European Union

The Council adopted amendments to the regulation on the statute and funding of European political parties and foundations to prevent misuse of data in EP elections.

Ahead of the crucial summit of EU leaders on Brexit this week, the EU's chief negotiator warned Theresa May's government to have a clear objective for an extension that she still needs to request formally from the EU.

Written by Philip Boucher,

Anthony Intraversato on Unsplash

With the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it became clear how technologies such as social media and techniques such as psychological profiling can be combined in election campaigns with worrying effects. Digital forms of personalised political messaging can be highly automated. They start and end with social media, which provides both the data for categorising users and the medium for targeting them with personalised messages. Messages might be designed to favour a particular candidate or to encourage widespread discord and mistrust. In either case, it could lead to more polarised societies in which citizens share less common ground and are less understanding of those with different political ideologies, attitudes to populism, or perspectives on specific topics such as immigration.

These same technologies and techniques also shape trends in news production and consumption. As newspaper sales dwindle, outlets increasingly rely upon advertising revenue generated by clicks, making extensive use of social media platforms and user profiling. Public debate increasingly occurs via these social media platforms in which citizens, politicians, companies and bots communicate directly to each other without the traditional filters of journalistic standards and editorial oversight. It has been suggested that, where citizens increasingly rely on such platforms for news, they risk entering ‘filter bubbles’ in which they are exposed to a narrow range of perspectives oriented around their own profiles, shielded from contrasting views, in a broad trend that could also lead to more polarised societies. In this context, STOA launched two studies to explore the mechanisms by which these technologies and techniques may foster polarisation in Europe, and published an accompanying Options Brief.

One study, conducted by Richard Fletcher and Joy Jenkins of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, considered the effects of technology on news production and consumption across Europe and their potential to lead to more polarised societies. One of its key messages is how little we understand about the mechanisms that link news production and social polarisation. The internet has created more consumer choice, to the point where most people select their own news sources based on their ideologies and preferences. Yet, the review found little evidence to support the ‘filter bubble’ thesis, or that exposure to populist material has a significant effect on citizens with mainstream views. However, there are key exceptions to these findings at the fringes, with evidence that people who already hold extreme ideological views or attitudes to populism tend to develop even stronger perspectives when exposed to news with which they either strongly agree or strongly disagree. The authors suggest that individuals’ basic interest in current affairs is a key factor as – in today ‘s high-choice media environment – some users may opt-out of news consumption entirely. Such news aversion could be a worrying trend if healthy democracies rely upon citizens understanding their political system.

The other study was conducted by Lisa Maria Neudert and Nahema Marchal of the University of Oxford, and focused on trends in political campaigning and communication strategies. It highlighted a trend towards more emotionally charged content – particularly negative material that provokes fear, hatred or disgust – in political communications. While such highly charged and targeted messages may be effective, they can also escalate mistrust and tensions between groups with different perspectives and, thus, foster social polarisation. The review also highlighted that some ‘clickbait’ based on political issues may be designed for purely financial purposes, but have the side-effect of increased polarisation. In other cases, polarisation has been the deliberate aim of manipulative political campaigns by hostile foreign and domestic political actors, making use of automated bots and ‘dark ads’ to amplify disagreement, provoke hostility between different groups, and undermine social cohesion.

Hasty policy action that attempts to control communications directly – for example by restricting some media content or political expression – could do more harm than good, and could even have ‘chilling effects’ on democracy. However, both studies present policy options that could help to foster healthier digital environments and mitigate trends towards social polarisation. These are combined and further developed in the STOA Options Brief, which includes options targeting news consumption, digital divides, political communications, news producers and governance institutions.

The authors of both studies presented their work during the STOA Panel meeting on 14 March 2019, which can be viewed here.

Committee and political group meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Germany and Belgium have put forward a proposal for a "peer review" of EU countries' legal systems as member states and EU institutions struggle with disciplining member states that break EU rules.

The European Commission will publish calls for proposals in the next few days following an announcement of €525m for joint defence industrial projects.

As Europe is nearing the end of an extremely turbulent mandate, the bloc is starting to realise just how much ground has been lost in preparing for a brave new economic world.

The European election campaign will see French Green Party representative Pascal Durand joining forces with President Macron’s La République En Marche (LREM), a party not exactly known for its ecological sensitivity. EURACTIV France reports.

Germany and Belgium put forward on Tuesday (19 March) a joint proposal for a rule of law peer review in all EU member states. The new mechanism is meant to be applied in parallel to the already existing Article 7 procedure enshrined in the treaties.

Kazakhstan's first and only president so far, Nursultan Nazarbayev, surprisingly resigned on Tuesday (19 March) and announced that the Speaker of the Senate, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, will serve as interim leader before the next presidential election.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday she would fight until the end to achieve an orderly Brexit. "I will fight to the last hour of the deadline on March 29 for an orderly exit," she told a conference in Berlin ahead of the crucial EU summit later this week. Merkel added it was a fundamental interest for the UK and the EU to avoid Britain crashing out of the bloc.

Written by Mihalis Kritikos,

Artificial intelligence (AI) poses new risks for human rights, as diverse as non-discrimination, privacy, security, freedom of expression, freedom of association, the right to work and access to public services. The current discussion focuses on whether and how the EU could develop a human rights-based approach to AI, given that there are no established methodologies to track effects/harm on human rights, to identify who is being excluded from AI systems and to assess the potential for discrimination in the use of machine learning.

Europe has the opportunity to shape the direction of AI at least from a socio-ethical perspective. The EU’s latest initiatives indicate the desire of its main institutional actors to react swiftly to these major human rights challenges and lead the development of a human-centric AI. More specifically, the European Commission communication on artificial intelligence for Europe (April 2018), launching the EU strategy on AI, made particular reference to the need to invest in people as a cornerstone of a human-centric, inclusive approach to AI, and reaffirmed its support for research into human-AI interaction and cooperation. Recently, the Commission’s High Level Expert Group on AI proposed the first draft AI ethics guidelines to the Commission, which address values protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, such as privacy and personal data protection, human dignity, non-discrimination and consumer protection. The guidelines ask all stakeholders to evaluate possible effects of AI on human beings and the common good, and to ensure that AI is human-centric: AI should be developed, deployed and used with an ‘ethical purpose’, grounded in, and reflective of, fundamental rights, societal values and the ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy of humans, and justice.

The recently adopted European Parliament resolution on a comprehensive European industrial policy on artificial intelligence and robotics makes explicit reference to the need for Europe to take the lead on the global stage by deploying only ethically embedded AI. It recommends that the Member States establish AI ethics monitoring and oversight bodies and encourage companies developing AI to set up ethics boards and draw up ethical guidelines for their AI developers, and requests an ethics-by-design approach that will facilitate the embedding of values such as transparency and explainability in the development of AI. The resolution points out that the guiding ethical framework should be based on the principles and values enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as on existing ethical practices and codes.

#AIHumanRightsSTOA

Are these initiatives sufficient in terms of safeguarding a human rights lens in the governance of AI? Do we need legally-binding norms in this field rather than soft-law instruments or even the development of new human rights? Should the EU legislators consider the need to integrate a requirement for systematic human rights impact assessments or even for developing new legal mechanisms for redress/remedy for human rights violations resulting from AI?

The Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) and Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) are organising a workshop entitled ‘Is artificial intelligence a human rights issue?’ to discuss and evaluate the efficiency and adequacy of these EU-wide initiatives from a human rights’ perspective. This will be an opportunity to learn more about the effects of AI upon the protection of human rights, and to participate in a debate with key experts in the subject. The workshop will open with a welcome address from STOA Chair Eva Kaili (S&D, Greece), and a keynote speech by Professor Jason M. Schultz, from the NYU School of Law and former Senior Advisor on Innovation and Intellectual Property to the White House, and author (along with Aaron Perzanowski) of ‘The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy‘.

A welcome address from STOA Chair Eva Kaili (S&D, Greece) will be followed with a keynote speech by Professor Jason M. Schultz of the NYU School of Law, former Senior Advisor on Innovation and Intellectual Property to the White House, and author (along with Aaron Perzanowski) of a well-known book on The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy. This will be followed by three panel discussions, including presentations from a wide range of experts.

The first panel includes presentations from Ekkehard Ernst, Chief Macroeconomist, Research Department, ILO, Joanna Goodey, Head of Unit, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and Dimitris Panopoulos, Suite 5. Panel 1 will be moderated by STOA Chair, Eva Kaili,

Joining Panel 2 will be Silkie Carlo, Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch, Lorena Jaume-Palasi, founder of the Ethical Tech Society and Lofred Madzou, Project Lead, AI & Machine Learning, World Economic Forum. This panel is moderated by Marietje Schaake (ALDE, the Netherlands).

