Last week on 23 April, EU heads of state and government met via video conference to address the development of economic measures to recover from the coronavirus crisis. However, instead of proposing ambitious measures, in particular coronabonds, a mutualised debt instrument, EU Leaders decided not to decide. The European Commission is instead tasked with the…
Following the second round of negotiations on a new EU-UK partnership David McAllister MEP, Chair of the European Parliament UK Coordination Group, issued the following statement. “Today, the European Commission and the UK government concluded the second round of negotiations on a new EU-UK partnership via videoconference. I am concerned to hear Michel Barnier expressing…
One year ahead of the 75th anniversary of the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer has initiated a musical Instagram journey entitled #unitedmusic75. The project is supported by the United Nations Regional Information Centre and the International Court of Justice. The one-year challenge is a call for action to show solidarity and highlight the convening power of music for a common cause, peace through justice. During the #unitedmusic75 challenge an…
More than 4,000 fire and rescue service staff from across the UK are volunteering to support the NHS and other key services in the fight against Covid-19, including driving ambulances and delivering food to vulnerable people. A further 10,000 FRS staff are on standby to assist as and when required. These figures – collated by the National Fire…
Additional EU action is needed to make sure EU help reaches the ravaged media and culture sectors, say EP Culture committee members. The culture and creative sector in the EU – especially individual creators and SMEs – and the media sector are being decimated by the crisis. The European Union must therefore do more to…
The business environment for SMEs has dramatically changed for the worse in the past weeks. This has a huge negative impact on hundreds of thousands of Crafts and SMEs, and also threatens fundamentally the core role which SMEs play in European citizen’s everyday life. To support the survival and quick recovery of SMEs across Europe,…
Belgian jets assigned to NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission intercepted Russian fighters as they conducted low passes over a US Navy destroyer on 17 April. The Belgian F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighters launched from Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania, where the air policing mission is headquartered. They then intercepted the Russian aircraft – two Su-24…
The Commission has adopted a proposal for a €3 billion macro-financial assistance (MFA) package to ten enlargement and neighbourhood partners to help them to limit the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The proposal comes on top of the Team Europe strategy, the EU’s robust and targeted response to support partner countries’ efforts in tackling…
The European Commission has published guidance on the development of new apps that support the fight against coronavirus in relation to data protection. The development of such apps and their take up by citizens can have a significant impact on the treatment of the virus and can play an important role in the strategy to…
By Dr. CHEN Shih-chung The threat of emerging infectious diseases to global health and the economy, trade, and tourism has never abated. Pandemics can spread rapidly around the world because of the ease of international transportation. Among the most salient examples are the Spanish flu of 1918, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of…
