Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category

Aid programmes hit hard by EU budget woes

The European Union's humanitarian aid and development aid programmes are being compromised by EU debts, and budget cuts forecast for 2015. EurActiv France reports.

Europe's unpaid bills are accumulating, and with them fears for development aid and humanitarian aid.

Since 2011, the European budget has been amassing unpaid bills, which continue to rise in value. The budget is currently 26 billion euro in arrears, 23 billion of which are owed to the cohesion policy. This impacts the whole spectrum of European politics.

Unpaid bills

"Unpaid bills in the budget category of "Global Europe", which includes development aid and humanitarian aid, have reached 1 billion euro," according to a source close to the dossier.

Jacek Dominik, the European Commissioner in charge of the budget, has also raised the alarm. In a speech on 24 September, the Polish Commissioner said that the debts of the Financing Instrument for Development Cooperation (DCI) had accumulated to a value of "14 million euro since July".

The European Commission says that these arrears relate to payments to the Multi-Donor Food Security Trust Fund for 2009-2018 in Burma.

The lack of funds has also forced the EU to roll back some humanitarian aid programmes. "Some projects in the Sahel region of Africa, the Horn of Africa and Haiti have been postponed," the budget Commissioner announced.

Paring back humanitarian aid

According to Oxfam, the lack of funding will also affect other humanitarian aid programmes. "The impact of the EUs current constraints on humanitarian aid is already being felt by the beneficiary countries. For example, aid to Iraqi refugees in Jordan has been reduced. We are sending less aid to Yemen (housing, food security, etc.)" says Hilary Jeune, the head of European policy at Oxfam.

More here:
Aid programmes hit hard by EU budget woes

#AskAnsip: Proposed EU digital chief to answer questions on Twitter

Only one of the EU's proposed digital commissioners seems to be prepared to answer questions on Twitter

The likely next EU digital chief Andrus Ansip invited Twitter users to question him during an hour long Twitter chat

Anyone with a burning question about the European Union's upcoming tech agenda has the chance to get an answer during a Twitter chat on Wednesday with Andrus Ansip, who could soon be the European Commission's Vice-President of the Digital Single Market.

Ansip invited everyone to send him questions and suggestions. "Let me know what should be on my 'to-do-list' for the next 5 years," he tweeted to his rather modest Twitter following of about 3,000. Questions can be tweeted with the hashtag #AskAnsip and Ansip will answer some of them between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. CET on Wednesday.

Ansip is expected to share the Commission's digital portfolio with Gnther Oettinger in a realignment of its oversight of that area when Commissioner Neelie Kroes steps down along with the rest of the Commission on Nov. 1. Both candidates already got the green light from the European Parliament after it held confirmation hearings with the proposed Commissioners.

Although Ansip announced the Twitter Q&A last week, it hasn't have gathered a huge amount of interest so far. Looking at the tweets tagged with #AskAnsip some people seem to be concerned about net neutrality. "How can the EU enforce net neutrality?" asked one Twitter user, continuing -- apparently on a mobile device with autocorrect enabled -- "How can a costumer be sure his provider isn't voluntarily degrading a best effort service?"

Another user wanted to know what Ansip's mandate is "to run, govern and filter the internet."

Meanwhile, lobby groups are also taking the opportunity to question Ansip. The Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA) for instance seemed concerned about the upcoming reform of the EU's data protection rules. The organization wants to know if the Commission will consider industry self regulation as an adequate tool to ensure privacy and also asked what Ansip considers being the key principles of ethical personal data management.

Ansip, a 58-year-old former Estonian prime minister, decided to answer questions on Twitter after a suggestion by Julia Reda, a German Member of Parliament (MEP) for the European Pirate Party.

"It is an absolute novelty for designated EU commissioners to face direct questioning by the people ahead of the start of their mandate," Reda said, adding that this represents a further step in the democratization of the EU while giving the Internet community an opportunity to make their concerns heard.

See the original post here:
#AskAnsip: Proposed EU digital chief to answer questions on Twitter

Schaeuble Says EU Growth Boost May Require EIB Capital Increase

The European Union wont repeat old mistakes that didnt work in the past to counter a worsening of the economic environment, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

The 28-member bloc will wait for the European Investment Bank and the European Commission to draw up a list of concrete investment projects by year-end and then decide how they can be financed, the minister told reporters before a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers in Luxembourg. The European Stability Mechanism, the currency blocs financial backstop, wont be tapped, he said.

We wont do this by using the capital stock of the ESM but, where appropriate, by a necessary increase in the capital of the EIB, Schaeuble said. We have plenty of options.

EIB chief Werner Hoyer said Sept. 13 in Milan that appropriate budgetary arrangements have to be made for the EUs development bank to play a bigger role in stimulating the regions economy. Hoyer said previously that the EIB is highly sensitive about maintaining its top credit rating, which is higher than that of most of its shareholders, the 28 EU countries.

Last week the International Monetary Fund cut its euro-area growth forecasts to 0.8 percent for 2014 and 1.3 percent next year. EU finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow will call on the EU to identify projects that could be realized in the short and medium term and lay the foundation for a credible and transparent pipeline of projects, according to a draft statement obtained by Bloomberg News.

We need more investment, primarily in the private sector, secondly also in the public sector, but not all of those have to be publicly funded, they can also be privately financed, Schaeuble said. Europe needs an improvement in the institutional environment and sustainable fiscal policy, he said.

Frances budget deficit will amount to 4.4 percent of the economy in 2014 and 4.3 percent in 2015, violating the EUs 3 percent limit both years, even as the government plans spending cuts of 21 billion euros ($27 billion) in 2015, Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Oct. 1 in Paris. While EU treaties apply to all, Europe needs a debate about the proper monetary and budgetary policy mix to lift growth, he said Oct. 5.

Well wait for France to present its budget proposal and the structural reforms the government has announced. The commission will then give its verdict. These are the European rules, and the European rules, everybody says, are there to be respected, Schaeuble said. Im quite confident that a solution will be found in France.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rainer Buergin in Luxembourg at rbuergin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Zoe Schneeweiss, Patrick Henry

More:
Schaeuble Says EU Growth Boost May Require EIB Capital Increase

Europe to get 2.5 billion big data boost

Europe is lagging behind and urgently needs a big data investment to get on the bandwagon, Neelie Kroes said

Big data is going to get a big boost from the European Union, which will match an industry consortium's 2 billion investment with 500 million of public money over the next five years.

Companies including Atos, IBM, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Orange, SAP, and Siemens, along with several research bodies, will invest in the public-private partnership (PPP) from January 2015.

The partnership will invest in research and innovation in big data fields such as energy, manufacturing and health to deliver services including personalized medicine, food logistics and predictive analytics. Other products could include forecasting crop yields or speeding thediagnosis of brain injuries.

This investment will give a boost to the struggling European big data industry, European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said during a news conference in Brussels.

"Europe is trailing behind. Virtually every big data company is from the USA, none are from Europe," she said. "That has to change and that is why we are putting public money on the table."

The money is needed to help companies process some of the 1.7 million gigabytes of data she said is generated around the world each minute. This data, including climate information, satellite imagery, digital pictures and videos, transaction records and GPS signals should be put to use by European companies, Kroes said.

The 25 companies forming the Big Data Value Association also see an immediate need to get their act together and start competing, said association president Jan Sundelin, who is also CEO of the Dutch e-commerce company Tie Kinetix.

Europe is one of the largest retail markets in the world, yet non-European companies "know more about our consumers and what we are doing in Europe than we know ourselves," he said during the news conference, where he invited other companies and startups to take part in the research.

The investments in the industry will also support "Innovation Spaces" that will offer secure environments for experimenting with both private and open data, the Commission said.

View post:
Europe to get 2.5 billion big data boost

EU ministers to hold anti-Ebola talks

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union has called a meeting of health ministers on Thursday to discuss the possible screening of travellers from Ebola-hit west African countries, officials said.

The talks are designed "to coordinate the actions of member states" in the absence of any agreement on whether to monitor travellers to Europe, the officials said.

Britain is the only European nation so far to introduce such measures, with screening at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and on Eurostar trains from France and Belgium.

The United States and Canada had also announced new screening measures at major airport hubs to check travellers for symptoms of the deadly disease, and pressure has grown for other nations to follow their lead.

"The idea is for (EU) member states to discuss screening upon arrival in the European Union," European Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent told reporters.

He said the meeting would focus on coordinating efforts since any introduction of screening at airports and train stations would be a sovereign decision by a member state.

A European source said the discussion will also touch on "the effectiveness of screening procedures on departure from the affected countries".

The goal is to also "reassure Europeans" at a time when the infection of a Spanish nurse last week in Madrid raised concerns throughout Europe, the source added.

Fewer than half a dozen member states, including France and Belgium, have direct air links with high-risk areas of West Africa.

The World Health Organisation has so far not recommended screening travellers from Ebola-hit countries, which carry it out themselves, usually by having officials take the temperatures of travellers.

See the original post here:
EU ministers to hold anti-Ebola talks