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April 27, 2023 - Ottawa, - Canada Department of Finance Canada

This week, from April 28 to 29, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, will attend a meeting of European Union Economy and Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Deputy Prime Minister has been invited by Sweden, the current President of the Council of the European Union, to discuss the impacts of Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, how best to support the economic stability and reconstruction of Ukraine, and how to further hold Putin and his regime responsible for their criminal war.

While in Stockholm, the Deputy Prime Minister will also meet with partners and allies to discuss the important opportunities for workers and business presented by building the global clean economy, and the role that Canada and Canadian workers can play in providing our allies with the goods and resources they need.

An itinerary of events will be released in advance of the meeting.

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Deputy Prime Minister to attend meeting of European Union ... - Canada.ca

Premium

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a four-nation non-European Union bloc of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, prefers a free trade agreement (FTA) with India instead of an early harvest deal.

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In an interview with Aanchal Magazine, Switzerlands State Secretary for Economic Affairs Helene Budliger Artieda said though EFTA negotiations run parallel to Indias FTA talks with the European Union (EU), they aim to have similar conditions for access to the Indian market as the EU. Edited excerpts:

It was very important to meet at a high level to take stock of where we are and on the way forward. Both sides share a common wish to conclude these negotiations finally. We always talked about a Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement. That part is not new. But, we have had a few years where our discussions have stalled, and we have now jointly decided to give the talks new impetus. For this, the meeting was beneficial, although some work remains. It will be important that experts on both sides sit together and make progress in the negotiations so that, hopefully soon, we can conclude a mutually beneficial agreement.

In many areas, we are quite far advanced. But some key areas will need further in-depth discussions, namely market access issues for goods and services, intellectual property rights, rules of origin, trade, and sustainable development. All sides involved feel that an agreement must be balanced and fair and offer opportunities for India and EFTA members.

As I mentioned, some key areas will need further in-depth discussions. Now it is crucial to make quick progress. Experts must sit down together to solve these issues. It will be important that the political level remains closely engaged.

Our preference is clearly to have a comprehensive agreement.

These are two separate negotiations, although they are pursued in parallel. However, in many areas, we have similar interests and aim at a similar level of ambition. Companies from the EU are among the most important competitors of companies from the EFTA states. It is, therefore, important for us to have similar conditions for access to the Indian market as the EU.

We are ready to discuss all issues that India brings to the table. On trade in goods, the goal is to have meaningful market access commitments on both sides based on interest. A large chunk of imports into India consists of gold. Without that, India would have a trade surplus. Another area still under discussion is trade-in services also there, the goal is to grant beneficial treatment in areas of key interest to the negotiating partners.

We, however, also need to respect the sensitivities that the parties have. This applies to the whole agreement.

Trade policy is constantly evolving, and new issues are gaining importance.Trade and sustainable development is one of the issues that were new at some point, and many raised the question of why this should be included in a trade agreement. Nowadays, it is not conceivable that a comprehensive and modern trade agreement is concluded without strong provisions in this area. Gender policy is among the new issues on the trade agenda, also in the World Trade Organization. And it is increasingly being included in FTAs worldwide. We welcome Indias proposal to include a chapter on gender equality and womens issues.

The Indian Express (P) Ltd

First published on: 01-05-2023 at 05:37 IST

See the article here:
EFTA aims to have similar conditions for access to the Indian market as the EU - The Indian Express

Nelson Mail

The European Union Ambassador to New Zealand Nina Obermaier during a visit to Nelson.

European Union ambassador Nina Obermaier has found a lot to love about New Zealand.

Her family, evidently, has too. So much so that her Year 11 son has decided to stay on for the last two years of his schooling here, even though Obermaiers posting finishes at the end of November.

While the native German came to Aotearoa in part because she was interested in learning how Europe is seen from the South Pacific, Kiwis are equally as curious to discover how they are perceived by the continent from which many trace their ancestry.

Everybody loves New Zealand, Obermaier told the Nelson Mail during a visit to the city last week.

I don't know what you've done. But there's so much love and sympathy for New Zealanders in general.

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Aside from the countrys spectacular nature, Obermaier said Kiwis abroad were probably the best ambassadors for their country, just because of their relaxed and friendly nature.

They were also skilled negotiators, she said, in the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, and in climate negotiations pushing positions that the EU was less flexible in pursuing. You put your best and brightest in the things that really matter.

Obermaiers term in New Zealand has been eventful. At the beginning of the pandemic, she had to help get 20,000 European citizens out of the country who were stranded here when the borders closed.

Several European countries organised charter flights, largely for their own citizens but with a percentage reserved for other vulnerable EU citizens.

But they said, we cant take care of the passenger lists, you will have to do that. So then in our office, we then tried to find these stranded teenagers that had come for an exchange year or people that had come into an accident that needed to be repatriated as quickly as possible and get them on these flights.

