Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category

Vyopta Expands its Cloud Services Footprint in the European Union – PR Newswire

AUSTIN, Texas, March 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Vyopta, the leader in digital collaboration user experience management, today announced its plans to further expand into Europe with the launch of its new European Union Vyopta cloud. This is in addition to the company's existing US Commercial and FedRAMP Government clouds in the U.S. The new European cloud will enable Vyopta to better serve its European customers.

"As we continue to support and expand our client base in Europe, we want to ensure that they are confident we can support secure data residency needs," said Alfredo Ramirez, CEO of Vyopta. "We chose to house the Vyopa EU Cloud in Germany because of their well-known high-security standards."

One of the world's leading car and truck manufacturers and a global leader in next-age digital services and technology consulting are two large enterprises that are among those that will be the initial group using Vyopta's EU Cloud. Other clients in the region include organizations in education, enterprise, finance, government, and healthcare.

Vyopta currently has an office in the UK and offers 24-hour customer service support to enterprises around the world.

About Vyopta IncorporatedVyopta, the leader in digital collaboration user experience management, has helped 40 million people collaborate better. Its Collaboration Performance Management and Workspace Insights applications have helped identify and address over 9 million issues. Vyoptahelps organisationsdeliver the best UCuser experience and optimisetheir UCand real estate investments. Hundreds of organisationsworldwide spanning 20+ industries use Vyoptato monitor 6 million endpoints and over 20 billion meeting minutes a year.

SOURCE Vyopta Inc

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Vyopta Expands its Cloud Services Footprint in the European Union - PR Newswire

Economic Ties Among Nations Spur Peace. Or Do They? – The New York Times

Russias war in Ukraine is not only reshaping the strategic and political order in Europe, it is also upending long-held assumptions about the intricate connections that are a signature of the global economy.

Millions of times a day, far-flung exchanges of money and goods crisscross land borders and oceans, creating enormous wealth, however unequally distributed. But those connections have also exposed economies to financial upheaval and crippling shortages when the flows are interrupted.

The snarled supply lines and shortfalls caused by the pandemic created a wide awareness of these vulnerabilities. Now, the invasion has delivered a bracing new spur to governments in Europe and elsewhere to reassess how to balance the desire for efficiency and growth with the need for self-sufficiency and national security.

And it is calling into question a tenet of liberal capitalism that shared economic interests help prevent military conflicts.

It is an idea that stretches back over the centuries and has been endorsed by romantic idealists and steely realists. The philosophers John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant wrote about it in treatises. The British politicians Richard Cobden and John Bright invoked it in the 19th century to repeal the protectionist Corn Laws, the tariffs and restrictions imposed on imported grains that shielded landowners from competition and stifled free trade.

Later, Norman Angell was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for writing that world leaders were under A Great Illusion that armed conflict and conquest would bring greater wealth. During the Cold War, it was an element of the rationale for dtente with the Soviet Union to, as Henry Kissinger said, create links that will provide incentive for moderation.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the idea that economic ties can help prevent conflict has partly guided the policies toward Russia by Germany, Italy and several other European nations.

Today, Russia is the worlds largest exporter of oil and wheat. The European Union was its biggest trading partner, receiving 40 percent of its natural gas, 25 percent of its oil and a hefty portion of its coal from Russia. Russia also supplies other countries with raw materials like palladium, titanium, neon and aluminum that are used in everything from semiconductors to car manufacturing.

Just last summer, Russian, British, French and German gas companies completed a decade-long, $11 billion project to build a direct pipeline, Nord Stream 2, that was awaiting approval from a German regulator. But Germany halted certification of the pipeline after Russia recognized two separatist regions in Ukraine.

From the start, part of Germanys argument for the pipeline the second to connect Russia and Germany was that it would more closely align Russias interests with Europes. Germany also built its climate policy around Russian oil and gas, assuming it would provide energy as Germany developed more renewable sources and closed its nuclear power plants.

