The Commission’s Fit for Future Platform has now selected 15 initiatives with the aim of helping to simplify EU law, cut red tape for citizens and businesses, and ensure that EU policies respond to new and emerging challenges. These efforts will be part of the Platform’s first annual work programme to be adopted this month. […]
Commission and the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency support SMEs in the space sector
The Commission and the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) will present the winners of the MyGalileoSolution and MyGalileoDrone competitions in the first Entrepreneurship Day 2021 virtual press conference on 3 March. The competitions showcase how the agency fosters innovation for SMEs and start-ups based on the EU Space Programme. They will feature the […]
Digitalisation of EU justice systems: Commission launches public consultation on cross-border judicial cooperation
Today, the European Commission has launched a public consultation on the modernisation of EU justice systems. The EU aims to support Member States in their efforts to adapt their justice systems to the digital age and improve EU cross-border judicial cooperation. Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance […]
EU Pushes Two-Year Schengen Border Controls
EU Home Affairs ministers asked the European Commission on Monday to consider suspension of the Schengen area for up two years, prolonging EU Member States border controls. Under the Schengen Code, Member States can only introduce temporary border controls for two months, for unforeseeable events and six months, for foreseeable events. But under Article 26, […]
Fighting Stress At Work… Its Stressful…
With Brussels now firmly ‘Back to School’ stress levels should be rising steadily. Eurocrats may have missed a timely summer initiative from the European Commission aimed at tackling the most frequently reported work-related health problem in Europe – stress. Stress is believed to be the cause of the majority of all lost working days, according to […]
Team Juncker Appear At EP Hearings From 29 September
The candidate commissioners, as presented by incoming Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, will need to appear in hearings before parliamentary committees from 29 September to 7 October. The hearings will take place from 29 September to 2 October and in the following week, on the afternoon of Monday 6 and the morning of Tuesday 7 October. The […]
Juncker – To Be, Or Not To Be…
Who’s going to be European Commission President for the next five years? Will European Council and Parliament respect the Lisbon Treaty? Will Europe’s votes have any impact on the final outcome? Will Jean-Claude Juncker call it a day and bow out quietly? On paper, the winner of the elections was the European People’s Party, whose […]
Tsipras Meets Rehn. The Bro-mance That Never Was.
In Brussels, Alexis Tsipras, Greek MP and President of Synaspismos, met with Mr Karas and Mr Liêm Hoang Ngoc, to be briefed about the progress of the ongoing inquiry by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on the role of the troika in the countries under Memorandum, Tsipras said: “We came […]
EU Budget 2014 – “Deal”. Parliament and Council Get It Together…
After negotiating through the night, Parliament and Council struck a deal on the EU budget for 2014, which also provides for remedying payments shortfalls in in the current fiscal year. MEPs ensured that victims of catastrophic flooding and drought in 2013 will be compensated, and that its priorities for 2014 in areas such as employment, […]
Council Approves China Investment Negotiation Mandate
Europe’s ministers, meeting at the European Foreign Affairs Council, have approved a mandate for the European Commission to start negotiating an investment agreement with China on behalf of the EU. An EU-China investment agreement will, among other things, improve the protection of EU investments in China and reduce barriers to investment in China. This will help increase […]