European Union

As the international system for settling trade disputes is set to become crippled on Tuesday (10 December), Europe will in the coming days propose ways to bolster its sanction toolbox against countries that adopt ilegal trade measures and block the renewal of WTO’s appellate body.

In 2005, unemployment in Germany reached 11.7%. At the end of 2019, the figure more than halved to 5%. This means it is increasingly difficult for companies operating in Germany to find skilled workers and fill vacancies.  And it has an impact on sales revenues, as well as Germany’s and Europe’s ability to achieve carbon neutrality goals.

The Metal Recycles Forever logo helps consumers and brands understand the role they play in keeping metal in the material loop, by recycling empty packaging and communicating benefits.

The ruling party of nationalist Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban submitted plans to parliament on Monday to tighten control over theatres, a decision - prompting protests from artists who see artistic freedom at risk, Reuters writes. The law says cultural organisations should "actively defend the interests of the nation's wellbeing and development". A public petition urging parliamentarians to reject the bill has gathered more than 47,700 signatures.

Launched in February 2007 to fund investigator-driven frontier research, the ERC is a key component of the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The Dutch national anti-terrorism agency (NCTV) reduced on Monday the threat of a terror attack in the Netherlands for the first time since 2013, Reuters writes. "We still see jihadist attacks in the West every now and then", the NCTV said. "But the situation is incomparable to the 2015-2017 period, when we saw dozens of attacks in Europe every year," they added.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday banned Russia from the Olympics and world championships in several sports for the next four years, after WADA's executive committee conclude that Moscow had manipulated laboratory data, the Guardian writes. Russia has been surrounded by doping scandals since a report commissioned by WADA in 2015 found evidence of mass doping in the country.

The scrutiny role of parliaments in trade talks and EU-Latin American cooperation against organised crime will be debated this week in Panama.

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

The scrutiny role of parliaments in trade talks and EU-Latin American cooperation against organised crime will be debated this week in Panama.

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Human rights abusers worldwide will, in future, face EU asset freezes and travel bans under new-model sanctions agreed by foreign ministers in Brussels.

Ukraine's political scene is probably among the world's most interesting at the moment, not only because of the ongoing attempt to impeach Donald Trump over a telephone conversation with his Ukrainian colleague Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Becoming the world's first climate-neutral continent is Europe's biggest challenge of the next decade. That success depends of the success of our global partners. Partnerships based on mutual ownership and shared responsibility, a new generation of trade agreements consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals, a Carbon Border Tax and a carbon price are key elements of a stronger European climate diplomacy, writes Margarida Marques.

The European Parliament's internal body, designed to sanction MEPs for conflicts of interests, has failed to deliver any meaningful verdicts. Some are hoping a future proposal for a new independent ethics body will help hold MEPs accountable.

As the EU embarks on discussions on possible regulatory measures to reduce its embedded deforestation, FEDIOL (the European Vegetable Oil and Proteinmeal association) shares its views about what will be needed to effectively curb deforestation at source and not only decrease the EU consumption-driven environmental footprint.

Representatives from member states in the EU Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (SCOPAFF) voted to ban the controversial pesticides chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl from the EU market on Friday (6 December).

Batteries that do not meet rigorous green standards could be banned from the European market, Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič warned on Monday (9 December), as the EU executive approved €3.2 billion of state aid for some home-grown projects.

Azerbaijan will hold early elections on 9 February, eight months ahead of schedule, after President Ilham Aliyev agreed to the ruling party's request to dissolve parliament. The move is in line with a recent major government shakeup and the country's drive to modernise and rebuild EU ties.

The European Asylum Support Office combed through social media to monitor refugee routes to Europe for three years. The agency sent weekly reports on its findings to member states, the EU Commission and institutions such as UNHCR and Interpol.

EU member states have voted to ban from the market chlorpyrifos, a pesticide which is toxic to the brain in both its forms, and has been the subject of a long-running Le Monde and EUobserver investigation.

Human rights abusers worldwide are to face EU asset freezes and travel bans under new-model sanctions agreed by foreign ministers in Brussels Monday. "Today, the EU unanimously decided to legislate a worldwide EU human rights sanction regime," Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said. The EU foreign service will put forward a legal proposal following Monday's deal, with diplomats predicting it will take six months before the measures enter into force.