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Eine Aufhebung des AKW-Neubauverbots verzögert die Energiewende. Allein schon die vage Aussicht auf ein neues Atomkraftwerk bremst Investitionen und verunmöglicht die Ausbauziele bei den erneuerbaren Energien. Das hält die Schweizerische Energiestiftung fest.

Robert Fico, a Smer vezére és kormányfője hétfőn (11. 17.) a nyitrai Agrokomlex kiállítási központba nagy sebtében összehívott pártrendezvényen többek között a hazai politikai rendszer reformjának a fontosságáról szónokolt, valamint megkérdőjelezte a Kuciak-gyilkosság ügyében lezajlott rendőri nyomozás eredményét.

Written by Pieter Baert.

Achieving ambitious climate objectives while supporting robust economic growth and safeguarding tax revenue requires simple and well-targeted tax incentives that encourage sustainable investment. The European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) is due to hold a public hearing on this topic on 20 November 2025.

Clean industrial deal – tax recommendations

Launched in February 2025, the clean industrial deal is a package of wide-ranging actions aimed at ensuring that decarbonisation is a driver of economic growth for the European economy. Next to concrete action to lower energy prices, the European Commission published a (non-binding) recommendation to guide Member States when introducing and designing tax incentives to support the clean industrial deal objectives.

Firstly, the Commission recommends that Member States allow companies to deduct investment in green technology from their taxable income more quickly (‘accelerated depreciation‘), or even immediately (‘full or immediate expensing’). By enabling companies to deduct the cost of the asset faster – rather than spreading the cost evenly over time – accelerated depreciation effectively raises the after-tax rate of return on investment and helps mitigate distortions caused by inflation. While this incentive does not ultimately increase the nominal value of deductions, it does enhance their real value by allowing firms to claim them earlier, thereby improving businesses’ cash flow.

FranceInvestment in renewable energy equipment or energy-saving technologies can be depreciated at 2, 2.5 or 3 times the normal rate.Germany75 % of costs on electric company vehicles acquired after 30 June 2025 and before 1 January 2028 can be deducted in their first year.IrelandThe Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) scheme allows companies to deduct the full cost of investment in energy-efficient equipment in the year of purchase, rather than over the standard eight-year period.SpainSince 2023, Spain allows companies to apply accelerated depreciation for new electric and hydrogen company vehicles, at twice the standard depreciation rate. This also applies to investment in new electric vehicle charging infrastructure, both normal and high-power.

Accelerated depreciation for green assets – Member State examples (non-exhaustive)

Secondly, the Commission recommends that Member States, where feasible, use cost-effective and targeted tax credits for investment that creates sufficient manufacturing capacity in clean technologies, supports industrial decarbonisation, or strengthens the EU’s strategic resilience (for example, the production of a net-zero product where the EU is currently highly dependent on a single third country). The Commission notes that empirical evidence generally ranks input-based tax credits – for example, those covering R&D costs for green investment – higher than income-based credits, such as patent boxes, arguing that the former are more cost-effective in stimulating additional investment.

Action on these recommendations should be combined with other policy measures, such as the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies, whether provided through tax expenditure or direct grants.

The Council welcomed the Commission’s recommendations, but underlined the need for flexibility, allowing Member States to adapt tax incentives to their specific fiscal contexts and budgets.

Revision of the Energy Taxation Directive

The proposal to revise the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) remains the only unfinished file in the Commission’s ‘fit for 55‘ package, tabled in 2021, aiming to reduce emissions by 55 % by 2030.

The ETD lays down EU-wide minimum excise duty rates on motor/heating fuels and electricity. Member States are free to set their own tax rates as long as they respect the ETD’s minimum rates. The Commission’s proposal aims to update the directive – unchanged since 2003 – to bring it into line with the EU’s climate objectives and modern green technology, while maintaining Member States’ capacity to raise tax revenue. While reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preserving tax revenues are not inherently contradictory objectives, concern is growing about potential long-term future revenue erosion for national budgets, as excise duties on fossil fuels decline with the green transition.