Panel 3 includes Can Yeginsu, Barrister, 4 New Square Chambers, Professor Aimee van Wynsberghe, TU Delft-Member of the High-Level Expert Group on AI and Fanny Hidvegi, Access Now, Member of the High-Level Expert Group on AI, and is moderated by Michał BONI, (EPP, Poland), who will also moderate the Q&A discussion and debate and make the closing remarks.

Interested in joining the workshop? Watch the live webstream on the STOA event page.

The European Defence Agency (EDA) today (19 March) published the three 2019 calls for proposals for the EU’s Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR).

The work programme includes the following calls/topics:

• Electromagnetic Spectrum Dominance: Combined radar, communications, and electronic warfare functions based on European Active Electronically Scanned Arrays for military applications (PADR-EMS-03-2019);
• Future Disruptive Defence Technologies: 

       o  Emerging Game-changers (PADR-FDDT-EMERGING-03-2019); 
       o  Challenging the future (PADR-FDDT-OPEN-03-2019);

• Unmanned Systems: Interoperability standards for military unmanned systems (PADR-US-03-2019).

Details about the calls and participation conditions can be found here. 

The Preparatory Action on Defence Research is funded by the European Union. The decision on the work programme for 2019 and on the financing of the 'Preparatory action on Defence research, authorising the use of unit costs under the preparatory action was adopted by the European Commission on 19 March 2019.
 

Info & Brokerage Day on 11 April 2019 

Following the publication of the 2019 calls and two successful editions in the previous years, EDA and the European Commission will organise the third Info & Brokerage Day on the PADR. The event will take place on 11 April 2019 in Brussels. 

The Info & Brokerage Day aims at providing industry, research entities and other interested defence stakeholders with first-hand information on the 2019 PADR calls for proposals.

EDA and European Commission experts will provide participants with detailed explanations of the 2019 PADR topics, the rules and conditions for participation in the calls for proposals, as well as with the modalities and access to the Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal. A brokerage session with b2b meetings will allow participants to exchange the views and find potential future consortia partners. 
 

More information:

• Preparatory Action on Defence Research (EDA project page)
• PADR Info & Brokerage Day 2019
• European Commission financial decision on PADR 2019 

On 13-14 March 2019, the first ad hoc meeting of the EDA Renewable Energy Sources and Technologies Working Group was hosted in Vienna by the Austrian Energy Agency, as coordinator of the Concerted Action on Renewable Energy Sources (CA-RES). 

The purpose was to develop further the deliverables on renewable energy as part of the second phase of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS II) including specific project proposals on hydrogen fuel cells, self-sufficient military bases, technology feasibility assessments, energy performance contracting, and energy storage. 

It was also an opportunity to strengthen civilian-military interactions through the relationship between CF SEDSS II and CA-RES, both of which are funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. CA-RES is a structured and confidential dialogue between national authorities responsible for the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive and is co-ordinated by the Austrian Energy Agency. 
  

About CF SEDSS II

CF SEDSS is a European Commission initiative managed by the EDA. It aims at bringing together experts from the defence and energy sectors to share information and best practices on improving energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well increasing the protection and resilience of defence energy-related critical infrastructures. On 20 October 2017, the second phase of the Consultation Forum (CF SEDSS II) was launched. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and the agreement is between the EASME executive agency and the EDA. The contract was signed on 16 October 2017 for 22 months, expiring on August 2019. 

Based on the foundations laid during the first phase of the Consultation Forum (2015-2017), the second phase has been further expanded to cover the following interrelated subjects through three main working groups (including sub-working groups): WG 1: Energy Management including Energy Efficiency (Sub-WG1: Energy Management and Sub-WG2: Energy Efficiency; WG 2: Renewable Energy Sources and Technologies; WG 3: Protection of Critical Energy Infrastructure and one cross-cutting theme: Finance.
 

More information:

• CF SEDSS II
• Concerted Action on Renewable Energy Sources

 

The European Parliament’s transport committee quizzed the head of the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on Monday (18 March) about the ongoing investigation into a crash that prompted agencies around the world to ground Boeing MAX aircraft.

On 18 March 2014 Vladimir Putin signed the agreement on Crimea becoming part of the Russian Federation - two days after a controversial referendum. To this day much of the international community still doesn't recognise the peninsula as part of Russia but as Ukrainian territory. Five years after the annexation commentators describe how it is now perceived in the two countries and among the members of the international community.