European Union

By Toril-Iren Pedersen and Michael Jarvis
WASHINGTON DC / OSLO, May 6 2026 (IPS)

A conversation with Toril-Iren Pedersen, Director of the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance, and Michael Jarvis, Executive Director of the Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion (TAI) Collaborative

Q1: What is financial integrity and why is it important right now? Why is it relevant to TAI’s members?

Toril-Iren Pedersen

Toril-Iren Pedersen: Financial integrity is about ensuring that the financial system operates transparently and accountably, and that economic and financial activity follows both the letter and spirit of legitimate rules and standards. It also means ensuring that those systems contribute to sustainable development.

For us, the issue is not limited to one category of wrongdoing. It is about the connection between different parts of economic value, from public revenues to criminal flows, and the loopholes that exist within the regular financial system. Financial integrity cannot be considered in isolation. Weaknesses across tax, corruption, anti-money laundering and the broader global financial architecture all have to be understood together.

Michael Jarvis: At TAI, we see financial integrity as the need for systems to operate transparently, accountably and ethically. That is how people ideally manage their personal finances, and how we hope corporations run their businesses. But we are especially focused on governments and countries: how they strengthen the integrity of their financial systems, minimize corruption, encourage fairness and better steward public resources.

There is a clear development case for why this matters. TAI’s members are primarily U.S.-based philanthropies working internationally, and our work is organized around three priorities: strengthening healthy democracies, advancing climate accountability and improving fiscal accountability through fair and effective financial governance. Financial integrity underpins all three. Without it, progress in each area is weakened.

Michael Jarvis

There is also real urgency. Economic crime is increasingly transnational and has expanded rapidly, in part because of new technologies. A recent NASDAQ Verafin report estimated global financial crime at $4.4 trillion. UN research has found that illicit financial flows cost Africa at least $50 billion a year. These are resources that countries should be able to use for development priorities such as education, health systems and environmental protection.

When financial systems lack integrity, the damage is broad. It undermines trust in government, contributes to democratic disillusionment and weakens citizens’ confidence that public resources are being used fairly. It can also slow the energy transition, as we have seen with concerns around carbon markets. And it directly affects the ability of governments to raise and spend revenue effectively.

Toril-Iren Pedersen: I would add that declining trust in governments and in the multilateral system is higher than we have seen in a very long time. Lack of financial integrity contributes directly to that distrust.

Visible wealth inequality is one challenge, but so is the perception of invisible wealth being accumulated through the global financial architecture. When people sense that wealth is moving in the shadows, outside transparency and democratic control, it creates legitimate grounds for distrust. That is why lack of financial integrity must be understood as a systems failure that requires a systems approach.

Michael Jarvis: That is also the focus of the new paper from your team, the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance, which TAI supported. It emphasizes why progress requires action on multiple fronts and why no single actor or institution can solve this alone. Financial integrity is a collective action challenge.

Q2: How has UNDP’s Global Policy Centre for Governance worked on financial integrity over the past few years? What were your most important results and insights?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: The Centre’s work has taken place across several streams, but the most important contribution has been analyzing the system and the relationships among different actors. When we look at corruption and illicit financial flows, we have to ask who enables those flows within countries and across borders. Understanding those relationships is central to financial integrity.

The Centre has also convened actors within the UN and among practitioners, including country representatives involved in the Financing for Development negotiations in Sevilla last summer. That process helped produce stronger commitments to curb illicit financial flows and introduced more substantive language on financial integrity and corruption than we had seen in earlier iterations of the Financing for Development agenda.

The analytical work on the financial integrity ecosystem and the systems approach has also been developed in collaboration with several TAI members, including the MacArthur Foundation and Ford Foundation. Their support has been important both substantively and financially.

Q3: How will the Centre work on financial integrity going forward, under your leadership?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: The Centre has worked on a range of governance frontier issues. Going forward, we will focus on two areas: financial integrity, and data systems and data availability at the country level. The data agenda connects directly to financial integrity, but it also has broader relevance.

