European Union

EU and UK officials stressed on Friday (19 November) the need to build on new 'momentum' in the talks on the controversial Northern Ireland protocol, after a week in which the threat of a trade war appeared to recede.

Due to rising COVID-19 cases, the Conference of Presidents decided to approve the President’s proposal to reintroduce remote participation and voting for MEPs as of 22 November.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Due to rising COVID-19 cases, the Conference of Presidents decided to approve the President’s proposal to reintroduce remote participation and voting for MEPs as of 22 November.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Yes, we know. We’ve teased you time and time again with the promise of a #FinalCAPdown. But this time, it’s the real deal. After months and months of discussions, reversals, late-night talks and last-minute deals and not one, not two,...

Perhaps it was just too good to be true. After a few months of relative normality, trips to the cinema, beers with friends and eating out, we are back to restrictions. In Austria’s case, a full lockdown.

As the heads of Gaia-X, a much-publicised European tech project, praised progress in developing a federated cloud and data ecosystem at the Gaia-X summit concluded on Friday (19. November), one of Europe’s biggest cloud providers has already jumped ship.

EURACTIV’s Digital Brief brings you a weekly update on all things digital in the EU.

Apple has vehemently been opposing sideloading provisions in the DMA, which would allow alternative ways for downloading apps on their operating system. Damien Geradin, legal counsel for the Coalition for App Faireness responds point by point to Apple’s argument, making the case...

The question of how COVID vaccines donated by wealthy countries are classified and priced could artificially raise the European Union’s development aid figures by billions of euros, EURACTIV understands.

The European Space Agency has taken a giant leap in launching the Matoshinhos Manifesto that will accelerate the use of space in Europe and tackle the urgent and unprecedented challenges faced by Europe and its citizens. Today, as a resolution, it was unanimously approved by the Council of Ministers, ushering in what it is hoped will be a new era for exploration and discovery.

This week, EURACTIV talks about what to expect from the final CAP vote in Strasbourg next week, we take a look at the EU's recently unveiled soil strategy.

EDA’s prototype Tactical Personnel Recovery Mission Simulator (TPRMS) was officially inaugurated on 18 November in Italy after achieving Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The new simulator marks a significant achievement for the European Personnel Recovery community as no such capability currently exists with Europe.  

An inauguration ceremony was organised at Italian Air Base Poggio-Renatico, the host organisation of the TPRMS. The formal opening was followed by a live immersion experience within the TPRMS where participants had the opportunity to engage in an immersive virtual reality simulation of Personnel Recovery (PR) missions. 

TPRMS from concept to capability

The TPRMS project was launched in April 2019 as a proof-of-concept demonstrator with an objective to test and evaluate a technical solution that uses Virtual Reality (VR) technology and simulation-based software that when put together can quickly and easily create a customisable and highly realistic operational environment. The simulator which can create conditions from across the globe offers an opportunity for PR forces to rehearse PR Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) in a risk-free environment. 

The development of TPRMS is conducted within a four-year timeframe (2019-2022) and is run jointly and co-financed by the European Defence Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defence, which is acting as the project Lead Nation and Host Nation through its Air Forces.  

TPRMS also aims to demonstrate that such a capability provides at an affordable cost an immersive style of training that allows joint PR forces to hone their skills in a risk free environment that still offers a rigorous, realistic and repetitive PR training. EDA’s TPRMS project is a first step towards the creation of a European common approach in training joint PR forces through simulation and as a key enabler to the joint PR training process.  

EDA Chief Executive, Jiří Šedivý said: “The TPRMS project demonstrates EDA’s enduring engagement in supporting its Member States efforts in aiming to find affordable and well-proven technical solutions that can contribute to overcome existing capability gaps for training within the EU, in this case in the PR area”.  

Project Team Personnel Recovery Meeting 

The event was organised back-to-back with EDA’s  40TH Project Team Personnel Recovery (PT PR) meeting and was attended by PR experts from seven EU Member States (Czech Republic, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania) and three international organisations with expertise in Personnel Recovery (the European Personnel Recovery Centre/EPRC, the Joint Air Power Coordination Centre/JAPCC and the Air Operations Centre of Excellence/CASPOA). 

 

A new feed additive intended to reduce methane emissions from enteric fermentation of dairy cows has been considered efficacious by the EU's food safety agency (EFSA).

EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowksi has said support for small and medium sized farmers is a red line for the approval of member states’ CAP strategic plans, promising to oppose plans which restrict access to funding for these farmers.

The European Commission, which is due to present its proposal on platform workers on 8 December, faces a tricky balancing act: ensuring decent working conditions while maintaining the flexibility of a booming sector.

The EU Advocate General's rejection of groundless data retention increases pressure on Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), who are currently navigating the issue as a part of ongoing coalition negotiations. The new ruling could lead them to relent on their stance. EURACTIV Germany reports.

On Tuesday, the Chair of the Agriculture Committee and the rapporteurs for the three new EU laws regulating the new Common Agricultural Policy will present details of the reform.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

On Tuesday, the Chair of the Agriculture Committee and the rapporteurs for the three new EU laws regulating the new Common Agricultural Policy will present details of the reform.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The EU watchdog has found no proof of manipulation of the carbon markets, allaying European Commission fears. However, the European Securities and Markets Authority did note that it had only limited access to essential data.

Written by Clare Ferguson.

Parliament’s second plenary session of November takes place in Strasbourg, with Members firmly focusing their agenda on one of Parliament’s most important tasks – its scrutiny of the way in which EU funds are spent.

Citizens expect the EU to spend its budget efficiently and transparently, and the European Parliament represents citizens’ interests through several mechanisms allowing for thorough checks of EU spending. One of the main ways in which the EU spends its budget remains the common agricultural policy (CAP). Following a joint debate scheduled for Tuesday morning, Members are scheduled to vote on the agreement reached (after lengthy negotiations between the co-legislators) on three proposals to reform EU farm policy for the new budgetary period – the 2021‑2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF). However, given the time taken to reach these agreements, the new reforms would come into effect on 1 January 2023, with a temporary extension currently in place for 2021 and 2022 spending. The first file concerns the new requirement for each EU Member State to draw up a CAP strategic plan, setting out exactly how they will use the CAP to support farmers, and market and rural development. This new delivery model should provide greater flexibility and subsidiarity, and is expected to better align CAP spending with EU environmental and climate priorities. The agreement on the CAP horizontal regulation on financing, management and monitoring rules reflects Parliament’s desire for a stronger crisis reserve and a clearer division of tasks in the governance system. Members are then expected to consider the compromise reached on reform of the common market organisation in agriculture, which governs production of and trade in agricultural products, including issues such as geographical indications. Parliament has been keen to ensure that the reform leads to a more agile agricultural market that responds to consumer and producer needs alike, and reflects the EU’s priorities in protecting our natural resources. Underlining the focus on climate measures, Members will also hear Council and Commission statements on the outcome of COP26 in Glasgow on Wednesday morning.

As can be seen from the organisation of CAP funding, 80 % of EU expenditure overall is handled at national level, through shared management of EU programmes. The variety of different reporting systems used by EU governments (over 290) unnecessarily complicates this vital task. A Budgetary Control (CONT) Committee legislative-initiative report calling for digitalisation to streamline the reporting, monitoring and auditing of EU spending is therefore scheduled for consideration on Tuesday afternoon. The report demands that an integrated and interoperable electronic information and monitoring system is set up before the end of 2021, to collect, monitor and analyse information about recipients of EU funding in all Member States. The EU Financial Regulation itself, which governs the establishment, implementation and scrutiny of the EU budget, also needs to be updated to ensure good governance of the funding made available under the new MFF and the Next Generation EU fund. On Monday evening, Members will consider an own-initiative report anticipating the European Commission’s forthcoming proposal for an update to the Financial Regulation. The report calls for modernised budgetary rules that fully reflect EU values (e.g. on the rule of law, on climate impacts and on gender). It also underlines the need to increase transparency and democratic accountability by ensuring information about recipients of EU funding is made public and, importantly, that the Parliament’s role in scrutinising expenditure is respected. This is considered particularly important when managing crises or when ‘off-budget instruments’ are established.

Negotiations to agree the EU budget for 2022 took place in a very dynamic context, with the urgent need to tackle the Covid‑19 pandemic, climate change and humanitarian crises uppermost in negotiators’ minds. On Tuesday afternoon, Members are scheduled to consider Parliament’s position on the provisional agreement reached this week between the co‑legislators. Parliament has insisted that funding should be boosted for the top priorities for 2022 spending: funding the coronavirus recovery and the green and digital transitions, including a focus on groups hard-hit by the pandemic such as small businesses and young people. Parliament also supports stronger health measures, including for the COVAX programme, as well as spending on security, migration, asylum and integration, fundamental rights and Union values.

The rule of law was one Leitmotif of the European Council meeting of 21‑22 October 2021 and Members will hear Commission and Council statements on the outcome of that meeting on Tuesday afternoon. This will be followed by statements on the situation in Belarus and at its border with the EU, particularly the security and humanitarian consequences. Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is expected to make a formal address to Parliament on Wednesday lunchtime.

Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee has tabled a legislative-initiative report for Tuesday afternoon, which calls for a package of amendments to current EU legal migration policy and law, to make it easier for non-EU citizens who migrate legally to the EU to find employment. The EU workforce is ageing, and could fall to 51 % of the total population by 2070. While the EU has already taken measures to allow highly qualified non-EU citizens to take up employment in the EU, a gap remains, as labour markets need low- and medium-skilled workers. The proposals include: creating a talent pool for non-EU applicants who wish to migrate legally; a voluntary framework for talent partnerships with third countries; an admission scheme for self-employed and entrepreneur migrants; a framework to recognise third-country nationals’ skills and qualifications; possibilities for short-term mobility to complement legal migration; and creation of a transnational advisory service network.

Finally, Council and Commission statements are expected on Thursday morning on the International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women and the state of play on the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.

• Digitalisation to streamline reporting, monitoring and auditing of EU spending (Think Tank)
• Legal migration policy and law (Think Tank)
• Financing, management and monitoring of the post-2022 EU agricultural policy (Think Tank)
• Amending rules on the common market organisation (CMO) in agriculture (Think Tank)
• Revision of the Financial Regulation (Think Tank)
• Strategic planning in the EU’s post-2022 agricultural policy (Think Tank)
• Adoption of the European Union’s 2022 Budget (Think Tank)