European Union

With the informal meeting of the defense minister and then the foreign minister in the last week of August, the Austrian Presidency enters crunch mode. EURACTIV Germany reports from Vienna.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke against setting more ambitious EU climate targets on Sunday (26 August) but supported the idea of a transition towards a decarbonised transport sector. 

Emmerson Mnangagwa was officially sworn in as president of Zimbabwe on Sunday (26 August) after winning a bitterly-contested election which was the country's first since the ousting of strongman Robert Mugabe.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly told broadcast ARD she is unhappy about the European Commission's proposal to adopt stricter climate targets for 2030. "This constant setting of new targets, I don't think it makes sense," she was quoted as having said by Bloomberg. "I'm not so happy about these new proposals, since many EU member countries are already behind in meeting their pledges."

French leader Emmanuel Macron is to renew his 2017 appeal for deeper EU integration in a speech to French ambassadors in Paris Monday. He is to call for a single eurozone budget, an EU defence force, and a new migration policy despite the rise of anti-EU populist powers in Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland and further afield. Macron will also visit Denmark and Finland this week on a mini EU tour.

Britain has set aside €111m to research its own satellite positioning system after Brexit the Sunday Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported. The move comes amid concern it will be locked out of the EU's €10bn Galileo satellite project after the UK leaves the EU. Galileo, which rivals US systems, is to be operational in 2020. A UK-only system could cost up to €3.3bn, one expert said.

The EU commission has endorsed the idea of a Kosovo-Serbia border change, going against Germany and breaking a former taboo.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading MP in the hard-Brexit camp in Britain's ruling Conservative party, has caused controversy after endorsing post-Brexit border checks in Ireland. "There would be our ability, as we had during the Troubles, to have people inspected," he said in a video of a public meeting from earlier this year which surfaced on Saturday. The Troubles, or Northern Ireland conflict, claimed some 3,500 lives.

With European elections coming up in May 2019, you probably want to know how the European Union impacts your daily life, before you think about voting. In the latest in a series of posts on what Europe does for you, your family, your business and your wellbeing, we look at what Europe does for people interested in Massive Open Online Courses.

Are you thinking of upgrading your skills? Online learning is a good way to go back to school without giving up your other activities. Some 23 million new students signed up for their first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in 2017, taking the global number of learners to 81 million. If you are in the process of selecting a higher education institution, you may want to choose one of the over 1 700 MOOCs offered by various platforms and universities in the EU.

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OpenupEd, launched by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities and supported by Erasmus+ is a pan-European MOOC initiative. Learners can choose from over 200 MOOCs in the 8 languages of its EU partners plus Russian, Hebrew, Turkish and Arabic.

© bnenin / Fotolia

Over 1 million people have enrolled with the EU-supported German platform iversity, one of the few platforms offering online courses that award the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which aims to make it easier for students to move between countries. If you want to learn how to ‘Make the most of EU resources for your region or city‘, then the iversity MOOC is the one for you!

Other big MOOC providers in the EU include the British platform FutureLearn, led by the Open University, with 145 partners worldwide and boasting nearly 8 million learners. The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia has a substantial share of MOOCs in Spain. France Université Numérique, the first French digital learning portal, broadcasts 269 MOOCs in 2017 to over 900 000 users worldwide. Are you ready to give it a go?

Further information

• EPRS publication on New global interactive strategies for teaching and learning, 2014, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/New-global-interactive-strategies-for-teaching-and-learning.pdf
• OpenupEd website, http://www.openuped.eu/openuped-temp/59-about-openuped

Washington is pressing the European Union to speed up trade negotiations launched after last month’s meeting between US President Donald Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, two German and a US official said on Saturday (25 August).

Although the 150 migrants stranded on the Diciotti rescue ship were able to disembark on Sunday (26 August), Italy’s firebrand Interior Minister Matteo Salvini engaged in another vilification of the EU, calling it “filth” and reiterating threats to stop EU funding.

Brussels should accept an agreement between Serbs and ethnic Albanians to settle their long-standing dispute over Kosovo, a top EU official said on Sunday (26 August), seeking to dispel fears that any redrawing of Balkan borders might reignite feuds in the volatile region.

Electric trucks will come – and fast. More and more studies show that they are not only feasible to build, but also profitable to operate. And zero emission trucks will be needed to meet the Paris climate goals, write Stef Cornelis and Thomas Earl.

Many forecasts predict an economic slump for the UK after the country's exit. But the example of Norway shows that Europe can also do well outside the EU. In an interview with EURACTIV Germany, historian Idar Helle explains possible conclusions from the "Norwegian model" for post-Brexit Britain.

Iran is awaiting European guarantees on the sale of Iranian oil and banking relations, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday (25 August), according to the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).

Negotiators of a free trade deal between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur want to wrap up by September, but differences over beef, sugar and the auto industry could dash those hopes, Brazilian foreign minister Aloysio Nunes said.

Italian bond yields matched their highest level over Spain since 2012 on Friday (24 August) as the economic and fiscal trajectories of the two countries diverge and investors ignored supportive comments for Italy from US President Donald Trump.

With European elections coming up in May 2019, you probably want to know how the European Union impacts your daily life, before you think about voting. In the latest in a series of posts on what Europe does for you, your family, your business and your wellbeing, we look at what Europe does for cultural tourists.

If you choose your holiday destinations on the basis of the cultural sites or museums to visit, as 40 % of European tourists do, you may be interested to know how the EU supports sites that are off the beaten track and helps them link up with similar sites in cross-border areas. These often hidden treasures are economic assets and it is important to attract tourists to visit them.

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Two museums in northern France have benefited from EU funds. The Calais Lace Museum, based in the old Boulart lace factory, highlights the shared history of France and England and old and new uses of lace in fashion. Le Louvre-Lens provides an opportunity to enjoy the treasures of the world famous Parisian museum at a lower cost and perhaps closer to home.

© olly / Fotolia

The EU has also supported the Danube Limes archaeological sites along the lower Danube in Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, tracing the borders of the Roman Empire across the region. The aim is to preserve the sites and promote tourism, focusing on common heritage and joining up with other sections of limes to form an extended Unesco cultural heritage site.

A number of wooden Orthodox churches on the Polish-Slovak border and renovated with EU funds are on the Unesco heritage list. Along with other wooden monuments they form part of a wooden architecture route. The EuroVelo 3 Pilgrims Route meanwhile, co-financed by the EU in the context of sustainable tourism, is a cycle path from Norway, via Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and France, to Santiago de Compostela, following the ancient Saint James pilgrimage route.

Further information

• EPRS publication on ‘Tourism and the European Union’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/568343/EPRS_IDA(2015)568343_EN.pdf
• European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs website, http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/tourism/offer/cultural_en

With nine months to go before European parliament elections, France's President Emmanuel Macron will on Monday (27 August) renew his plea for a more integrated EU, against a global wave of nationalism.

The 2019 European elections could be hit by a spate of cyberattacks, which could even prevent the new European Parliament from convening, a report led by the Estonian Information System Authority has warned.