On financial integrity, we see a need to problem-solve the systemic challenges that are preventing progress at both the country and global levels. We will continue analyzing what is stopping countries from making substantive progress and what kinds of solutions and policy alternatives can be made available to them.

Some of these solutions already exist, but they are not always accessible. As a UNDP Policy Centre, our role is to make research, policy options and insights into systemic challenges available to UNDP country offices so they can be integrated into country-level programming. We also hope this work will help countries engage more effectively in global processes.

There is currently a disconnect. The Financial Action Task Force, the OECD tax framework and anti-corruption frameworks all rely on data from countries, but they do not always help solve what is fundamentally a systems challenge. We will continue engaging in those processes while breaking the work into more manageable areas where countries can take action nationally, regionally and globally.

Q4: What is the role of philanthropy in strengthening financial integrity against the backdrop of a fast-evolving global development landscape? What collaboration opportunities do you see between philanthropies, multilateral organizations and other stakeholders?

Michael Jarvis: Philanthropy’s role is a nimble one. The volume of finance philanthropy brings is not the same as government donors or what countries can mobilize themselves. The question is how philanthropy can prompt the right conversations and support work that moves the agenda more effectively.

Traditionally, philanthropy has supported civil society groups, independent media and think tanks at the global and national levels. Those actors investigate financial integrity issues, build evidence, raise public awareness and develop policy recommendations for governments and multilateral forums.

Philanthropy also has limits. Individual donors, including TAI members, often focus on a relatively small number of priority countries. They are not operating at a scale that covers all countries affected by these issues. That is where the UN system and international financial institutions can play a different role, because they work with nearly every country and have government relationships built into their mandates.

There are important complementarities. The MacArthur Foundation, for example, has made a major investment in Nigeria around financial integrity and anti-corruption, working with government agencies while also supporting civil society and media. More broadly, different actors bring different relationships, mandates and capacities.

The Financing for Development process in Sevilla is a good example. The outcome was stronger because many players were involved, from civil society groups working in-country to global and regional convenings that reinforced the message. Those efforts helped shape the negotiations and elevate financial integrity on the agenda.

An important opportunity is the Illicit Finance Summit, being hosted by the UK Government in June. It can bring together governments committed to addressing financial integrity challenges and create space for civil society, academia, philanthropy and others to develop practical solutions. Philanthropy should be part of that conversation and think about where its support can amplify or pilot ideas that emerge.

Visibility also matters because it helps attract resources. Funding for financial integrity work remains very limited. In a 2023 analysis, TAI estimated that about $150 million had been directed to illicit financial flows work since 2020, including efforts to address tax avoidance.

That averages roughly $30 million a year across different groups, countries and sectors. Compared with the scale of the problem, and compared with funding for fields such as climate or AI, that is extremely small.

The upcoming summit could serve as a call to action for philanthropy and other funders to invest more. The rise in fraud enabled by crypto and other technologies affects people directly and is creating grassroots demand for action. Partnership will be essential, including with UNDP, the World Bank, national governments, civil society and research networks.

Toril-Iren Pedersen: I agree. We need to mobilize more resources, but it is also important to recognize what has already been achieved with limited funding. Much of the momentum for change over the past 10 to 15 years has come from civil society organizations, journalist networks and collaborative investigations around leaks. Those efforts helped put issues such as tax fairness, transparency and beneficial ownership on national and global agendas.

This field has shown that limited resources can have an outsized effect when actors from different parts of the ecosystem work together. Anti-corruption, tax fairness and anti-money laundering were once treated as separate silos. Bringing those communities together around shared solutions is a cost-effective way of working.

Going forward, we also need to connect financial integrity to other development priorities, including climate finance and health financing. Each sector has its own financial integrity challenges. With the current development financing crunch, we cannot afford to leave money on the table, and we cannot afford to let resources disappear when policy action could prevent it.

