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The world has undergone great shifts in the balance of power, which have weakened the traditional structures of the rules-based international order. American power is in relative retrenchment and is shifting its focus away from the Atlantic towards the Pacific.

The US has had to reassess its strategy: moving away from crisis management operations in peripheral countries towards traditional Great Power competition. It is not conjecture that while the US will try to contain both Russia and China, it will no longer be willing to intervene in regions more crucial to European security than to its own.

This new reality comes at a pivotal moment for our continent. Europe is in danger, and Europeans need to take their defence seriously. Our neighbourhood is unstable, and both the threats we face, and the nature of conflict itself, have become more complex.

Against this worrying backdrop, European military capabilities are a shambles. For too long, we have been reliant on the US and have neglected our defence as a result. Today, no single Member State or coalition of Member States is capable of conducting a medium-intensity operation in our neighbourhood without extensive assistance from the US.

We find ourselves in the situation of needing to compensate for decades of underinvestment as soon as possible, and any delay increases the risk to our Union and citizens.

There is bipartisan consensus in the US that Europe must do more to defend its own geopolitical and military interests. Washington has changed its traditional resistance and now favours EU defence initiatives, so long as they complement NATO activities.

"Washington has changed its traditional resistance and now favours EU defence initiatives, so long as they complement NATO activities"

This does not mean the US will stop being our closest ally; it simply means we need deeper cooperation in security and defence, and, where needed, a clear distribution of work.

Both the EU and NATO should focus on their strengths and cooperate in areas of shared responsibility: American power, Article 5 of the Treaty of Washington and NATOs nuclear umbrella will remain the cornerstone of the territorial defence of Europe.

At the same time, the EU can promote a strong European technological and industrial defence base and facilitate military mobility in Europe. Beyond these exclusive areas of focus, the EU and NATO must cooperate in joint capability development, in crisis management, in addressing hybrid threats and in the exchange of information and intelligence.

The future EU-NATO Joint Declaration should reflect a division of labour along these lines.

Europe must invest in its own military capabilities, and our budgets must reflect this reality. However, we must be more efficient in how we invest in defence. The EU must address the fragmentation of our defence industry, and the joint development of capabilities must be the norm, not the exception.

For this purpose, the EU should give greater incentives for Member States to develop military capabilities together; a good way to start is to undo the budget cuts to the European Defence Fund.

The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) must be more ambitious: its projects should focus on addressing key strategic capability gaps, and it must gather all major European capability projects such as the Future Air Combat System or the European Main Battle Tank.

"Europe is in danger, and Europeans need to take their defence seriously. Our neighbourhood is unstable, and both the threats we face, and the nature of conflict itself, have become more complex"

The EU must be capable of intervening to stabilise its neighbourhood. The development of a rapid reaction capacity for the EU has captured most of the attention.

Although it is much needed, such capacity will be useless if we do not address our problems with decision-making and low-force generation for operations of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

The EU must explore ways to make its decision-making for CSDP more flexible, through Constructive Abstention, PESCOs operational component and Article 44 of the TEU, which allows groups of states to take the lead on operations. We must also significantly increase common funding for CSDP missions and operations through the European Peace Facility.

Finally, it is crucial to develop a Common Strategic Culture and foster solidarity among Member States. Frequent joint threat analyses as well as systematic exchange of intelligence should help us develop a common threat perception.

Building EU defence is one of the main tasks for us and for the coming generation. The Strategic Compass is a good start, and I urge Member States not to dilute it, but rather to make it even more ambitious.

Member States will continue as the driving agents of CSDP and defence integration, but as parliamentarians, there is much we can do to support EU Defence: We must push for greater integration. We can work at both EU and at national levels, from our political groups and national parties.

Next year will be the year of European Defence: an important milestone, and we must live up to the moment.

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There is a now a discernible momentum for the European Union to develop its own military capabilities, explains Antonio Lpez-Istriz White - The...

The European Commission is trying to amend one of the EU's founding texts to better combat violence against women, the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities.

The Commission seeks to expand upon the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, according toPolitico.

The group intends to signa plan, which would criminalize misogynistic and homophobic hate speech and violence via policies for all of the EU, on Wednesday. The policies would allow the Commission to punish online and offline abuses, Politico reported.

In the last decades, there has been a sharp rise in hate speech and hate crime in Europe, the draft seen by Politico said, noting an uptick in hate speech since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Hate is moving into the mainstream, targeting individuals and groups of people sharing or perceived as sharing a common characteristic, such as race, ethnicity, language, religion, nationality, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics or any other fundamental characteristic, or a combination of such characteristics, it added.

The drafted plan is expected to be presented later this week as the first step in a larger plan to improve the EU's rules to better fight hate, according to Politico.

The text said that it may send mixed messages to the public that such acts are not being taken seriously and can be perpetrated with impunity," but added that a few EU countries that did not criminalize such speech caused gaps and an uneven protection of the victims of such acts across the EU.

A later proposal that is meant to fight violence against women both online and offline is also expected to happen in March. Additionally, the bloc is working on a Digital Services Act that would require online organizations to more forcefully prohibit illegal content, Politico added.

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European Commission looks to criminalize hate speech and violence | TheHill - The Hill

Today, President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Mayor Myo Aung were sentenced to jail terms in Myanmar. Their trial was politically motivated. It represents another step towards the dismantling of the rule of law and a further blatant violation of human rights in Myanmar.

