, Spain)
Martin Schirdewan (GUE/NGL, Germany)
Ernest Urtasun (Greens/EFA, Spain)
Marco Zanni (ENF, Italy) Ordinary legislative procedure (COD) (Parliament and Council on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’) Next steps expected: Publication of draft report