Q5: Is there a case for involving the business community? What would the message be?

Toril-Iren Pedersen: Yes. Governance investments are one area we will be looking at closely. There is enormous pressure to mobilize funding from private actors and the private sector. Much of the focus has been on ensuring that specific investments comply with human rights and development standards. That remains important.

But financial integrity is also about longer-term systems de-risking. Investments in anti-corruption mechanisms, laws that reduce corruption risk and dispute-resolution frameworks can make markets more attractive for private investment. The goal is to build systems where private actors face lower real or perceived risk and can operate without relying as heavily on facilitated investment support.

In that sense, we need to distinguish between short-term and long-term de-risking, and between project-level and systems-level de-risking.

Michael Jarvis: There is a strong private sector incentive to support financial integrity, especially for companies operating across borders. But there is also a quid pro quo: corporate actors need to uphold their own standards of financial integrity. That includes thinking responsibly about the taxes they pay in different jurisdictions and avoiding excessive profit shifting.

The private sector benefits from stronger financial integrity systems, but it also has responsibilities within them. Beneficial ownership transparency is one example where progress has helped make it easier to identify who is behind corporate structures. These structures are still misused, but many legitimate private sector actors increasingly recognize that transparency can help distinguish them from bad actors and reduce reputational risk.

All of us have a role in the system. The challenge now is to make a clear case for why financial integrity deserves continued investment, government attention and policy bandwidth, especially at a time of aid cuts, foreign assistance pressures and tight country budgets. That is a collective challenge, and one we need to keep elevating.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A jegyesek hamarosan az államfő, a parlamenti képviselők, vagy a kormány valamelyik tagja előtt is házasságot köthetünk. Ezt a családjogi törvénynek az SNS műhelyéből származó módosítási javaslata teheti lehetővé, amely kibővítené azoknak a személyeknek a körét, akik előtt házassági fogadalom tehető.

Mfor.hu: Vegyesen alakult a forint árfolyama szerda (5. 6.) reggel a nemzetközi devizapiacon. Az eurót röviddel 7 óra előtt 361,20 forinton jegyezték, magasabban a kedd esti 361,15 forintnál. A dollár jegyzése 307,68 forintra gyengült 308,52 forintról, a svájci frank pedig 394,40 forintról 394,73 forintra drágult. (MTI)

Nordkorea ändert seine Verfassung und stärkt Kim Jong Un: Er kontrolliert nun offiziell die Nuklearwaffen und kann ihren Einsatz delegieren. Zudem wird das Ziel der Wiedervereinigung mit Südkorea gestrichen – für Kim ein «feindlicher Staat».

Legalább 26 ember halt meg kedden (5. 5.) Ukrajna-szerte orosz csapásokban – közölte Kijev, miközben Volodimir Zelenszkij elnök elítélte Moszkva "teljes cinizmusát", amiért halálos támadásokat indított, miközben tűzszünetet kért a május 9-i hazafias felvonulás megrendezéséhez.

Wird auch das Halbfinal-Rückspiel zwischen dem FC Bayern und PSG zum Spektakel? Bayern-Ehrenpräsident Uli Hoeness glaubt an den Einzug in den CL-Final. Zudem äussert er sich zu Personalien wie Kompany und Olise.

Notfall in der Luft: Ein Swiss-Flug von Seoul nach Zürich setzte am Mittwochmorgen über Kasachstan einen Notruf ab. Die Maschine musste umgeleitet werden.

Mitten in der spanischen Ebene von Castilla-La Mancha steht ein Flughafen, der einst Millionen Passagiere anziehen sollte. Mehr als eine Milliarde Euro wurden investiert. Wenige Jahre nach der Eröffnung wurde der Betrieb eingestellt. Zurück blieb ein Geisterflughafen.