Benefits ran both ways. Globalization rescued Russia from a financial meltdown and staggering inflation in 1998 and ultimately smoothed the way for the rise to power of Vladimir V. Putin, Russias president. Money earned from energy exports accounted for a quarter of Russias gross domestic product last year.

Critics of Nord Stream 2, particularly in the United States and Eastern Europe, warned that increasing reliance on Russian energy would give it too much leverage, a point that President Ronald Reagan made 40 years earlier to block a previous pipeline. Europeans were still under an illusion, the argument went, only this time it was that economic ties would prevent baldfaced aggression.

Still, more recently, those economic ties contributed to skepticism that Russia would launch an all-out attack on Ukraine in defiance of its major trading partners.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion, many European leaders demurred from joining what they viewed as the United States overhyped warnings. One by one, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi talked or met with Mr. Putin, hopeful that a diplomatic settlement would prevail.

There are good reasons for the European Union to believe that economic ties would bind potential combatants more closely together, said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The proof was the European Union itself. The organizations roots go back to the creation after World War II of the European Coal and Steel Community, a pact among six nations meant to avert conflict by pooling control of these two essential commodities.

The idea was that if you knit together the French and German economies, they wouldnt be able to go to war, Mr. Haass said. The aim was to prevent World War III.

Scholars have attempted to prove that the theory worked in the real world studying tens of thousands of trade relations and military conflicts over several decades and have come to different conclusions.

Gas supplies. Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and it is likely to be walloped with higher heating bills. Natural gas reserves are running low, and European leaders have accused Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, of reducing supplies to gain a political edge.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the worlds largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctionsintended to restrict Russias access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

In terms of the current crisis, Mr. Haass argued, in some ways the economic benefits were not mutual enough. The Germans needed Russian gas much more than Russia needs exports, because they can make up for lost revenue with higher prices, he said.

Thats where Europe handled the relationship all wrong, Mr. Haass added. The leverage wasnt reciprocal.

Despite its huge land mass, nuclear arsenal and energy exports, Russia is otherwise relatively insulated from the global economy, accounting for 1.7 percent of global output. And since Russias invasion of Crimea in 2014, Mr. Putin has moved to isolate the economy even more to protect against retaliation.

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that the willingness to impose such devastating sanctions against Russia may point to the flaw in that strategy. If Russias financial system was more integrated with those of the allies, they might have been more hesitant to take measures that could provoke a financial crisis.

At the moment, economic relations with Russia are running on parallel tracks. Countries opposed to Russias invasion of Ukraine have imposed a series of damaging financial and trade sanctions, yet Russian oil and gas exempted from the bans are still flowing.

The reality is economic interdependence can breed insecurity as well as mutual benefits, particularly when the relationship is lopsided.

Philippe Martin, the dean of the School of Public Affairs at SciencesPo in Paris, said that the 2014 agreement between Ukraine and the European Union may have marked a turning point for Russia. That translated into more trade with the E.U. and less with Russa, he said.

Mr. Martin has written skeptically that economic ties promote peace, arguing that countries open to global trade can be less worried about picking a fight with a single nation because they have diverse trading partners.

In the case of Russias march toward Kyiv, though, he offered two possible explanations. One is that no one including the European leaders who imposed them expected such crippling sanctions.

I think that Putin miscalculated and was surprised by the harshness of the sanctions, Mr. Martin said. The second interpretation is that Putin does not care about the impact that sanctions are having on the welfare of most Russians.

Which does he think is correct? I think both interpretations are valid, he said.

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Economic Ties Among Nations Spur Peace. Or Do They? - The New York Times

Climate Change Litigation in the European Union: The Netherlands – JD Supra

On January 13, 2022, the NGO Milieudefensie (the Dutch chapter of Friends of the Earth) announced that it had senta letter to 29 Dutch companies and financial institutions considered by Milieudefensie to be "Netherlands' large polluters." Not only has this letter been sent to energy majors, but also to entities from a variety of sectors, including pension funds, banks, consumer groups, and chemical groups. In this letter, the NGO called on the chiefexecutivesof these companies to draft a "climate plan" before April 15, 2022, detailing and explaining the actions that will be taken to reduce the companies' CO2 emissions by 45% in 2030 relative to 2019 levels, in line with the UN Climate Convention and the Paris Climate Agreement.

According to Milieudefensie,the ruling issued by Hague District Court on May 26, 2021,in the case against Royal Dutch Shell implies that every large CO2 emitter in the Netherlands has, at a minimum, an obligation to reduce its emissions in line with the global imperative that has been confirmed most recently by the Glasgow Climate Pact. Milieudefensie has indicated it is collaborating with the New Climate Institute to assess the plans of all companies and publish the results and a ranking in June 2022.

With this new initiative, Milieudefensie expects that, by implementing their "climate plan," the 29 companies targeted will individually reduce their CO2 emissions (scope 1, 2, and 3) by at least 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. AlthoughMilieudefensieannounced that it was not intending to start litigation against each and every company, it did not exclude taking "follow-up steps" against the addressees that do not comply with this demand.

Some of the targeted companies have already provided a response to Milieudefensie by pointing to their climate efforts, but none has providedfurtherinformation on whether they are planning to comply with the demand and provide the said "climate plan."

This action confirms the new face of NGO climate change activism, which is taking the form of increasingly concrete actions against companies. Rather than the traditional "name and shame," it is now transforming into a "name and change" initiative, under which NGOs seem to position themselves as "regulators" by imposing on companies the implementation of measures to mitigate climate change under the threat of litigation.

This kind of action is likely to be extended outside of the Netherlands and may create a risk of businesses receiving similar requests making climatechange-related voluntary commitments that they cannot keep. In light of such voluntary commitments, the risk of businesses being held to a standard later that is not contemplated now is significant and should be carefully considered before providing any response to such requests.

Caution is therefore advised when establishing a response to this new kind of action, and absolute statements or commitments on climate change mitigation measures should be avoided or drafted carefully unless there is certainty that they can be fulfilled.

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Climate Change Litigation in the European Union: The Netherlands - JD Supra

First Year of Implementation for the Taxonomy Regulation in the European Union – JD Supra

As of January 1, 2022, the first delegated acts adopted to supplement European Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of June 18, 2020 (the "Taxonomy Regulation") became applicable. The Taxonomy Regulation sets out a classification system establishing a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities in order to direct investments toward activities identified as environmentally sustainable.

Commission Delegated Regulation 2021/2139 of June 4, 2021 (the "Climate Delegated Act") supplements the Taxonomy Regulation with a list of activities and applicable technical screening criteria. This delegated regulation was published on December 9, 2021. It includes two annexes listing a total of 95 activities for which technical criteria are set out to determine whether the relevant activity either "contributes substantially to climate change mitigation" (Annex I) or "contributes substantially to climate change adaptation" (Annex II). The activities currently targeted by the Climate Delegated Act include a broad variety of industries, including manufacturing activities of various products (e.g., aluminum, iron, chlorine), certain types of energy generation, as well as certain transportation modes and financial and insurance activities.

Additional activities will be added in the future by additional climate delegated acts, together with the relevant technical criteria. In particular, on February 2, 2022, the European Commission announced it had approved a new delegated act which will cover nuclear energy and natural gas. The publication of these supplementary regulations are expected in a few months after a validation period by the European Parliament and Council.

Commission Delegated Regulation 2021/2178 of July 6, 2021 (the "Disclosures Delegated Act") was published on December 10, 2021, and specifies the content and presentation of information to be disclosed by certain undertakings subject to the taxonomy. It applies as of January 1, 2022, with transitional provisions for the first year with respect to reporting on activities undertaken in 2021. The scope of entities subject to such disclosure obligations includes financial as well as large non-financial companies, with a reference to Directive EU 2014/95 (the Non-Financial Reporting Directive, or NFRD).

The preparation of taxonomy reports includes two main steps. First the reporting company must identify whether it has undertaken activities "eligible" under the taxonomy (i.e., activities listed in Annex I and/or Annex II of the Climate Delegated Act). Then it must establish whether such eligible activities are "aligned" (i.e., compliant) with the criteria set out by the Climate Delegated Act's annexes for such activity.

Such reporting obligations create additional constraints on financial and non-financial entities, already subject to a number of non-financial reporting obligations, and should be carefully reviewed considering the complex and technical nature of the Taxonomy Regulation. They will also create opportunities for non-financial entities with "taxonomy aligned" sustainable activities which may benefit from favorable financing conditions. They may also reduce the risks for misleading and greenwashing claims thanks to this new comprehensive and unified reporting methodology.

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First Year of Implementation for the Taxonomy Regulation in the European Union - JD Supra

For US and European Union, the Sanctions on Russian Oligarchs May Backfire – News18

The collective might of the United States of America and the European Union, including so-called neutral Switzerland, was visible when they slapped a series ofsanctions on Russia. However, these sanctions need to be looked at a little more closely asthere is a lot to themthan what meets the eye.

Switzerland has slapped sanctions on certainRussian oligarchs. Who are these certain oligarchs? No one knows. Is it possible that Switzerland is using this Ukraine-Russia war as an opportunity to settle scores with these oligarchs?

Japan said it would limit its transaction with the Russian central bank and sanction certain banks in Belarus, which did noteven go to war with Ukraine directly. So why authorise sanctions on Belarus? What kind of scores is Japan looking to settle?

New Zealand says it will prohibit the export of specific hardware to Russian security forces and the Russian military. However, what is funny is that the total exports of New Zealand to Russia aremerely$250 million-$280 million. Of this, military hardware must be contributing merely $50 million-$100 million.

France applied sanctions on the import-export of luxury goods from Russia. Luxury goods? What haveluxury goods got to do with the ongoing war? Prevent Russians from getting ready for the battle by dressing well and applying mascara? Can it get more ridiculous than this?

Smaller nations like Taiwan have joined the fray without specifying what sanctions they are slapping on Russia. These sanctions arenothing but tokenism and a way to settlescores withcertain oligarchs.

The sanctions included sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putins holdings abroad. Conspiracy theorists have been speculating that Putin has much treasurehidden somewhere; no one knows where. His official holdings are minuscule, and none of it is abroad. Sanctioning Putins wealth abroad has become a butt of jokes in the international community.

The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada banned certain Russian banks from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). Which are these certain banks? No clarity has been offered on that. These couldbe non-performing banks and not those that bring money into the coffers of the Western banking system. Specific restrictive measures were also imposed to prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves. The EU hopes that these measures would paralyse Russias central banks assets and freeze its transactions, making it impossible to liquidate its assets. The Golden Passport system was also put on hold for a while. It means that people with money cannotenter my country. It is not easyto believe that the United States and the European Union do not love money anymore.

The United States froze accounts of specific individuals whom it believed had saved up slush money or rainy-day cash in US banks. They did this by freezing transactions by the state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund. This Russian direct investment fund was receiving payments from wealthy Russian individuals who were earning in Russia and saving it in the United States. Withone stroke of the presidential decree, the money was gone. Poof. Thirteen state-owned banks of Russian origin in the United States have been affected as well. Specific individuals in America think these banks are close to the Kremlin.

No High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs) put all their money in one basket. If any financial institution thought these oligarchs would invest only in the United Statesand the European Union, they are mistaken. What these sanctions, however, showed to these HNIs and other potential investors who would be looking to invest in the United States and European Union is that the banking system is fickle, state-owned and therefore, could be controlled by a stroke of a pen. The banking system of Switzerland too isnt reliable anymore.

