European Parliamentary Research Service Blog

Written by Vivienne Halleux (1st edition).

In December 2022, the European Commission proposed a revision of the Regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, one of the two cornerstones of the EU’s framework regulating chemicals. The revision, announced in the EU chemicals strategy for sustainability, notably seeks to identify and classify hazardous chemicals more comprehensively; improve communication on chemical hazards and the notification of relevant information to poison centres for emergency health response; and address online sales more effectively.

Industry has expressed particular concern about the proposed rules for classifying multi-constituent substances, grouping substances for harmonised classification and labelling, and label formatting. Non-governmental organisations, mainly supportive of the revision, stress the need to set deadlines, cover further hazards and nanoforms of substances, and do more to limit animal testing.

The co-legislators are considering the text. Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, responsible for the file, is planning to vote on its legislative report in September 2023. The Council adopted its general approach on 30 June 2023.

Versions

• July 2023: Classification, labelling and packaging of chemical substances and mixtures (1st edition)

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixturesCommittee responsible:Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI)COM(2022) 748 final
19.12.2022Rapporteur:Maria Spyraki (EPP, Greece)2022/0432(COD)Shadow rapporteurs:João Albuquerque (S&D, Portugal)
Martin Hojsík (Renew, Slovakia)
Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, Germany)
Pietro Fiocchi (ECR, Italy)
Danilo Oscar Lancini (ID, Italy)
Anja Hazekamp (The Left, the Netherlands)Ordinary legislative procedure
(COD) (Parliament and Council
on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’)Next steps expected: Vote in committee on draft report

Written by Elena Lazarou and Eric Pichon, with contributions from Bruno Bilquin, Anna Caprile, Sebastian Clapp, Angelos Delivorias, Beatrix Immenkamp, Rosamund Shreeves and Branislav Stanicek.

Russia’s war on Ukraine has shattered assumptions and expectations about protracted peace in the wider European space. It has stimulated serious reflection about the instruments and tools available to restore peace in times of contestation between great powers and of weakened multilateral institutions, phenomena that have been observed consistently throughout the past decade.

At the same time, the promotion of global peace and security continues to be a fundamental goal and central pillar of European Union (EU) external action, following the model of its own peace project. Both within and beyond the EU, there is a widespread expectation among citizens that the Union will deliver results in this crucial area. Nevertheless, as the security environment poses what could be the most significant challenge to security in the post-Cold War period, the EU is urgently intensifying its work for peace and security in a number of key policy areas.

According to the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2023, the state of peace in the world again deteriorated in 2022, continuing a long-running trend. In addition, multilateralism, a core element of EU foreign policy and identity, and a cornerstone of its approach to peace and security, is under increasing pressure from alternative value systems and ideologies; a situation that has been dramatically exacerbated by the launch of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the subsequent geopolitical polarisation.

Take a look at our interactive infographic on Peace and Security

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the parallel weaponisation of energy, food supplies, migration and information, have inflamed and exploited pre-existing fractious trends evidenced by the coronavirus crisis, and signal the advent of a more ‘competitive and less secure international geopolitical environment. In response to these trends, the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen, with the support of the European Parliament, committed to reinforcing the EU as an external actor, able to act more strategically and autonomously, while fully upholding the fundamental values stipulated in the founding Treaties, including the achievement of peace. To this day, the over-arching values and objectives of the EU guide all facets of its external action, including common foreign and security policy (CFSP); democracy support; development cooperation; economic, financial and technical cooperation; humanitarian aid; trade; and neighbourhood policy.

While the promotion of peace remains the objective of EU foreign policy, achieving it is also linked to understanding peace and its components. Thus, measuring peace and the threats that challenge it is becoming an increasingly relevant exercise. In that context, the Normandy Index attempts to measure threats to peace based on variables identified in the EU Global Strategy. The EU Member States, supported by the European External Action Service (EEAS), conducted a comprehensive threat analysis in 2020, as part of the development of the EU Strategic Compass, which was adopted by the Council and endorsed by the European Council in March 2022.

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The EU’s contribution to countering threats to peace, security and democracy globally has grown significantly through legislation, financing and the creation of new structures and initiatives. A significant share of EU aid goes to fragile states and to issues related to securing peace. The EU’s ‘new consensus on development’ emphasises the role of development cooperation in preventing violent conflicts, mitigating their consequences and aiding recovery from them. On the ground, the EU has been able to strengthen the nexus between security, development and humanitarian aid through the implementation of comprehensive strategies, for example in the Horn of Africa and in the Sahel. Through its common security and defence policy (CSDP), the EU runs several missions and operations in third countries, making it one of the United Nations’ main partners in peacekeeping. To help partners withstand sometimes violent attacks on their democratic structures by domestic illiberal forces and external authoritarian powers, the EU has been strengthening its tools to support democracy all over the world.

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In 2022, the EU continued to advance its work on countering new threats to peace, such as disinformation, cyber-attacks and climate change. New elements strengthening EU security and defence capabilities were implemented with the aim of boosting EU strategic autonomy, including its capacity to work for peace and security. These elements of ‘hard power’, together with the EU’s long-standing experience in the practice of soft power, form the backbone of its action for peace and security.

The EU also continues to be a staunch promoter of multilateralism at global and regional levels to counter global threats, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and global food and health crises. The EU’s immediate neighbourhood is a consistent focus in its work, with the aim of building resilience and upholding peace and democracy – both now seriously challenged at the EU’s eastern border by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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Looking to the future, peace and security are increasing in complexity. Even in Europe, the war in Ukraine has shown that the assumption of sustained peace can no longer be taken for granted. The effects of the war on Ukraine reverberate around the world in the form of diminishing food and energy security, inflationary pressures, economic crises and global polarisation. New types of threats and destabilising factors such as pandemics, climate change, foreign interference in democracy, cyber-attacks and bio-terrorism, as well as various types of hybrid warfare, call for innovative thinking and new types of resources and solutions. While the EU has made significant progress in furthering its aim of strengthening its presence and efficiency in the area of peace and security, more remains to be done. The 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF), although focused on streamlining the EU’s programmes and instruments to allow for flexibility and on using innovative financial instruments to address unforeseen threats, is already at risk of being depleted by January 2024. This urgent budgetary constraint, largely caused by the pandemic and the Russian war of aggression, led the Commission to propose an urgent legislative budgetary and financial package on 20 June 2023.

While the EU’s quest for flexibility, efficiency and innovation in recent years has been underpinned by the strategic goal of empowering the EU in its global role as a promoter of peace and security, no event has made this challenge as urgent as Russia’s war on Ukraine. While adapting to the new realities of the international order and the rapid technological, environmental and societal changes of our times, the war has also precipitated bold and rapid change in the EU’s capacity to act for peace and security, such as unprecedented sanctions on Russia and support for substantial arms deliveries to Ukraine. Adapting to the rapidly transforming world has meant that the EU has to become a more autonomous, strategic and holistic actor for peace and security by bringing together elements of normative, soft and hard power with steadfastness and resilience.

Read this study on ‘Peace and Security in 2023: Overview of EU action and outlook for the future‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Threats to peace and security in the current global environment

Written by Marcin Grajewski.

As Ukraine continues its counter-offensive against the Russian invaders, the NATO summit in Vilnius vowed unwavering support for the country, and took decisions to simplify its path towards membership of the Western military alliance. NATO leaders said they would be able to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance once the country meets certain conditions.

They declared continued support for Ukraine’s deterrence and defence in the short, medium, and long term, as well as for turning the Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) into a multi-year programme for Ukraine. This assistance will help rebuild the Ukrainian security and defence sector and move Ukraine towards full interoperability with NATO.

The NATO summit declarations fell short of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s expectations for receiving a clearer path to enter the Alliance. However, he praised NATO’s decision to scrap the need for Kyiv to complete a preparatory Membership Action Plan to join NATO. The Alliance and Ukraine also held the inaugural meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council to manage the relationship, which reaffirmed that ‘Ukraine’s future is in NATO’.

On the summit’s side-lines, Group of Seven (G7) developed countries unveiled an international framework to boost Ukraine’s long-term security against Russia. A number of other military packages were announced at bilateral meetings between Zelenskyy and individual NATO leaders.

This note gathers links to the recent publications and commentaries from many international think tanks on Russia’s war on Ukraine. Earlier analyses on the war can be found in a previous edition of ‘What Think Tanks are Thinking’. Publications on NATO released ahead of its July summit can be found in another item in the series.

Ukraine’s defense doctrine will define country’s future
Atlantic Council, July 2023

Ukraine needs NATO membership, not an ‘Israel model’
Atlantic Council, July 2023

Western Europe is still falling short in NATO’s east
Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, July 2023

Ukraine takes its place in the European security system while Russia fades
Wilson Center, July 2023

Putin’s nuclear threats will escalate as Ukraine’s counteroffensive unfolds
Atlantic Council, June 2023

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is a key moment but long-term resolve remains crucial
Atlantic Council, June 2023

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the day after the war: A view from southern Europe
Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, June 2023

Between a rock and a hard place: The EU response to national import bans on Ukrainian grain
Bruegel, June 2023

European public opinion remains supportive of Ukraine
Bruegel, June 2023

The resilience and trauma of Ukraine’s civil society
Carnegie Europe, June 2023

Ukrainian oligarchs and their businesses: their fading importance Centre for Eastern Studies, June 2023

Ukraine’s progress towards NATO membership: Going from Bucharest to Vilnius without moving?
Centre for European Reform, June 2023

Demining Ukraine: An urgent but under-resourced priority
Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2023

The impact of the Kakhovka dam breach on the new Ukrainian counteroffensive
Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2023

Tsar Nicholas I’s Crimean War and Putin’s in Ukraine: Plus ça change
Centre for European Policy Studies, June 2023

Ukraine’s recovery depends on security guarantees
Chatham House, June 2023

Ukrainians demand more inclusion in post-war recovery
Chatham House, June 2023

How much aid has the U.S. sent Ukraine?
Council on Foreign Relations, July 2023

China and Ukraine: The Chinese debate about Russia’s war and its meaning for the world
European Council on Foreign Relations, July 2023

How bad is Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis a year later?
Council on Foreign Relations, June 2023

How should NATO think about Ukrainian membership after Russia’s coup attempt?
Council on Foreign Relations, June 2023

European defence in a new geopolitical environment
Egmont, June 2023

War for Ukraine and the rediscovery of geopolitics: Must the EU draw new battlelines or keep an open door?
Egmont, June 2023

On the outside looking in: Why NATO should invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the Vilnius summit
European Council on Foreign Relations, July 2023

Mobilising investments for Ukraine reconstruction: Strengthening the Team Europe approach
European Centre for Development Policy Management, June 2023

A compromise to support Ukraine’s exports
European Policy Centre, June 2023

Dogs of war: Russia’s corporate warriors in armed conflicts
European Union Institute for Strategic Studies, June 2023

Gendering Europe’s security and recovery responses to Ukraine
EUROPEUM, June 2023

Pursuing justice for international crimes in Ukraine: A patchwork of multi-level and long-running efforts
Finnish Institute of International Affairs, June 2023

After the war: How to keep Europe safe
Friends of Europe, June 2023

Ukraine’s anti-corruption front
German Marshal Fund, June 2023

The war in Ukraine and Europe’s geopolitical awakening
Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques, June 2023

The EU and the transformed nuclear context since the war in Ukraine
Istituto Affari Internazionali, June 2023

Reconstructing Ukraine: Creating a freer, more prosperous, and secure future
Rand Corporation, June 2023

Public expenditure and tax policy for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine
Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, June 2023

The Russian invasion and the risks to global financial stability
Vox Ukraine, June 2023

Foreign support to Ukraine: Evidence from a database of military, financial, and humanitarian aid
Vox Ukraine, June 2023

Ukraine’s demography in the second year of the full-fledged war
Wilson Center, June 2023

Ukraine’s growing defense tech prowess can help defeat Russia
Atlantic Council, May 2023

Exploring the secrets of Ukraine’s successful wartime diplomacy
Atlantic Council, May 2023

Backstopping Ukraine’s long-term security: Toward an Atlantic-Asian security community
Brookings Institution, May 2023

Ukraine: Perception shapes victory and defeat
Egmont, May 2023

Uncovering uncomfortable truths: The geopolitics of EU gas imports in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine
Egmont, May 2023

The Ukraine war and European identity
European Council on Foreign Relations, May 2023

The Ukraine war and its implications for European security
Wilfried Martens Centre, May 2023

Read this briefing on ‘Latest on Russia’s war on Ukraine‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Clare Ferguson and Katarzyna Sochacka.

Members focused on a wide range of legislative files during the July plenary session, in particular on environmental policy, the European chips act, and on journalists’ freedom. Parliament debated the conclusions of the European Council meeting held on 29‑30 June 2023, and the recent developments in the war against Ukraine and in Russia in particular. Members also debated Council and Commission statements on the greening transport package, the state of the SME Union, the need to adopt the ‘unshell’ directive, and global convergence on generative AI. The President made a statement commemorating the victims of the Srebrenica genocide.

Nature restoration

Parliament debated and (narrowly) adopted its negotiating position following a long voting session on amendments to the proposed nature restoration regulation, which would establish a legal obligation on Member States to restore degraded ecosystems. The text has now been referred back to the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), so that trilogue negotiations can begin between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.

European chips act

Integrated circuits or ‘chips’ are fundamental to virtually every aspect of modern life, but Europe has become reliant on chips made elsewhere in the world. The EU chips act would strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem in Europe, bolstering Europe’s capacity to design and produce chips, and giving the Commission powers to implement emergency measures on the chips market if needed in crisis situations. Members debated and adopted the text agreed in trilogue with the Council.

Fit for 55 and industrial emissions

The ‘fit for 55’ package aims to adapt EU law and policies to meet the European Climate Law target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % (from 1990 levels) by 2030. Members formally adopted three proposals, agreed between Parliament and Council negotiators. The regulation on deployment of alternative fuels aims to speed up the installation of infrastructure and take-up of vehicles running on alternative fuels, such as electric and hydrogen power, with targets for equipment to be installed at minimum intervals along main roads. FuelEU Maritime seeks to push the uptake of cleaner fuels for ships and gradually reduce carbon emissions from seaborne transport to reach an 80 % cut by 2050. The revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive aims at speeding up implementation of energy savings and promoting renewable energy sources, setting a binding target of an 11.7 % reduction in final energy consumption by 2030. In addition, the linked proposals on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive seek to expand existing rules applying to large agro-industrial installations, to cover a broader range of such installations, as well as promoting faster adoption of new less-polluting techniques to reduce emissions. Members’ vote to adopt ENVI committee reports sets the Parliament’s position for trilogue negotiations with the Council.

Ecodesign and construction products regulations

Votes set Parliament’s position for trilogue on two further environmental files. An ENVI committee report on the proposed regulation on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products seeks to make products on the internal market more durable, reusable, reparable, upgradable, recyclable, and generally less harmful to the environment. From the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Members adopted a report on the proposed revision of the Construction Products Regulation, which seeks to boost circular business models and make sustainable products the norm in the building sector.

Protection of journalists and human rights defenders

Media freedom and pluralism have come under growing threat, through increasing harassment of journalists, as well as human rights defenders and activists, including through groundless or abusive lawsuits. Such lawsuits seek to silence those speaking out on legitimate matters of public interest, landing them with high costs for defending their freedom of expression. Parliament debated a report from the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) on the proposed directive on protection of journalists and human rights defenders from unfounded court cases, setting Parliament’s position for trilogue negotiations.

Amending budget No 2/2023 – Surplus of the financial year 2022

Every year, after closing the financial year, the EU budget generally has a surplus, due to higher than expected revenue and underspending. Members adopted amending budget No 2/2023, allowing the surplus from 2022, amounting to €2.5 billion, to be entered as revenue in the 2023 budget.

COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned and recommendations for the future

While the threats to European society from the coronavirus pandemic have now largely passed, the Special Committee set up to evaluate the experiences of the crisis has aimed to ensure the EU is better prepared for any future major health threat. Parliament debated the COVI committee report on the lessons learned from COVID-19 and recommendations for the future, which calls for action in four areas: a health union, democracy and fundamental rights, addressing social and economic impact, and global action.

Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption

Recent events have highlighted potential vulnerabilities to foreign interference and undue influence of Members of the European Parliament. The mandate of Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference and Disinformation (ING2) was extended to investigate shortcomings in Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption measures. Members debated and adopted its recommendations on reforming the rules to protect Parliament’s integrity.

2022 reports on Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Members debated and adopted reports from the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) on the Commission’s latest annual enlargement reports on progress in candidate countries, covering Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both cases, the committee underlines the importance of continuing progress towards accession, and emphasises areas where the country concerned needs to step up its efforts. In the latter case, AFET denounces the recent increased inflammatory actions by the Republika Srpska leadership.

Relations with the Palestinian Authority

Parliament also debated and adopted recommendations drafted by the AFET committee on EU relations with the Palestinian Authority. The committee expresses concern at the mounting violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent months, and calls for an immediate end to all violence. Members also urge the Palestinian leadership to organise free and fair elections.

Question time (VPC/HR) – EU-Africa Strategy

The regular question time session with the Commission this month focused on EU-Africa strategy, with Members having the opportunity to pose questions to Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen, especially in the context of the impact in Africa of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

ECI ‘Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing’

A European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) enables citizens to call for the Union to act in a given area, and once 1 million people (from at least 7 EU countries) sign up, the European Commission must respond. The ‘Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing‘ ECI has gained the required signatures, and its organisers presented their case in a hearing before the ENVI committee in May 2023. The ECI was debated in plenary in advance of the Commission presenting its formal response.

Opening of trilogue negotiations

Three decisions to enter into interinstitutional negotiations were approved: on the proposal on combating violence against women and domestic violence; on a regulation on instant credit transfers; and on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Plenary round-up – July 2023‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Philippe Perchoc.

The treaty of the Rome Statute, signed on 17 July 1998 by 120 countries, gave birth to a permanent international body: the International Criminal Court (ICC). To commemorate the Court’s coming into existence in 2002, each year (following a decision at the first review conference of the Rome Statue in 2010), the World Day for International Justice is marked on that day.

Background

After World War II, the international community – for the first time in history – took steps towards recognising two international crimes: the crime against humanity (at the Nuremberg trials) and the crime of genocide (at the Tokyo trials; to bolster these efforts, in 1948 the United Nations (UN) adopted its Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide). While the idea of a permanent court was discussed during the Cold War, it only became possible after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the 1990s, the UN established specialised courts to address crimes in former Yugoslavia (1993-2017), Rwanda (1995-2015) and Sierra Leone (2002-2013). On 17 July 1998, 120 states adopted the Statute of Rome, which gave birth to the International Criminal Court. Of the 160 states that took part in the negotiations, 120 voted in favour, 7 against and the rest abstained (secret vote). Unlike special tribunals created by the UN, the International Criminal Court is not a UN body but a permanent international court. After a long ratification process, the court started work in 2002 and established its seat in The Hague. Today, 123 states are parties to the ICC, but some prominent countries – such as China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States – remain outside this body. All EU Member States and all EU candidates (except Ukraine and Turkey) are parties to the Rome Statute. The latter grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes committed after 1 July 2002, and the crime of aggression (as of 17 July 2018). To date, 31 cases have been brought before the ICC. The EU supported the ICC from the start, through a Council common position of 2003 and an EU-ICC cooperation agreement of 2005. In 2011, the EU agreed to promote the ratification of the Rome Statute worldwide and to cooperate with the ICC Prosecutor by helping the ICC to access documents and witnesses useful for its work. The EU has a long tradition of cooperating with the ICC and other specialised courts, especially the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As regards some Western Balkan countries, the EU has made full cooperation with the international courts a condition for their EU accession prospects.

