Union européenne

On Tuesday 14 April, the Subcommittee on Human Rights will hold a public hearing on 'Caste discrimination in South Asia'. The panel, comprised of representatives of the European External Action Service, the United Nations, as well as civil society actors and individuals with lived experience, will provide a holistic overview of caste discrimination and its implications for human rights in South Asia.
Drawing on recent findings, including those of the UN Special Rapporteur on racism, it aims to explore the role of the caste system as a core driver of oppression, particularly in South Asia.

The hearing will underline the need for an intersectional approach that recognises how caste-based discrimination intersects with gender, poverty and other factors, creating distinct and severe forms of marginalisation. The exchange will also examine existing international and EU-level responses and explore avenues for more effective action to combat caste-based discrimination.
Location : SPINELLI 1E2 (Brussels)
Draft programme
Webstreaming
Photos
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Un projet de budget de l'UE donne la priorité à « l'excellence » dans l'attribution des fonds destinés à la compétitivité, ce qui fait craindre que les capitales les plus pauvres ne soient lésées

The post Fonds pour la compétitivité de 400 milliards d’euros : les pays les plus riches de l’UE tirent leur épingle du jeu appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Donald Trump agite régulièrement la menace de fermer des bases militaires en Europe, notamment en Allemagne ou en Espagne, une mesure de rétorsion envers des alliés qui ne soutiendraient pas sa guerre en Iran. En Allemagne, 53 000 Américains vivent à Ramstein, la plus grosse base de l’armée américaine hors des États-Unis. C’est dans cette ville, dans la ville, que J.D. Vance s'est arrêté, de retour vers Washington après l’échec des négociations au Pakistan.

La Hongrie « a été spoliée, détruite et transformée en le pays le plus pauvre et le plus corrompu de l'UE », a déclaré le nouveau dirigeant du pays

The post Le Parquet européen pourrait traduire en justice l’entourage proche d’Orbán appeared first on Euractiv FR.

EP vice-president Verheyen, a representative of the winner, the European Film Academy chair, and the honorary president of the selection panel will speak to the press on Tuesday at 19.15.
Committee on Culture and Education

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

EP vice-president Verheyen, a representative of the winner, the European Film Academy chair, and the honorary president of the selection panel will speak to the press on Tuesday at 19.15.
Committee on Culture and Education

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

EP vice-president Verheyen, a representative of the winner, the European Film Academy chair, and the honorary president of the selection panel will speak to the press on Tuesday at 19.15.
Committee on Culture and Education

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Cette affaire judiciaire vient s'ajouter à plusieurs enquêtes pour corruption visant l'entourage proche de Pedro Sánchez

The post L’épouse du Premier ministre espagnol mise en examen pour corruption appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Lundi soir, les négociateurs du Parlement et du Conseil sont parvenus à un accord sur de nouvelles mesures pour contrer les effets négatifs de l'excédent sidérurgique mondial.
Commission du commerce international

Source : © Union européenne, 2026 - PE

The Rohingya did not choose dependency on aid. It was created by the restrictions surrounding them. Credit: UNHCR/Amanda Jufrian

By Mohammed Zonaid
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

While global attention right now is on escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, another crisis continues quietly in Bangladesh.

Beginning April 1, 2026, the World Food Programme (WFP) introduced a revised Targeting and Prioritisation Exercise (TPE) for Rohingya refugees living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, according to a statement released by the United Nations in Bangladesh on April 2.

Under the new system, refugee households will receive food assistance of $12, $10, or $7 per person per month, depending on their assessed level of food insecurity. Previously, all refugees received $12 per person.

On paper, vulnerability-based targeting appears reasonable. In many humanitarian crises, such systems help ensure that limited resources reach those most in need. However, the Rohingya context is different.

Nearly nine years after fleeing genocide and persecution in Myanmar, more than one million Rohingya refugees remain confined to camps in Bangladesh, according to the latest data from UNHCR Bangladesh including 144,456 biometrically identified new arrivals and 1,040,408 Registered refugees 1990s & post-2017. 78% them are Women and children.

