European Union

Requirements in the EU’s chemical strategy for sustainability would see an additional 2 million animals used for testing unless a concerted effort is made to invest in alternatives to animal testing, stakeholders have warned.

The European Commission has been caught by surprise. In its efforts to fight disinformation, it developed instruments to monitor Russia. However, new research shows that the anti-vaxxer disinformation campaign to which many EU citizens have fallen victim actually originates in the United States.

The UK and the European Union appear to be edging closer to a compromise on the Northern Ireland protocol, after a week of softening rhetoric from both sides.

As predicted, recovery money planning has maxed out administrative capacity in many member states at the expense of the EU's long-standing structural investment program, which now faces delays.

Spokespersons for Parliament and for political groups will hold a briefing on the 22-25 November plenary session this Friday at 11.00, in Parliament’s Anna Politkovskaya press room.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

This week our Beyond the Byline podcast focuses on the launch of a political dialogue between the EU and Switzerland, in an attempt by the two parties to resolve continuous misunderstandings regarding the single market.

The third European Citizens’ Panel, focusing on climate change, environment / health, will continue its work online on 19-21 November.
Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Google has struck a five-year deal with Agence France-Presse that will see the tech giant pay to reuse journalistic content in what is reportedly one of the largest deals of its kind. EURACTIV France reports.

Winter is coming and we will soon hear more alarming stories about smog. Air pollution continues to have a significant impact on the health of European citizens, particularly in urban areas.

As homeowners across Europe worry about the fate of their ageing gas boilers, some have pinned their hopes on switching them to hydrogen – but this may not be the way forward, a new study suggests.

SpaceNet ,Telecom Deutschland,Commissioner of the Garda Síochána
Approximation of laws
Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona reiterates that the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data relating to electronic communications is permitted only in the event of a serious threat to national security

MEPs are calling for better legal labour migration channels to reduce irregular arrivals and meet the needs of the economy.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

For years, life in Bosnia's Breza revolved around its coal mine, but the global shift from fossil fuels to renewables threatens the industry that was once the pride of communist Yugoslavia.

Certification of energy carriers, especially hydrogen, is crucial to their marketing and for EU states to prove that they have achieved their climate goals. Now the Commission is pushing for an EU database to harmonise certification.

With its low carbon strategy, the French government aims to green agriculture through the development of carbon sequestration in soils. French farmers salute the strategy but call for stronger aids for the transition to be financially sustainable.

Austria’s energy and climate minister Leonore Gewessler told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview that her country was ready to go to court if the EU decides to include nuclear power into the bloc's taxonomy on sustainable finance.

In a shift away from European Central Bank orthodoxy, a senior bank executive  has argued that even though the ECB’s monetary policy led to a decrease in labour income inequality, its asset purchase programs would lead to wealth inequality.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about caretaker chancellor Angela Merkel calling Belarus strongman Lukashenko for the second time this week, Romania's interim energy minister blaming Russia for the natural gas crisis, and so much more.

The European Commission has proposed a progressive roll-out of the regulation on in vitro diagnostic medical devices in a bid to fight shortcomings. However, MEPs criticised the lack of notified bodies to assess their conformity and the delays of more than a decade in their application. 

As part of this blog’s ongoing monitoring of the two treaties, we regularly produce a tracker of meetings of the various bodies that they have set up.

These trackers are useful at a number of levels.

Firstly, the level of overall activity provides an indication of the vibrancy of the treaty and the extent to which the parties see it as the appropriate forum for handling issues: witness the volume of activity in the Withdrawal Agreement committees in the wake of its entry into force, to try to iron out the numerous implementation issues, most obviously on the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Secondly, the speed of setting up specific bodies points to relative priorities within the treaty framework. Thus the Trade & Cooperation Agreement – with its numerous organisational structures – has only one body that’s meet more than once: fisheries.

Finally, over time, it helps us to see how the pattern of moving from initial implementation issues to more regular operation works in practice. If the WA appears to have started to move towards the latter phase, with minimal activity this autumn, then the TCA is still very early on in its life-cycle, with much still to come into operation.

In the context of the wider EU-UK relationship, this matters, especially given the on-going uncertainty about the Protocol – and thus the entire WA/TCA architecture. If the UK were to unravel the Protocol with an Art.16 notification then the two treaties lack deep institutional roots that might help to contain the ensuing crisis. Even the WA hangs somewhat in the balance given the integral nature of the Protocol.

Of course, Art.16 would make these trackers a trailing indicator for the period of the crisis, but if the treaties were to stand, then they might also eventually come to be leading indicators of a rebuilding of relations.

Something to keep in mind in the coming months.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic78

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic85

The post WA/TCA Committee Tracker, November 2021 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.