European Union

In the annual State of the European Union debate, MEPs quizzed Commission President von der Leyen about the EU’s most immediate challenges.
Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Wednesday, 15 September

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Brussels institutions are devoting time not to Israel's illegal settlements and the two-state solution, but to an entirely different, peripheral issue: an EU-funded study of Palestinian Authority schoolbooks, published in June by the Georg-Eckert Institute in Germany.

Millions in Afghanistan are at risk of hunger, but shadows of the 2015 migration crisis hang over EU sympathy for those trying to flee.

A year ago, 40 percent of German voters supported the CDU and 16 percent the SPD. Now the CDU has lost 20 percent and the SPD gained 10 percent. The CDU was strong because Merkel was popular, not the party.

Romanian socialist MEPs joined right-wing nationalist Polish and Hungarian counterparts to vote against LGBTIQ rights, in a non-binding European Parliament resolution.

High energy bills are already affecting businesses and households across the bloc. But only about one-fifth of the price increase can be attributed to the CO2 prices rising, EU's climate chief Frans Timmermans told lawmakers

"It is the opportunity she has to seize now to set the course for the remainder of her mandate," said Georg Riekeles from the European Policy Centre.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier for the EU to "provide assistance to Afghanistan's neighbouring countries, such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran" to take care of Afghan refugees in a phone call Tuesday, Erdoğan's office said. "There is not considerable movement now [toward Turkey] but we need to be prepared," Erdoğan said. He also urged swift progress on EU-Turkey customs perks and visa-free travel deals.

Speakers of both chambers of the British parliament have declined entry to China's new UK ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, pending the lifting of Chinese sanctions on several British MPs, including former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith. China, earlier the year, also blacklisted MEPs in Brussels in revenge for EU sanctions over its abuse of the Uighur minority, prompting the European Parliament to freeze ratification of a landmark China-EU investment treaty.

The US is preparing to lobby world leaders in the margins of the UN general assembly in New York next week to help see that 70 percent of the world's population has been vaccinated against Covid-19 by 2022, according to a memo seen by the Reuters news agency. The document presses wealthier nations, with "relevant capabilities", to donate billions of doses as well as financing to combat "vaccine hesitancy".

The Spanish government announced on Tuesday a range of measures to reduce households energy bills, the Financial Times reported. They include fiscal measures and an effort to regain about €2.6bn from energy companies for utility "excess profits" until 2022. Prime minister Pedro Sanchez also said the tax on electricity will be reduced by €1.4bn by the end of the year. Electricity prices have reached record high of €172 per MWh.

France has got the European Commission's green light to pay out €3bn in state aid to some 100 companies in distress due to the pandemic, Reuters reports. The so-called Transition Fund will be used to pay down corporate debt and inject capital using loans and share purchases. The EU has loosened state-aid and national-debt rules in the wake of coronavirus and is also pumping billions of aid into member states.

A UN report on Tuesday revealed that the majority of the nearly €467bn annual global subsidies given to farmers are "harmful" for the climate and health, the Guardian reported. Livestock and food production, the biggest sources of emissions, receive most state funding, it found, calling for a reform to tackle the impact of agriculture in climate change. Farm subsidies represent 15 percent of total agricultural production value.

EU states' ambassadors will discuss on Wednesday how to help trade flow between the UK and Northern Ireland, which stayed in the EU customs union after Brexit, with a view to unveiling ideas by the end of the month. "Possible solutions would centre around making existing checks less laborious, limiting the amount of paperwork needed," an EU diplomat told AP. The UK had earlier asked to renegotiate the Northern-Ireland deal.

UK government officials have proposed a vaccine-booster programme aimed at health workers, those aged over 50, and people with weakened immune systems ahead of the winter, Reuters reported. UK health minister Sajid Javid also said that there is a "Plan B" to make vaccine certificates and mask-wearing mandatory in some venues. Officials said that Covid-19 vaccination has saved more than 112,000 lives and prevented 24 million infections.

People at risk following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan should be given help, MEPs said in a debate on the country’s future.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Connectivity has become a major foreign policy tool in today's international relations – from transport, trade, and environmental technologies to standards and people-to-people contacts.

Media are invited to the sessions of the European Citizens’ Panels, with the first 200-citizen meeting taking place on 17 - 19 September in Strasbourg.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP