European Union

Millions of people took to the streets across the world on March 8 to demonstrate for equal rights and against violence against women. Women in Spain went on strike, in Portugal flags were flown at half-mast in memory of murdered women, and police in Istanbul used tear gas on women demonstrators. Europe's commentators take stock.

The Lega is for it, Five Star is against it: the row over the high-speed train connection between Turin and Lyon threatens to break up the coalition government in Italy. Now the two sides have agreed to postpone the decision on the project for six months. The contracts are to be offered for tenders but the details of the financing won't be discussed for the time being. Can this solution save the government?

From Tallinn to Helsinki in 20 minutes: a train tunnel between the Estonian and Finnish capitals which has been in planning for years is to make this possible. Now the Chinese firm Touchstone wants to invest 15 billion euros in the project and the planning company Finest Bay Area has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese. Should it think twice?

Finland's centrist prime minister Juha Sipila's surprise resignation kicks off a busy political spring in the Nordic country, with national and EU elections as well as preparing to head the EU' rotating six-month presidency from 1 July.

The US is preparing to impose sanctions on EU firms that co-finance Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany and companies involved in laying the pipes in the Baltic Sea, US daily The Wall Street Journal reports, citing US unnamed sources. The sanctions risk heightening tensions amid an ongoing dispute on US tariffs on German cars. The US says the pipeline poses a strategic risk of Russian energy dependence.

Demand for German-made submarines saw it boost international arms exports by 13 percent in the 2014 to 2018 period, according to the Swedish think-tank the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The world's top five exporters - the US, Russia, France, Germany, and China - supplied 75 percent of all weapons sold abroad. The US had a 36 percent chunk of the market, with sales focused on the Middle East.

Germany's anointed new leader has echoed France in calling for EU reform to combat populism - but with a stronger role for national governments and with little prospect of sharing German wealth.

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is to run in the May European Parliament elections, his party Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) announced on Sunday. Puigdemont has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium since 2017 after Madrid re-imposed direct rule on the province following a disputed independence referendum. Puigdemont said on Twitter it was "another step to internationalise the self-determination right of Catalonia from Europe's heart to all the world."

British prime minister Theresa May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker spoke by telephone on Sunday, ahead of May's crucial vote on the Brexit withdrawal agreement in the UK parliament on Tuesday. However, a mooted last-minute visit by May to Brussels on Monday appears to be on hold. May is seeking to overturn the 230-vote defeat inflicted on her Brexit deal in January ahead of the March 29 Brexit date.

In view of the upcoming publication of the 2019 calls for proposals for the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR), EDA and the European Commission will jointly organise an Information and Brokerage Day in Brussels on 11 April 2019. The event is open to representatives from all types of companies (large, medium or small), industry associations, research organisations and universities from the EU and Norway.

During the event, which will run from from 08:30 to 17:00, EDA will provide participants with detailed information on the topics of the 2019 PADR calls, which are set to be published in the coming weeks. Participation modalities and access to the Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal will also be explained. Furthermore, as it was already the case in the previous two years, a brokerage session will be organized to help attendants in finding partners for potential consortia. The Info & Brokerage Day will thus again be a unique opportunity for participants to improve their knowledge about the context, the objectives and the participation modalities of the PADR and to network with potential partners. 

More information on the 2019 PADR calls for proposals as well as on the registration process for the Info & Brokerage Day will be published soon.
 

Background

The PADR has the objective to test the added-value of the EU budget supporting defence research, in view of a dedicated EU programme in the next EU Multi-annual Financial Framework. The PADR is implemented by the EDA through a Delegation Agreement signed between the EDA and the Commission in May 2017.

Written by Carla Stamegna (1st edition),

© Stephen Orsillo / Fotolia

The recessions resulting from the financial crisis that broke out at the end of the last decade have caused economic difficulties for more and more EU companies and citizens in recent years, leaving them unable to repay their loans. As a result many EU banks have accumulated high volumes of non-performing loans (NPLs) on their balance-sheets. Although it has almost halved since December 2014, the ratio between NPLs and total loans extended by EU banks (the NPL ratio) remains historically high when measured against the ratios of other advanced economies. NPLs represent a risk to banks’ balance sheets inasmuch as future losses they might generate are not sufficiently covered by appropriate reserves. To tackle this issue, in March 2018 the Commission adopted a comprehensive package of measures, including a proposal for a regulation amending the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) to introduce common minimum loss coverage levels (a ‘statutory backstop’) for newly originated loans that become non-performing.

Versions

• March 2019: ‘Minimum loss coverage for non-performing loans‘ (1st edition)

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on amending Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 as regards minimum loss coverage for nonperforming exposures Committee responsible: Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) COM(2018) 134 of 14.3.2018 Co-rapporteurs: Esther de Lange (EPP, Netherlands)
Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy) 2018/0060(COD) Shadow rapporteurs: Bernd Lucke (ECR, Germany)
Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE, Spain)
Matt Carthy (GUE/NGL, Ireland)
Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany)
Marco Zanni (ENF, Italy) Ordinary legislative procedure (COD) (Parliament and Council on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’) Next steps expected: Vote in plenary

Twelve times a year, MEPs relocate from Brussels to Strasbourg - and then back again. Not by choice, but because a treaty forces them to - and it is costing taxpayers more than €100m per year.

World leaders meeting in Brussels from 12-14 March must make the freeing of detainees held by Syria's Assad regime the number one priority on their agenda.