The Swiss banking system, which remained a neutral banking system and benefitted a lot, especially after theSecond World War when people with war booty came to Switzerland and made it what it is today, has been exposed. Putting your money in a Swiss bank isnt safe anymore is the message it sends out to the world. Anything that happens in your country and that does not go well with either the United States or the European Union or any other catastrophe that could affect Switzerlands thought process would leadto you losing your money. The Swiss banking system has sent this message loud and clear to the world.

The uncertainty of the Western banking system has been exposed in these sanctions. The message it has sent out loud and clear is that sanctions could be selective, conditional and at the whims and fancies of the state. The message is that states, to further theirnarrative, will play with your money. Banks traditionally enjoyed their wealth by holding onto peoples wealth and making money out of it. A banks contribution, directly in value addition in terms of goods or services, is nothing. But, the fact that it could selectively get after their customers may not go well with other customers who have not been sanctioned as yet.

Short term effect on the Russian economy as a result of these sanctions is enormous. The Rouble is already down to 50 per cent of its value against the dollar. People who held the Rouble outside of Russia have lost their money, no doubt. And as expected, when any country goes to war, its economy tanks, and inflation rises. Its true in all cases of conflict. The Russia-Ukraine crisis is no different. The Russian economy has tanked, Ukraines economy is next to nothing, and the European economy has taken a beating.

How to mitigate theeffects of the uncertainty of the Western,including theSwiss, banking system? The burning question that every investor or a potential investor must be asking themselves is: if I store my money in the Western banking system, including the Swiss banking system, will it be safe? How do I transact without being controlled by state policies and states whims and fancies? That is the fundamental question that needs to be answered, and there appears to be an answer in the form of cryptocurrency.

What if I tell you, one in every four US dollars in existence came in into being in 2020 after COVID hit Wall Street? It went from having its worst weeks to its best weeks in no time. The practice is known as quantitative easing by which during an economic crisis, the central bank puts more money into the system to keep it running. History has taught the world that printing money to solve monetary problems doesnt end well as we have seen in Zimbabwe recently. Simple economics suggests more money into the system is a recipe for inflation and rendering the currency worthless. Zimbabwe had to print a billion Zimbabwean Dollar notes for itscitizens to buy bread. The point here is simple in the connected digital world which has rendered the world a village, we might have a chance of having blockchain technology with a set of rules that cant be changed according to geopolitics or economics being used as a medium of exchange, which, in essence, is decentralisation.

Cryptocurrency has boomed since the pandemic came into being, investors have looked for safe havens for their money and the direct result of the printing of US dollars in 2020 was this boom. In the current scenario of war, sanctions and especially Russias exclusion from SWIFT, cryptocurrency will be an alternative that will be used by Russia to transfer funds, reducing the agitation caused by the West. Crypto has been the medium of exchange for organisations/countries to launder money in times where regulated, centralised options are not an option.

The mere fact that a decentralised option exists for the Russians is a prime example of the liberation cryptocurrency presents to the modern world.

The long-term effect of these sanctions on Dollar and Euro is likely to be two-fold: First,theirprominence as currencies of transaction in the world would decline. Second, transactions using cryptocurrency will show a sharp increase. The writing is already on the wall as most cryptocurrency stocks have shown a sharp rise after the announcement of these sanctions. Nothing stops Putin from trading in this currency during the hot war conditions. Russia is close to China, and neither Europenor the United States have managed to create any dent in the Chinese gross national power or its currency. They have also failed to deterChina from interfering in Taiwanese affairs. A Chinese air intrusionin Taiwan was conveniently ignored by the Western media and the Western polity alike.

These geopolitical moves and meddling with the banking system, which supported the world economy post the Second World War, seem to be part of the self-destruction. Cryptocurrency or another form of transaction will find prominence and may become the preferred mode of wealth exchanging hands in the time to come.

The author is Group Captain (retd), Fighter Pilot, MiG-21, Mirage-2000. He is DGCA-nominated Qualified Flying Instructor and Aircraft Accident Investigator. Vineet Maliakal is COO, AutoMicroUAS. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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For US and European Union, the Sanctions on Russian Oligarchs May Backfire - News18