TASR: A Szervezett Bűnözés Elleni Hivatal (ÚBOK) kedden (5. 5.) kora este őrizetbe vett több személyt illegális fegyverkezés gyanújával a Dunaszerdahelyi járásban. A rendőrök még további ellenőrzéseket és eljárási cselekményeket végeznek – tájékoztattak a rendőrök a közösségi hálón. „Az ÚBOK bűnüldöző egysége jelenleg eljárási cselekményeket végez a Dunaszerdahelyi járásban illegális fegyverkezés gyanúja miatt” – közölte kedden este a rendőrség.

Irene Velez Torres, Director of the Colombian National Environmental Agency, during a panel discussion with policy experts at the Santa Marta Conference. Credit: Supplied

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, May 6 2026 (IPS)

The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, may eventually be remembered as a defining moment in global climate politics, not because it produced a treaty or a formal negotiation outcome, but because it changed the tone, structure, and ambition of the conversation itself.

For decades, international climate diplomacy has been about managing emissions, not addressing the source of those emissions: fossil fuels. Governments continued to discuss carbon markets, offsets and adaptation funds but so too did the growth in oil, gas and coal production. Within the UN climate process itself, producer nations and powerful economic interests often blocked direct discussion of phasing out fossil fuels. However, there was no such case as Santa Marta.

The conference, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands and attended by delegates from almost 60 nations, was not intended to be another COP-style negotiation. It was explicitly designed as a political and practical platform for those countries willing to move faster on the fossil fuel phase-out. That makes a difference.

“This was not a negotiating conference. This is about dialogue and looking together at what we can do and how we can apply our creativity, our collaboration, and the science to find new opportunities,” said Stientje van Veldhoven-van der Meer, Dutch Climate and Green Growth Minister.

The conference’s most important accomplishment might be the single transition from negotiation to problem-solving.

Traditional COP summits often descend into exercises in diplomatic survival, with countries fighting over language late into the night and protecting narrow interests. In Santa Marta, ministers repeatedly stressed that participants were not there to defend positions but to create solutions.

“The contrast was stark,” said Minina Talia, Tuvalu’s Minister for Home Affairs, Climate Change and Environment.

“I’ve been to a lot of COPs over the years and I’ve never felt like this. More chilled, ready to go home. We are not here to bargain. We’re here to find solutions,” he told reporters on the concluding day of the conference.

For small island states like Tuvalu, where climate change is an existential threat now rather than a future risk, this difference is significant. It is the politics of survival.

Several Concrete Results

Ireland and Tuvalu will co-host a second conference, ensuring continuity and signalling a conscious North-South partnership. A dedicated science panel will support countries and regions in their transition away from fossil fuels. Three work streams were established: pathways to transition away from fossil fuels; decarbonisation of trade balances; and new financial mechanisms to finance the transition.

These are not symbols for deliverables. They went to the core of the politics of dependence on fossil fuels.

The biggest challenge in climate politics is no longer to prove that climate change is real. It’s trying to work out how countries that rely on fossil fuel revenues can survive the transition without economic collapse, social unrest or widening inequality.

That means dealing with debt, subsidies, tax systems, labour transitions, industrial planning and trade balances. The focus on financial architecture in Santa Marta is a sign of awareness on the part of the participants.

The debate over fossil fuel subsidies was particularly important. Ministers emphasised the need for transparency on the location of fossil fuel incentives, revenues and dependencies within national economies. This is important because fossil fuels are not just an energy issue. They’re so entrenched in national budgets, banking systems, foreign policy and power structures.

The war in the Middle East, the disruption of oil supplies and the general insecurity of world energy have hastened the need for change. But unlike previous oil crises, this time renewable energy is getting cheaper and cheaper compared to fossil fuels, and electric vehicles are scaling up very fast.

Participants argued that the war has revealed not the need for more oil drilling, but the danger of fossil fuel dependence itself.

“The war really opened up peoples’ eyes to how fragile the fossil fuel system is,” a speaker said. “And this war comes at a time when renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels.

This shifts the transition from a strictly environmental imperative to a strategic economic and security priority.

Action on climate is no longer simply about saving the planet. It’s about stabilising economies, reducing geopolitical vulnerability and avoiding the financial risks of stranded fossil assets.

The reason this is a powerful shift is that finance ministers tend to move faster than environment ministers.

Another remarkable strength of Santa Marta was its insistence on being inclusive. Indigenous Peoples, parliamentarians, peasants, women, NGOs and even children were brought into the heart of the conversation.

“This is a new climate democracy, where governments are no longer the only actors making climate decisions,” said Irene Velez Torres, Director of the Colombian National Environmental Agency.

One of the strongest interventions at the conference came from Indigenous representatives, who warned that a clean energy transition without land justice would simply mean another wave of colonial extraction. Their declaration rejects a future where extraction of fossil fuels is replaced by mining for transition minerals, mega dams or industrial projects imposed on Indigenous lands without consent.

“If we are not part of building the just transition and the phase-out of fossil fuels, it will not be just,” they said in a joint declaration at the end of the conference on April 29.

This revealed one of the deepest contradictions in global climate policy: many governments speak of a green transition but continue with extractive models under a new name.

Indigenous leaders demanded free, prior and informed consent, legal recognition of the rights to their territories, direct access to climate finance and protection for land defenders at risk of criminalisation and violence.

The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative continues to be central. Tuvalu has been one of its earliest supporters, demanding a legally binding international framework to stop expansion and ensure a fair phase-out of fossil fuels.

Talia welcomed the treaty for raising the bar in terms of moral pressure and providing governments with clearer information but warned against limiting the whole transition conversation to one mechanism.

He said: “The treaty is an initiative. We want to look at all other initiatives so that we have a fair, balanced outcome.”

That’s a sign of strategic maturity. One treaty will not kill the most profitable industry in modern history.

These include UNFCCC processes, national policy, fossil fuel treaty mechanisms, regional declarations, central bank reforms and the involvement of financial institutions.

Participants highlighted China’s green lending strategies and said banking systems need to stop rewarding fossil fuel dependence and instead finance transition at scale.

Likewise, Pacific island nations are advocating for regional “fossil fuel-free zones”, supported by new declarations and intergovernmental task forces. These efforts matter because regional leadership often moves quicker than global consensus.

Hence, the choice of Tuvalu as the venue for the next conference is very significant. It’s shifting the discussion from the diplomatic capitals to one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. It forces political leaders to confront the human reality of rising seas, disappearing land and threatened sovereignty.

History in the Making

Santa Marta won’t solve the fossil fuel crisis. It doesn’t stop new drilling. It does not yet impose binding obligations.But it may have done something more important, which is to make fossil fuel phase-out politically discussable at scale. For years, people saw talking straight about ending oil, gas, and coal as too radical, too unrealistic, or too politically dangerous. In Santa Marta it became the focus of the room.

If this coalition grows from 60 to 100 countries, if its outcomes feed into COP31 and national climate plans, if the finance systems start to shift, and if the Pacific conference deepens the legal momentum, then Santa Marta could be remembered not as a one-off summit but as the moment when climate diplomacy finally stopped treating the symptoms and started tackling the disease. That would be history.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Wer Spargeln kocht, sollte das Wasser anschliessend auf keinen Fall wegschütten. Es lässt sich nämlich für ganz unterschiedliche Zwecke verwenden. Welche das sind, erfährst du im Video.

Két embert, akik megbetegedtek a hantavírusjárvány által sújtott MV Hondius tengerjáró hajón, evakuálnak Hollandiába – közölte a hajó holland üzemeltetője kedden (5. 5.), anélkül, hogy közölte volna, mikor.

Ein Ex-Finanzverwalter der Gemeinde Vechigen steht wegen Betrugs vor Gericht. Der 68-Jährige soll bis 2022 vier Millionen Franken unterschlagen haben, um private Börsengeschäfte zu finanzieren.

