European Union

Two separate letters, signed by MEPs across the political spectrum and former Polish leaders, demand that the Commission take swift action to halt a controversial judiciary reform in Poland, already closely watched by Brussels for fears that it threatens the basic democratic rules.

The EU is about to agree a shared military industry fund which will give billions to arms companies and exacerbate the global arms race. Presented as a key step to strengthen the EU, instead, it enshrines renewed prevalence of national interests in a hard-security context, writes Laëtitia Sédou.

In 2030, 32% of the EU's energy should be from renewable sources, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council agreed on Thursday. Negotiators reached a compromise in behind-closed-doors discussions. The 32% goal is higher than the "at least 27%" target agreed by EU leaders in 2014. The parliament had wanted 35%. EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said it will help the EU meet its Paris agreement promises.

Written by Christian Salm,

© vectorfusionart & hin255 / Fotolia

On 14 June 2018, the 21st FIFA World Cup opens with the Russia versus Saudi Arabia match in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow – the first time that Russia hosts what is the most important tournament for national football teams. Despite some calls for a political boycott due to Russian governmental policy under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, there was little speculation that the tournament would not go ahead as planned. However, there were some calls for a political boycott of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. For example, a group of 60 Members of the European Parliament (EP) from five political groups and 16 European Union (EU) Member States signed an open letter calling on EU governments to boycott the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia due to the authoritarian and anti-western path of the Russian President.

In fact, debates in the EP on how to react to major sporting events in host countries with a poor track record of human rights have history. At the ends of the 1970s, the EP discussed policy action with regard to the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina and the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. The Argentinian World Cup, occurring around two years after the Argentinian military right-wing coup and its violent repression of critics, was described then by many sports and political observers as the most political in FIFA’s history to date. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games, the first to be held in a socialist country, unleashed a hitherto unprecedented boycott by 60 countries, in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

In the case of the 1978 World Cup, the EP held a public hearing, funded by the then Socialist Group, intended to help move forward investigations into human rights violations and the disappearance of around 100 European Community citizens in Argentina. Victims of the Argentinian military regime and representatives of Amnesty International gave evidence to the public hearing. On the basis of the declarations made during the public hearing, the EP adopted a resolution on 6 July 1978. The resolution requested ‘the Foreign Ministers of the Member States meeting in political cooperation, the Commission and the Council urgently to take all appropriate measures to bring about an improvement in the situation as regards the respect of human rights and democratic freedom in Argentina’.

Two political developments, in particular, influenced the conditions and perspective for the EP’s considerations on the right course of policy action towards the Olympics in Moscow in 1980. First, after a period of détente, the international situation deteriorated following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979; and second, the USSR began a wave of repression against protagonists of human rights. This included the arrest in January 1980 of the academic Andrei Sakharov, a symbolic figure for the human rights movement and winner of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize. Members of the EP expressed deep concern that Sakharov’s arrest and the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan were a threat to international détente and peace. As a consequence, the EP adopted a resolution in mid-January 1980, which stated: ‘The European Parliament calls on the Governments of the Nine [the European Community Member States at that time] to express abhorrence of Soviet oppression and aggression by advising their National Olympic Committees to ask their teams and individual athletes not to take part in the Olympic Games in Moscow’. The resolution followed United States President Jimmy Carter’s ultimatum of mid-January 1980 that the US would boycott the Olympic Games if Soviet troops had not withdrawn from Afghanistan by 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on 20 February 1980.

Then, as now, the protection of human rights was one of the EU’s fundamental values. The EP saw raising public awareness of human rights violations in Argentina and the Soviet Union as a moral responsibility, at a time when both countries gained high public attention as hosts of these major sports events. A more recent example is a public hearing in Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights of February 2014, which focused on the situation of migrant workers in the construction of football stadiums for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. This and other EP public hearings, as well as the above-mentioned open letter calling on EU governments to stay away from the 2018 World Cup in Russia, follow a tradition that originated in EP debates and policy action regarding the 1978 World Cup in Argentina and the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

Read also: ‘Major sporting events versus human rights: Parliament’s position on the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina and the 1980 Moscow Olympics‘.

Makhlouf v Council
External relations
The Court of Justice confirms that the fund-freezing measures imposed on Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Bashar al-Assad, must be maintained for the period 2016-2017

Italy's EU minister has said the euro was "indispensable", reassuring markets amid uncertainty over populist rule in Rome.

Norwegian MPs to vote on providing €29.5m in funding for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.

Next month Supreme Court judges could be removed in Poland - due to a controversial reform seen as a judicial purge by a government that wants to control the courts. The European Commission wants Warsaw to act now.

Four steps towards making globalisation work better, and improving cooperation between China and the EU.

The EU commission on Wednesday presented plans to spend more money on defence and security in the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027. A €13bn European Defence Fund will be invested in areas such as encrypted software and drone technology. A new €10.5bn European Peace Facility, will be set aside to improve the EU's ability to prevent conflicts, build peace and guarantee international security.