Some of the proposal’s key provisions to revise the ETD include:

• Shifting from volume- to energy content-based taxation: Minimum rates would no longer be expressed per litre or kilogram, but rather per gigajoule of energy content, removing the existing tax bias against low-energy-content biofuels.
• Environmental ranking of minimum rates: A new structure would tax energy products according to their environmental performance, ensuring that electricity is always taxed at the lowest rate and fossil fuels at the highest.
• Gradual rate increases: Minimum rates for certain energy products, such as natural gas, would rise by one-tenth each year over a ten-year transitional period, to balance social costs, climate objectives, and fiscal stability.
• Annual indexation: Minimum rates would be automatically adjusted each year to preserve their real value over time and prevent erosion through inflation.
• Phasing out exemptions and reductions: The proposal removes several existing tax advantages, including the mandatory exemptions currently granted to maritime and aviation fuels.

Over the four years of negotiation, reaching the required unanimous support in the Council has proven difficult, aggravated by the energy cost crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising concerns about the resilience of European industry. Several Council presidencies have tried to break the impasse by proposing prolonged transitional periods and the possibility for Member States to provide total or partial exemptions for certain sectors and services, or the installation of an ’emergency brake’ on the increase in taxation rates when countries are faced with a sudden increase in energy prices.

The Danish Council Presidency had invited ministers to reach a general approach on the proposal on 13 November 2025, but a number of Member States expressed reservations about the proposed compromise text. Consultation on the file (2021/0213(CNS)) in the European Parliament continues.

Read this ‘at a glance note’ on ‘Encouraging clean investment: The role of tax incentives‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Even as their rights are under attack, women across the world are leading the charge to expand access to justice. Credit: UNDP Somalia

By Revai Makanje Aalbaek and Sarah Douglas
NEW YORK, Nov 18 2025 (IPS)

Even as their rights face growing threats, women across the globe are driving progress. From courtrooms to communities, women’s leadership is shaping peace, justice and development—often against the odds. In the face of conflict, exclusion and inequality, we continue to see powerful stories of hope, resilience and change. We are inspired by women who mediate local disputes, push for new laws and champion the rights of survivors, holding communities together.

These stories remind us that we achieve our best results when working together, especially when the task ahead is the elimination of deeply rooted and widespread barriers. The UNDP and UN Women Gender Justice Platform – made possible thanks to generous support from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—continues to support access to justice and women’s leadership in rule of law institutions in over 45 countries globally, proving that cross border solidarity can dismantle even the most entrenched inequality.

1. Women at the forefront of transitional justice in South Sudan

In the context of the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) and its 2022 Roadmap Agreement, peacebuilding in South Sudan is ongoing, including efforts to deliver transitional justice and community reconciliation.

To safeguard women’s participation in decision-making in these processes, the Gender Justice Platform has supported key legal advancements. In 2024, South Sudan’s parliament adopted two laws guaranteeing that women have a seat and a voice in the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing and the Compensation and Reparations Authority.

The laws explicitly recognize the distinct impacts of conflict on women, offering special protection for victims and witnesses, particularly for women, children and persons with disabilities.

The laws were informed by recommendations put forward by South Sudanese women as a result of a consultation on gender-responsive and survivor-centred transitional justice, co-hosted in June 2023 by the Gender Justice Platform.

These laws mark a major step toward ensuring that women, including survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, shape how truth-telling occurs and reparations are delivered, and that women’s leadership is woven into South Sudan’s journey toward justice, reconciliation and peace.

Through the Gender Justice Platform, UNDP and UN Women have empowered women to participate in transitional justice processes in more than 20 countries, including Colombia, Ethiopia, Liberia and Mali.

2. Expanding access to justice in Tanzania

In Tanzania, women and underrepresented groups, including women with disabilities, often face deep-rooted barriers to justice. To address them, UN Women worked closely with the Ministry of Constitution and Legal Affairs, boosting its legal aid and awareness campaign to reach more than 56,000 people, half of them women and girls. Critical issues were on the agenda, including land and property disputes, inheritance, family matters and gender-based violence.

