European Parliament sues Commission for failing to hold members accountable over rule of law - by Jorge Liboreiro

The European Parliament has decided to sue the European Commission after the executive's repeated refusal to activate a new conditionality mechanism that can freeze EU funds for member states suspected of breaching EU law.

The lawsuit was submitted on Friday by the Parliament's legal service before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), based in Luxembourg.

Read more at: European Parliament sues Commission for failing to hold members accountable over rule of law | Euronews

EU-US RELATIONS: Joe Biden nominates former ambassador to Romania Mark Gitenstein as new EU envoy

European Council President Charles Michel welcomed Gitenstein's nomination on Twitter.

"We have a big transatlantic and global agenda to take forward. We need all hands on deck, and I look forward to working with him when confirmed," he wrote.

Read more at: https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/28/joe-biden-nominates-former-ambassador-to-romania-mark-gitenstein-as-new-eu-envoy

Europe's democratic renewal needs a feminist slant - by Iratxe García Pérez

If the Covid-19 outbreak has taught us anything, it’s that preparedness for crises is crucial to save lives. To be better prepared, we need to have a discussion about the future of the European Union. And not just among politicians. This is where the Conference on the Future of Europe comes in, which had been proposed already before the pandemic because, even back then, it was necessary to update our common vision and to speed up decision-making in our union of 27 member states.

Now, the time has come to get out of the ‘Brussels bubble’, listen to people and advance towards a feminist Europe. We need a new concept of power, a new approach to representative democracy and a new mindset in the EU institutions. This transformation should also be reflected in the institutional architecture. We must ensure that the conference plenary does not just become a political theatre for EU politicians to debate among themselves. Instead, it needs to be a forum to give a voice to citizens

Read more at: Europe's democratic renewal needs a feminist slant – Iratxe García Pérez

EU Coronavirus - Vaccine: EU puts faith in Pfizer jab with plan for 1.8 billion doses - "Too little, too late"??

The EU has announced plans to buy 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine through 2023. The bloc is also bringing forward shorter-term Pfizer deliveries after suspending orders for the Johnson & Johnson.

On Wednesday, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the EU planned to order 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine by 2023.

Von der Leyen said Brussels had full confidence in the technology behind the Pfizer vaccine. The manufacturing process used for the Pfizer product — dependent on mRNA — is different then the one behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, which uses a cold virus to transport a segment of the coronavirus to the recipients' cells.

Read more at: EU puts faith in Pfizer jab with plan for 1.8 billion doses | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 14.04.2021

Coronavirus - EU: Frustration at EU summit on slow vaccination - by Eszter Zalan

A sluggish start to the vaccine roll-out has cast a long shadow on the online meeting of EU leaders, who on Thursday (25 March) discussed the bloc's vaccine strategy.

There has been a muted backing for the EU Commission's plans to tighten export rules, as the bloc wants to make sure pharmaceutical companies, particularly AstraZeneca, deliver on their EU contracts before exporting.

Leaders also resisted Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz's efforts to redistribute vaccines at the summit, which Kurz argued had been unevenly spread among member states.

Read more at: Frustration at EU summit on slow vaccination

EDF: : EU Commission wants to break up EDF, its CEO says

The European Commission disagrees with a French government plan to restructure EDF and sees a break-up of the nuclear utility into several units as the only solution, the state-owned firm’s chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy said in an interview.

The French government wants to separate EDF’s capital-intensive nuclear power arm from other parts of its business and needs EU clearance to make sure the new structure would not amount to state aid or crimp competition in a power market still largely dominated by the former monopoly operator.

Levy said there had been little progress i

Read more at: EU Commission wants to break up EDF, its CEO says – EURACTIV.com

EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar – by Liina Carr

Next week, the European Commission is set to unveil its Action Plan for putting the European Pillar of Social Rights into practice. The European Trade Union Confederation is pressing hard for an ambitious plan, which provides the means to achieve and monitor tangible social progress.

