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LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - The European Union set out draft reforms to rules for closing down failing banks on Tuesday. The original rules were introduced after the 2007-09 global financial crisis when taxpayers had to bail out lenders.

The emphasis is on faster handling to ensure a "bail-in" of failing banks using their internal resources such as bonds that can be written down, to avoid a "bail-out" by taxpayers, so that depositors are treated the same across the EU.

Failing big banks in the EU are closed down by the Single Resolution Board, while small and medium sized lenders come under national watchdogs and have usually been dealt with either by courts, or differing national practices.

This has often involved public money and the EU reform seeks to make it easier to apply its resolution rules to all sizes of banks to minimise taxpayer involvement.

Italy injected 5.4 billion euros ($5.9 billion) of state aid into Monte dei Paschi di Siena in 2017 under the precautionary capital mechanism, helping to circumvent resolution rules.

The reforms propose stricter conditions, emphasising its temporary nature, exclusion for banks that are likely to fail or have failed, and a ban for plugging potential losses.

There must also be a clearly defined date for the sale of the bank, or repayment of the aid.

The proposals make it easier for regulators to use cash from industry-funded deposit guarantee schemes in a bank that has gone bust. Regulators will be able to use this cash to shift deposits to another lender to avoid the need to make payouts to account holders, currently capped at 100,000 euros per account.

The proposals make no fresh push for a pan-EU deposit guarantee scheme, long seen as a critical missing piece in the EU's banking union.

Several EU countries, including Germany, have national industry-funded institutional protection schemes that can be used to deal with failing banks, in return for lower capital and liquidity requirements. Germany wants a carve-out for these schemes. The EU commission says there is no carve-out, but that a balanced deal has been struck to introduce new safeguards.

EU states and the European Parliament have the final say on the draft reforms, with changes likely during the approval process.

($1 = 0.9129 euros)

Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Alexander Smith

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Continued here:
Factbox: EU updates bank crisis rules to strengthen taxpayer shield - Reuters

Use of health data for secondary purposes

Health data is collected in several different health care settings. However, this data is invaluable for other purposes as well that are not directly related to the purposes for which it is originally collected. The intention of this legislation is to enable health data to be re-used more widely for research, innovation, policy making, regulatory purposes, and patient safety.

The European Health Data Space Regulation (the EHDS) proposal expressly states that health data contained in electronic health records (EHRs) can be processed for training, testing and evaluating of algorithms, including in medical devices, AI systems and digital health applications.

However, there is a condition: this secondary use must satisfy any of the following purposes:

The requester (data user) shall be in a position to prove that the access is necessary for any of those purposes.

However, the data user shall take into account that there are prohibited purposes, so any algorithm benefited from the accessed data shall not be used to (among others):

The EHDS envisages a quite broad list of categories of data that shall be available to reuse, including; (i) EHRs, (ii) pathogen genomic data, (iii) genetic data, (iv) identification data related to health professionals, (v) electronic health data from clinical trials, and (vi) electronic health data from biobanks.

The data user shall lay down in the data access request whether it needs to access anonymized or pseudonymized data. If the data user only needs anonymized data, the process is easier, as the health data access body (if the request is granted) will provide that non-personal dataset.

However, if the data user requires pseudonymized data (meaning data where any information which could be used to identify an individual has been replaced with a pseudonym or other value which does not allow the individual to be directly identified), the applicant should explain why this is necessary and why anonymous data would not suffice. Besides, it shall identify the legal basis of processing under art. 6 GDPR (either exercise of a task in the public interest assigned by lawor legitimate interest). In this case, an ethical assessment may be requested based on national law.

The EDHS does not change the qualification or not of personal data or anonymization: general GDPR principles will apply.

The access applications will be managed by a unique body: the health data access body. Data users seeking access to electronic health data from more than one Member State shall submit a single application to one of the concerned health data access bodies of their choice. However, where an applicant requests access to electronic health data only from a single data holder, that applicant may file a data access application or a data request directly to this data holder.

The applicant shall submit a data access application detailing:

The health data access body shall issue or refuse a data permit within 2 months of receiving the data access application (that can be extended for another 2 months). Where a health data access body fails to provide a decision within the time limit, the data permit shall be issued.