Written by Mar Negreiro with Öykü Dilara Anaç.

Increased time spent online and regulatory pressure.

Social media platforms’ business model relies on keeping users online for as long as possible so they can display more advertising. The platforms are optimised to trigger dopamine, a neurotransmitter the brain releases when it expects a reward, encouraging repeated and prolonged use. Yet excessive social media use – defined as spending more than three hours a day on online platforms – has been linked to poorer mental health, particularly higher levels of depression and anxiety. A 2025 survey conducted by Pew Research Center showed that minors aged between 13 and 17 in the United States (US) are much more likely than they were two years ago to describe their social media use as excessive. Nearly half reported that they spend too much time on these platforms, as they are on the internet ‘almost constantly’.

According to one survey, European teenagers aged 16 and 17 also reported spending more time than they wanted to on online platforms and losing sleep time at night, which might result in displacement from other, healthier activities. For instance, teens who are online late at night are more likely to experience shortened sleep duration and poorer quality of sleep, both risk factors for depression and irritability, a review shows.

Among both children and adults, excessive screen time and social media use have been linked to changes in brain function, including reduced attention and weaker impulse control. The adolescent brain is especially vulnerable. Experts warn that constant exposure to comparison cues, curated content and algorithm-driven engagement loops can create psychological stress that resonates long after the screen is turned off.

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok are leading in terms of online monthly users. In the EU, TikTok has more than 200 million active users, making it one of the fastest-growing networks ever. There are over 100 million pieces of content uploaded daily. Users spend an average of 137 minutes on it per day (compared to 27 minutes in 2019) and open it about eight times a day – over 20 % of US teenagers ‘almost constantly’.

At present, TikTok is facing regulatory pressure on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, the European Commission started an investigation into TikTok on 19 February 2024 under the DSA, which is ongoing. In the US, TikTok was obliged to restructure its operations under a majority American-owned joint venture, and has settled ahead of trial in a social media addiction lawsuit in California that also involved other platforms, such as Meta and YouTube. They were found negligent for designing addictive online platforms. It is the first time that major social media companies have been found liable by a US jury for this reason. While the damages awarded (US$6 million) are insignificant for two companies worth trillions of dollars, the decision represents a precedent and could impact design choices to avoid further prosecution.

The DSA as a tool to redress online addictive design choices

The Commission has intensified its scrutiny under the DSA of addictive design choices on online platforms. In 2024, it opened an investigation into Meta (ongoing), as it believed both Facebook and Instagram platforms’ designs might stimulate behavioural addictions in minors. Shein is also under scrutiny.

On 6 February 2026, the Commission preliminarily found TikTok in breach of the DSA for its addictive design features, including infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalised recommender systems. Additionally, it found that TikTok disregarded important indicators of compulsive use of the app, such as the time minors spend on TikTok at night, the frequency with which users open the app and other potential indicators. Under the DSA, very large online platforms (VLOPs) such as TikTok have to carry out risk assessments (Article 34) and implement effective measures to mitigate these risks (Article 35). The term ‘addictive design’ does not appear explicitly in the DSA. Instead, the legal link lies in Article 34 (including risks to public health, minors, and users’ physical and mental well-being) and Article 25. The latter prohibits deceptive or manipulative interface design, often associated with ‘dark patterns‘. It introduces a general prohibition applicable to providers of online platforms (not only VLOPs), preventing them from designing or organising their online user interfaces in such a way as to deceive or manipulate users or otherwise materially distort or impair their ability to make free and informed decisions. In addition, Article 28 stipulates general protection of minors online. There are also specific guidelines for all platforms to protect children from addictive behaviours and commercial practices online.

The Commission’s assessment is based on an in-depth investigation (still ongoing) that included an analysis of TikTok’s DSA risk assessment reports, internal data and TikTok’s responses to multiple requests for information, a review of research on this topic and expert interviews. According to the Commission, TikTok’s recommender systems and engagement-maximising interfaces generate systemic risks to the mental well-being of minors and vulnerable adults. Thus, the harm arises from prolonged, compulsive engagement that users struggle to control, stemming from the persuasive design choices made by the platform. The DSA does not provide an explicit definition of a ‘vulnerable adult’. It employs a risk-based approach focusing on protecting users from systemic risks, particularly targeting minors, those with disabilities and vulnerable groups.

TikTok can now exercise its right to defence. It may examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation files and reply in writing to the Commission’s preliminary findings. In parallel, the European Board for Digital Services, an independent advisory group to the Commission, will be consulted. If the Commission’s views are ultimately confirmed, the Commission may issue a non-compliance decision, potentially triggering a fine of up to 6 % of TikTok’s total worldwide annual turnover (estimated at over €30 billion in 2025).

The Commission preliminarily finds that TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service. Specific examples cited by the Commission include disabling key addictive features, such as infinite scroll over time, implementing effective screen time breaks (including during the night) and adapting its recommender system. Incremental adjustments or optional user controls might not be sufficient. Instead, the platform’s core architecture, with features that drive user engagement, might need to be restructured.

Next steps

Safety through design of online platforms for minors is gaining political attention and scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic. Many argue that age restrictions are not sufficient, as they shift the blame away from platforms’ harmful designs. Likewise, parental control tools are not enough, as they also transfer responsibility from platforms on to children and their parents, and can be difficult to implement depending on parents’ digital literacy. According to the European Consumer Association BEUC, these measures should be complemented with fairness by design components.

If confirmed, these findings will establish the first European precedent for how platforms should mitigate risks from features designed to maximise engagement. The upcoming Digital Fairness Act may introduce even stricter rules, including obligations to switch off manipulative features and greater protections for children. Defining and regulating ‘addictive design’ is complex. Hence, the challenge of this investigation is to assess what constitutes acceptable design. At its core is also whether online platforms’ business models are compatible with children’s safety, and whether platforms’ declarations of intent are enough to mitigate the risks identified in their annual DSA reports. Civil society has criticised the lack of clarity. They argue that DSA risk assessments should be carried out more transparently, as platforms’ methodologies and claims are not always supported by the indicators and data provided.

The European Parliament has been active on this issue. In a December 2023 resolution on addictive design of online services, it called for an end to dark patterns and gaps in consumer protection online. The issue has also been considered more recently in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO)’s own initiative report on the protection of minors online and in another report on the impact of social media and the online environment on young people being prepared by the Culture and Education Committee (CULT).

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Addictive design on online platforms‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Die ersten Stars haben schon ihre Teilnahme an der WM angekündigt. Hier kommt die Übersicht.

Die iranische Friedensnobelpreisträgerin Narges Mohammadi (54) schwebt laut ihrer Anwältin in Lebensgefahr. Sie wurde am Freitag aus dem Gefängnis in ein Spital in Sandschan verlegt und befindet sich auf der Intensivstation.

Die lange blonde Mähne gehört wohl zum Markenzeichen von Isi Glück. Doch der Ballermann-Star wagt sich nun an eine optische Veränderung. Die Fans sind völlig aus dem Häuschen.

An einem Sponsorenevent liess sich Lara Gut-Behrami Ende November virtuell blicken, bei den Sports Awards im März fehlte vom verletzten Ski-Star dann jede Spur. Nun ist die 35-Jährige nach langer Abwesenheit wieder in der Öffentlichkeit aufgetreten.

The Council adopted a bilateral assistance measure worth €15 million under the EPF to strengthen the operational readiness of the Armed Forces of Senegal in the framework of the Yaoundé Architecture.

The Council agreed new rules to support the fight against value added tax (VAT) fraud in the EU by strengthening cooperation between member state national authorities, the EPPO and OLAF.