Read more at: EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar – Liina Carr

EU Commission: Sinkevicius: ‘There can be no return to business as usual’ after the pandemic – by Alexandra Brzozowsk

There can be no return to business as usual after the pandemic and no amount of economic pressure should force us to compromise on people’s health and the health of our planet, Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius said in an interview about the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and young people’s demands for a greener future.

He spoke to EURACTIV ahead of ViacomCBS and EU40’s ‘BEYOND 2020 – Global Youth: voices and futures!’’ virtual summit.

Read complete report at: Sinkevicius: ‘There can be no return to business as usual’ after the pandemic – EURACTIV.com

EU: Commission at odds with Parliament over GM crop authorisations – by Natasha Foote

The EU executive looks set to press ahead with a “new approach” to genetically modified (GM) crop authorisations in the wake of persistent lack of political support for the technology in the European Parliament.

In December, MEPs voted for a further five objections against authorisations of GM crops for use as food and feed in the EU, including one GM soybean and four GM maize varieties. This has brought the overall number of objections to GM crop authorisations to 51 in five years.

Read more at: Commission at odds with Parliament over GM crop authorisations – EURACTIV.com

European Commission Report - Economy: Recovery plan for Europe - the largest ever

The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with the NextGenerationEU initiative, which is a temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.

The new long-term budget will increase flexibility mechanisms to guarantee it has the capacity to address unforeseen needs. It is a budget fit not only for today's realities but also for tomorrow's uncertainties.

On 10 November 2020, an agreement was reached between the European Parliament and EU countries in the Council on the next long-term EU budget and NextGenerationEU. This agreement will reinforce specific programmes under the long-term budget for 2021-2027 by a total of €15 billion.

Read more at: Recovery plan for Europe | European Commission

EU - Opinion on Hungary and Poland: The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - editorial board

After years of passively watching nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland undermine democratic rule, the European Union finally drew the line this year and declared that disbursements from the E.U. budget and a special coronavirus relief fund would be contingent on each member’s adherence to the rule of law. Hungary and Poland have shamelessly retaliated by threatening to veto the Union’s next seven-year budget, emergency funds and all, unless the condition is scrapped.

The governments in Budapest and Warsaw couched their defiance with their usual plaints that the bloc was behaving like their former Soviet overlords. “This is not why we created the European Union, so that there would be a second Soviet Union,” declared Viktor Orban, the proudly illiberal prime minister of Hungary. But such posturing has long been discredited, especially as both right-wing governments have happily reaped huge subsidies from the European Union.

The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right-wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the “suppression of opinions by liberal ideology.”

Mr. Orban in particular has systematically worked to curtail the independence of the judiciary, bring the press to heel and curb civil society. With Fidesz, his nationalist party, in full control of Parliament, he took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic in March to assume broad and open-ended emergency powers that effectively allow him to rule by decree for as long as he wants.

Note EU-Digest: "Hungary and Poland want all the benefits of the EU, but do not want to comply with the rules - it's hight time for the EU Commission to give them an ultimatum- live up to the rules of the EU or lose your membership"

Read more at: Opinion | The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - The New York Times

Crises in the EU caused by Hungary and Poland: EU budget blocked by Hungary and Poland over rule of law issue

Ambassadors of the 27 member states meeting in Brussels were unable to endorse the budget becauseHungary and Poland vetoed it.

Note EU-Diges;: Right wing nationalist Polish and Hungarian governments, which have done away with the independent status of their legal systems,and politicized it, must not be allowed to call the shots in the EU, and do not deserve to be members of the E.U if they do not comply with the rule of the majority. Hopefully the EU Commission will not sit on their hands ,and take immediate action, including, in the worst case scenario, expulsion of these countries from EU.

Read more at: EU budget blocked by Hungary and Poland over rule of law issue - BBC News

EU: Affordable and sustainable housing must become a priority of Europe’s recovery plan

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many cracks in our society, from the unequal and unprepared public health policies to the dramatic lack of social cohesion. A particular issue has truly come home to roost: housing inequality has been dramatically emphasized by the current health emergency. When we were all housebound for weeks on end, far too many people were locked down in poor-standard, overcrowded or unhealthy spaces. In addition to this, many did not have the means to pay their energy bill to heat their homes, and most did not see nor have access to nature for months.