The data permit shall set out the general conditions applicable to the data user. A data permit shall be issued for the duration necessary to fulfil the requested purposes which shall not exceed 5 years (that may be extended once).

Once the request has been granted, the health data access body will request the data from the data holder, that will need to provide the data to the data user within 2 months.

Data users shall make public the results or output of the secondary use of electronic health data, including information relevant for the provision of healthcare, no later than 18 months after the completion of the electronic health data processing.

The health data access bodies shall provide access to electronic health data only through a secure processing environment. The data users shall only be able to download non-personal electronic health data from the secure processing environment.

Yes. Where the data in question are not held by a public body (e.g. a private healthcare provider), the fees may also include compensation for part of the costs for collecting the electronic health data.

Fees shall be transparent and proportionate to the cost of collecting and making electronic health data available.

The EHDS is clear about this. Health data access bodies and data users shall be deemed joint controllers. Data holders do not have any data processor or joint controllership role vis--vis data users, except when there is a single data provider and the request is directly handled by the same, in which case they will be considered joint controllers.

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Re-use of health data to train algorithms: European Union EDHS ... - JD Supra

The British vote to leave the European Union in 2016 sent a shockwave across the European continent. With a large member state turning its back on the union, it seemed eminently possible that others could follow.

But when the UK was plunged into economic and political turmoil by its decision, however, it seemed that Brexit had set an unappealing precedent. European leaders had feared a potential surge in eurosceptic movements in their own countries but that did not fully materialise.

Now the EU appears to be enjoying a longer-term Brexit dividend. The decade before the Brexit vote had been characterised by political paralysis. Member states appeared divided on how to manage the fallout from the eurozone crisis and the rapid influx of refugees from Syria as well as other migrants in 2015. This led to a slump in public support for the EU.

While the benefits of EU membership are difficult to quantify or observe for ordinary citizens, the UKs departure provided clear benchmark for public opinion in the remaining 27 member states about the costs and benefits of leaving.

I examined whether peoples opinions about the EU changed via two waves of eupinions surveys conducted by my colleagues and I together with the Germany-based think-tank the Bertelsmann Foundation. The data I rely on here is from April 2016 (just before the Brexit vote) and August 2016 (just after). Respondents were asked if they would vote to remain in or leave the EU if a referendum were held today.

Support for remaining in the EU April and August 2016

Overall, support for remaining in the EU was slightly higher in August 2016 than it had been in April, prior to the Brexit vote. The biggest jump in support for remaining in the EU was recorded in Germany.

Support for remaining in the EU was overall quite high, anyway, at an average of about 70% across EU member states. But looking at individual member states, differences become more evident. In Germany, Poland and Spain, support rested at or topped 70% before the Brexit vote and climbed even higher in the months that followed it in Poland and Spain to higher than 80%. While France and Italy also saw a rise after the vote, any change happened at a much lower baseline. In fact, in Italy support for remaining inside the EU hovered between the 50 and 55% mark.

Of course, many things have happened in the years since the 2016 referendum from the COVID pandemic to the war in Ukraine. But generally these events, like Brexit, are associated with increased positivity towards remaining within the EU.

The years following Brexit were characterised by a desire to work together. The various crises had the potential to remind the public in the remaining 27 member states of the raison dtre of the EU and boost support for European project as a result.

And indeed weve seen support for remaining the EU solidifying over this period even after the initial referendum bump. In Spain support for staying in the EU has increased by 7 percentage points and even in Italy it is up by 12 percentage points.

Attitudes towards the EU in August 2016 and December 2022

However, while support for remaining in the EU is healthy, that does not mean people are looking for deeper political and economic integration in Europe. One does not necessarily translate into the other. While around 53% of Europeans wish to see more integration, there is significant variation across countries which is very important for a project that is meant to work well for all its member states.

Support for more political and economic integration is high in Italy and Spain (68%) but low in the Netherlands (37%) and France (38%). In some countries, including Poland, support for more integration went up post-Brexit vote but in others, such as Germany, France and Italy, it went down.

