Tag: summit

Research institutions must realise that there are smarter ways to use the funds they have. The entire focus of the European Gender Summit is to highlight gender as a tool for making research more effective and for achieving results of a higher quality, says Curt Rice.

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.

EU staff members went on strike on Wednesday (21 November) to protest against proposals to axe €80 billion from the EU's proposed budget for the period 2014-2020. The protest was especially targeted at British Prime Minister David Cameron's role in the negotiation, ahead of a special EU summit dedicated to the bloc's long-term budget.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy is poised to broker a deal over the stalled European patent at an EU summit starting tomorrow (28 June) in Brussels. EurActiv Italy reports from Rome on the possible breakthrough.

Ahead of yesterday's EU summit, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt criticised both the 'project bonds' and the 'Eurobonds' that were put forward as a way to relaunch the European economy.

The latest draft of the fiscal compact - which we reveal here - includes a new clause compelling countries to ratify the pact or face losing lines of bailout cash as a penalty.

Finance Commissioner Olli Rehn yesterday (12 December) brushed aside the possibility of UK legal threats and warned the City of London that it could not avoid EU financial regulation as a result of the UK veto of a last week's summit deal.

Last week's G20 summit forged the broadest of agreements in the shape of a "framework" but cast out specific EU-proposed measures intended to penalise and regulate financial markets.

EU leaders took aim at the banking sector yesterday (31 August), pledging to check banks' power and push for limits on bonus payments at a G20 summit later this month.

"We have climbed on board an express train, but we have no doubt about the train reaching the end of the line on time with a maximum number of goals achieved," Czech EU Affairs Minister Štefan Füle told EurActiv.cz in an interview, referring to his country's stint at the EU helm.

"[French] President [Nicholas] Sarkozy has shown how important and useful for all it is to have a strong and stable leadership for the Union," argue the contributors to a European Policy Centre (EPC) commentary on the outcome of the outgoing French EU Presidency.

The bank bail-out guidelines agreed by the eurozone countries and the UK in Paris last Sunday were endorsed by all 27 EU member states during the first day of the European summit in Brussels. Leaders also agreed to review the rules governing global capitalism and to strengthen cross-border supervision of banks.

After having arrived in Brussels following yesterday's signing ceremony for the new EU treaty in Lisbon, European leaders are seeking to reach a common position on the future status of Kosovo.

Changes to the EU's forthcoming Treaty, pushed through by French President Nicolas Sarkozy during the Summit, will not have significant implications for the EU's free-market policy according to Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who sought to allay fears of increased protectionism in Europe.

European Union leaders clinched an agreement in the early hours on Saturday (23 June) to reform the EU's creaking institutions in a complex compromise which introduces a two-step delay in new Council voting rights vehemently resisted by Poland.

EU leaders were scrambling to reach agreement over a draft mandate for institutional reform at a summit on 22 June. A Polish veto threat over voting rights in the Council and British 'red lines' on labour law, justice and other issues remained the main obstacles on the way to a deal.

A double-majority system with a safety clause could overcome Poland's request for a square root voting system in the Council, claim Daniel Gros, Sebastian Kurpas and Mika Widgren in a June 2007 paper for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

According to Jean-Louis Quermonne, professor at the Instituts d'Etudes Politiques in Grenoble and Paris, the risks of failure of an institutional relaunch - or a watered-down agreement - are numerous.

Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski dismissed EU leaders' hopes of finding a swift solution to the institutional impasse, saying that new treaty negotiations could take up to a year. European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering warned that a Polish veto would 'put Europe into a crisis'.

In recent visits to Brussels and Strasbourg, the leaders of France (Sarkozy), Italy (Prodi) and the Netherlands (Balkenende) aired their views on institutional reform ahead of the June Summit. Proposals range from Sarkozy's 'simplified Treaty' to a more ambitious 'Treaty-plus'.

EU leaders brought in more transparency for future Council meetings and sealed 'absorption' as the new rhetoric joker on enlargement at the EU Summit.