The European Union has been going through a systemic housing crisis for a long time now, which has its root causes in a structural shortage of affordable, public and social housing and from the lack of public investment. However, the housing issue interconnects with three other major crises that need to be tackled simultaneously: the social crisis, the climate crisis and the economic crisis.

With over 50 million people overburdened by housing costs, social housing waiting lists at an all-time high, and 700,000 people sleeping rough every night in the streets of Europe, it is clear that fixing the housing crisis will mean putting the focus on social inequality in our society.

Read more at: 
Affordable and sustainable housing must become a priority of Europe’s recovery plan – EURACTIV.com

EU: Coronavirus -Remdesivir: Commission signs a joint procurement contract with Gilead for the supply of Remdesivir

 The Commission has signed a joint procurement framework contract with the pharmaceutical company Gilead for the supply of up to 500,000 treatment courses of Veklury, the brand name for Remdesivir, and the opportunity to increase supply beyond the 500,000 treatment courses. There are  36 signatories of the Joint Procurement Agreement participating in this joint procurement, including all EU countries, the EEA countries of Norway and Iceland*, the UK, as well as six candidate countries and potential candidates (Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo** and Bosnia and Herzegovina). All participating countries can now place their orders to procure Veklury directly. Veklury is at this stage the only medicine with a conditional marketing authorisation in the EU for the treatment of COVID-19 patients needing oxygen supply.

Read more at: Coronavirus: Remdesivir

EU: 'Self-regulation not working' on fake news, EU warned - by Elena Sánchez Nicolás

MEPs, journalists, publishers and broadcasters on Monday (15 June) called on the European Commission to scale up efforts to hold social media platforms, largely but not only Facebook and Twitter, accountable for the dissemination of Covid-19 fake news and disinformation.

Online platforms were asked in 2018 to implement a self-regulatory code of practice on disinformation, taking down illegal content, demoting false or misleading content, and limiting false advertisements of products and services'

Read more at:
Self-regulation not working' on fake news, EU warned

EU - Coronavirus: EU apologizes to Italy for initial response

The European Parliament is meeting to discuss a joint response from member states to the novel coronavirus pandemic. A draft resolution seeks a uniform strategy for phasing out emergency measures.

Note EU-Digst: What a difference - EU "apologies policy", versus US Trump Administration , "always blame some one else policy".

Read  more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-eu-apologizes-to-italy-for-initial-response/a-53142603

Overcoming the lockdown: EU looks to apps as way of easing virus lockdown

As the EU's economy reels from virus lockdowns, Brussels unveiled a proposed roadmap Wednesday to ease restrictions on life and businesses, relying in large part on smartphone tracking apps.

That technology aims to spot localized COVID-19 outbreaks in real-time. Already many individual European governments are on the verge of rolling out their own tracking apps.

But the European Commission is concerned those go-it-alone initiatives will provide incompatible data sets, useless for compiling a whole picture across the single market where people and goods are meant to move freely.

It is also worried these apps could fall foul of strong EU data privacy rules and Europeans' deep-seated wariness of technological prying.

"The aim is to get the single market back on track so that it can work properly," Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told a videolink news conference as she unveiled the 16-page roadmap to phasing out lockdowns that have brought life to a standstill in many countries.

The document puts data collection and contact tracing at the top of its recommended measures, above expanding testing, reinforcing healthcare systems and providing more protective gear.

But it said the use of any apps should be "voluntary" and comply with personal data protection rules.

"Tracing close proximity between mobile devices should be allowed only on an anonymous and aggregated basis, without any tracking of citizens, and names of possibly infected persons should not be disclosed to other users," it said.

An EU official giving more details to journalists later called such apps "very useful to prevent localized flare-ups" of the virus.
 
But, he warned, "they will only work if citizens have full trust in those apps -- this is very important to stress"

Note EU-Digest: It is a good idea - and don't worry about your privacy on the internet, that has already been gone several year ago re: GPS, Bank Cards, Credit Cards, Phone cards etc., which carry just about all your private information.

Read more at: EU looks to apps as way of easing virus lockdown | News , World | THE DAILY STAR

EU unveils coronavirus app tracking guidelines

The European Commission has called for a pan-European approach to using mobile technologies to curb the outbreak. But privacy experts have warned that such tools could undermine central features of the European project.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-unveils-coronavirus-app-tracking-guidelines/a-53062143

EU-Coronavirus: EU Commission to stockpile strategic medical gear and equipment - by Eszter Zalan

The EU commission on Thursday (19 March) said it will set up a stockpile of face masks, intensive care equipment and other essential medical gear to tackle shortages in member states.

The move comes after EU countries at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak have faced shortages of crucial medical equipment.

“It will benefit all our member states and all our citizens. Helping one another is the only way forward.”

The medical equipment part of the stockpile will include intensive care medical equipment such as ventilators; personal protective equipment such as reusable masks and laboratory supplies.

Also commenting, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, added, "The EU is taking action to get more equipment to member states. We are setting up a rescEU stockpile to rapidly get the supplies needed to fight Coronavirus. Our plan is to move ahead without delay.”

Lenarčič added that the stockpile will be used to support EU Member States that are facing shortages of equipment needed to treat infected patients as well as for protecting health care workers.

Meanwhile, EU transport ministers together with the Commission have agreed to join forces to minimise traffic disruptions, especially for essential freight. They say the transport sector is being severely affected by a wide range of national measures aimed at containing the pandemic.

On 1 January 2019, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at almost 513.5 million, compared with 512.4 million on 1 January 2018.and has a GDP of $18.3 trillion.  After Bitain officially leaves the EU the population will be reduced by 66.44 million. But untill Brexit goes into official effect Britain is still a full member of the EU and participates in all the inter-governmental projects and benefits the EU membership provides.

EU-Digest

The EU and China in 2020: More Competition Ahead - by Erik Brattberg and Philippe Le Corre

Reflecting the general mood of the BDI paper, the most significant update of the EU’s own thinking on China came on March 12, 2019, when the European Commission and the European External Action Service jointly put out a strategic reflection paper. This paper was striking for at least two main reasons.

First was the speed and unusual way by which it came about. The process was driven by outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who teamed up with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in an effort to beef up the EU’s common position on China ahead of crucial meetings that year. Even more striking was its bluntness, which is rare in official EU documents. For example, a key sentence referred to China as “a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests, an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.

The unprecedented use of the term “systemic rival” reflected growing impatience in EU circles with China’s failure to open its markets to European companies in key sectors. The paper called for a “flexible and pragmatic whole-of-EU response” and greater European access to the Chinese market. It concluded with ten action items that the European Council quickly endorsed. The significance of the strategic outlook on China should not be underestimated. Its timing and strong language helped give the EU concrete leverage when dealing with China during a crucial stage, while avoiding having to resort to confrontation or containment. The message was not lost on Beijing, which quickly drew the conclusion that it could no longer take the soft European position for granted. Beijing had to redouble its efforts to fulfill at least some of its commitments lest Brussels follow Washington in taking a more stringent approach.

Immediately after the strategic outlook paper was released, Juncker, Merkel, and Macron met jointly with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Paris on March 25, 2019. By extending an invitation to the German chancellor and the head of the commission to attend the meeting with Xi, Macron signaled that he wanted to build a core coalition within the EU to gain leverage over Beijing. During the meeting, Macron and Xi released a joint statement calling on Europe and China to work together in a number of areas, such as the economy, global governance, and climate. However, Macron also cited frank discussions with his Chinese counterpart on human rights issues. Xi’s visit to Europe included time in Italy where the two countries agreed on a memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This represented a major symbolic win for Beijing, as Italy was the first G7 nation to endorse China’s flagship infrastructure initiative.  

The EU and China in 2020: More Competition Ahead - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace