European Union

Portuguese protesters have called for nationwide road blockades emulating the French yellow vest protests for today, Friday. Without the support of parties or trade unions they are using the social networks to mobilise the population with widely diverging demands. Commentators are alarmed.

More than three million young people are unemployed in the EU and although Europe does not have competences over the labour market, it helps fighting unemployment including through the use of the Cohesion Fund. We have travelled across Europe to find out how.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (20 December) accused the United States of raising the risk of nuclear war by threatening to spurn a key arms control treaty and refusing to hold talks about another pact that expires soon.

EU allies have voiced dismay on Trump's sudden idea to pull out of Syria, amid fears of a resurgence in Islamist terrorism, Kurdish massacres, and fresh surges of refugees.

Closing coal mines in the Silesia region will be particularly difficult, says Witold Stepien, a senior local politician from the neighbouring region Lodz.

Some see it as a provocation, while other as a gesture to Catalonia, that Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has decided hold Friday's cabinet meeting in Barcelona instead of Madrid. The meeting marks the first anniversary of a regional election called by Madrid after Catalan autonomy was suspended in the wake of an independence referendum. Pro-Catalan independence leaders, still in jail, have called for the expected protests to be peaceful.

EU ministers have agreed to a new EU space programme for the years 2021-2027, including setting up a new EU Agency for the Space Programme based on the existing European GNSS Agency, that deals with Europe's satellite navigation systems. The agreement does not include a budget, which will form part of overall EU budget talks. The council's position must now be agreed with the European parliament.

With European elections coming up in May 2019, you probably want to know how the European Union impacts your daily life, before you think about voting. In the latest in a series of posts on what Europe does for you, your family, your business and your wellbeing, we look at what Europe does for people living in remote areas.

Twitter Hashtag #EUandME

If you live in a remote region, you will be aware of the unique challenges that arise from being a long way from urban areas, or possibly from certain geographical or demographic conditions. Despite their differences, islands, mountainous areas and sparsely populated regions are remote areas that share common challenges, including poorer access to a range of job opportunities and to basic services in areas such as transport, education and healthcare. In general, remote regions also experience lower economic growth than the rest of the European Union.

© marios_b / Fotolia

The EU plays an active role in helping remote regions to address these challenges and to exploit their development potential. EU-funded projects, for example, helped people living in a remote village in Sweden organise their own public transport by setting up a village bus and isolated people living in a sparsely populated Alpine region on the French-Italian border set up a homecare service system. Certain remote areas, referred to as ‘outermost regions’, benefit from specific EU measures, for instance, to support local agricultural production. The EU’s priorities include developing broadband coverage and enhancing the use of digital technologies in these regions, as this improves access to the job market and services. One example is an EU-funded telemedicine project aimed at providing medical services at a distance in remote parts of Saxony. In the case of mountainous areas, priorities include measures to fight environmental degradation and to promote energy efficiency and sustainable tourism.

Further information

• EPRS publication on ‘Islands of the EU: Taking account of their specific needs in EU policy’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/573960/EPRS_BRI(2016)573960_EN.pdf
• EPRS publication on ‘Sparsely populated and under-populated areas’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/586632/EPRS_BRI(2016)586632_EN.pdf
• European Commission’s Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/regional_policy/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1137

"Gatwick's runway is currently available and a limited number of aircraft are scheduled for departure and arrival," the airport announced on Friday morning after traffic was disrupted on Thursday, affecting more than 100,000 passengers due to drones seen over the airfield. Police reported more than 50 sightings of a drone. BBC quoted police sources saying that finding the drone's operator was "a difficult and challenging" prospect.

Despite public protests, Hungary's president Janos Ader has signed a controversial new law that increases overtime by 60 percent yet delays payment for it for three years. Ader said employees must give written consent and would not be penalised for refusing extra hours. The law aims to tackle labour shortages. The Hungarian unemployment rate, at 4.2 percent in 2017, is one of the lowest in the EU.

Germany will close its last black coal mine on Friday (21 December), a milestone marking the end of a 200-year-old industry that once fuelled the country's economic growth but lost the battle against cheaper foreign competitors.

A European Commission proposal to phase-out regulated prices of electricity looked set to win approval from EU member states until the 'yellow vest' movement swept across France and nipped it in the bud.

The lack of a legal framework to protect children's toys against cybersecurity risks could prove to have damaging consequences, a leading European consumer rights group has warned ahead of the Christmas festivities, advising parents that some of those toys should not even be kept at home.

The Netherlands is considering dragging Russia to an international court over the downing of flight MH17 after talks over responsibility ground to an impasse, the Dutch foreign minister said Thursday (20 December).

The mayor of Kozani, a city in northern Greece, decided to ban the “movement without intermediaries”, which had created a direct link between local farmers and consumers.

This episode for festive cheer, we have a musical round up of the year.