Recent developments in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has been supporting the ICC in investigating crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. On 1 and 2 March 2022, 39 states party to the Rome Statute, including all EU Member States, made a referral to the ICC, asking its Prosecutor to investigate the situation in Ukraine, even though the country is not yet a party to the Rome Statute. Under current rules, the ICC can investigate a series of crimes but has no jurisdiction for the crime of aggression in this case, as both countries involved need to be ICC parties and to have ratified a specific amendment enabling the launch of an investigation into such a crime. The ICC Prosecutor announced that he had opened an investigation based on the referral. The EU Justice and Home Affairs Council confirmed the importance of fighting impunity and pledged support to the ICC. EU ministers of justice also encouraged Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, ‘to fully exercise its coordinating role and to make itself available as required to the Prosecutor of the ICC in connection with the exercise of his duties’. On 18 April, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP), Josep Borrell, reaffirmed the EU’s support for the work of the ICC and further stressed that: ‘There can be no impunity for war crimes’. A few days later, it was announced that, for the first time ever, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC would take part in the joint investigation team, launched with Eurojust support on 25 March by Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, on alleged international crimes in Ukraine. On 8 June, the European Commission launched a €7.25 million project to support the investigation capacities of the ICC. On 21 September, Eurojust and the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC published guidelines to assist civil society organisations in recording information relating to international crimes. On 22 December 2022, the HR/VP announced the setting up of the EU Global Observatory on the Fight against Impunity, with a budget of €20 million. This new body would collect information and share knowledge about ‘genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations’. On 17 March 2023, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II issued an arrest warrant (Article 58 of the Rome Statute) for Vladimir Putin (who is also commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces) and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian presidential commissioner for children’s rights. The court had ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that both of the accused were responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of members of the population, children in particular, since February 2022 (war crimes as defined in Article 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute. The news of the arrest warrant gained immediate international attention. On the EU side, the HR/VP welcomed the ICC decision and recalled the European Council conclusions of 15 December 2022, stressing the need to ensure full accountability for those accused of having committed, inter alia, war crimes in connection with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Under Article 89(1) of the Rome Statute, all of its states parties are obliged to comply with an ICC request for the arrest and surrender of a person. That said, South Africa is set to host the BRICS summit in August 2023, and is considering a change in national law as well as a waiver under Article 98 of the Rome Statute, to free it from the obligation to arrest the Russian president.

European Parliament position

In its resolution of 1 March 2022, the Parliament strongly condemned ‘the Russian Federation’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against and invasion of Ukraine’, noting that ‘attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure as well as indiscriminate attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law and therefore constitute war crimes’. Parliament referred to the numerous reports of ‘violations of international humanitarian law committed by Russian troops, including indiscriminate shelling of living areas, hospitals and kindergartens’. Moreover, Parliament called ‘for the EU and its Member States to work with international bodies to collect evidence and to support and promote the ICC’s jurisdiction and investigation of any war crime committed within the territory of Ukraine since 20 February 2014 onwards’. On 5 May, a Parliament resolution condemned the use of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) as a weapon of war, insisting that it be prosecuted according to international law and the Rome Statute. On 19 May 2022, Parliament called for the establishment of a ‘special international tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression committed against Ukraine by the political leaders and military commanders of Russia and its allies’. On 23 November, Parliament recognised Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and reiterated its firm demand that ‘all persons responsible for committing, assisting or organising human rights violations, atrocities or war crimes in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine must be identified as swiftly as possible, prosecuted and held to account’. It reiterated its support to the ICC and called on the EU and its Member States to support the establishment of a special tribunal. On 16 February 2023, to mark the one-year anniversary since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Parliament recalled that thousands of civilians and hundreds of children had been forcibly displaced. In particular, it stressed that the forcible displacement of children constitutes the crime of genocide, according to Article II-e of the UN Genocide Convention. Parliament reiterated once again ‘its full support for the work of the International Criminal Court in helping to end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community’.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘The International Criminal Court’s 25th anniversary and World International Justice Day‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Laurence Amand-Eeckhout.

Mental health has become a major issue of public health, and economic and social concern across the whole of the EU. Collecting data is crucial for monitoring mental health, developing effective policies and addressing the growing mental health challenges. It is estimated that more than 84 million people in the EU are struggling with mental health problems.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis have placed a huge strain on everyone’s mental health. The restrictive measures taken by governments during the pandemic had a severe impact on people, with inequalities in mental health, both within the population and between social groups. Young people, the elderly and people in vulnerable situations suffered more than others.

Mental health is also an issue at work. Poor working environments, including excessive workloads, job insecurity, harassment and discrimination, pose a risk to the mental health of workers.

Policies and services addressing mental health are the individual EU Member States’ responsibility. The EU work on mental health, part of its activities on non-communicable diseases, aims to complement Member States’ policies, supporting real action on the ground and the exchange of best practice and knowledge. On 7 June 2023, addressing calls from the European Parliament and from citizens in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the European Commission adopted a communication on a new comprehensive approach to mental health, adding another pillar to the architecture of the European Health Union. EU action on mental health will focus on three guiding principles: access to adequate and effective prevention; access to high quality and affordable mental healthcare and treatment; and reintegration into society after recovery.

The European Parliament has always been a supporter of the promotion of good mental health and putting mental health at the heart of EU policymaking. Its Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT) is currently preparing an own-initiative report on mental health.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Mental health in the EU‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Ionel Zamfir (1st edition).

Several EU directives dealing with equality require EU Member States to establish equality bodies with a focus on assisting victims of discrimination and preventing and fighting discrimination on the grounds listed under the directives. However, their rules are too general and have no precise definition of these bodies’ duties and manner of operation, thus leading to disparities among the Member States’ bodies. Additionally, the work of some Member States’ bodies has been hampered by lack of resources, insufficient independence or a narrow remit.

In 2018, the European Commission adopted a recommendation on standards for equality bodies. Later, after assessing its implementation, it decided to shift to binding legislation. In a package of legislative measures on equality, in December 2022 it published a proposal setting standards for equality bodies fighting discrimination on several grounds. A second proposal, under the ordinary legislative procedure, focuses specifically on equality between men and women in the employment field. The proposal reinforces the equality bodies’ independence, resources and mandate. While generally welcoming the proposal, stakeholders have suggested specific changes to its provisions

Versions

• July 2023: Standards for equality bodies: Discrimination under Article 19 TFEU grounds (1st edition)

Proposal for a Council directive on standards for equality bodies in the field of equal treatment between persons irrespective of their racial or ethnic origin, equal treatment in the field of employment and occupation between persons irrespective of their religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, equal treatment between women and men in matters of social security and in the access to and supply of goods and services, and deleting Article 13 of Directive 2000/43/EC and Article 12 of Directive 2004/113/ECCommittee responsible:Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM)COM(2022) 689
7.12.2022Rapporteur:Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP, Finland)2022/0401(APP)Shadow rapporteurs:Carina Ohlsson (S&D, Sweden)
Irène Tolleret (Renew, France)
Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA, Denmark)
Eugenia Rodríguez Palop (The Left, Spain)Consent procedure (APP)
(Unanimity in the Council,
consent in Parliament)Next steps expected: Drafting of committee report

Written by Ivana Katsarova (1st edition).

The European Union (EU) has established over 40 regimes of sanctions against third countries, entities, and legal and natural persons. These restrictive measures include arms embargoes, import and export bans, freezing of funds and economic resources, and travel bans. Whereas the adoption of EU sanctions is centralised at EU level, their implementation and enforcement lies with the Member States. The significant differences between national systems, particularly in terms of offences and penalties for breaches of EU sanctions, are thought to weaken their efficacy and the EU’s credibility.

Following the Council’s decision to add the violation of EU sanctions to the areas of ‘particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension’, the European Commission issued, in December 2022, a proposal for a directive to harmonise criminal offences and penalties for such violations.

On 9 June, the Council adopted its general approach. In the European Parliament, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted its report on the proposal on 6 July 2023, along with a decision to enter into trilogue negotiations.

Versions

• July 2023: Revision of EU marketing standards for certain ‘breakfast’ directives (1st edition)

Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Council Directives 2001/110/EC relating to honey, 2001/112/EC relating to fruit juices and certain similar products intended for human consumption, 2001/113/EC relating to fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée intended for human consumption, and 2001/114/EC relating to certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk for human consumptionCommittee responsible:Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI)COM(2023) 0201
21.04.2023Rapporteur:Alexander BERNHUBER (EPP-AU)2023/0105(COD)Shadow rapporteurs:Ordinary legislative procedure
(COD) (Parliament and Council
on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’)Next steps expected: Draft report Honey, beehives and beekeepers in the EU

Written by Rafał Mańko.

Sovereign states, as the primary subjects of public international law, voluntarily enter into treaties (international agreements) creating international organisations, as the secondary subjects of public international law. According to a long-standing and well-established principle of public international law, known by the Latin maxim of pacta sunt servanda, states are obliged to abide by the agreements to which they commit. This principle is enshrined in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (‘Vienna Convention’). It also applies, as a matter of course, to the multilateral treaties establishing international organisations. Such treaties may specify duties incumbent upon state parties, such as periodic payment of membership fees or agreement to abide by the decisions of organs of the organisation, as well as a set of values or principles to which state parties to the founding treaties have voluntarily committed, as in Article 3 of the Statute of the Council of Europe.

If a state violates a provision of a multilateral treaty that is essential to the accomplishment of its object or purpose, under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention, such breach is considered material. In such case, the other parties may, by unanimous agreement, suspend the operation of the treaty in whole or in part, or terminate it either in the relations between themselves and the defaulting state, or between all the parties to the treaty. Some experts claim that Article 60 of the Vienna Convention could be invoked to terminate a treaty establishing an international organisation, and thereby serve as a means for suspension or expulsion of a recalcitrant member.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Suspension and expulsion of states from international organisations: Analysis of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and of the practice at the United Nations and the Council of Europe‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Monika Dulian with Oleksandra Klochko.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU took immediate action to stem rising energy prices and secure energy supply to its Member States. In its communication on the REPowerEU plan from March 2022, the European Commission proposed that the Member States use joint purchasing, collecting of orders and matching of supply and demand to support gas storage refilling operations. The Commission also proposed a ‘joint European platform’ to lead bilateral negotiations with major gas producers. Accordingly, the EU Energy Platform was established on 7 April 2022, initially on the basis of a European Council mandate. The legal basis for the platform is Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2576 of December 2022, which lays down the rules for the joint purchasing mechanism. The latter is to remain in operation for 1 year as of the moment the document enters into force and the service provider in charge of the joint purchasing mechanism is selected.

