Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category

European Union set to require cutting new car emissions to zero by 2035 – Automotive News Europe

The European Union is set to propose a switch to zero-emission vehicles and boosting its renewable energy target in an unprecedented push to align its economy with more ambitious climate targets.

The European Commission, the blocs regulatory arm, plans to require emissions from new cars and vans to fall by 65 percent from 2030 and by 100 percent from 2035 compared with this years levels, according to an EU document seen by Bloomberg News.

The tougher pollution standards will be complemented by rules that will oblige national governments to bolster vehicle charging infrastructure.

The clean overhaul of transport will be part of a swath of measures to enact a stricter 2030 climate goal of cutting greenhouse gases by at least 55 percent from 1990 levels.

The package, to be unveiled on July 14, will also include a proposal to boost the share of power the bloc gets from renewable energy to 40 percent from the current 32 percent by the end of this decade, the document showed.

Europe wants to lead the global fight against climate change to become the worlds first net-zero emissions continent by 2050 under its Green Deal. To reach the goal, it will need to overhaul every corner of its economy, with reducing greenhouse gases in transport and industry being the biggest challenges.

The EU executive will next week propose strengthening and expanding its carbon market, revising energy taxation rules to discourage the use of fossil fuels and imposing the worlds first climate levy on certain emissions-intensive goods brought into the region.

The Fit for 55 package will also include more ambitious climate targets for member states in areas not covered by the carbon market.

The revised renewable energy law will set targets for the use of sustainable fuels in transport, heating and cooling, buildings and industry.

To help the massive roll-out of electric vehicles, a regulation on alternative fuels will require member states to ensure electric charging points are installed every 60 km (37 miles) on major highways. Hydrogen refueling points would have to be available at the maximum interval of 150 km.

The document may still change before the package is adopted by the Commission. The EU executive arm has a policy of not commenting on draft legislation.

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European Union set to require cutting new car emissions to zero by 2035 - Automotive News Europe

Poland’s top court to rule on whether EU law takes priority – Euronews

The Polish Constitutional Court is set to rule on whether the country's national law can take precedence over EU law.

Poland has been locked in a dispute with the bloc's other members over the controversial judicial reforms.

In February 2020, Poland passed new measures which prevented judges from referring certain legal issues to the European Court of Justice.

The country also created a "disciplinary chamber" that would rule on the independence of Polish judges and could lift their immunity to face criminal prosecutions.

The ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) say the reforms are necessary to fight corruption, but EU critics see them as a threat to the rule of law.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has referred the case to Poland's Constitutional Court and says reforms in Poland are an internal matter.

A five-judge panel has been adjourned and is expected to rule on the matter on Thursday.

If the court rules against the Polish government, the EU Court of Justice can force the country to suspend part of its judicial reforms.

But if the verdict finds that certain EU provisions are unconstitutional, Poland can either amend its Constitution, seek to amend EU law or even withdraw from the bloc.

The Constitutional court's former judges have recently warned that contradicting the EU judiciary would be "a drastic violation of a member state's obligations" and would represent "another step towards the country's exit from the European Union".

EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders had called on Warsaw to withdraw the initiative and said the Polish government's request challenges the "primacy of European law over national law".

But Poland's Justice Minister, Zbigniew Ziobro has dismissed the complaint and says the comments were "evidence of insolence, aggression and a colonial view of Poland".

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Poland's top court to rule on whether EU law takes priority - Euronews

Building health equity in Europe: call for research papers on health inequalities – EPHA – European Public Health Alliance

Disparities in access to essential rights and services such as health are rarely quantified. Existing national data is very limited, outdated or not disaggregated by ethnicity, social and legal status, which makes it difficult to analyse the extent of health inequalities between vulnerable groups, such as ethnic minorities, including Roma, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+, migrants and refugees, homeless persons, and the general population. Measuring such gaps is, therefore, essential to build knowledge about their impact, especially in the wake of COVID-19 and national responses to the pandemic; to develop appropriate policy responses; better identify the communities health needs; and implement targeted measures proportionate to the challenges that each community/vulnerable group experiences.Focusing on European and national public policies such as European Pillar of Social Rights and its action plan; the European Semester; national recovery and resilience plans; European Child Guarantee and national action plans; European anti-Racism Action Plan; European and national health programmes, EPHA is calling on researchers and policy analysts to submit a research proposal to help build knowledge about how the health of disadvantaged groups is affected by inequalities in employment, housing, education, healthcare, environment and climate.

EPHA will collect your case studies and bring them to the attention of the European Union, national governments and other health policymakers to mobilise policy and decision makers as well as European and national civil society actors to take action to build health equity in Europe.