In the following 18 months or so New Zealand enjoyed its Covid-free status and Obermaier and her family got to discover the country without any tourists.

Obermaier speaks six languages she can work in her native German and in English, French and Dutch. She also speaks Spanish and Polish.

Before coming to New Zealand she was the lead negotiator for the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the Brexit negotiations. In the 20 years the former journalist has been working for the European Union, she has also covered Israel and the West Bank/Gaza, information society and e-government, protections and crisis management and negotiations with Switzerland.

Is New Zealand a cakewalk in comparison?

Its very rare to be fazed in New Zealand, Obermaier replied, because of the non-confrontational nature of your way of operating as New Zealanders.

I think thats really remarkable.

The ambassador was in Nelson last week, visiting Wakat Incorporation, which is twinned with the Danish city of Lemvig via an EU urban sustainability project, the Cawthron Institute to discuss increased opportunities to partner with European researchers, and Talleys to learn more about its mussels and their potential to be Geographical Indications (GIs), such as French champagne.

Obermaier also gave a speech to the Nelson branch of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, and spoke with Nelson MP Rachel Boyack and mayor Nick Smith.

Shes keen to raise awareness of New Zealands Free Trade Agreement with Europe, signed in 2022.

There are very concrete business opportunities for Nelson producers and exporters, Obermaier said.

Because as of day one of the FTA entering into force, which we can expect to happen next year, all horticulture, all seafood products, all timber can enter the EU market tariff free.

View post:
Kiwis relaxed, friendly and good negotiators, says EU diplomat - Stuff

After using a large language model, such as ChatGPT, for a while, it is not hard to image an array of nightmarish scenarios that these generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs could bring about. While ChatGPT and its emerging rivals currently have "guardrails" -- ethical limits on what it will do in response to a prompt -- the bounds thereof are not well understood. Through clever prompting, it is not hard to convince the current iteration of ChatGPT to do away with certain guardrails from time to time. Further, the companies behind these models have not defined the extent of the guardrails, while the very structures underlying the models are well known to behave in unpredictable ways. Not to mention what might happen if a "jailbroken" large language model is ever released to the public.

As an example, a user might ask the model to describe terrorist attack vectors that no human has ever previously conceived of. Or, a model might generate software code and convince a gullible user to download and execute it on their computer, resulting in personal financial information being sent to a third party.

Perhaps one of the most relevant risks of large language models is that once they are implemented and deployed, the marginal cost of creating misinformation becomes close to zero. If a political campaign, interest group, or government wishes to inundate social media with misleading posts about a public figure, a policy, or a law, it will be able to do so at volume without having to employ a roomful of humans.

In 2021, the European Commission of the European Union (EU) proposed harmonized rules for the regulation of AI. The Commission recognized both the perils and the benefits of AI and attempted to come up with a framework for regulation that employs oversight in proportion to the specific dangers inherent in certain uses of AI. The resulting laws enacted by member states would potentially have the Brussels Effect, in that EU regulation of its own markets become a de facto standard for the rest of the world. This is largely what happened for the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.

But very few people saw generative AI coming or the meteoric rise of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. Thus, the Commission is in the process of re-evaluating its rules in view of these paradigm-breaking technologies.

The Commission's proposal places all AI systems into one of three risk levels: (i) unacceptable risk, (ii) high risk, and (iii) low or minimal risk. The amount of regulation would be the greatest for category (i) and the least (e.g., none) for category (iii).

Uses of AI that create an unacceptable risk include those that violate fundamental rights, manipulate individuals subliminally, exploit specific vulnerable groups (e.g., children and persons with disabilities), engage in social scoring (evaluating the trustworthiness of persons based on their social behavior), and facilitate real-time biometric recognition for purposes of law enforcement. These uses would be prohibited.

A high risk AI may be classified as such based on its intended purpose and modalities of use. There are two main types of high risk systems: (i) those intended to be used as safety component of products (e.g., within machinery, toys, radio equipment, recreational vehicles, and medical devices), and (ii) other systems explicitly listed (e.g., involving biometrics, critical infrastructure, education, employment, law enforcement, and immigration). These categories are quite broad and would impact many diverse industries. The proposal sets forth detailed legal requirements for such systems relating to data governance, documentation and recording keeping, transparency and provision of information to users, human oversight, robustness, accuracy, and security, as well as conformity assessment procedures.

Regarding low or minimal risk AI systems, their use would be permitted with no restrictions. However, the Commission envisions these systems potentially adhering to voluntary codes of conduct relating to transparency concerns.