The EU Energy Platform aims to ensure security of supply by purchasing natural gas, LNG and hydrogen for the Member States jointly and at affordable prices, after aggregating their demand (at least 15 % of the Member States’ storage filling obligations are subject to demand aggregation). Once a Member State submits a demand, it is under no obligation to actually purchase gas; from that moment on it is for energy companies – from within the EU and the EU Energy Community – to negotiate and make business decisions. Natural gas and LNG demand from these companies is aggregated and then matched with reliable EU or non-EU sellers. This happens through AggregateEU – a demand aggregation and joint purchasing service operated by a service provider chosen by the Commission based on predefined criteria. The EU Energy Platform is also in charge of the outreach to international suppliers with a view to diversifying gas supplies.

The evolution of the platform will depend on the political will and readiness of the Member States to pool a larger part of EU gas demand. Major gas-consuming countries in particular would have to be convinced to give away their privileged market access in order to build a common and effective mechanism. In the long run, the platform could shift its focus towards hydrogen procurement and distribution to accelerate the energy transition towards renewable sources.

Read the complete briefing on ‘EU Energy Platform: Facilitating joint purchases of gas‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Carmen-Cristina Cîrlig (1st edition).

The European Union (EU) has established over 40 regimes of sanctions against third countries, entities, and legal and natural persons. These restrictive measures include arms embargoes, import and export bans, freezing of funds and economic resources, and travel bans. Whereas the adoption of EU sanctions is centralised at EU level, their implementation and enforcement lies with the Member States. The significant differences between national systems, particularly in terms of offences and penalties for breaches of EU sanctions, are thought to weaken their efficacy and the EU’s credibility.

Following the Council’s decision to add the violation of EU sanctions to the areas of ‘particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension’, the European Commission issued, in December 2022, a proposal for a directive to harmonise criminal offences and penalties for such violations.

On 9 June, the Council adopted its general approach. In the European Parliament, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted its report on the proposal on 6 July 2023, along with a decision to enter into trilogue negotiations.

Versions

• July 2023: Proposal for a directive on the violation of Union restrictive measures (1st edition)

Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measuresCommittee responsible:Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE)COM(2022) 684
2.12.2022Rapporteur:Sophia In’t Veld (Renew, the Netherlands)2022/0398(COD)Shadow rapporteurs:Leopoldo López Gil (EPP, Spain)
Thijs Reuten (S&D, the Netherlands)
Saskia Bricmont (Greens/EFA, Belgium)
Patryk Jaki (ECR, Poland)
Anders Vistisen (ID, Denmark)
Clare Daly (The Left, Ireland)Ordinary legislative procedure
(COD) (Parliament and Council
on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’)Next steps expected: Trilogue negotiations

Written by Maria Niestadt.

The EU has started reflecting on its vision for emerging virtual worlds (metaverses) and providing funding opportunities to develop these worlds. The aim is to ensure that people are protected in virtual worlds and that EU businesses, in particular SMEs, are not driven out of competition.

Introduction

Boosted by technological advances, virtual worlds (also referred to as metaverses) are becoming more prominent globally as well as in the EU. These worlds (which are in different stages of maturity) offer real-time, immersive and persistent environments that blend physical and virtual elements in various areas like manufacturing, medicine, education, entertainment, commerce, and the public and military sectors. Virtual worlds have the potential to change the way we work, shop, learn, engage and entertain on the internet. There is no uniform definition of ‘virtual worlds’ or ‘metaverse(s)’. Both terms are still in use (in the singular and the plural), often interchangeably, although the European Commission seems to use the term ‘virtual worlds’ more often. In an earlier briefing, the European Parliamentary Research Service described a metaverse as ‘an immersive and constant virtual 3D world where people interact by means of an avatar to carry out a wide range of activities’. In July 2023, the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) provided an overview of existing definitions and suggested their own definition of a virtual world: ‘an immersive, synchronous, persistent and unified 3D user experience that might enable mass content creation’. A 2023 study published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre considered that ‘next generation virtual worlds’ are ‘experiences that incorporate varying degrees of virtual and real information, which users can access with different levels of immersiveness and interaction’.

Supporting technologies

Virtual worlds are supported by various extended reality (XR) technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and augmented virtuality (AV). XR is an umbrella term that covers all kinds of technologies that alter reality by adding digital elements to the real world. While in the VR environment the person is fully immersed (with a dedicated headset) in the 3D virtual environment, in the AR environment the person still sees the outside world (AR simply adds virtual content to a real world). MR also augments the real world for users, but the virtual world becomes so realistic that users cannot distinguish virtual content from physical objects, while AV adds items of the real world to the virtual world. Sometimes the boundaries between these technologies are not clear, and the same headset can use multiple technologies. Virtual worlds are also supported by other technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies facilitate various actions in virtual worlds. For example, blockchain technology allows users to buy and sell virtual assets without going through a centralised platform. IoT helps to transfer information between the real and virtual world through objects, and AI helps to analyse user interactions and data, and create personalised experiences. The EU is currently working on a first-ever attempt to enact a horizontal regulation for AI and recently adopted a regulation on markets in crypto-assets. Other horizontal regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act (which will also apply to virtual worlds) aim to protect users and ensure that EU SMEs are not driven out of the market.

Applications

Virtual worlds can change the way we connect, perceive and experience the world, opening up numerous opportunities but also bringing a number of challenges. They can be used in almost all areas, such as:

• education: virtual worlds enable users to visit places and times (such as Ancient Greece, or other planets) that are otherwise impossible to visit;
• manufacturing: companies can test prototypes of production lines or entire factories using a digital twin to detect potential errors and minimise costs;
• healthcare: virtual worlds can help doctors to diagnose more accurately and more quickly and to improve performance during and when preparing for surgery. Patients can benefit from immersive experiences to alleviate pain and anxiety, or to consult doctors on the other side of the world;
• public sector: virtual worlds can be used, for example, for consultations with citizens, city planning, visualisation of future development projects or training of employees;
• art and design: when visiting virtual worlds of museums, galleries and archives, users can almost experience how it is to be in an actual museum. Virtual 3D buildings enable architects to gain a realistic impression of their structure, furniture and decorations;
• entertainment: users of virtual worlds can attend various virtual events (such as concerts, movies, parties, and sports events);
• online shopping: customers can explore virtual stores and try on virtual clothes, while brands can host virtual events and advertise their products in virtual worlds;
• tourism: virtual worlds enable travellers to plan their trip by exploring virtual representations of destinations and hotels.

What is the EU doing? European Commission

The European Commission has started to reflect on its vision of virtual worlds and how the EU could support the EU VR/AR sector. As announced in its 2020 communication on ‘Europe’s Media in the Digital Decade: An Action Plan to Support Recovery and Transformation’, the Commission has launched a European Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) Industrial Coalition. This coalition brings together the VR/AR industry and policymakers to inform policymaking, encourage investment, facilitate dialogue and identify key challenges and opportunities. It has organised a series of workshops and drafted a strategic paper as well as a roadmap outlining the next steps for the VR/AR sector. The Commission is also offering funding opportunities under programmes such as Horizon Europe and Digital Europe. For example, in April 2023 the Commission published a call for proposals for EU action grants, which covered topics such as developing the CitiVerse (a virtual world for citizens); in May 2023, the Commission organised an info day on ‘Developing CitiVerse’. Furthermore, the Commission has launched the VR Media Lab through Horizon Europe, which supports immersive VR/AR media products. In July 2023, the Commission is expected to publish an initiative on virtual worlds, which would describe the Commission’s vision for virtual worlds, address opportunities and societal challenges, and announce upcoming implementation measures. It will be based on various consultations that the Commission has carried out recently.

European Parliament

The Parliament has also begun considering the implications of virtual worlds. The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) and the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) are preparing own-initiative reports on virtual worlds. The JURI report (rapporteurs Axel Voss, EPP, Germany, and Iban García del Blanco, S&D, Spain) will focus more on civil, company, commercial and intellectual property law issues, and the IMCO report (rapporteur: Pablo Arias Echeverría, EPP, Spain) on internal market issues. On 24 April 2023, JURI held a hearing on regulatory challenges of the metaverse. As mentioned in a recent study requested by the JURI committee, the Parliament has also been exploring how to apply various XR technologies to its own work.

Advisory committees

On 26 April 2023, the European Economic and Social Committee adopted an opinion regarding an initiative on virtual worlds, such as the metaverse. This opinion highlights the importance of continually analysing ‘whether the legislation currently in force is sufficient to regulate virtual worlds’ and collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure that society benefits from these worlds.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Virtual worlds (metaverses)‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Sebastian Clapp.

NATO’s next summit, to take place from 11 to 12 July 2023, is being hosted by Lithuania, in Vilnius. Among the items topping the agenda will be support for Ukraine – including its eventual accession to the Alliance and security guarantees, NATO’s defence plans and budgets, and Sweden’s accession. The summit comes amid Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine and a fundamental overhaul of NATO’s defence and deterrence framework.

Ukraine and NATO EU-NATO cooperation:
NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept states that the EU is a ‘unique and essential partner for NATO’. The two organisations share 22 Member States in common. EU-NATO cooperation focuses on issues of common interest such as crisis management and military mobility. Since the war in Ukraine began, the two organisations have sought to ensure that their responses to the invasion are aligned and have, for instance, coordinated weapons deliveries. Benedetta Berti of the European Policy Centre argues that stronger EU-NATO cooperation should stay at the top of the agenda for NATO leaders, and both organisations ‘would benefit from jointly defining a roadmap for enhancing cooperation with practical steps and milestones’.

