European Union

French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, said on Sunday that her party "will be dead by the end of August" if French judges decided to block €2m of state subsidies to the party, according to AFP. The judges reportedly have decided to stop the money as part of an investigation into alleged misuse by the party of European parliamentary funds.

Italy's far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, will make a request on Thursday when meeting EU interior ministers in Innsbruck that refugees who are rescued at sea by ships from border control missions are no longer taken to Italy. Salvini announced his intentions on social media on Sunday after an Irish navy ship arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina with 106 migrants, after participating in the EU-sponsored Operation Sophia.

With a NATO summit in Brussels on 11-12 July and a tête-à-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, this week will give Donald Trump a chance to elaborate on that surprising diplomatic doctrine, but only at the risk of further fueling tensions with the country's already deeply unsettled allies.

China remains open for trade with foreign partners and can only benefit from an economically strong Europe, its premier said on Saturday (7 July) as he pressed for expanded ties with the continent's eastern wing while waging a tariff war with Washington.

Germany plans to use public money to support companies which invest in Africa, part of a new "Marshall Plan" with which it hopes to tackle the roots of the refugee crisis that has convulsed European politics since 2015.

When NATO leaders meet in Brussels this week they should have Georgia on their minds, write Amanda Paul and Ana Andguladze.

Rolling Stones legendary frontman Mick Jagger touched on Poland's controversial judicial reforms at a concert yesterday (8 July) in Warsaw, after anti-communist freedom icon Lech Walesa urged the rockers to support Poles "defending freedom" over court changes that critics say undermine democracy.

Britain's Brexit minister David Davis resigned yesterday (8 July) in a major blow for Prime Minister Theresa May as she struggles to unite her party behind a plan to retain strong economic ties to the European Union even after leaving the bloc.

The European Snacks Association (ESA) recently organised the 5th edition of its “Share A Snack” event on the crowded Place Luxembourg to raise awareness about savoury snacks products and debunk common myths in a convivial atmosphere.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will be sworn in for a second term today (9 July), wielding hefty new constitutional powers as he oversees a radically different system of government.

The ongoing reform of "capacity markets" for electricity, which remunerate power plants for remaining on standby in case of demand peak, should be technologically neutral in order to allow disruptive technologies like digitalisation and blockchain to develop, argue energy experts from across Europe.

Current proposals put forward by the EU won't solve the migration problem, particularly with predictions of Africa's population doubling by 2050. Africa and Europe would both benefit from resetting their relations, writes Karl Aiginger.

Here are the key points of the plan agreed Friday (6 July) between warring factions within the UK cabinet, long divided between those seeking a clean break with the EU and others wanting to maintain a closer relationship with the...

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 wanting to gain digital skills.

We live in a digital age, where the fast pace of technological development is transforming our economies and societies profoundly. Almost all jobs now require some level of digital skills, as does participation in society in general. In this context, digital literacy has become a life skill and the inability to access or use the internet seems unthinkable to many of us. However, about 44 % of adults in the EU have low digital skills and about 20 % have never used the internet, which can hamper their social integration and personal development.

© Rawpixel.com / Fotolia

While education remains a responsibility of the individual Member States, the EU supports actions aimed at improving digital skills. Since 2007, ’digital competence’ has been recognised as one of the eight essential skills to have in relation to lifelong learning.

The EU has been investing for more than 20 years, under the Structural Funds, in digital literacy projects for all, including for socially disadvantaged groups. It has funded programmes aimed at helping teachers and learners with digital technologies, and research projects aimed at developing user-friendly accessible technology. As part of the New Skills Agenda for Europe initiative, an EU digital competence framework has been developed to better test abilities. A digital skills job coalition has also been launched, where the EU has gone into partnership with stakeholders to work together to help improve digital skills.

Further information

• EPRS briefing, Digital skills in the EU labour market, 2017, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2017/595889/EPRS_IDA(2017)595889_EN.pdf
• EPRS briefing, Bridging the digital divide in the EU, 2015, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2015/573884/EPRS_BRI(2015)573884_EN.pdf
• European Commission, New Skills Agenda for Europe, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1223#qualifications

 

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 phone and internet users.