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Building health equity in Europe: call for research papers on health inequalities - EPHA - European Public Health Alliance

List of Countries in the European Union

The European Union (EU) is a group of 27 nations in Europe, formed in the aftermath of World War II. The first batch of countries joined in 1957, including Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. In 1973, Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom joined. Greece joined in 1981, followed by Spain and Portugal in 1986 and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. In 2004, nine countries were added, two more in 2007, and finally Croatia in 2013 to bring the total to 28. On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU.

Nineteen of the EU countries are also part of the Eurozone, a union of countries that have adopted the Euro as their official currency.

The Schengen Area includes 22 of the 27 EU countries and entitles citizens of participating nations to travel freely between them. It also includes a few non-EU nations: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The area operates as a single nation with a uniform visa policy for purposes of international travel.

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List of Countries in the European Union

The European Union Should Be Able to Kick Out Hungary – Bloomberg

Tempers were flaring at a recent summit of the European Union when Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands, looked straight at Viktor Orban, his Hungarian counterpart, and saidwhat everybody was thinking: If you dont share our values, you should take Hungary out of the EU.

Ruttes unsubtle nudge to make a member state exit the club was also a reminder about one of the EUs biggest design flaws. It has no mechanism to expel countries. This raises the question: When exactly should a bloc, club or organization be able to throw members out?

In the Hungarian case, Orbans latest affront was a law that curbs sex education in a way that crudely stigmatizes homosexuality, in effect equating it with pedophilia. But Orban has been scorning the EUs values for years. With many small cuts, hes whittled away at the rule of law, minority rights and press and academic freedoms.

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Another member state, Poland, is almost as bad as Hungary in disdaining everything from gay rights to judicial independence. With their illiberal cynicism, these two governments threaten to hollow out the EUs identity as a club of democratic, tolerant and open societies.

And yet the tools available to discipline errant members are weak. The main one is a process stipulated in Article 7 of the EUs treaties, which Brussels has initiated against both Poland and Hungary. It allows the bloc to strip a country of its voting rights if all the other states identify a serious and persistent breach to EUvalues. That unanimity requirement, however, means that Hungary and Poland can have each others back and neednt worry.

Another mechanism to tie funding to observance of the rule of law was added last year, but it is vague, messy and slow. The reality is that the EU, which subjects countries to onerous standards while theyre applying for membership, can do almost nothing to sanction them once theyre in, and certainly cant kick anybody out.

A similar dilemma often keeps the brass at NATO awake. In the alliances early years, the U.S. and other allies feared that some members, such as Italy, might become communist and serve asTrojan horses for the Soviets. More recently, the bogey has been Turkey, which has scorned democratic norms, menaced allies such as Greece and even bought an air-defense system from Russia that could enable that adversary to sabotage NATO equipment. But NATO also cant kick members out.

In this sense, the EU and NATO differ from most other types of association in this world. The United Nations, for example, is also a club of nation states but does have a way of expelling members. So does the Council of Europe, a human-rights organization with 47 member states, including all 27 EU countries.

The ability to expel is also the default in organizations whose members are individuals. The Catholic church can and does excommunicate people for apostasy or other alleged sins. The U.S. Congress, like most parliaments, can kick out members (and has done so 20 times), as can political parties, country clubs, schools and most other institutions.

This implicit prerogative to expel members is philosophically baked into the liberal tradition as a natural extension of the right of the people peaceably to assemble. In ancient Athens, the worlds first experiment in democracy, citizens regularly gathered to write the names of individuals on shards of pottery called ostraka. Anybody who received enough votes was ostracized in the original sense that is, exiled.

As usual in life, however, it gets complicated. Everybody can agree that, for example, a Jewish organization should be able to throw out a member who shows up with a swastika and shouts Heil Hitler. But what about an organization that trains young leaders and wants to keep out women? Or a labor union that wants to terminate members for their political activities? Or the Boy Scouts if they want to expel a member just because hes gay?

The latter three were actual cases before U.S. courts that illustrate the philosophical and ethical conflicts involved. In the first, judges ruled that the organization cannot exclude women; in the second, that the labor union cannot kick out members; but in the third, that the Boy Scouts thanks to the First Amendment did have the right to expel a member for being gay.

Im not about to re-litigate these cases. Im simply acknowledging that freedom cuts both ways. Sometimes it requires protecting groups from individuals. Most of the time, though, it means protecting individuals from groups, and from being arbitrarily and unfairly excluded. That even applies to countries.

The power to expel is therefore nothing to trifle with. It should be used only in extreme circumstances and with an overwhelming consensus among members that its necessary. Even then, expulsion should always be reversible, so that the member in question has the chance and the incentive to make amends.

The EU needs to get this balance right. This means tweaking its treaties to make sure that expulsion is rare but possible. While that effort gets underway, Orban will have plenty of time to ponder how much further up his populist tree he wants to climb. And Hungarians who still have votes, after all can decide if theyd rather swap out leaders and stay in a club they like.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net

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The European Union Should Be Able to Kick Out Hungary - Bloomberg