EMA organises public meeting on COVID-19 vaccines

The EMA will organise a public meeting on 11 December 2020 to inform European citizens about the EU regulatory processes for the approval of COVID-19 vaccines and the Agency’s role in their development, evaluation, approval and safety monitoring. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global crisis, with devastating health, social and economic impact. Safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19…

Emirates Best Airline 2020

Emirates has been recognised as the Best Airline for 2020 at The Sun Travel Awards, and the Best Long-Haul Airline at The Times and The Sunday Times Travel Awards. Following an unprecedented year for travel, hundreds of thousands of votes were cast by readers looking to celebrate the best in the industry. Emirates’ range of world-class…

New Industrial Strategy

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution on the new Industrial Strategy. It calls for the new industrial strategy – planned for publication in March next year – to be in line with the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 and to create the conditions for an innovative, inclusive, resilient, digitalised society. In the context…

Anti-COVID Clinical Trials in Africa

The Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, thirteen African countries and an international network of research institutions have joined forces to launch the largest COVID-19 clinical trial in Africa. The ANTICOV clinical trial will focus on mild-to-moderate outpatients and aims to respond to the urgent need to identify treatments that can be used to…

Vaccination Programmes

The European Commission has approved a fifth contract with the European pharmaceutical company CureVac, which provides for the initial purchase of 225 million doses on behalf of all EU Member States, plus an option to request up to a further 180 million doses, to be supplied once a vaccine has proven to be safe and…

EU4 health Programme

To close gaps exposed by COVID-19 and ensure that health systems can face future threats to public health, an ambitious EU health programme is needed, say MEPs. On Friday, Parliament adopted its position on the Commission proposal to step up the EU’s action in the health sector significantly, through the so-called EU4 health programme with…

Getting People Into Jobs

The European Parliament has prolonged the successful cooperation programme Network of European public Employment Services (PES) for another seven years.  The Socialists and Democrats support the platform, which enables the exchange of best practices, setting benchmarks and mutual learning with the goal of becoming more effective and efficient. Manuel Pizarro, S&D MEP and author of…

Aid for EU Farmers

A package agreed by European Parliament and Council negotiators means 8 billion euros will be made accessible to European farmers in 2021 and 2022 to address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are pleased that the support will be available to farmers next year”, says ECR shadow rapporteur Bert-Jan Ruissen MEP (NL). “These funds need…

Ukraine: MEPs call for results in fight against corruption and dismantled oligarchies

In a report adopted on Monday, Foreign Affairs Committee MEPs have praised Ukraine’s progress on important reforms that bring the country further towards political association and economic integration with the EU. Ukraine has progressed in its commitments made in the Association Agreement (AA/DCFTA) with the European Union; particularly in the fields of agriculture, energy, banking, decentralisation, digital…

COVID Scams

Commissioner Didier Reynders was, on Friday, meeting the 11 online platforms participating in the dialogue on tackling online consumer scams related to the coronavirus pandemic, together with consumer protection authorities.  The purpose is to encourage platform operators to reinforce their preparedness to address new scams that could appear during the second wave of the pandemic and to prevent…