European Union

Earlier in June, Belgium’s Minister of Justice and North Sea Vincent Van Quickenborne launched a legal battle against the French government’s plans for a wind farm at sea near Dunkirk. Now the region of Flanders is joining the fight. The...

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was summoned to the parliamentary investigation committee over alleged corruption in the former ÖVP-FPÖ government, which collapsed after “Ibiza-Gate” – the biggest corruption scandal in Austrian history. In his opening statement, Kurz complained that the committee was...

Germany expects the Delta variant of COVID-19 to account for up to 80% of infections this month, but health experts argue that the Delta variant would not be significantly more dangerous than others. Germany’s STIKO vaccination commission said later on...

Hosting the Euro 2020 semifinals and final at Wembley Stadium in London while cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant are soaring across the UK is a “recipe for disaster”, Pascal Canfin, chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee, said in...

Slovenia’s centre-left opposition has rejected the governing coalition’s call for a political truce during Slovenia’s EU presidency and is determined to continue to use ‘all the available means’ at their disposal, not ruling out a new attempt at a vote...

Following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries, special administrative regions and other entities and territorial authorities for which travel restrictions should be lifted.

A joint press conference between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Slovenian prime minister Janez Janš was dominated with questions over rule of law, media freedom and EU values. Slovenia started its six-month stint at the helm of...

Newsletter - 5-8 July 2021 - Strasbourg plenary session

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Written by Denise Chircop.

European Union cooperation in the field of education and training has developed in a number of areas that now have well-established roots. The best-known example is possibly the Bologna Process that led to the establishment of the European higher education area. The Copenhagen Declaration lent impetus to a process of cooperation in vocational education and training. This was accompanied by two strategic framework agreements for European cooperation in education and training (ET2010 and ET2020).

The stocktaking on the expiry of the second framework for cooperation – ET 2020 – revealed some positive trends as the numbers of both young children in early childhood education and of graduates rose. However, the number of underachieving 15 year-olds remains high and the participation of adults in learning is low.

The European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament seem to concur that cooperation in education and training needs to be reinforced. The Commission has set out its vision for a European education area in three communications, which show that this is still work in progress. The Council, on the other hand, has endorsed another framework for cooperation up to 2030, which is clearly aimed at supporting the implementation of such an area. The May 2021 Education Council conclusions give pointers as to how aspects of this area are to be addressed.

The debate in the European Parliament is in its initial phase with the rapporteur noting that, while there is agreement on the need for a European education area and ongoing cooperation, the European institutions have yet to adopt a single approach.

Read the complete briefing on ‘The European Education Area and the 2030 strategic framework for education and training‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Listen to policy podcast ‘The European Education Area and the 2030 strategic framework for education and training’ on YouTube.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (30 June) that Russia could have sunk a British warship that, according to Moscow, had illegally entered its territorial waters.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of microorganisms to evolve to resist antibiotics, leading to infections becoming increasingly untreatable. AMR already claims as many as 33,000 lives in the EU every year, but this is set to drastically worsen, with...

In the two months before the 11 July parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, a series of corruption scandals have shed light on the country’s governance during the rule of Boyko Borissov’s GERB party. According to the latest polls, support for GERB is falling.

France's top administrative court condemned the government's failure to comply with the Paris Agreement and fight global warming on Thursday (1 July), giving it nine months to get in line with the climate objectives it signed up to. EURACTIV France reports.

  This week our podcast focuses on the spread of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant and the threat it poses to Europe’s long-awaited return to normality after almost 18 months of restrictions and lockdowns. What is the World Health...

The Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council that started on Thursday (1 July) will focus on cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Services Package, and roaming negotiations, while the long-pending ePrivacy Regulation is set to take a back seat.

The European Parliament’s and political groups’ spokespersons will hold a briefing on the 5-8 July plenary session on Friday at 11.00.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The European Parliament’s and political groups’ spokespersons will hold a briefing on the 5-8 July plenary session on Friday at 11.00.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Following the high-level discussion hosted by New Direction foundation, which brought together key players from industry, the European Parliament, and the European Commission a look at the issues of infrastructure for zero emission vehicles. The EU has set the ambitious...

Investment in research and development, together with encouraging the innovative economic models is a way to fight this silent threat, Swedish centre-right MEP Jessica Polfjärd told EURACTIV in an interview.

The European Commission has formally launched an €8 billion European Defence Fund (EDF), a new instrument designed to co-finance collaborative defence research and development projects across the bloc.