So while Brexit did not trigger further departures from the EU or even a strong movement in that direction in terms of public opinion, it also hasnt delivered increased enthusiasm for more Europe. That suggests the exit risk is not over, particularly if the UK proves able to mitigate the economic and political fallout of Brexit in the longer term or if the EU 27 seems to be worse off politically and economically in the same timeframe. So far, Brexit is seen by much of the European public as a mistake but how long will that last if the tide turns for the UK?

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Brexit didn't trigger the mass exodus from the EU that was once feared but nor did it leave Europeans wanting more from their union - The...

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid time off.

You have entire cultures like France ... where pretty much everybody takes August off, and it's just part of the culture there, said Shawn Fremstad, director of law and political economy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "You don't really see that here in the United States."

The European Union Working Time Directive, which was passed in the early 1990s, requires at least 20 working days of paid vacation in all EU countries.

France provides a minimum of 30 paid vacation days per year. What's more, many European countries have paid holidays as well, giving workers there even more paid days off.

When I came to France, I noticed that vacation is a way of life, said Fatima Cadet-Diaby, an American who has been living in Paris for nearly seven years. People are constantly talking about their vacations.

More vacation time could also equate to overall economic gains in the U.S.

I think people have a stereotype of France in their mind as this kind of lazy culture, Fremstad said. But if you look at the employment rate there for prime age workers, so basically 25 through 54, it's higher than in the U.S. So, they have more people working and they're much more productive per hour.

Even though a majority of Americans do have some kind of paid time off, nearly half of workers report not using all of those days. About half worry they might fall behind on their work if they take time off, with close to 20% thinking it could hurt their career growth and 16% saying they fear losing their job, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

There's a certain fear we don't have any legal protections and people have been fired for taking vacation time, said John de Graaf, author of the book Take Back Your Time.

Watch the video above to learn more about why Americans arent going on vacation even though they have the days off and what we can learn from our counterparts in France.

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Why U.S. vacation policies are so much worse than Europe's - CNBC

This article has been reviewed according to ScienceX's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

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3D chemical structure of bisphenol A. Credit: Wikipedia.

Two European Union watchdogs strongly disagreed on Wednesday about the threat to health posed by the chemical Bisphenol A, which is used to make plastic for some food and drink packaging.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has already been banned in the EU and US from being used in baby bottles and children containers after research suggested it could be linked to a range of health disorders.

After its experts re-evaluated the scientific evidence, the European Food Safety Agency said in a statement that dietary exposure to BPA "is a health concern for consumers across all age groups".

The EFSA, which has an advisory role to the European Commission and the 27 member states, suggested the bloc drastically lower the maximum daily intake of BPA allowed for consumers.

However the European Union's drug watchdog disagreed with the advice, causing a rare public rift in the opinions of two EU agencies.

"It is not possible to achieve convergence for the differences of opinion" about how to assess the health risk of BPA, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a dueling statement.

The EMA is responsible for approving drugs, and its opinions are regularly waved through by Brussels.

It criticized the EFSA's methodology, suggesting the food safety watchdog had been too hasty "given that a causal link has not been demonstrated in a study in animals or humans".

The disagreement in particular concerns the tolerable daily amount of BPA that can be consumed over a lifetime without an "appreciable health risk".

The EFSA slashed its recommended maximum daily intake by 20,000 times to 0.2 billionths of a gram, down from four millionths of a gram.

BPA is used in a range of plastics including drink bottles, can coatings and other protective coatings, meaning that most people are potentially exposed to it while consuming food and drink.

It had long been used to make baby bottles, until its use in children products was banned in the EU, United States and other nations around a decade ago.

The EFSA said that the hundreds of studies its experts reviewed suggested that BPA was associated with an increase of a type of white blood cell, which "could lead to the development of allergic lung inflammation and autoimmune disorders".

The experts also "took into account other potentially harmful health effects on the reproductive, developmental and metabolic systems," it said.

In France, the only country to have entirely banned BPA, consumer rights organization UFC-Que Choisir seized on the EFSA's report to call for all bisphenolsnot just Ato be prohibited.

The group said its own tests had detected bisphenols in dozens of products for babies, including baby bottles.

See the original post:
EU watchdogs disagree about health risk of Bisphenol A - Medical Xpress