In Tanzania, paralegals and social workers deliver legal aid and raise awareness on women’s rights. Credit: UN Women/Hanna Mtango

For lasting impact, the Gender Justice Platform empowered local champions – paralegals, aid providers and community social workers – to deliver legal aid and raise awareness on women’s rights, justice and social norms.

Complementing this, strategic training for judges on gender responsive sentencing ensures that women’s needs are considered when cases reach court. Together, these efforts show that sustainable justice must integrate both formal and informal systems to be effective and trusted.

3. Women mediators in Yemen help women resolve legal disputes

The space for women’s rights is restricted in Yemen. As around 80 percent of disputes in the country are resolved through community-based mechanisms, UNDP supported women mediators and paralegals to provide services though these customary and informal networks.

In 2024 alone, women mediators and paralegals resolved over 1,200 local disputes, primarily family-related, in partnership with local civil society organizations such as the Youth Horizon Foundation, making this initiative a critical lifeline for those most in need.

Women paralegals are working as insider-mediators to build peace in a bottom-up manner, contributing to the overall stabilization of the country.

Through the Gender Justice Platform, UNDP assisted about 300 women held in a prison, many of whom are there with their children. With UNICEF and civil society, UNDP advocated to facilitate the release and reintegration of wrongfully detained women, restoring dignity and family connections.

One woman, for example, spent an additional seven years in the prison after completing her sentence, as no one from her family would come for her. With UNDP support, Yemen Women Union (YWU) reconciled the woman with her family, and she was released.

4. Championing women’s leadership in South East Asia

In courtrooms across Southeast Asia, women judges are reshaping justice. In Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Thailand, they are building mentoring networks to ensure the law reflects women’s lived realities.

Their enthusiasm and professionalism sparked the Women’s Leadership in the Judiciary initiative, along with a storytelling campaign through which women judges share their personal stories.

“To ensure gender justice,” explains Sapana Pradhan Malla of Nepal, “our first step was to make sure that the law reflects women’s experience and perspective, without exclusion or discrimination against women.”

By amplifying women’s voices, the Gender Justice Platform is nurturing a new generation of women leaders who are supporting the transformation of the judiciary from within.

5. Civil society advancing gender justice in Colombia

The Gender Justice Platform supports women’s civil society organizations that translate global commitments into local, feminist action, ensuring survivors’ voices shape every step of the justice process. In Colombia, the Alliance Initiative of Women for Peace brings together 248 organizations of survivors, activists and lawyers.

In 2024, with support from the Gender Justice Platform, the Alliance worked alongside survivors of sexual violence and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia’s transitional justice tribunal, to ensure full and restorative participation.

As Alliance Director Angela Cerón Lasprilla explains, “Knowing I was not the only survivor, that what happened was not my fault and that I am a human being, that I matter—it’s only possible to acknowledge that if you have the support.”

Advancing women’s rights benefits everyone. Evidence shows that the advancement of women’s rights fosters equality, economic growth and opportunities for all. When women have unimpeded access to their rights, including justice and security, societies have a better chance to prosper, live in peace and enjoy development.

Explore the 2024 annual report of the Gender Justice Platform to see and celebrate what we achieved together. Along with our partners, we will continue to foster change for women and their active participation in justice efforts, guided by the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

Revai Makanje Aalbaek is Senior Advisor on Justice and Security, UNDP Crisis Bureau;
Sarah Douglas is Deputy Chief, Peace, Security and Resilience Section, UN Women

The Gender Justice Platform is implemented under the framework of UNDP’s Global Programme for Strengthening the Rule of Law, Human Rights, Justice and Security for Sustainable Peace and Development.

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Bei der Premiere von «Wicked 2» in Singapur bedrängte ein Fan Superstar Ariana Grande auf dem roten Teppich. Das hat nun schwerwiegende Folgen für den Mann.

BBC Sport has a look at which Premier League clubs will be most - and least - affected by the Africa Cup of Nations.

Wie geht es den Schweizer Firmen? Was läuft an der Wall Street? Und wie entwickelt sich der Bitcoin- und Goldpreis? Im Liveticker halten wir dich über die neusten Entwicklungen an den Märkten auf dem Laufenden.

