European Union

Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis has asked once again for the return of the Parthenon marbles in an article published in the Daily Mail on Sunday. ​“​Only a handful of Britain’s past Prime Ministers have studied classics at university. Fewer still would...

Solar Foods, a startup born in 2017 out of the research project by VTT Technical Research Centre and LUT University in Eastern Finland, has come up with a method to produce sustainable and pure single-cell protein from carbon dioxide and...

Farmers from across Ireland gathered on Sunday to protest against the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), arriving in the capital in a fleet of tractors. The CAP is nearing the end of its legislative journey at EU level, but many...

Georgia on Saturday (20 November) moved jailed opposition leader and ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili to a military hospital from a prison clinic after doctors warned he risked death following a 50-day hunger strike.

Around 40,000 people poured onto the streets of Vienna to protest against the total lockdown that is to be introduced from Monday, as well as the new measures that will make vaccines mandatory from February 2022. On Friday, the Austrian...

Maritime Minister Annick Girardin told fishermen during a trip to northern France that the executive will “not give up at all” in the dispute over fishing licences with the British government. A few days earlier, Girardin had announced “fleet exit...

With the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and hospital beds being in increasingly short supply, multiple leading German politicians are speaking out in favour of making vaccines mandatory – something which was initially considered taboo. “I believe that in the...

Rumen Radev won a second presidential term in a runoff against GERB-backed candidate Anastas Gerdjikov with a very low turnout of just over 30%. According to Gallup International Balkan data from exit polls, Radev received 65.8% of the vote against 31.8% for...

There is a possibility that migrants from Afghanistan could benefit from the next wave of the migrant crisis, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday, speaking alongside Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingride Šimonyte. In a new wave of diplomatic moves,...

It is currently impossible to check peoples’ COVID passes on public transport because there is not enough staff to carry out such a task, trade unions in Rome have said. They complained that the Italian government did not support new...

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Global Europe Brief, your weekly update on the EU from a global perspective. You can subscribe to receive our newsletter here. In this week’s edition: Central Asia’s water woes, Belarus in crisis mode, and Ukraine military build-up. Most...

President Charles Michel of the European Council held phone calls on 19 November with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia.

The Council adopted a decision establishing a €40 million assistance measure under the European Peace Facility (EPF) in support of the Republic of Mozambique.

Weekly schedule of President Charles Michel 22– 28 November 2021

The Council approved conclusions highlighting the strategic importance of water for sustainable development, reaffirming the EU’s diplomatic engagement on water as a tool for peace, security and stability, and calling for increased emphasis on the issue of water in the EU’s external action and in the UN agendas in line with SDG 6.

The EU issued a declaration Union strongly condemning the Russian Federation’s conduct of a kinetic direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon test against its own satellite, COSMOS 1408, resulting in its destruction by a missile, as a clear act of irresponsible behaviour in outer space.

Council adopts regulation establishing joint undertakings under Horizon Europe.

The Council approved conclusions recognising the key role of EU public sector expertise as a form of international technical cooperation. Such cooperation may - among others - take the form of administrative and technical cooperation measures, as well as institution building through tools such as Twinning and TAIEX.

Press briefing ahead of the upcoming General Affairs Council will take place on 22 November 2021 at 10.30.

Written by Jaan Soone.

In December 2019 the European Commission published a communication on the Green Deal, in which it outlined its priorities to transform the EU into a resource-efficient and competitive economy and to meet the EU’s climate commitments.

Subsequently, in line with the Green Deal, the European Climate Law was adopted in July 2021, setting in law the EU target for 2030 of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % compared with 1990 levels. To deliver the targets agreed in the European Climate Law, the Commission adopted a set of legislative proposals known as the ‘Fit for 55’ package on 14 July 2021. To speed up emissions reductions in transport, the package includes proposals to tighten the emissions trading scheme and widen its scope, proposals to increase the use of alternative fuels in aviation and shipping, stricter CO2 emissions standards for road vehicles, and a proposal to amend the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (AFID) and transform it into a regulation.

This briefing provides a snapshot of the current state of play in alternative fuels recharging and refuelling points, and in the number of alternative fuel vehicles in circulation in EU countries. Since the adoption of the AFID in 2014, infrastructure deployment for the various alternative fuels in road transport has grown, however differences persist between Member States. Similarly, the uptake of alternatively fuelled vehicles differs between Member States, and petrol and diesel engines continue to dominate vehicle fleets. Nonetheless, the market for electric vehicles has strongly matured, and the market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has also developed. The market for natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles is mature and has seen slow growth, but vehicles have remained concentrated in a few Member States. The briefing also summarises recent projections for future take-up of these vehicles.

See also the EPRS ‘EU Legislation in progress’ briefing on the revision of the Directive on the Deployment of Alternative Fuels Infrastructure (AFID).

Read the complete briefing on ‘Alternative fuel vehicle infrastructure and fleets: State of play‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.