Unlike refugees in many other countries, Rohingya in Bangladesh have extremely limited freedom of movement and cannot legally work or run small businesses within the camps. Refugees are also not formally employed by humanitarian organizations—except as volunteers receiving small daily allowances. As a result, they remain almost entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance.

Within this context, reducing aid raises serious concerns. When refugees are not permitted to engage in meaningful economic activity, food insecurity becomes less a household condition and more a structural outcome.

Humanitarian agencies have provided life-saving support for years, and their efforts should not be overlooked. But survival is not the same as stability. Instead of creating pathways toward self-reliance for Rohingya and local communities in Cox’s Bazar who are affected due to refugee statements, the current system has largely institutionalized dependency.

Many programs labeled as “livelihood initiatives” have not produced meaningful outcomes. Skills training programs—such as electrical repair or other technical courses—often fail to translate into real opportunities because refugees do not own motorbikes, electricity access is limited in many camp areas, refugees cannot legally move beyond the camps to seek work, and humanitarian organizations don’t employ trained refugees within their own operational structures.

This raises difficult questions: Why invest donor resources in skills that cannot realistically be applied? And what long-term strategy do these initiatives serve?

The new targeting model categorizes refugees as extremely food insecure, highly food insecure, or food insecure. Some vulnerable households—such as those led by elderly individuals, persons with disabilities, or children—will continue receiving the highest level of assistance.

Yet the broader reality remains unchanged: the entire Rohingya population in Bangladesh faces severe restrictions on economic participation.

Recent protests in the camps are often described as reactions to ration reductions. In reality, they reflect deeper concerns about uncertainty and the absence of long-term planning. Refugees are asking a simple question: What happens if funding declines further in the future? Where will we go? Well Bangladesh alone will be left dealing with the Rohingya crisis?

They want to send a message to the world: dependency on aid was designed around the Rohingya. It is time to think beyond relief and give them the tools to stand on their own feet.

Long-term strategic thinking is urgently needed. This includes serious discussions about ensuring safe and dignified lives in the camps until the Rohingya are able to return to Myanmar, expanding economic participation for refugees, and creating policies that allow them to contribute economically while remaining under appropriate regulation.

At the same time, Bangladesh itself is going through a transitional period after the election, and the new government and said it will work closely to make Rohingya repatriation possible and shared data on 8.29 lakh Rohingyas with Myanmar.

But the Rohingya crisis cannot be a lesser priority, the new government also needs to recognize that prolonged displacement cannot be managed indefinitely through restriction and relief alone—the same approach that largely characterized the policies of the previous government.

Carefully regulated work opportunities—such as camp-based enterprises, pilot employment schemes, or limited work authorization programs—could help reduce humanitarian dependency while preserving government oversight.

If even one or two members of each refugee household were allowed to work legally under controlled frameworks, humanitarian costs could gradually decline, camp economies could stabilize, and youth frustration could decrease.

Most importantly, dignity could begin to return.

After nearly nine years, international agencies have managed one of the world’s largest refugee operations with remarkable logistical capacity. Yet the central question remains: what durable systems have been created to help refugees stand on their own feet?

As global funding pressures increase and donor fatigue grows, humanitarian assistance is being recalibrated downward. Without structural reforms, this risks managing dependency more efficiently rather than reducing it.

The Rohingya did not choose dependency on aid. It was created by the restrictions surrounding them. Food assistance remains essential. But the future of an entire population cannot be defined solely by ration cards and vulnerability categories.

The Rohingya crisis requires more than improved targeting of aid. It requires policies that combine protection with participation and living with safety.

The world has learned how to feed the Rohingya.

The real test is whether it will allow them to stand—until the day they can safely return home to Myanmar with rights, safety, and dignity.

Otherwise, families quietly reduce meals. Young people seek unsafe informal labor. The risks of child labor, early marriage, unsafe migration. and involvement in illicit activities increase. When opportunity disappears, desperation fills the gap.

Mohammed Zonaid is a Rohingya SOPA 2025 honoree, freelance journalist, award-winning photographer, and fixer. He works with international agencies and has contributed to Myanmar Now, The Arakan Express News, The Diplomat Magazine, Frontier Myanmar, Inter Press Service, and the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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En Ukraine, l'effondrement incontrôlé de l'enveloppe interne de confinement de la centrale nucléaire de Tchernobyl pourrait accroître le risque de rejets de radioactivité dans l'environnement, a averti Greenpeace, ce mardi 14 avril 2026.

