Tag: EU

The European Union and the United States launched negotiations on Monday (17 June) to forge a comprehensive transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), after overcoming a long-fought battle on excluding the audiovisual sector, led by France.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) club of rich countries has admitted it needs to comprehensively reassess how global aid figures are measured amid criticism that the value of assistance given is overstated by billions of dollars each year.

The simple expectation from the Ukrainian authorities that the EU won't let Ukraine transformation into a new Belarus allows the current Ukrainian administration to manipulate the position of official Brussels in favour of itself, says Viktor Tkachuk.

The Ukranian Parliamentary elections on Sunday (28 October) will not trigger improved relations between the EU and Ukraine. In fact they could make them worse, says Roman Rukomeda.

People like Monnet, Schuman, Altiero Spinelli, Paul-Henri Spaak, Max Kohnstamm, Emile Noël, and Konrad Adenauer, amongst others, were all disappointingly overlooked by the Nobel Committee at the time of the EU’s genesis. Posthumously, this is their Nobel Peace Prize, argues Michael J. Geary.

The European Union's image has improved in the eyes of a majority of Europeans in the last 10 months, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey.

The London Games should confirm the EU’s position as a major soft power (at least in its sportive dimension), despite the global financial turmoil and economic crisis on the Old Continent, writes Piotr Maciej Kaczyński.

The European Commission’s intention to improve safety in offshore oil and gas across Europe by using the UK’s best practices should be welcomed. However, the form of legislation proposed would have the opposite effect and undo decades of established regulatory experience - putting the safety of workers at risk, writes Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK.

The Euro 2012 became a genuine festival of people-to-people contacts and cultural exchange in a wider United Europe by taking place in "undiscovered territory" - Ukraine, Kostiantyn Yelisieiev say in an op-ed first published in The Guardian.

Military tensions have grown in recent weeks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Charles Tannock argues that the EU should take steps to diffuse the situation.

Negotiations were tough on the Energy Efficiency Directive, but now only the signature is missing on one of the Danish EU presidency’s key priorities, said Danish Climate and Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard.

Trillions of euros in investment in clean-energy technology are needed worldwide by mid-century to control rising carbon emissions, says a new report that could help shape the debate on some of Europe’s most controversial energy policies.

Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain have a serious structural competitiveness problem, despite the billions of EU taxpayers’ money that these countries received as grants from EU development funds in the past decades, says Martin Bruncko.

The European Commission wants to ensure that consumers can have full access to high-speed Internet at any time but refrained from regulating on so-called "net neutrality" for now, saying the remedy may be worse than the disease.

The Scottish Parliament overwhelmingly passed a bill last week (24 May) that introduced a 0.50£ (0.63€) minimum price for a unit of alcohol, the first legally-binding minimum price within the European Union.

The fact that Russia is once again headed by Vladimir Putin has ramped up pressure on Ukraine. Therefore Kyiv will continue to act in an inconsistent and unpredictable manner, argues Volodymyr Zastava.

Almost half (48%) of the computer users in the EU admit they have acquired pirated software, according to a new report by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

A multilevel Europe is both a chance for the EU to survive and return to economic prosperity, while for Ukraine it opens new chances to get closer to the Union and envisage a shared future, writes Roman Rukomeda from Ukrainian foundation 'People First'.

The European Union does not take its relations with Beijing seriously enough, as evidenced by the unilateral postponement of the 14th EU-China summit and the failure to grant China Market Economy Status, argues Sebastian Bersick.

A recent survey has found deep pessimism among European Commission staff on a wide range of issues, including the course of European integration over the past decade and the likelihood of success of the EU's strategy for economic growth. Some 63% partially or totally agreed that "the European model has entered into a lasting crisis".

Africa matters to Europe and the EU can do a lot to boost its relationship with the continent, writes Ernst Stetter, secretary-general of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), in his latest blog post: this is of great importance to make economic and social change happen.

The European Commission will recommend next week that the European Union begins accession talks with Iceland, an EU official said yesterday (16 February), launching a process that Reykjavik hopes will lead to EU membership by 2012.

The European Commission is concerned about a draft Italian law requiring video-sharing platforms such as YouTube to check that user-generated content is lawful before it is posted. Many fear that the move - a clear breach of the E-Commerce Directive - could set a dangerous precedent for other EU countries to follow.

There is a seat for Europe at the world talks table, but European leaders need to become more strategic and revisit the successful approach of the EU's founding fathers, Stanley Crossick, the founding chairman of the European Policy Centre, told EurActiv in an interview.