Speaking on Tuesday at the SME Assembly being held in Slovenia, Véronique Willems, Secretary-General of SMEunited and Christel Delberghe, Director-General of EuroCommerce underlined the role of SMEs as the backbone of vibrant town centres and rural communities, made a joint call for action to address the challenges facing small businesses and the communities they serve:…
Business
ECA Signs off on Joint Undertakings (JUs)
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has signed off the 2020 accounts and the underlying transactions of all the EU’s Joint Undertakings (JUs) – the EU’s public-private partnerships with industry and research groups. In the seventh of their ten-year life span, most JUs have already implemented approximately 2/3 of their activities within Horizon 2020, the…
Towards Minimum Wages in Europe
The European Parliament’s employment committee has made a big step towards a European directive for minimum wages, which both strengthens and safeguards the different social models in Europe, by approving the report tabled jointly by S&D MEP Agnes Jongerius and EPP MEP Dennis Radtke. The Socialists and Democrats’ have spearheaded the campaign for a European Directive…
Pandora Papers EP Report
The European Parliament has adopted a report on the Pandora Papers, in the wake of the revelations by the ICIJ and others into global tax avoidance, evasion and money laundering.The report was an initiative of the Greens/EFA Group. For the first time, this report sees the European Parliament condemns the role of the United States…
Banking Regulation Reform
The European Commission has published its proposal to reform banking regulation, inline with international agreements on banking regulation (Basel III). The revisions to the Capital Requirements Directive and Capital Requirements Regulation are aimed at preserving financial stability by addressing the systematic underestimation of risks, and ensuring that banks have sufficient capital to avert another crisis…
New Video Game Helps Children Who Stutter
Fluency Friends is the first interactive video game that uses speech recognition to help children who stutter improve their speech at home Today, on International Stuttering Awareness Day (22 October), the Belgian – American startup Say It Labs officially launched its new video game ‘Fluency Friends’. The app helps children improve their stuttering in a fun way through…
Pandora Papers Report: The EP Votes
Members of the European Parliament have voted on a report on the Pandora Papers, in the wake of the revelations by the ICIJ and others into global tax avoidance, evasion and money laundering. The report was an initiative of the Greens/EFA Group. For the first time, this report sees the European Parliament condemn the role…
Arianespace Deploys 36 OneWeb Satellites with Successful Soyuz Flight
Arianespace has successfully performed Soyuz Flight ST36. This latest launch for OneWeb placed 36 more satellites into orbit. ST36 represents an important step in OneWeb and Arianespace’s partnership: the operator now has more than half, 358 satellites, of its constellation in orbit. ST36 is the 10th launch of Arianespace in 2021. Performed on Thursday, October…
MEPs express disgust at Pandora Papers revelations
MEPs have expressed indignation at the Pandora Papers revelations and criticised governments’ woefully inadequate response for over a decade to investigative findings of tax evasion. Speaking during a debate in plenary with representatives of the Council and the Commission just days after the leaks were published, the latest in a long series of investigative works…
EU Mining Interests Guilty of Permanent Damage to the Environment
European Green Deal plans will fail to stop runaway mining, creating further permanent damage to the environment and wreaking havoc on human rights. The EU must reduce extraction of natural resources by 65%, according to a new study released today by Friends of the Earth Europe and the European Environmental Bureau. The report shows that…