Written by Guillaume Ragonnaud with Raphaël Wainstain.

Overview

On 16 December 2025, the European Commission published the automotive omnibus as part of a broader automotive package aimed at supporting the sector in the transition to clean mobility. The automotive omnibus is the ninth set of simplification measures (also known as ‘omnibus packages’) that have been published by the Commission since 2025. Its purpose is to simplify the rules governing the EU automotive industry and improve coherence and consistency between different regulatory requirements. The two legislative proposals included in the package would amend the EU rules concerning tachograph obligations for electric light commercial vehicles (electric vans) and motor caravans, as well as those applying to speed limitation devices for electric vans. Additionally, the package would introduce a definition of a small electric car in motor vehicle legislation and authorise the Commission to adopt delegated acts to lay down the technical requirements for vehicle interoperability with charging infrastructure and grid. Furthermore, the proposals would simplify the rules for EU type-approval of new motor vehicles in terms of their sound level; remove some low-temperature laboratory tests from the Euro 7 Regulation; simplify Euro 7 rules for heavy-duty vehicles; and empower the Commission to adopt implementing acts on car data management.

Procedural information (1) Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulations (EC) No 561/2006, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2019/2144 and (EU) 2024/1257 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the simplification of technical requirements and testing procedures for motor vehicles and repealing Council Directive 70/157/EEC and Regulation No 540/2014

(2) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 92/6/EEC to exempt certain N2 electric vehicles from the requirement to install and use a speed limitation deviceCommittee responsible:(1) Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI), Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), and Transport and Tourism (TRAN) (joint committee)

(2) Transport and Tourism (TRAN) (1) COM(2025)993

(2) COM(2025)999Rapporteur:(1) Tbd
(2) Tbd (1) 2025/0422(COD)

(2) 2025/0424(COD)Next steps expected:Publication of draft reports

Read the complete briefing on ‘EU automotive omnibus‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

Trump 2.0 has been marked by the blatantly aggressive exercise of power to secure US interests as defined by him. While many recent trends even predate his first term, his reduced use of ‘soft power’ has exposed his bullying, extortionary use of US power.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Rule of law?
Trade liberalisation has been reversed for at least two decades. Almost all G20 developed nations raised trade barriers following the 2008-09 global, actually Western, financial crisis.

The US has illegally weaponised more laws and policies, especially by unilaterally imposing sanctions and tariffs, especially on dissenting regimes.

Often, such threats are not ends in themselves but actually weapons to strengthen the US bargaining position to secure more advantageous deals.

Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, members are obliged to extend ‘most favoured nation’ status to all other member nations.

On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced supposedly ‘reciprocal tariffs’, ostensibly responding to others having trade surpluses with the US.

Appealing to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is futile, as the US has blocked the appointment of Appellate Body members since the Obama presidency.

Trump 2.0 has also been trying to get rich investors and governments – mainly from Europe, Japan, and the oil-rich Gulf states – to invest in the US.

Most such investments are in financial markets, rather than the real economy. Such portfolio investments have propped up asset prices, even bubbles.

Trump’s bullying is resented but has not been very effective vis-à-vis strong adversaries. Consequently, allies have been most affected and resentful.

Deepening stagflation
Meanwhile, much of the world economy has never really recovered from the COVID-19 slowdown, while Western sanctions and tariffs have raised production costs, worsening inflation.

Recent trends have also deepened the stagnation since 2009. Many governments and the IMF have made things worse by cutting spending when most needed.

Impacts have varied, generally worse in poorer countries, where the IMF limits policy options and credit rating agencies raise borrowing costs.

US Fed chair Powell’s interest rate hikes, ostensibly to address inflation, also reversed ‘quantitative easing’, which had lowered interest rates from 2009.

Trump’s aggression has reduced economic engagement with the US, inadvertently accelerating de-dollarisation, thus undermining the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’.