Ukraine’s defence minister has noted that he ‘expects a guarantee that his country will be invited to join the military alliance at the conclusion of the war with Russia’. Allies have repeated the commitments they made at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 that Ukraine would become a NATO member at an unspecified time in the future, and reiterated their support for NATO’s open door policy. Since Ukraine’s bid for fast-track membership, made in September 2022, NATO Allies have been unable to agree on whether that membership ‘should be full or partial; immediate; gradual, or once again postponed; unconditional or linked to the outcome of the war’. While, NATO may not be ready to offer Ukraine a concrete timeline for membership, Allies may offer security guarantees to Ukraine outside the formal NATO structures. What form they will take is unclear however, as the ‘Western alliance is still divided over nearly every element of how to respond to the request’. According to former NATO Assistant Secretary-General Camille Grand, security guarantees can range from full-NATO membership to ‘paper guarantees’ such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, while in between there are ‘many variants – from bilateral treaties to de facto political commitments – and the challenge is to find the right spot’. One proposal is the Kyiv security compact, which would commit the West to provide political, financial, military and diplomatic support over decades, to increase Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

NATO Allies have been supporting Ukraine with military equipment and aid since before the start of the Russian invasion. These deliveries have been coordinated, inter alia, by the EU and the Ukraine Contact Group, which includes 54 countries. The summit is likely to result in a NATO plan to enhance interoperability with Ukraine, and further commitments to provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, and training. NATO also plans to invite Ukraine to a NATO-Ukraine defence council as an equal member. More details of this are to be announced at the summit. This will be an upgrade from the current NATO-Ukraine Commission, opening the door to a wide range of new areas of cooperation, such as joint exercises.

NATO’s defence plans and budgets

At the Madrid Summit in 2022, the Allies agreed on a ‘fundamental shift’ in NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, a new NATO force model (NFM), and a boost to NATO’s enhanced forward presence (eFP) on the eastern flank. Concrete progress on these measures will be an essential determinant of success at this summit. The NFM is a significant expansion of NATO’s readiness posture, calling for several hundred thousand troops at different readiness levels. There is doubt, however, about the Allies’ ability to fulfil this vision. Important for this purpose will be to endorse updated defence plans – the centrepiece of which are three regional plans – but also to endorse the agreed expansion of the eight existing battlegroups to brigades. In a positive sign, Germany recently committed to permanently stationing a brigade in Lithuania within the eFP framework. The nuclear dimension of defence is also becoming increasingly important, given Russia’s constant nuclear-sabre rattling, the suspension of its participation in the New Start Treaty, the expansion of its nuclear arsenal and the recent announcement that Russia has deployed nuclear warheads to Belarus. Some analysts argue that NATO must commit to enhancing its nuclear deterrence faced with these new threats, and increase its overall nuclear credibility.

Sweden’s accession to NATO

Hungary and Turkey have yet to ratify the accession to NATO of Sweden, which together with Finland (which became a member in April 2023) applied for membership following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sweden is one of NATO’s closest partners, with the status of an ‘enhanced opportunity partner‘. Ankara accuses Stockholm of harbouring Kurdish groups that Turkey considers terrorists and is demanding their extradition. It also wants an arms embargo on the country lifted. The newly elected government in Sweden lifted the arms embargo in September 2022 and toughened its anti-terrorism laws. The Swedish prime minister even wrote a letter to the Turkish president noting that Sweden is ready to meet Turkey’s demands. However, Sweden has an independent judiciary and the extraditions Turkey is requesting are not for the government to decide. Turkey also hopes to gain US Congressional approval of a major defence package to modernise Turkey’s air force, which the US president has linked to Swedish NATO accession. Hungary is holding up ‘NATO expansion…[as a] trump card’, as it seeks to unlock billions of euros of EU funding that have been frozen due to concerns about judicial independence. Hungary is also expecting Sweden to cease its criticism of Hungary’s rule of law and lack of adherence to LGBTQI rights. Hungary has hinted repeatedly, however, that it will not block Sweden’s NATO accession on its own. Many experts believe that the Turkish president, having recently won his re-election bid, will give the green light prior to or shortly after the Vilnius Summit, but this is far from certain. Erdogan dealt a blow to Sweden’s hopes in the run up to the summit when he said that Turkey would not change its attitude unless Sweden prevented anti-Turkey protests by ‘terrorists’.

Defence budgets
Boosting defence spending will also be top of the agenda at the summit, as Allies will discuss a possible new defence investment pledge. At the 2014 Wales Summit, NATO allies committed to a 2 % of GDP defence spending guideline within a decade. However, in 2022, only 7 (Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the UK and the US) out of 30 NATO members met the 2 % of GDP spending guideline. The NATO Secretary-General has called for 2 % to be seen as the absolute minimum rather than a ceiling, and noted that he will ‘advocate for a more ambitious pledge than the one made in 2014’ at the Vilnius Summit. Multiple NATO members have already announced significant increases in defence spending. However it remains to be seen whether these will ever be implemented, with a looming possible recession. Allies may be reluctant to commit publicly to higher defence budget targets. Atlantic Council pundits note however, ‘that success at Vilnius will require a commitment to increase defence spending’. NATO Secretary-General

In recent months ‘Europe has been locked in an endless parlour game over who might replace Jens Stoltenberg’, who has led the alliance since October 2014. The NATO secretary-general, who is ‘responsible for steering the process of consultation and decision-making in the Alliance and ensuring that decisions are implemented’ is selected for renewable 4-year terms – or shorter – based on a unanimous vote by member states. The secretary-general is traditionally a senior European political figure. Many capitals called for the first female secretary-general or a nominee from eastern Europe, while others advocated continuity through extension of Stoltenberg’s term. On 4 July, the North Atlantic Council extended Stoltenberg’s mandate for a year, until 1 October 2024, to be endorsed by NATO leaders at the summit.

European Parliament position

In several resolutions, Parliament has recognised NATO’s role as the cornerstone of collective security for those Member States that are also NATO members. It has stressed the importance of enhancing and deepening the EU’s strategic partnership with NATO. Parliament has a delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (DNAT) for cooperation on common challenges. In a June 2023 resolution, Parliament called on NATO to invite Ukraine into NATO after the war is over and, in the meantime, to develop a temporary security guarantee framework, to be implemented immediately after the war.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Towards NATO’s 2023 Vilnius Summit‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Antonio Vale with Clemens Weichert.

If it is to achieve the Paris Agreement objective of keeping the rise in global temperature well below 2° C, the EU must consider every possible technology to decarbonise energy production. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun and it can be reproduced on Earth. However, even once the considerable engineering challenges of designing a fusion power plant are overcome, there are major constraints inherent in upscaling fusion power.

The basic function of a nuclear fusion reactor is to combine two hydrogen nuclei into a single helium nucleus with slightly less mass then the sum of the two original nuclei. The lost mass is converted into energy. This process is the power source behind both the sun and the hydrogen bomb.

The physics are known and the fuel is readily available. When harnessed in a controlled reaction, fusion power can provide low‑carbon electricity. Research into such civilian use cases has been ongoing since the 1950s. In facilities like the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, scientists are able to heat up plasma to the necessary temperatures, 10 times as hot as the core of the sun. However, heating the plasma and keeping it confined in the reactor requires energy-intensive magnets, or lasers, that use a great deal more energy than the fusion reaction generated. This is a major engineering challenge.

While most approaches use magnetic confinement and a mixture of two fuels – deuterium and tritium – there are numerous variations in fuels and confinement methods. US researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) use inertial confinement, and in 2022, for the first time, they achieved ignition: a net energy gain from a fusion reaction, though not nearly enough to account for the electricity demand of operating their equipment.

Nuclear fusion research has so far relied on purpose-built, state-funded research facilities such as JET and NIF. A next generation facility – the result of an international cooperation project called ITER – is being built in southern France. The EU is funding 45 % of the project, which is set to produce its first plasma in 2025 and start full operation in 2035. Once results are in, ITER is to be followed by a prototype plant with a capacity of 1 GW – powerful enough to cover half of Berlin’s electricity consumption in 2022 – to demonstrate operational viability. However, according to the generally accepted timetable for this pathway, fusion energy will not be on the grid until long after 2050, too late for the green transition.

Nevertheless, some private companies, such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems, are promising a working power plant before 2040. Although the probability of these companies meeting their ambitious goals should not be overstated, they are using the insights generated by JET to improve on the formula in a number of ways, such as using high-end magnets. Should one of them achieve a breakthrough – that is, a self-sustaining fusion reaction with a significant net energy gain – a fusion power plant might be able to feed electricity into the electricity grid much sooner than currently predicted.

Potential impacts and developments

Once the scientific and engineering challenges are overcome, the construction of the first fusion power plants can start. In this scenario, the availability of raw materials, fuels, and qualified workers would represent hard constraints on scaling up the technology. Capital costs and regulations pose soft constraints. Building a fusion reactor requires rare earth elements such as neodymium for the magnets. These are already at a very high supply risk because of their use in wind turbines and electric vehicles, as well as the dominant role China plays in their extraction and processing. For fuel, ITER-style reactors require tritium, which is only commercially produced by nuclear power plants of the CANDU type, all of which will retire in the coming decades. In theory, fusion power plants should be able to ‘breed’ their own fuel supply, but this has not yet been achieved. Securing the initial amount to start the reaction will prove to be a ‘make or break’ criterion for the industry. While some approaches circumvent this problem by using a different fuel mix, most public and private funding goes to start-ups using deuterium and tritium, as the most efficient mix.

Building and operating a fusion power plant would require a large workforce of nuclear engineers, metal‑workers, and electricians. While these are well-paid jobs, the difficulty currently being experienced in France with staffing new conventional nuclear plants gives an idea of some of the problems a fusion power project would run into. Just like nuclear fission plants, which gain energy from splitting atoms, nuclear fusion plants will take a long time to plan and build. For a fission plant, construction normally takes 5 to 10 years; similar timeframes would apply to fusion plants. Depending on the tritium breeding rate of a future power plant, scaling up could take decades. On top of these hard constraints, soft constraints come into play. More specifically, the upfront capital costs of construction will presumably be very high. By way of comparison, recent fission plants have cost over €10 billion to build.

However, the rewards of achieving fusion power would be considerable. Proponents highlight the low carbon emissions, the availability of deuterium fuel extracted from sea water, and the small land-use footprint as advantages of fusion power. Though some radioactive waste is produced, it poses little danger given the small quantities and short half-life. The main promise is that fusion power will produce a constant supply of cheap electricity for the decarbonisation of industry, transport and heating. Furthermore, falling electricity prices might also enable other future technologies such as vertical agriculture, desalination – an energy intensive technology to provide water for agriculture and utilities – or even direct carbon capture and storage from the atmosphere. Although fusion power plants could provide a constant baseload of electricity, they would not be able to adjust quickly to fluctuating supply and demand.

Anticipatory policy-making

The EU has two major programmes in place in the field of fusion energy. One is its contribution to ITER, the other is the Euratom research and training programme. ITER, meaning ‘the way’ in Latin, will be the largest fusion reactor of its kind upon completion. The EU contribution to ITER is managed by Fusion for Energy, which is responsible to Euratom and its Member States. Over the 2014-2027 period, the EU will spend €8 billion on the project. The 2016 roadmap schedules the beginning of operations for 2025. In the same timeframe, €1.5 billion – close to half of Euratom’s research and training budget – will go to fusion research. These funds go to organisations such as Eurofusion, a consortium that works within the official fusion roadmap towards the success of fusion energy, for example by funding young researchers in fusion training and education. In this way, the EU is already addressing the workforce challenges that a commercial fusion project will bring. The Union is therefore taking a leading role in fusion research worldwide.

Implementing the proposed EU regulation on critical raw materials would significantly improve the security of supply of some elements that are crucial for any fusion reactor, such as rare earths and lithium. Appropriate safety regulations should take into account the far lower risks compared with fission plants. With regard to the high capital costs of a fusion power plant, some degree of state funding might be considered, since even scientists who are convinced of the feasibility of building a fusion power plant have been voicing concern about their profitability since the 1970s.

Even under the most optimistic scenario for developments in fusion energy research and development and in a favourable political environment, the hard constraints of tritium supply, construction times, and workforce availability make fusion energy a long-term prospect. Entering a future electricity market dominated by renewables, fusion plants will not be able to provide flexible electricity at times of peak demand. Their production costs will therefore be the decisive factor in market entry, determining whether they can provide baseline power to the grid at a price that can compete with renewables-charged energy storage options. Nevertheless, with a variety of actors pursuing a wide range of approaches to fusion, one of them might just find a solution to these problems.

Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘What if we could make nuclear fusion work?‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Listen to podcast ‘What if we could make nuclear fusion work?’ on YouTube.

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Written by Aidan Christie.

Members head to Strasbourg for the last plenary session before the summer break, with a packed agenda. With just nine months left before the Parliament goes into electoral recess, ahead of the elections on 6-9 June next year, the urgency of business is stepping up, given the limited time left to find agreement on – often complex – legislative files.

On Monday afternoon, Members will launch the week’s deliberations with a joint debate covering a number of proposals from the ‘fit for 55’ package, along with two linked proposals on industrial emissions. The ‘fit for 55’ package is all about adapting EU law and policies in order to meet the legally binding target, set in the European Climate Law, of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % (from 1990 levels) by 2030. The Parliament and Council have been making steady progress in negotiating the various proposals since the package was launched in July 2021.

Three of the proposals to be debated have been agreed between Parliament and Council negotiators, and now need to be formally adopted. The proposed regulation on deployment of alternative fuels aims to speed up the installation of infrastructure and take-up of vehicles running on alternative fuels, such as electric and hydrogen-power, with targets for equipment to be installed at minimum intervals along main roads. The FuelEU Maritime proposal seeks to push the uptake of cleaner fuels for ships and reduce carbon emissions from seaborne transport – reducing gradually in coming to years to reach an 80 % cut by 2050. In addition, to using cleaner fuels en route, ships in port would have to connect to on-shore electrical power. The proposed revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive aims to speed up implementation of energy savings and promote renewable energy sources. The agreement would set a binding target of an 11.7 % reduction in final energy consumption by 2030. The public sector will have a specific target for reducing energy consumption, as well as the target of renovating 3 % of public buildings per year.

The linked proposals on the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive seek to expand existing rules applying to large agro-industrial installations, to cover a broader range of installations, as well as promoting faster adoption of new less-polluting techniques to reduce emissions. Members will vote on the reports from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) with a view to setting the Parliament’s position for trilogue negotiations with the Council.

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Staying on the environmental theme, on Tuesday morning, Members are due to debate the proposed nature restoration regulation, which would establish a legal obligation on Member States to restore degraded ecosystems. During two voting sessions in the ENVI committee, Members took positions on hundreds of proposed amendments, but a tied vote meant that there was ultimately no majority in favour of the proposal as amended. Formally therefore, the committee is recommending that plenary reject the Commission’s proposal, but it is anticipated that large numbers of amendments will be tabled in plenary and the voting may again be very close.

Less controversially, on Tuesday, Members are due to vote on two other reports in the environmental field, with a view to setting Parliament’s position for trilogue talks. Again from ENVI, the report on the proposed regulation on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products aims at making products on the internal market more durable, reusable, reparable, upgradable, recyclable, and generally less harmful to the environment. From the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), the report on the proposed revision of the Construction Products Regulation seeks to boost circular business models and make sustainable products the norm in the building sector.

Integrated circuits or ‘chips’ are fundamental to virtually every aspect of modern life, but Europe has become reliant on chips made elsewhere in the world. The EU chips act would strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem in Europe, bolstering Europe’s capacity to design and produce chips, and giving the Commission powers to implement emergency measures on the chips market if needed in crisis situations. On Tuesday morning, Members are due to consider final adoption of the text agreed in trilogue with the Council.

In the external relations field, on Tuesday afternoon, Members are scheduled to debate reports from the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) on the Commission’s latest annual enlargement reports on progress in candidate countries, with Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the agenda this month. In both cases, the committee underlines the importance of continuing progress towards accession, and emphasises areas where the country concerned needs to step up its efforts. In the latter case, AFET denounces the recent increased inflammatory actions of the Republika Srpska leadership. Also on Tuesday afternoon, Parliament is due to debate recommendations drafted by the AFET committee on EU relations with the Palestinian Authority. The committee expresses concern at the mounting violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent months, and calls for an immediate end to all violence. Members also urge the Palestinian leadership to organise free and fair elections.

Media freedom and pluralism have come under growing threat in recent years, through increasing harassment of journalists, as well as human rights defenders and activists, with groundless or abusive lawsuits. Such lawsuits seek to silence those speaking out on legitimate matters of public interest, landing them with high costs for defending their freedom of expression. On Monday evening, Parliament is set to debate the report from the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) on the proposed directive on protection of journalists and human rights defenders from unfounded court cases with a view to setting its position for trilogue negotiations.

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Threats to freedom of speech come in various forms, and recent events have highlighted potential vulnerabilities to foreign interference and undue influence of Members of the European Parliament. The Special Committee on Foreign Interference and Disinformation (ING2) had its mandate extended to investigate shortcomings in Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption measures. Its recommendations on reforming the rules to protect Parliament’s integrity are set for debate on Wednesday afternoon.

The threats to European society from the coronavirus pandemic have now largely passed, but the Special Committee set up to evaluate the experiences of the crisis has aimed to ensure the EU is better prepared for any future major health threat. Parliament is due to debate the lessons learned from COVID-19 and recommendations for the future on Tuesday afternoon, with the COVI committee calling for action in four areas: a health union, democracy and fundamental rights, addressing social and economic impact, and global action.

A European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) enables citizens to call for the Union to act in a given area, and once 1 million people, from at least 7 EU countries, sign up, the European Commission must respond. The ‘Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing‘ ECI has gained the required signatures, and its organisers presented their case in a hearing before the ENVI committee in May. The ECI is scheduled for debate in plenary on Monday evening, before the Commission presents its formal response.

Every year, after closing the financial year, the EU budget generally has a surplus, due to higher than expected revenue and underspending. Amending budget No 2/2023 will enter the surplus from 2022, amounting to €2.5 billion, as revenue in the 2023 budget, and Parliament is expected to vote on Tuesday to confirm this move.

The regular question time session with the Commission will focus this month on EU-Africa strategy, with Members having the opportunity to pose questions to the Commission on Tuesday afternoon on its plans for developing relations with African countries.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, Parliament is scheduled to debate the outcome of the European Council meeting of 29‑30 June 2023, where recent developments in the war against Ukraine and in Russia were discussed.

Agenda

• Ecodesign for sustainable products
• Revision of the Construction Products Regulation
• Revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive
• Alternative fuels infrastructure
• FuelEU Maritime – Sustainable maritime fuels
• Nature restoration regulation
• Revision of the industrial emissions directive
• Protection of journalists and human rights defenders from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings (SLAPPs)
• Reforming rules to protect Parliament’s integrity
• 2022 report on Albania
• 2022 report on Bosnia and Herzegovina
• EU relations with the Palestinian Authority
• Amending budget No 2/2023: 2022 surplus
• Lessons learned from COVID-19 and recommendations for the future
• EU chips act
• Citizens’ initiative on animal testing

Written by Clément Evroux.

Antimicrobial resistance (the ability of a microorganism to survive in the presence of a medicine designed to inhibit or kill it) is threatening the capacity to prevent and cure infectious diseases. In the European Union, it causes an estimated 35 000 deaths per year, and places an annual financial burden of €1.1 billion on healthcare systems. In 2019, the World Health Organization declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to be one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.

On 26 April 2023, the European Commission published a proposal for a Council recommendation on stepping up EU action to combat AMR. This proposal complements two other legislative proposals, together making up the EU pharmaceutical package. It provides for a holistic preparedness and response framework to curb AMR, through a One Health approach, ensuring the inclusion of human, animal and plant health, as well as their interactions with the environment. Three main priorities underpin the proposal: infection prevention, prudent use of antimicrobials (including the objective of reducing human consumption of antibiotics in the Union by 20 % by 2030), and research and development to ensure access to appropriate medical countermeasures.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution welcoming the proposal on 1 June. The Council of the EU adopted the recommendation on 13 June 2023.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Stepping up EU action to combat antimicrobial resistance: The ‘One Health’ approach‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

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Written by Andrés García and Clemens Weichert.

A recently published Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) study offers a bird’s eye perspective of the drivers for more strategic autonomy, the barriers that stand in the way, and how the European Union can work to overcome these barriers.

In the last few years, several events have threatened our way of life in Europe. The COVID‑19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown how fragile our supply of energy, technical components, and basic commodities really is. This is why the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) commissioned a study on ‘A preparedness plan for Europe: Addressing food, energy and technological security‘.

The authors of the study, a group of researchers from Białystok University of Technology in Poland, brought 153 international experts together to answer these difficult questions on their respective fields. They covered not only the crucial matters of food and energy security, but also the supply of semiconductors used in computer chips and the security of European satellite communication. These four fields are obviously very important to European citizens. So what did the experts say?

Following a foresight approach, the researchers formulated several theses. Each took the form of a future scenario, such as, ‘The supply of semiconductors to strategic sectors of the EU countries will be ensured’. The respondents then assigned a significance score to each scenario, indicating how likely it is in their opinion, as well as the significance of the associated effects. They also gave a timescale for when the scenario may happen, from ‘by the end of 2025’ to ‘after 2050’, or maybe ‘never’. Lastly, they gave their opinions of what major barriers could arise, how Europe can overcome them, and which actors lawmakers must bring on board to ensure benefits while avoiding undesirable side effects.

The example above received the highest of all the significance scores, and the experts who participated in the exercise expect the supply of semiconductors to be secured no earlier than 2031, and not later than 2050. According to the respondents, Europe needs a circular economy with shorter and more secure international supply chains to secure the supply of semiconductors, although this is unlikely to happen within the next decade.

In the food and energy sectors, the respondents expect developments to happen much faster. The theses on food focused on increased European production of wheat, sunflower oil, and special fertilisers. Experts expect most of these developments to happen sometime before 2030, or at least in the first half of the 21st century. The EU should promote the use of advanced agricultural technology to achieve these goals they say, but an increase in droughts and floods might make this more difficult.

On energy, the timeline is even shorter. For the two most significant theses, more than 80 % of respondents agree that they will be implemented in the 2020s. Specifically, they postulate a more dynamic growth in the renewable energy sector and the building of energy interconnectors, such as power lines and hydrogen pipelines between EU Member States. The other energy theses touch on the topics of energy independence from Russia, an increased use of hydrogen gas, and more distributed energy production. However, especially for hydrogen, we still need to make a lot of technological progress before this becomes a realistic option.

While the experts rated the development of Europe’s satellite communications programme ‘Copernicus’ to be somewhat less significant, they still expect many new private and public applications to be found within the next few years.

The authors of the study received feedback on 21 theses. The responses came from a diverse set of experts from all over Europe, who work on a range of topics. In their conclusion, the authors emphasised the role of new technologies and continuing research in all fields. While climate change is the greatest threat to food security, energy autonomy depends mostly on strengthening connections within Europe – both politically as well as physically – in the form of power lines.

Read the full report and STOA options brief to find out more. The results of this analysis were presented by its authors to the STOA Panel at its meeting of 16 March 2023. The complete version of the study incorporates the ideas provided at the time by the STOA Panel Members through their suggestions and comments.

Your opinion counts for us. To let us know what you think, get in touch via stoa@europarl.europa.eu.

Written by Vitalba Crivello.

Expectations were high when the 2023 edition of the annual ESMH summer school for young media makers kicked off on 6 June at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Some sixty young journalists, science communicators and students from EU countries filled the room with excitement about the nine thematic sessions of the five-day school programme, focusing on ‘Storytelling in science’ and culminating in two sessions at EYE2023.

The event offered young journalists an opportunity to reflect upon the complex task of reporting on scientific topics, meeting and networking with experts in science communication and journalism.

DAY 1: science stories in the current media landscape

Crafting science stories is indeed a challenging task, especially at times of crises and uncertainty.

As Christian Ehler (EPP, Germany), STOA Chair noted during his opening speech, the current media landscape presents big challenges for science journalism. To overcome them, the ESMH and STOA are encouraging young media-makers to research, look for and shape science stories capable of gaining and maintaining public trust at a time when misinformation is a prominent risk.

A discussion panel on the status of the current media landscape and the future challenges for science journalism followed. Thanks to a very active audience, the lively debate set the scene for the whole event.

DAY 2: trust How do we persuade the public to trust sound science news?

Thiswas the key question around which the three sessions on 7 June revolved.

The day started with a hands-on training run by Kai Kupferschmidt (Science reporter at Science magazine, Berlin), who engaged participants in an interactive discussion about how to define news and what makes something ‘newsworthy’.

The morning continued with a roundtable on how journalists can better understand their audience and gain their trust, with particular attention paid to the dynamics of the digital world.

The afternoon session carried the discussion on the role of trust in science news even further, by looking at the rationale behind science denialism and exploring solutions to help the public avoid falling into the misinformation trap.

DAY 3: storytelling and best practices for science journalism

Moving on, the 8 June session started with a masterclass on storytelling. Here, participants did a practical exercise and analysed two science stories, discussing how to engage with and retain the audience by using a narrative that would grip their emotions until a story’s conclusion. 

Then it was time for another discussion panel, where fact-checkers, journalists and researchers exchanged views on how a science journalist can ensure scientific accuracy while applying the storytelling technique.

Day 3 ended with a session on new tools for science journalism, notably with an eye on the possibilities and risks of generative AI and Chat GPT.

DAY 4: climate stories (at EYE2023)

On 9 June, the 60 young participants in the ESMH summer school mingled with the young people attending EYE2023, for two sessions on climate stories.

In the first panel, expert speakers from traditional and digital media discussed the effectiveness of storytelling in inspiring climate action, paying particular attention to approaching and understanding their audience.

Immediately after the panel, Youtuber Simon Clark and seasoned science journalist Alok Jha ran a masterclass on how to build a science story, observing the similarities and differences of creating a captivating story on social and traditional media.

DAY 5: EYE2023 and the future of science journalism

On 10 June, while the summer school’s participants were free to attend additional sessions at EYE2023, the ESMH team began to receive feedback on the 2023 ESMH summer school. As this was generally enthusiastic, the team will continue their work to offer young journalist further opportunities to learn and share.

As Kai Kupferschmidt said ‘Young journalists can count on proficiency with new tools, and social media provides them fresh perspectives that I think can contribute to improving the system that we have now. I think there is a huge opportunity there and I think there will be people who grasp it.’

Written by Ralf Drachenberg with José René Ernault.

EU leaders had a very full agenda for their June meeting. The war in Ukraine was again one of the focal points of the European Council, with EU leaders for the first time expressing readiness to contribute to a future ‘security guarantee’ to Ukraine. They also took stock of the Union’s efforts to bolster joint defence procurement, and acknowledged that ‘defence preparedness’ was key in the current security context. With the adoption of conclusions on China, the European Council chose to display unity and stress its political will to forge a common approach based on the concept of ‘de‑risking – not de-coupling from China’. As anticipated, migration became a very divisive point, with two countries, Hungary and Poland refusing to endorse joint conclusions, which were replaced by conclusions of the European Council President. In addition, EU leaders addressed a range of external relations topics, including the Western Balkans accession process, the situation in Kosovo, the Cyprus settlement and relations with Turkey following the re-election of President Erdogan, with the High Representative/VP and the Commission invited to report on the state of play. EU leaders also discussed relations with the Southern Neighbourhood, welcoming the partnership package with Tunisia, and prepared for the July 2023 EU-CELAC Summit aimed at renewing the EU partnership with Latin America, a priority for the incoming Spanish Council Presidency.

1.     General remarks

The meetings of EU Heads of State or Government started with an exchange of views with the NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, on EU-NATO cooperation and Euro-Atlantic security. That was followed by the address of the European Parliament’s President, Roberta Metsola, and a discussion with EU leaders focused on Ukraine, the MFF revision and migration. President Metsola also stressed that the EU needed to prepare for the next enlargement, which required reform. She also asked EU leaders to reflect on their position on the proposed changes for Parliamentary elections.

Worth noting is the breakfast meeting of a cross political party group of EU leaders (De Croo, Costa, Iohannis, Kristersson, Rutte, Sanchez, Scholz, Macron, Meloni, Morawiecki) that took place on the margins of the European Council, and discussed the ‘absorption capacity of the EU for new Member States and the EU’s necessary internal reforms in this regard.

2.     European Council meeting Ukraine

Once again, EU leaders underlined their unity and determination in support of Ukraine, with a particular focus on military support. The stark contrast between the unity at EU-level and the ‘cracks in the Putin system’ was underlined strongly in the discussions. While no conclusions were adopted on the recent Wagner mutiny, EU leaders discussed the situation in Russia, with some describing the country as weakened, but treated the episode as an internal Russian matter. That notwithstanding the Baltic leaders called for increased surveillance on the EU’s eastern borders with Belarus, where Wagner fighters are supposed to be relocated. Highlighting his distinct views, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the situation as being of ‘no major importance’.

Overall, four topics dominated the discussions. Ahead of NATO’s Vilnius summit, the question of security guarantees for Ukraine was a central issue in the discussion on Ukraine. EU leaders indicated their readiness ‘to contribute, together with partners, to future security commitments to Ukraine’. The views of the different EU leaders were however quite divergent in this respect, with some pushing for swift accession of Ukraine to NATO once the war is over, while others argued that Ukraine’s accession is something unrealistic or that other measures should be prioritised. As EU Member States have different security arrangements – most being NATO members but some being neutral, the respect for specific national security considerations was reiterated in the conclusions.

Financing the reconstruction, and the use of Russian frozen assets to that end, was the second element of the discussion. Some EU leaders urged speeding up work on identifying possible solutions for using these assets, stressing that the funds needed for the reconstruction of Ukraine should not be the burden of European taxpayers. The ECB and EU countries such as Germany have shown more reluctance towards that approach, fearing that such a decision could lower the trust of foreign states wishing to store assets in Europe. Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also stated that the method used should not undermine financial security in the EU.

Russia’s accountability was the third issue discussed, with EU leaders welcoming the start of the support operations of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression. The fourth aspect was the condemnation of the military support provided by Belarus to Russia, notably allowing Russian armed forces to use its territory (as well as the support from Iran).

In addition, EU leaders condemned the destruction of the Kakhova dam, welcomed the 11th sanctions package, underlined their active diplomatic efforts in support of Ukraine’s Peace Formula and for the organisation of the Copenhagen peace conference in July, and discussed the EU path of Ukraine and Moldova. As expected, Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed EU leaders by video-link, updating them on the situation on the battlefield and stressing Ukraine’s readiness to start accession negotiations.

Finally, in a context of strong criticism of the deal reached between the Commission and five Member States affected by the import of Ukrainian agriculture products , the European Council did address food security, expressing concern at the slowdown of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

Main message of the President of the European Parliament: President Metsola expressed the European Parliament’s desire that the accession negotiations with Ukraine should be opened by the end of the year. Georgia’s European path was also mentioned in the conclusions.

Security and defence

President Michel stressed that ‘strong allies make strong Alliances’. He underlined that the efforts undertaken in the EU to develop EU defence capabilities and bolster joint defence procurement also contributed to strengthening NATO, putting emphasis on the complementarity between the two institutions. As for Jens Stoltenberg, he stressed the importance of the EU-NATO strategic partnership in the current context of war in Europe, recalling the work undertaken on resilience and critical infrastructure. The Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, insisted that Europeans needed to further bolster defence investments, and warned that lack of political will could prove dangerous, recalling that, between 1999 and 2021, European defence investments had increased by 19.7 %, whilst the increase had reached 65.7 % in the US, 292 % in Russia and 595 % in China in the same period. The Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, whose country is still waiting to join the Alliance, stressed that the ‘Vilnius Summit is a very good occasion for decision-making’.

The European Peace Facility envelope was increased by €3.5 billion to meet ‘the global geographical scope’ of the instrument, reaching a total of €12 billion. Besides welcoming this development, EU leaders took stock of the implementation of the Strategic Compass. They also welcomed the new Civilian CSDP Compact and praised efforts to strengthen cyber-defence.

Main message of the President of the European Parliament: President Metsola stressed that a new security architecture was required, underlining that the EU and NATO needed to ‘complement each other’, and avoid duplication and competition. She underlined the importance of continuing to boost joint defence procurement, urging the adoption of EDIRPA and ASAP.

Migration

Discussions on migration were difficult and lengthy. As expected, Poland and Hungary expressed their disagreement with both the content and the procedure for the adoption of the Council common position on two key pieces of legislation regulating the internal dimension of migration. Although the use of use of qualified majority voting (QMV) fully complied with the Treaty, the two countries consider that consensus should apply to migration issues. They even attempted to have a joint statement adopted providing for decision-making by consensus on migration issues in future. Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, indicated that, due to their ‘anger’ on the matter, Poland and Hungary had opposed the adoption of European Council conclusions on migration – even on the external dimension aspect on which they actually agree with the EU position. The views of the other EU leaders were summed up by Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, who stated that ‘I prefer to have no conclusions than bad conclusions. If it is to have a breach of Treaties, it is not acceptable’. In the end, there were only conclusions by the President of the European Council on the external dimension of migration, which largely reflect the draft conclusions with the addition of a reference to the position of Poland and Hungary.

Another highly debated aspect was the use of ‘innovative measures‘, referring notably to the use of disembarkation centres (i.e. centres outside the EU where a first screening of asylum applications would be carried out), a proposal supported by Denmark and Austria, but strongly rejected by other Member States such as Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Charles Michel underlined the significant progress achieved on migration measures since the European Council’s February 2023 meeting, pointing in particular to closer EU-Tunisia cooperation. Migration has clearly returned to being a ‘rolling agenda’ topic at European Council meetings, and Michel confirmed that the topic would be on the agenda of the next and subsequent meetings.

Main message of the President of the European Parliament: Roberta Metsola underlined that ‘migration cannot be instrumentalised’ and that the co-legislators needed to find agreement on the migration package before the European elections in June 2024. For her, the starting position in any debate on migration must always be that no human being should die trying to reach Europe.

China

For the first time since 2020, the European Council adopted conclusions on China, indicating political will to overcome divisions and forge a common approach to the relationship, adapted to the current strategic environment. As underlined by President von der Leyen, there was ‘broad consensus on the concept of “de-risking – not de-coupling from China” ‘, a country which is ‘simultaneously a partner, a competitor and a systemic rival’. The EU would ‘continue to engage with China … but following a European approach based on our interests and on our values’. Thus, the approach implies that the EU would carry out both ‘economic de-risking’ and ‘diplomatic de-risking’, which in terms of EU policy towards China will translate at three levels. Economically, first, the relationship with China needs to be re-balanced and based on reciprocity. Following the principle set in Versailles in 2022, the EU will seek to reduce its ‘critical dependencies’ and economic vulnerabilities whilst respecting its interests. President von der Leyen mentioned in particular the trade deficit, which had tripled over the past ten years or the unfair practices faced by EU companies in accessing the Chinese market. However, analysts warned that, in practice, ‘de-risking’ and ‘not decoupling’ were far from complementary. The Prime Minister of Latvia, Krišjānis Karinš, summed up the EU’s dilemma by stressing the need to reduce dependencies rapidly to avoid later problems.

Defending human rights, democratic values and fundamental principles constitute the second level, with EU leaders expressing support for efforts to address these issues. They welcomed the renewal of the Human Rights dialogue with China, whilst expressing concern about the situation in Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as the (lack of) respect of engagements towards Hong Kong.

Third, the European Council underlined China’s special responsibility in upholding the international order as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and stressed the need to engage with China on global issues such as health, climate change and security. In that context, it called on China ‘to press Russia’ to end its war and to ‘unconditionally withdraw’ from Ukraine. So far, China has refrained from condemning Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, abstaining or voting against in the various resolutions the UN has adopted on Ukraine and/or Russia since the outbreak of the war. EU leaders also recalled the global strategic importance of the East and South China Seas, expressing concern over ‘growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait’; they also stressed that the EU opposed revisionism, and confirmed its ‘One China policy’.

Economy

EU leaders only briefly discussed economic issues, underlining the need to build European competitiveness on the fundamental asset of the European internal market. For that purpose, they decided to put in place a high-level committee to identify additional steps to strengthen the EU internal market, and tasked the Commission with the preparation of two reports for their meeting in March 2024 – an independent report on the future of the single market and the first progress report on the EU’s competitiveness, productivity and growth. In that context, EU leaders called for demographic challenges – Europe is an ageing continent with a median age of 44.4 years and low fertility rates – to be addressed, with a toolbox aimed at lessening the impact on competitiveness.

EU leaders also had a first exchange of views on the economic security concept, following the publication of the strategy. The wording of the conclusions is cautious, calling for ‘proportionate, precise and targeted answers to security challenges on the basis of a risk assessment’.

Multiannual Financial Framework

EU leaders did not open discussions on the sensitive and divisive subject of the revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework – just ‘taking note’ of the Commission proposal.

Main message of the President of the European Parliament: Focusing a lot on this topic, President Metsola stressed that ‘we need to put our money where our mouth is’ and adapt the EU’s long term budget, if Europe wants to address adequately all the challenges it faces.

EU-priorities 2024-2029

In a letter sent ahead of the meeting, President Michel proposed a process for the shaping of the EU’s next strategic priorities, and suggested four (plus one ) priority areas i) the EU’s economic and social base; ii) the energy challenge; iii) security and defence capabilities; and iv) engagement worldwide. Migration would also be a core topic. Discussion would kick off under the Spanish Presidency with the aim of finalising during the Belgian one in the first half of 2024.

Read this briefing on ‘Outcome of the European Council meeting of 29-30 June 2023‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Written by Laurence Amand-Eeckhout (1st edition).

On 28 September 2022, the European Commission proposed a revision of the 2009 Directive on the protection of workers from the risk of exposure to asbestos. The aim of the proposal is to lower the occupational exposure limit (OEL) value, which is mandatory in all Member States. According to the proposal, the OEL would be reduced from 0.1 fibres/cm³ to 0.01 fibres/cm³, and not to a lower limit as wished by the European Parliament and some European trade unions. Despite the total ban on the use of asbestos in the EU, exposure to this carcinogenic fibre, which is still present in millions of buildings, kills more than 70 000 people a year in Europe.

The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs adopted its report on the proposal on 26 April 2023. The mandate to enter trilogues was endorsed by the plenary the following month. On 27 June 2023, the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement, which now needs to be confirmed, and formally adopted by the two co-legislators

Versions

• June 2023: Protection of workers from asbestos at work (1st edition)

Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2009/148/EC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to asbestos at workCommittee responsible:Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL)COM(2022) 489
28.9.2022Rapporteur:Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew, France)2022/0298(COD)Shadow rapporteurs:Cindy Franssen (EPP, Belgium)
Marianne Vind (S&D, Denmark)
Sara Matthieu (Greens/EFA, Belgium)
Joanna Kopcinska (ECR, Poland)
Elena Lizzi (ID, Italy)
Nikolaj Villumsen (The Left, DenmarkOrdinary legislative procedure
(COD) (Parliament and Council
on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’)Next steps expected: Final first-reading vote in plenary