European Union

The global death toll from Covid-19 passed two million on Friday (15 January), with the World Health Organization (WHO) urging mass vaccinations as the pandemic progresses at a record rate.

A Swedish court has dismissed an appeal by Huawei against its exclusion from the country’s 5G network roll out, paving the way for the 5G spectrum auction scheduled for next week to proceed as planned.

Amazon Inc’s cloud computing division opened its first office in Greece on Friday (15 January) to support what it said was a growing number of companies and public sector agencies using its cloud services.

Weekly schedule of President Charles Michel 18-24 January 2021

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

The Council has added a member of the Syrian regime to the list of persons subject to EU restrictive measures on Syria, in light of his recent ministerial appointment.

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with the Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/2130 of 17 December 2020 implementing Decision 2012/642/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against Belarus

Welcome to EURACTIV’s AgriFood Brief, your weekly update on all things Agriculture & Food in the EU. You can subscribe here if you haven’t done so yet.   This week, EURACTIV’s agrifood team speaks with Paul Kelly, director of Food...

The images of then UKIP leader Nigel Farage floating in a dinghy on the River Thames – encountering a flotilla of Remainers led by Bob Geldof and doling out profanity like candy – is one of the memories of the...

An arrangement was signed today between EDA, represented by Chief Executive Jiří Šedivý, and the EU’s Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC), represented by Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, on the transfer of ownership of the Agency’s Smart Energy Camps Technical Demonstrator based at the EU Training Mission Mali (EUTM Mali) to the MPCC.

The Smart Energy Camps Technical Demonstrator (SECTD), previously developed as an EDA project, was deployed to EU Training Mission Mali (EUTM) at Camp Koulikoro between October 2015 and March 2016 to test the practical implementation of an intelligent power management system (energy demand management, renewable production and storage) in a challenging military environment. The demonstrator included fixed solar photovoltaic panels on a test building (16KWp), flexible soldier portable solar photovoltaic panels as well as monitoring and metering equipment for water and electricity. Over the six-month test period, the renewable energy systems were not only successfully integrated into the existing camp power architecture (requiring only minimal reconfigurations of the network) but it also led to substantial energy management improvements and cost savings.

Even though it was decided to keep the demonstrator at the camp after the test deployment and let it continue its services and renewable energy supplies to EUTM Mali, it was never the ambition of EDA to remain the owner and remote technical maintenance manager of the system in the long run. Hence the agreement now reached with the EU’s Military Planning and Conduct Capability, as the commander of EUTM Mali, to take over the full ownership rights of the demonstrator on behalf of ATHENA, the mechanism which handles the financing of common costs relating to EU military operations under the EU's common security and defence policy. This arrangement will allow for the demonstrator to continue its services to EUTM in the future under the best technical conditions.

EU Chief Executive Jiří Šedivý said: “The Smart Energy Camps Technical Demonstrator deployed at EU Training Mission Mali, at Camp Koulikoro, has successfully shown under operational and harsh conditions that smart energy management of military camps is not only technologically possible but also profitable. Its handover to the EU’s Military Planning and Conduct Capability, as the commander of EUTM, is a logical step as it offers the best guarantee for the good and smooth functioning of the system in the future”.

MPCC Director General Hervé Bléjean stated: “I would like to thank and acknowledge the European Defence Agency’s support to the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and its support to our EU Training Mission. The significant energy efficiency that this innovative project provides is tangible benefit to our mission in Mali. Its operational reliance enhances our capability to function in even the harshest of environments and reduces our environmental footprint. I have absolute faith in the ability of our personnel in Mali to ensure its continued operation and development.”
 

Background

The Smart Energy Camps Technical Demonstrator project is only one of EDA’s activities aimed to help Member States make their Armed Forces more energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable. For example, EDA also manages the European Commission’s Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS) which assist EU Member States’ Ministries of Defence to move towards green, resilient, and efficient energy models.  The Agency has also set up a dedicated ‘Energy and Environment Working Group’ which supports Member States in dealing with the many energy and environment-related aspects in defence.  Furthermore, EDA will also be working closely with the Commission via a new “Incubation Forum” on circular economy in defence to generate cooperative project ideas for Member States, to help steer them toward a more circular defence.

Denmark has the most zero-emission urban buses on the roads in Europe, with electric buses making up 78% of its new vehicles, according to the latest data from Transport and Environment (T&E), a green NGO.

2019 is likely to be the year in which the much awaited reform of the main EU's massive farming subsidies programme, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), will see the light.

The European Commission said on Friday (15 January) that it would not propose new laws in response to a petition demanding a protection package for national minorities that garnered 1.1 million signatures across the EU.

Covid-19 vaccines in the EU, relations with the US and the priorities of the new Council presidency will be discussed at the first plenary session of 2021.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Covid-19 vaccines in the EU, relations with the US and the priorities of the new Council presidency will be discussed at the first plenary session of 2021.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The four parties of the Dutch government, lead by prime minister Mark Rutte, have decided to let the government fall. On 17 March, two months from now, there are parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.

The test for the EU's biodiversity strategy will be whether all EU legislation matches its ambition on nature protection, Green lawmakers argued in an environment committee debate about the strategy on Thursday (14 January).

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Global Europe Brief, your weekly update on the EU in the global perspective. If you like what you read, you can subscribe here. /// EDITOR’s TAKE The EU is set to recalibrate its position towards an increasingly...

Written by Nikolai Atanassov (1st edition),

© JEGAS RA / Adobe Stock

In September 2020, the European Commission proposed a new pact on asylum and migration. The legislative package related to the pact includes a proposal for a regulation dealing with crisis and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum, aimed at establishing a mechanism for dealing with mass influxes and irregular arrivals of third-country nationals in a Member State.

The regulation would set out the solidarity mechanism procedure in the event of returns of irregular migrants applying the possibility for return sponsorship on behalf of another Member State, as established in the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMR). It would also provide for shorter deadlines in comparison to usual procedures under the AMR, when applicable in a crisis situation and for some derogations in crisis situations concerning the asylum crisis management procedure, the return crisis management procedure, and the registration of international protection applications in crisis situations.

Complete version

• Crisis and force majeure regulation (1st edition)

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council addressing situations of crisis and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum Committee responsible: Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) COM(2020) 613
22.9.2020 Rapporteur: Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spain) 2020/0277(COD) Shadow rapporteurs: Damian Boeselager (Greens/EFA, Germany)
Konstantinos Arvanitis (The Left, Greece) Ordinary legislative procedure (COD) (Parliament and Council on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’) Next steps expected: Publication of draft report

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Digital Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.    “It is no longer acceptable in our view that platforms take some key decisions by themselves alone without any...