To that point, the proposal also states that "[t]ransparency obligations will apply for systems that (i) interact with humans, (ii) are used to detect emotions or determine association with (social) categories based on biometric data, or (iii) generate or manipulate content ('deep fakes')." In these situations, there is an obligation to disclose that the content has been machine-generated in order to allow the users to make informed choices.

Currently, the Commission is considering whether to place ChatGPT and its ilk in the high risk category, thus subjecting it to significant regulation. There has been pushback, however, from parties who believe that the regulations should distinguish between harmful uses of these models (e.g., spreading misinformation) and minimal-risk uses (e.g., coming up with new recipes, composing funny poems). In other words, the amount of regulation that applied to ChatGPT should vary based on its use -- and aesthetically pleasing goal but one that would be difficult to carry out in practice because of the model's broad scope and general applicability.

Whether this results in the proposed regulations being delayed and/or rewritten remains to be seen. The Commission will be taking up the issue.

Original post:
ChatGPT Throws Wrench into Europe's Attempts to Regulate AI - JD Supra

Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, has a tough choice to make

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Italy's rather surprising decision to join China's Belt and Road Initiative a few years back is being thrust back into the fore, with a deadline to potentially end it fast approaching under Rome's new leadership.

Italy has previously been described as a "middle-power" bridge used by Beijing and Moscow to strike deals with a country that's a member of NATO, the European Union, and the G-7 group of advanced economies.

In 2019, Rome sent shockwaves throughout the Western world when it signed up to the BRI China's massive infrastructure and investment plan aimed at boosting its influence across the world. At the time, analysts said that by joining the project, Italy was undermining Europe's ability to stand up to Beijing.

When former European Central Bank governor Mario Draghi took power in Rome in 2021, he froze the agreement and led a critical screening of Chinese investments in the country having vetoed at least three Chinese takeovers during that year.

Two years down the line and with a new government in place, Rome is now having another think about its ties with China.

"It is a very controversial issue for the Italian government," Silvia Menegazzi, professor of international relations and Chinese studies at Luiss University, said over the phone, adding that this is due to one key reason: Taiwan.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, while Taiwan sees itself as separate from China, having ruled itself since splitting from the mainland in 1949 following a protracted civil war. Tensions between the two have risen over the years, and high-level U.S. politicians' visits to Taiwan have drawn Beijing's ire.

New Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said via Twitter prior to her election in September and standing next to a representative from Taiwan that she stands alongside those who believe in democracy.

If Italy chooses closer ties to Taiwan, that will surely jeopardize its relations with China. At the same time, deepening investment links with Beijing might go against what Meloni promised pre-election.

A delegation of Italian politicians was due to travel to Taiwan in April. But the trip was postponed to an unspecified date, according to media reports.

"I believe they might not decide anything," Menegazzi said, suggesting the Italian government will continue its Belt and Road participation for now.

Under the agreement the two parties can end the deal after five years, otherwise the partnership gets extended for another five-year term. Italy has until the end of the 2023 to inform China on whether it wants to end the deal.

Back in 2022 and prior to being elected, Meloni said that joining the BRI was a "big mistake."

"Since becoming PM, she's chosen to present herself as aligned with the U.S. on the Chinese front. Yet she's under pressure from her coalition partners, [Lega's Matteo] Salvini and [Forza Italia's Silvio] Berlusconi, whose respective constituencies are softer on China being interested in closer economic ties through the Belt and Road initiative," Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at the H.E.C. business school, said via email.

The office for the prime minister was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC Wednesday. Meloni leads a coalition with two other right-wing parties: Lega and Forza Italia.

The upcoming decision for Rome comes at a time when the wider European Union is framing a new relationship with China. The bloc is finding it increasingly hard to strike a united front toward Beijing, with some nations favoring economic links and others pushing for a more critical approach.

In 2022, China was the largest source of EU imports and the third largest buyer of EU goods, highlighting the economic importance that Beijing has for Europe. This is particularly relevant when economic growth in the EU is vulnerable to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

This economic argument is also supported by those who think a close relationship with Beijing is needed to accomplish advancements in climate policy.

But for many European governments, China could and should do more to support Ukraine in the wake of Russia's invasion. China has failed to condemn Russia's onslaught of its neighbor and in a visit to Moscow in March, China's leader Xi Jinping referred to his Russian counterpart as a dear friend.

On top of that, Beijing has proposed a 12-point peace plan for the Ukraine war. The plan fails to specify whether Russia needs to leave Ukrainian territory for a deal to be completed. Ukraine has made it clear it will not agree to any peace deal that does not involve regaining full control of its territory.

Furthermore, the United States has added pressure on EU nations to be more critical of China in line with national security concerns. Countries in Europe that are keen on a healthy transatlantic relationship will not have a problem following that path.

Read the rest here:
Italy signed up to China's Belt and Road Initiative. Now it's having second thoughts - CNBC