Winner of 'World's Best Mayor', Mechelen's Bart Somers has invited Hungary's PM to visit. "You know, in the whole of Hungary with 10million inhabitants, they have less Muslims than we have in a small city of 90,000," he told EUobserver.

The prosecutor's office in Braunschweig, Germany, has fined car giant Volkswagen €1bn for selling 10.7 million cars between 2007 and 2015 that had emissions-test-cheating software installed. The car firm admitted responsibility for the diesel scandal and said it did not plan to appeal against the fine, but expected it to end criminal proceedings in Europe. The fine does not exclude civil claims or claims by vehicle owners.

A large majority in the European parliament agreed on Wednesday to cut the number of members from currently 751 to 705 after Brexit. Of the 73 current UK seats, 27 will be redistributed among 14 countries currently under-represented, while 46 seats are held in reserve for new member states to join the bloc. EU leaders are expected to greenlight the plan at their summit in Brussels on 28-29 June.

Following Italy's rejection of migrant rescue ship Aquarius, a US navy ship that rescued 41 migrants off the coast of Libya on Tuesday is waiting to been assigned a port of safety. German aid organisation Sea-Watch pledged "for the sake of the people" that "the nearest port of safety can be entered". A US navy spokesman said that negotiations with the "international partners" on how to proceed are underway.

Written by Svetla Tanova-Encke,

© Shutterstock / Sunny studio

More than ever, science and new technologies surround us in our daily lives. Equally, more than ever, it seems that nobody understands enough about this. Digital communications, artificial intelligence, big data: you do not have to be a high-tech geek to see the impact new technologies are already having on our lives. However, how can average citizens find their way through scientific or pseudo-scientific claims, whom should they trust in the post-truth world, where even issues on which scientists are virtually unanimous, like climate change or vaccines, are heavily questioned and debated?

‘Science is not finished until it’s communicated’, Mark Walport, who was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government, once said. ‘Communication to wider audiences is part of the job of being a scientist, and so how you communicate is absolutely vital.’

In this context, science communication plays an important role in helping citizens understand the issues at stake. A constant dialogue between the actors involved in the scientific endeavour – scientists, communicators, policy-makers and journalists – is essential. The European Science-Media Hub (ESMH), newly launched by STOA, should serve as a platform for such dialogue between the European Parliament, the scientific community and the media.

Creating a network

The first task of the Science-Media Hub is to establish contacts with partners from the scientific community, among science journalists and from other relevant stakeholders.

It is important to work across disciplines and across institutions. The Science-Media Hub has already set up an Interinstitutional Advisory Board consisting of representatives from the European Parliament (STOA and DG COMM), the European Commission (DG RTD, DG CONNECT and the Joint Research Centre (JRC)), the European Institute of Innovation &Technology (EIT) and the European Research Council (ERC) Executive Agency.

Monitoring media and innovation

The ESMH will monitor the trends in media coverage of science topics as they happen. Via media monitoring tools the Hub will work to identify the most debated topics in different scientific categories across a wide variety of mainstream media. The team will use additional means to take a closer look at the information streamed on social media. In parallel, the ESMH will identify science-based information, scientists and scientific articles on specific topics, gathering information from scientific publications.

Online platform and knowledge sharing

In the meantime, the ESMH team is working on an online platform for the Hub. The webpage will provide articles on popular topics in the field of science and new technologies, written in a citizen-friendly style. The webpage will also disseminate trustworthy sources of information and promote EU and EP research.

Training for journalists

The ESMH would like to empower quality science journalism through access to such trustworthy information, as well as contacts with scientists and policy-makers. The main target group of the ESMH will be science journalists, young media representatives, science communicators, writers, bloggers and other communication practitioners.

For this audience, the ESMH will organise training and workshops on current technological developments, both as subjects of their reporting and as means of facilitating their work. The first of these will be organised in the autumn by the ESMH team, together with their colleagues in STOA and DG COMM of the European Parliament, and will look into the issue of how big data and algorithms can influence elections.

Many more interesting events are to come, so stay tuned and be sure to follow the activities of the European Science-Media Hub via the EPRS blog and Twitter!

The Bulgarian public channel bTV released footage of busloads of Turkish nationals of Bulgarian origin, coming to their country of birth to vote for the 24 June election.

Greece and its creditors are getting closer to a deal on a debt relief package to be sealed during the next Eurogroup meeting on 21 June, senior EU officials said on Wednesday (13 June).

Two draft laws which will be voted on during the European Parliament's plenary session on Thursday (14 June) could lead to more job insecurity for lorry drivers. EURACTIV.fr reports.

Almost two decades after the NATO bombing of Serbia, local authorities there have launched an investigation to determine whether depleted uranium bombs were used, which could explain in surge in autoimmune diseases. EURACTIV.rs reports.

The adoption of an outcome-based approach regarding the remuneration of medicines should take into account the entire chain, including the distributors, René Jenny, President of the European Healthcare Distribution Association (GIRP), told EURACTIV.com.