European Union

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As EU foreign ministers gather tomorrow (9 January) to discuss Iran, they should be mindful of a changed domestic situation in the country, experts warn.

Around 200 demonstrators contesting a local election broke into the authorities' headquarters in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia Thursday evening (9 January) and demanded the resignation of its president. Protests continue today (10 January) with demonstrators setting up camp in front of administration building, local media reports.

By the end of this year, member states must reach an agreement against the clock on a long-term budget to finance their bold priorities for this decade, and seal a deal with the UK on their future relationship. On top...

EU Council president Charles Michel urged Iran to stick to the nuclear arms deal and said the EU should play a stronger role in the Middle East, ahead of travelling to Turkey and Egypt on Saturday.

US sanctions designed to undermine Russian natural gas exports to Europe specifically target European-based companies at the risk of further weakening an already fragile US-European relationship, write Martin Jirušek and Robert Dillon.  

Welcome to the first edition of EURACTIV's Global Europe Brief, your weekly update on the EU in the global perspective.

In an interview with EURACTIV Germany, Green Austrian MP Lukas Hammer spoke about his party's negotiations with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) while drafting the coalition agreement and why his party took the risk of accepting tough migration policies in exchange for increased climate protection.

Spain's Supreme Court told the European Parliament on Thursday that the Catalan separatist leader Oriol Junqueras will not be released from prison to claim his seat as an MEP in the next plenary session in Strasbourg, El País reported. Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years in prison in October over his role in Catalonia's failed bid for independence in 2017. He was elected an MEP while he was in custody.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) are embarking on new cooperative projects for exploring unknown and potentially hazardous environments: harnessing drones for the monitoring of disaster-stricken regions or toxic spill sites and making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to navigate across the surface of asteroids or other terra incognita.

These two new joint projects have been authorised by the ESA Council and Steering Board of EDA. They are the latest in a long history of cooperation enabled by the ESA-EDA Administrative Arrangement, originally signed in 2011 and recently extended for a second time.
 

Innovation in disaster response

Space-based services have fast become essential to Europe’s safety and security. In 2017, a previous ESA-EDA Implementing Agreement demonstrated the use of space-based assets to respond to threats from toxic and hazardous materials. The project showed that space systems were beneficial to fast and accurate response to such threats in terms of situational awareness, early warning, detection and response planning.

Based on this success, the two agencies decided to extend their cooperation in this area, and in December signed an implementing agreement to carry out a next-stage demonstration project called Autonomous Drone Services (AUDROS).

By integrating space assets in sectors such as telecommunications, navigation and Earth observation, the partners will demonstrate the benefits of using autonomous and/or remotely piloted aerial vehicles to both detect toxic material and carry out rapid response to large-scale disasters. This activity will lead to the development of operational services that will deliver support to defence and security users on a permanent basis.
 

Flying into the unknown

ESA and the EDA are also cooperating in the development of new AI-based capabilities in the field of guidance, navigation and control (GNC) – knowing where an asset is and steering where it is going. Advanced, autonomous GNC is set to become an indispensable element of ambitious future space missions such as rendezvousing with asteroids and comets or the active removal of hazardous space debris from orbit. 
This joint project, dubbed ATENA, will develop AI-based systems with the capability of flying safely over unknown territory, such as an asteroid, to achieve enhanced navigation performance compared to current vision-based techniques based on feature tracking.
 

Deepening ESA-EDA cooperation

Through the two partners’ deepening cooperation, Europe is better equipped to implement priority objectives across cyber and maritime security, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, remotely piloted aircraft systems, secure satellite communications, autonomous access to space and ongoing Earth observation.

“The role of space-based services for security and defence actors is a recognised priority for Europe. The importance of space assets and applications for defence capabilities is reflected in the revised Capability Development Plan (CDP) approved by Member States at the EDA Steering Board in June 2018”, said EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq. “ESA is a natural and trusted partner for us. Over the years we have built a cooperation that has yielded numerous successful projects, through eight Implementing Agreements totalling over €5 million in shared investments, covering several priority areas.” 

For ESA, its partnership with EDA is a key component of the Agency’s relationship with the EU and of Agency commitments to the safety and security of Europe. “Through our political and technical dialogue, we are able to identify joint priorities hand-in-hand with users of space systems and security communities”, comments Jan Wörner, ESA’s Director General. “This virtuous dynamic is a key driving force of ESA’s space safety initiatives, recently endorsed and funded at our Space19+ Council at Ministerial Level.”

 

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Digital Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.    “China is very far-reaching by now…We have to be clear in the cyber domain, where we have a lot...

With Coca Cola and BMW sponsoring Romania and Finland during their respective EU Council presidencies last year, it would appear that member states have no qualms with private sector funding. But the European Ombudsman finds that this tarnishes the EU's reputation. EURACTIV Germany reports.

After a telephone call with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, EU Council president Charles Michel tweeted that the nuclear deal with Iran (JCPOA) "remains crucial for global security." The read-out of the conversation says that Michel asked Rouhani "to avoid posing irreversible acts." The EU wants to continue with the nuclear deal, despite the call from US president Donald Trump to Europe on Wednesday to jettison it.

Pesticide-free zones, implemented in France since 1 January 2020, have angered winegrowers, who are losing a great deal of surface area, while civil society still considers them insufficient. EURACTIV France reports.

Shiite militias on Wednesday launched missile attacks on several US military bases in Iraq in reaction to the execution of General Soleimani. Thanks to early warnings no soldiers were injured, according to US sources. President Trump said he would not order retaliatory strikes. A war has been averted for the time being but the situation remains tense, European media conclude.

The presidents of Turkey and Russia, Erdoğan and Putin, officially opened the Turkstream gas pipeline on Wednesday. The 930-kilometer-long pipeline runs through the Black Sea and is to supply not just Turkey but also southeastern Europe with Russian natural gas. Commentators discuss why Moscow and Ankara have cause to celebrate.