Almost all of us use telecom services: about 82 % of EU citizens have used the internet in the last 3 months, 360 million Europeans use it every day and there are around 700 million SIM cards currently in circulation in the EU.

The European telecom sector used to be run exclusively by state monopolies. However, in the 1980s the EU started promoting liberalisation, gradually opening the markets up to competition. This brought prices for telecom services down: the traditional providers’ share of the fixed-line telephone market shrunk, and in most countries consumers began paying less for national long-distance and international calls. New entrants in both the fixed-line and mobile markets have given consumers a greater choice of service provider and products. Thanks to EU action, roaming charges for calls, text messages and data were finally abolished on 15 June 2017. This means people travelling abroad within the EU are using their mobile phones much more than before. In effect, Europeans tend to spend on less on telecommunication services than the citizens or USA or Japan.

© F8studio / Fotolia

The EU has also done a lot to promote broadband. This has helped to reduce prices in most EU countries and means that 99.9 % of EU households now have access to fixed or mobile broadband. EU consumer protection laws, meanwhile, aim to guarantee a reasonable quality of service at affordable prices, ensure free access to emergency telephone numbers, the right to a written contract lasting just two years, transparent information, and the possibility to switch providers in a day without changing phone number.

Further information

• EPRS publication on roam like at home by default, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/595857/EPRS_BRI%282016%29595857_EN.pdf
• EPRS publication on broadband as a universal service, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/581977/EPRS_BRI(2016)581977_EN.pdf
• EPRS publication on European Gigabit Society, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI(2017)603979

 

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 who hate wasting food.

Approximately 88 million tonnes of food, or 173 kilograms per person, is wasted in the EU per year, according to estimates by an EU-funded research project FUSIONS. Households and processing together account for 72 % of EU food waste.

© SpeedKingz/ Shutterstock.com

In August 2016, an EU platform on food loss and food waste was established, to help EU countries tackle the problem. The European Commission has announced that it will try to clarify EU legislation make food donation easier and enable the use of former foodstuffs for animal feed. One important aim is to improve date marking: in particular ‘best before’ labelling, which consumers find confusing and can lead them to throw away food that could still be used. The Commission has compiled a set of good practices in food waste reduction on its food waste website, including examples of food redistribution programmes in EU countries.

The European Court of Auditors released a special report on combating food waste in January 2017. Under the new waste framework directive, the Commission will create a common methodology to calculate food waste by the end of 2019, and urge EU countries to reduce food waste by 30 % by 2025 and to halve it by 2030. The EU-funded research programme REFRESH, running until June 2019, is testing new approaches to tackle food waste through pilot projects. An EU-funded study on date marking, published in February 2018, will also inform EU prevention of food waste.

Further information

• European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Food Safety website,
  https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste_en
• European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Food Safety website,
  https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste/eu_actions_en
• EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service: series of publications relating to food waste in Europe, https://bit.ly/2HECZxV

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 cooks and foodies.

As a cook or a ‘foodie’, you value products that are delicious, authentic and safe. Europeans enjoy a wide choice of top quality products, ranging from Greek olive oil, Spanish ham and Belgian chocolate, to Swedish herring. Thanks to the freedom of trading within the internal market, all of these products can be sold anywhere in the EU. You can be sure that the food is safe to eat because of EU food safety rules, strict limits for pesticide residues and mandatory information about allergens.

Some regional specialities have a long tradition and a reputation for high quality. EU quality logos protect such geographical products against cheating, so you know that a product sold as Parma ham is actually made in the Parma region according to quality standards.

Are you afraid that delicacies like bluefin tuna will disappear from the shelves, due to overfishing? Fishing quotas in EU waters are increasingly based on scientific criteria, to ensure that fish stocks have a chance to regenerate.

© M.studio / Fotolia

As a consumer, you are interested in what your food contains and how it is produced. EU rules ensure that food products are labelled with the ingredients and the nutritional value, and the EU organic label certifies that products satisfy strict rules regarding animal welfare and the use of pesticides and fertilisers.

In reaction to reports that branded products sold in new EU Member States use lower-quality ingredients than similarly branded products sold elsewhere, the European Commission issued guidelines to ensure that all consumers in the EU have access to the same high-quality products.

Further information

• EPRS publication ‘European Commission guidelines on dual quality of branded food products’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI(2017)608804
• Fact Sheets on the European Union: Food Safety,http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_2.2.6.html
• European Commission website on EU quality logos, https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/quality/schemes_en
• European Commission website ‘The organic logo guarantees’, https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/consumer-trust/certification-and-confidence/the-organic-logo-guarantees_en

Weekly schedule of President Donald Tusk 9-15 July 2018

On 6 July, the Council adopted a decision on the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan, in view of the EU-Japan summit on 11 July 2018.

Written by Marcin Grajewski,

© jpldesigns / Fotolia

US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for a historic summit in Singapore on 12 June 2018. They reached a short agreement that emphasised the North’s commitment to ‘work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula’, but provided no details on when Pyongyang would give up nuclear weapons or how that might be verified. Following the summit, the United States announced it had agreed with South Korea to suspend all planning on joint military exercises.

This note offers links to reports and commentaries from some major international think-tanks and research institutes on the summit. More reports on North Korea and related issues can be found in a previous edition of ‘What Think Tanks are thinking’, published in June 2018 before the summit.

Trump-Kim summit: Gambler’s diplomacy
European Council on Foreign Relations, June 2018

Trump-Kim summit: China and Kim are winners
Atlantic Council, June 2018

US–North Korea summit statement lacks definition
Chatham House, June 2018

Does China win or lose from the US-North Korea thaw?
Cato Institute, June 2018

US-North Korea summit explained: The key players’ views
KF-VUB, German Marshall Fund, June 2018

The Singapore summit’s uncertain legacy
Council on Foreign Relations, June 2018

No, the North Korean nuclear threat is not “over”
Carnegie Europe, June 2018

Are the Korean Peninsula and the world safer after Singapore?
United States Institute of Peace, June 2018

Faint praise for the Trump–Kim Singapore Summit statement
International Institute for Strategic Studies, June 2018

The North Korean summit is over: Now for the hard part
Center for a New American Security, June 2018

Singapore summit: North East Asia set for strategic realignment
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, June 2018

US-North Korea summit: Singapore round goes to Chairman Kim
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, June 2018

The conventional military balance on the Korean Peninsula
International Institute for Strategic Studies, June 2018

Success with North Korea still needs Japan
Rand Corporation, June 2018

Don’t dismiss the Trump-Kim summit so quickly
Brookings Institution, June 2018

Kim Jong-un’s two strategic decisions
Korea Economic Institute, June 2018

China’s Xi Jinping will sleep more soundly after the Singapore summit
Royal United Services Institute, June 2018

Singapore was just the first episode of Trump’s North Korea show
The German Marshall Fund of the United States, June 2018

How to increase pressure if diplomacy with North Korea fails
Atlantic Council, June 2018

Singapore summit: It’s a start, not a miracle
Heritage Foundation, June 2018

What does the Singapore summit mean for South Korea, China and Japan?
United States Institute of Peace, June 2018

Singapore summit: The meeting is the message
Council on Foreign Relations, June 2018

5 steps to take after Trump’s North Korea summit
Cato Institute, June 2018

Beyond the Trump-Kim summit: A coalition is critical for achieving denuclearization
Atlantic Council, June 2018

Kim Jong-un’s tools of coercion
Brookings Institution, June 2018

Deep Dish: Trump-Kim summit: What happened, why, and what’s next
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, June 2018

The Trump doctrine is winning and the world is losing
International Institute for Strategic Studies, June 2018

Difficulties integrating North Korean defectors suggest challenges in reunifying Korea
Rand Corporation, June 2018

Why this wasn’t Kim’s father’s – or grandfather’s – summit
Rand Corporation, June 2018

After North Korea summit, military cooperation can reduce tensions
United States Institute of Peace, June 2018

North Korea must come clean about its dirty money
Center for a New American Security, June 2018

Assessment of the Singapore summit
Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2018

Read this briefing on ‘US-North Korea summit‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.