Denník N: Prágában is nagygyűlés zajlott a november 17-i évforduló alkalmából, amelyen több mint 100 ezer ember vett részt. A szabadságért vívott küzdelemről a nap folyamán Petr Pavol köztársasági elnök, és a politikai pártok vezetői is megemlékeztek – Tomio Okamura, a cseh parlament alsóházának az új elnöke kivételével. (deník n)

Peu d'avancées sur l'État de droit, la liberté de la presse ou l'indépendance de la justice, révisionnisme historique et récente flambée de violence haineuse... Malgré tout, le Monténégro fait toujours figure de meilleur candidat des Balkans à l'intégration européenne. Les explications du rapporteur du Parlement européen, Marjan Šarec.

- Articles / Une - Diaporama, Monténégro, Radio Slobodna Evropa, Elargissement UE, Questions européennes, Monténégro UE, Après Milo

Peu d'avancées sur l'État de droit, la liberté de la presse ou l'indépendance de la justice, révisionnisme historique et récente flambée de violence haineuse... Malgré tout, le Monténégro fait toujours figure de meilleur candidat des Balkans à l'intégration européenne. Les explications du rapporteur du Parlement européen, Marjan Šarec.

- Articles / Une - Diaporama, Monténégro, Radio Slobodna Evropa, Elargissement UE, Questions européennes, Monténégro UE, Après Milo

Les villages de Plauru et Ceatalchioi, dans le delta du Danube, ont dû être évacués. En cause : un bateau-citerne chargé de gaz de pétrole liquéfié qui menace d'exploser après l'attaque d'un drone russe sur la rive ukrainienne.

- Le fil de l'Info / Une - Diaporama, Courrier des Balkans, Roumanie, Relations régionales, Ukraine, Danube, Une - Diaporama - En premier

Les villages de Plauru et Ceatalchioi, dans le delta du Danube, ont dû être évacués. En cause : un bateau-citerne chargé de gaz de pétrole liquéfié qui menace d'exploser après l'attaque d'un drone russe sur la rive ukrainienne.

- Le fil de l'Info / Une - Diaporama, Courrier des Balkans, Roumanie, Relations régionales, Ukraine, Danube, Une - Diaporama - En premier

Nicht der Weltverband, sondern eine private Initiative aus Deutschland will die Sicherheit im Bob-Sport verbessern. Nun gibts erste Ergebnisse. Die Experten wollen Kopfverletzungen mit dem neuen HIP-System verhindern.

US-Präsident Trump erwägt militärische Schritte gegen Mexiko im Kampf gegen Drogenschmuggel. Gleichzeitig zeigt er sich gesprächsbereit gegenüber Venezuela. Maduro erklärt sich zu einem Treffen mit Trump bereit, warnt aber vor Angriffen.

Anfang November starb Schauspielerin Diane Ladd im Alter von 89 Jahren. Jetzt ist die Todesursache bekannt.

Die berühmten Kessler-Zwillinge sind im Alter von 89 Jahren gemeinsam in Grünwald bei München verstorben. Kurz vor ihrem Tod änderten die Show-Ikonen ihr Testament.

Neblig, grau und nasskalt: Der November ist ideal, um mit gutem Gewissen zur Couchpotato zu mutieren. Wir zeigen dir, welche speziellen Weine zu kuscheligen Abenden auf dem Sofa passen. Und warum Madeira und Marsala zum Kochen viel zu schade sind.

In der neusten Folge von «APRÈS-SKI» spricht Blick-Reporter Marcel W. Perren mit Slalom-Legende Didier Plaschy über seine traurige Vergangenheit und wie er damit umgeht.

Wendy Holdeners Form und mentale Verfassung in ihrer 16. Weltcup-Saison werden von Slalom-Legende Didier Plaschy genau unter die Lupe genommen. In der neuen Folge von «APRÈS-SKI» diskutiert er mit Marcel W. Perren über ihre Leistung.

Die heutigen Slalom-Kurse sind zu einfach und haben keinen Charakter. Die Meinung vertritt Slalom-Legende Didier Paschy in der neusten Folge von «APRÈS-SKI». Daran sind auch die Schweizer Trainer nicht unschuldig.