The European Union strongly condemns this politically motivated verdict, which constitutes another major setback for democracy in Myanmar since the military coup on 1 February 2021.

These proceedings are a clear attempt to exclude democratically elected leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, from the inclusive dialogue process called for by ASEANs Five Point Consensus. The European Union reiterates its full support to the ongoing efforts by ASEAN and the ASEAN Chairs Special Envoy, in close cooperation with the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General.

The militarys actions show complete contempt for the will of the people, expressed clearly in the November 2020 elections. Since 1 February, the people of Myanmar have overwhelmingly rejected the military coup and demonstrated their unwavering desire for a nation in which the rule of law, human rights and democratic processes are respected, protected, and upheld. The failure so far to restore democracy, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread violence and conflict, is driving the country towards a large-scale humanitarian crisis. It is imperative that the Myanmar military authorities allow a swift return of Myanmar to the path of democracy.

The European Union reiterates its urgent calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners as well as all those arbitrarily detained since the coup.

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Myanmar/Burma: Declaration by the High Representative Josep Borrell on behalf of the European Union on the situation - EU News

On 22 October 2021, the Council adopted Decision 2021/18671.

The Council Decision extends the existing restrictive measures for a further twelve months, until 27 October 2022.

The Candidate Countries The Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania2, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine and The Republic of Moldova align themselves with this Council Decision.

They will ensure that their national policies conform to this Council Decision.

The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it.

1Published on 25.10.2021 in the Official Journal of the European Union no. L 377, p. 34.2The Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain countries concerning restrictive measures against...

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If you thought cheap mobile roaming was a fait accompli in Europe, think again.

European Union lawmakers are butting heads once again over what the EU considers one of its biggest consumer rights victories in history: the right for consumers to call, text and stream without paying extra costs when traveling within the EU.

A 2017 deal on data roaming was hailed as "one of the greatest and most tangible successes of the EU" that demonstrated to everyday Europeans that the European Union worked in their favor amid fears about populism, Brexit and hostility toward the bloc's leadership. It followed 13 years of political haggling that pitted EU officials against national capitals pressured by mighty telecoms giants.

But lawmakers left the work unfinished, sort of.

The 2017 regulation was designed to let roaming rights expire by June 30, 2022, requiring the Commission to propose an extension of the rules for another 10 years, earlier this year in February. Negotiators of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on Wednesday meet for a crunchtime meeting to work out the final details to extend the rules, as the clock ticks to make the deadline.

"Time is slowly running out as the newly revised regulation should enter into force before summer," said Robert Hajel, a Slovak Social Democrat member of Parliament who was closely involved in negotiating Parliament's position on the law.

A document obtained by POLITICO showed officials have to overcome "four major outstanding political questions," including the maximum price telecoms providers can charge each other for using each others' networks abroad ("wholesale price caps") and the price of calls EU citizens make to telephone numbers from other EU countries ("intra-EU calls").

If negotiations fail, EU citizens could face dreaded "mega-bills" for using their mobile phones abroad yet again next summer season.

Most contentious in the list of obstacles is an attempt by the European Parliament to scrap high charges on calls made to a different European country, known as intra-EU calls. While calls from abroad to home plummeted in price due to the EU's roaming rules, these intra-EU calls can still cause confusion and phone bill scares among Europeans.

The issue is a key element to Parliament members and consumer groups alike not least because it's the part that voters and citizens.

The right to free movement across the bloc should enable free international calls, said Cludio Teixeira, legal officer at consumer group BEUC. He pointed out that resorting to internet platforms for calls assumes that everyone has access to a smartphone, which in turn penalizes poorer or remote consumers.

"There is no justification why consumers should be treated differently inside the European Union, from calling across borders, simply because that call starts in one member state and ends in another," said Teixeira.

But telecoms operators have lamented Parliament's attempt to cut the costs. Thirteen telecoms CEOs said in a joint statement last week that scrapping intra-EU calls billing would cost the sector 2 billion in the coming four years, a time when the sector is strapped for cash as it invests in rolling out 5G networks.

The historic mission of our sector, today, is to give 5G and fibre to all Europeans. Imposing yet more price cuts on an already hyperregulated sector would openly contradict the EU Digital Decade Targets," said Lise Fuhr, director general of ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network.

This week's negotiating document suggested Parliament could settle for soft language that nudges operators to lower the costs of intra-EU calls, rather than a hard law that abolishes these charges.

A second issue that's holding back a deal on the extension is an agreement on how much telecoms providers in Europe charge each other for using networks when their customers roam.

The Commission proposed to cap those costs at 2 per gigabyte that operators owe each other for the use of each other's networks.

But members of Parliament pushed to lower the prices for wholesale costs. "The Commission is not ambitious enough in our opinion," said Austrian MEP Angelika Winzig of the center-right European People's Party, who's leading negotiations on behalf of Parliament.

The Commission said that it wanted to be "an honest broker" during negotiations, aiming to get the Council and Parliament to agree on a price cap with additional requirements that guarantee a certain quality of service.

"Whether we conclude before Christmas or not is not clear yet," said Hajel, the lead Social Democrat MEP on the file. "If a better agreement needs more time, we will not be those pushing to conclude before the end of the year."

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Europe is fighting over roaming again - POLITICO.eu