Central banks worldwide have responded predictably, refusing to be counter-cyclical in the face of economic slowdown, citing inflationary pressures.

Transactional?
Trump’s transactional approach has meant bilateral, one-on-one dealings, further advantaging the world’s dominant power.

Involving one-time asymmetric ‘zero-sum games’, such transactions ensure the US gains, necessarily at the expense of the ‘other’. Transactionalism also enables ‘buying influence’, or corruption.

The resulting uncertainty reduces investments, not only in the US, but everywhere, due to greater perceived risks, exacerbating the stagnation. Thus, Trump 2.0 policies have reduced investment and growth.

The whole world, including the US, has suffered much ‘collateral damage’, but the White House seems content as long as others lose more.

Unipolar sovereigntism
The transitions to unipolar sovereigntism and then to a multipolar world have been much debated.

Three decades ago, the influential US Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs, argued that the post-Cold War unipolar world was actually ‘sovereigntist’.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s ‘Daddy’ reference to Trump suggests that the sovereigntist moment is not quite over, as the US ‘No Kings’ mobilisation suggests.

Trump’s ‘America First’ clearly opposes multilateralism, generating broader concerns. He has withdrawn the US from many, but not all, multilateral bodies.

On January 7, the US withdrew from 66 international organisations deemed “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful”, addressing issues it claimed were “contrary” to national interests.

Trump’s continued, selective use of multilateral bodies has served him well, retaining privileges, e.g., permanent membership of the UN Security Council with veto power.

The UN Security Council’s Gaza ceasefire resolution was used to create and legitimise his Board of Peace, now touted by some as an alternative to the UN!

Trump will not withdraw from the WTO as its Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is key to US tech bros’ trillions from transnational IP.

End of soft power
Some of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January 20th remarks at Davos are telling:

“More recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination… If we are not at the table, we are on the menu.”

Besides exercising overwhelming military superiority, Trump 2.0 has increasingly weaponised rules, agreements and economic relations to its advantage.

The abandonment of ‘soft power’ – accelerated by Elon Musk’s DOGE – has ripped the velvet glove off US ‘hegemony’, exposing the mailed fist beneath.

USAID and other US government-funded agencies and programmes have been crucial for soft power, fostering the illusion of domination with consent. Abandoning soft power may well increase the costs of achieving America First.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Également dans l'édition de mardi : le prêt à l'Ukraine, Meloni contre Salis, le Parquet européen, l'« excellence » budgétaire

The post Le dernier homme d’Orbán à Bruxelles appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Il y a tout juste un mois, la Côte d'Ivoire retrouvait le "tambour parleur", volé par la France en 1916. Il fait partie d'une longue liste de biens réclamés. Lundi, les députés français ont unanimement adopté un projet de loi très attendu en Afrique pour faciliter les restitutions d'oeuvres pillées durant la colonisation. Plusieurs fois repoussé, il concrétise une promesse du président Emmanuel Macron en 2017, lors d'un discours à la jeunesse africaine à Ouagadougou, au Burkina Faso.

On Monday evening, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a political agreement on new measures to counter the negative effects of the global steel surplus.
Committee on International Trade

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

On Monday evening, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a political agreement on new measures to counter the negative effects of the global steel surplus.
Committee on International Trade

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

C'est une nouvelle qui fragilise le Premier ministre espagnol. Begoña Gomez, l'épouse de Pedro Sanchez, a été formellement inculpée, lundi 13 avril, pour détournement de fonds, trafic d'influence, corruption et appropriation illicite.

Un projet de loi destiné à faciliter les restitutions par la France de biens culturels spoliés entre 1815 et 1972 a été adopté lundi à l'unanimité à l'Assemblée nationale. Promesse d'Emmanuel Macron, il doit encore faire l'objet d'un accord entre députés et sénateurs avant d'être adopté définitivement.

On 14 April, the Members of the SEDE Committee will discuss priorities for financing Defence in Europe with Robert DE GROOT, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank. On 15 April, the SEDE Committee will hold a structured dialogue with Commissioner Andrius Kubilius to discuss notably the state of play of the implementation of the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 and the proposed programme for agile and rapid defence innovation (AGILE).
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP