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"Brussels to launch new satellite constellation for secure connectivity

A new satellite constellation, intended to provide secure communications for government services, will launch after an agreement between MEPs and diplomats was reached on Thursday evening (17 November).

The multi-orbital const"

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"ellation, IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnection and Security by Satellite), is projected to be operational in 2024 and will be focused on providing secure satellite communications to EU governmental users.

The constellation will be the EU’s third, after Galileo and Copernicus, and its rollout is part of a broader push to boost secure connectivity and minimise third-country dependencies. The €2.4 billion project, the Union Secure Connectivity Proposal 2023-27, was initially presented by the Commission in February this year.

“Secure and efficient connectivity will play a key role in Europe’s digital transformation and make us more competitive”, said EU digital chief Margrethe Vestager.

“Through this programme, the EU will be at the forefront of secure satellite communication, as it is today with Galileo for satellite navigation and with Copernicus for earth observation.”

EU lays out plans for secure satellite communications

The Commission on Tuesday adopted two new space-based initiatives, products of last year’s Action Plan on Synergies between civil, defence and space industries.

Secure connectivity

The Commission’s objectives centre on establishing a space-based satellite system to provide secure connectivity for government communications, particularly for defence, critical infrastructure protection, surveillance and crisis management.

The war in Ukraine highlighted the strategic value of satellite-based communication systems, where Moscow deliberately bombed Kyiv’s telecom infrastructure.

Ukrainian forces maintained their communications systems thanks to the internet installation Starlink of Elon Musk, who sometimes threatened to withdraw support.

“IRIS² establishes space as a vector of our European autonomy, a vector of connectivity and resilience. It heightens Europe’s role as a true space power”, Internal Market Commissioner and the real driver of the initiative, Thierry Breton, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Allowing the private sector to facilitate the rollout of high-speed broadband to “dead zones” that currently lack connectivity is also listed as a critical goal of the project.

“IRIS² will provide connectivity to the whole of Europe”, said Breton, “including areas that do not currently benefit from broadband Internet, as well as to the whole of Africa, using the constellation’s North-South orbits.”

The system is also set to contribute to the EU’s broader goal of heightened strategic autonomy, outlined as a key motivation at the project’s announcement earlier this year.

“It is indispensable that Europe has its own constellation and not depend on the Americans and Chinese,” Breton said.

Security

"Expanded education central to digital wellbeing, says practitioner

This article is part of our special report Empowerment and protection: Building digital citizenship in the EU.

Digital education must be broader than hard digital skills and break free of the online-offline divide, those working in"

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" digital wellbeing have said.

Building digital skills have become a core focus of EU policymakers in recent years, and much of this centres on equipping young people with the capabilities to navigate the digital age.

However, some working in digital wellbeing have called for an expanded conceptualisation of the skills needed to operate online and for greater attention to the roles of both teachers and families in encouraging their development.

Among them, a coalition of organisations has been calling for a more comprehensive look at digital citizenship. In a recently-published non-paper, the group – which includes Meta, the European Youth Forum, the Lisbon Council and some other research and civil society organisations – identifies five pillars on which the concept should be built, spanning digital foundations, wellbeing, engagement, empowerment and opportunities.

“Digitalisation is now all pervasive in the life of families and children, with pros and cons”, Elizabeth Gosme, director of COFACE Families Europe, one of the members of the working group, told EURACTIV.

However, when it comes to tackling issues that have arisen as a result of digitalisation, she said, the involvement of a much broader set of actors than just families will be necessary to build resilience and digital skills.

Digital technologies have made caring for children all the more complicated, Gosme said, and ensuring that they are protected while also able to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by these technologies is a complex task, particularly when undertaken on top of existing caring responsibilities.

Building a more rounded concept of digital citizenship can help to support people in avoiding online harms and seizing the benefits that the digital space can provide, the non-paper argues, while also addressing some of the key challenges to digital citizenship.

One such obstacle, the coalition notes, is an online-offline separation, which treats the two spheres, and the citizenship skills required to operate in them successfully as wholly separate, jeopardizing the effectiveness of interventions.

“The dichotomy of offline-online doesn’t make sense so much anymore because digital is just part of our life these days”, noted Gosme, adding that reducing it should be a core focus of digital education initiatives.

“You need to go back offline to actually address the complexities of the online world,” she said. “That means emotional intelligence, social support, mental health support, respecting diversity, all these kinds of offline skills that everybody needs in life just for human connections.”

While digital components are increasingly present

"Poland’s de facto abortion ban risks lives, says MEP

While technically allowed in some cases, abortion in Poland may as well be forbidden, putting women’s lives at risk, said Robert Biedron, EU lawmaker and leader of the Polish opposition party Nowa Lewica on Thursday (17 November).

Two years ago,"

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" Poland’s constitutional court approved a highly-restrictive new law that de facto banned abortion. Only 107 legal abortions were performed in 2021, approximately 90% less than in previous years, according to figures published by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

Four MEPs went to Warsaw between 2 and 4 November to assess the effect of the current law with representatives of civil society and women’s rights organisations and then presented the results during a public hearing at the European Parliament.

“Abortion is de facto illegal in Poland as it is very limited. We have gathered information by NGOs and different organisations that express their deep worry for the lack of access to health of women, whose rights are completely violated,” said Biedron during a press conference following the hearing.

The situation in Poland demonstrates a lack of access for women to health services, such as abortion, but also access to contraceptives and other medicines linked to reproductive health.

Furthermore, in 2022, six women died due to carrying pregnancies to term that could have been aborted, said Biedron, adding that women’s lives are at risk when they feel they cannot approach a doctor for obstetric care.

However, “when we speak with government authorities, they say that everything is fine”, he added.

“The European Parliament must continue to put pressure on the Polish government and use all the tools it has, or more women will die,” Caroline Hickson, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Network, warned MEPs during the hearing.

EU Parliament to look into Poland’s deadly abortion laws

EU lawmakers will soon hold a public hearing to present lawmakers with a list of the women who reportedly died due to tightened abortion laws which created a de facto ban.

The hearing will be held on 17 November before two …

At the Thursday hearing, Polish lawyer Kamila Feren emphasised that decisions about women’s bodies must not be “in the hands of conservative politicians”.

Members of the Polish association Abortion Dream Team (ADT) told EURACTIV that when abortions are performed, the methods used, such as the ‘curettage method‘ has been designated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “outdated and the most invasive”, ADT said.

MEPs condemn rape as war weapon, call for refugees’ access to abortion

EU lawmakers condemned the use of rape as a war tactic in Ukraine and called on the EU to ensure women refugees can access contraception pills and abortion across the bloc, in a resolution adopted on Thursday (5 May).

‘Women as incubators’

Amongst those testifying at the LIBE committee was Barbara Skrobol, sist

"EU countries see success in slashing veterinary antibiotics sales

Sales of antibiotics used for animal use have almost halved between 2011-2021, according to a new report issued by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), putting the EU on track to attain its ambitions, but with a warning that the sect"

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"or should not become complacent.

The agency’s annual report on the European surveillance of veterinary antimicrobial consumption (ESVAC) was released on Friday (18 November) and covers a total of 31 European countries, including 29 EU/EEA countries.

It found that, since 2011, European countries have “substantially reduced” sales of veterinary antibiotics in animals.

For the 25 countries that provided continuous data sets, overall sales of veterinary antibiotics decreased by 47% between 2011-2021 – the lowest value ever reported.

Meanwhile, in only three years, between 2018 and 2021, the 27 EU member states covered in the report already achieved an 18% reduction, or approximately one-third of the target set out in the EU’s flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy.

The strategy sets out the goal to halve the sales of the valuable drugs by 2030 in efforts to curb the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is caused by the widespread use of antibiotics, both in human and veterinary medicine.

This results in antibiotics being increasingly ineffective against infections and rendering commonly known infections untreatable.

Resistant bacterial infections alone are associated with nearly five million deaths per year worldwide, with around 1.3 million deaths directly attributed to the resistance superbugs, leading the World Health Organisation (WHO) to list AMR among the 10 biggest global threats.

Expert: Antimicrobial resistance is the 'new climate change'

Diseases evolving to become resistant to medicines is a hidden threat to humanity as dangerous as climate change, an animal health expert has told EURACTIV, warning that more must be done to reduce the use of antimicrobials in agriculture.

Crucially, the EMA report also found that sales of antibiotic classes considered critically important in human medicine – which therefore requires prudent use in animal farming – also decreased noticeably between 2011 and 2021, accounting for only 5.5% of total sales in 2021.

A continuation of this downward trend over the remaining eight years would therefore put member states on track to reach the 2030 target for antibiotic reduction, the report concludes.

For Ivo Claassen, head of EMA’s veterinary medicines division, this success can be attributed to a concerted effort from the agrifood industry.

“The positive results reflect the efforts of veterinarians, farmers and the pharmaceutical industry to reduce the use of antibiotics to prevent antimicrobial resistance,” he said.

For Claassen, this also means that EU policy initiatives and national campaigns promoting the prudent use of antibiotics in animals are having a “positive i

"Djukanovic supporters rally in Montenegro calling for early election

Several thousand people rallied in Montenegro’s capital on Thursday (17 November) calling for a snap election and the withdrawal of a controversial law that curbed presidential powers amid a deep political crisis in the Balkan nat"

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Smooth Radio Malta is Malta’s number one digital radio station, playing Your Relaxing Favourites - Smooth provides a ‘clutter free’ mix, appealing to a core 35-59 audience offering soft adult contemporary classics. We operate a playlist of popular tracks which is updated on a regular basis. https://smooth.com.mt/listen/

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"ion.

The protest was organised by the ‘Ima nas’ (‘We are numerous’) movement, which describes itself as patriotic, and had the backing of President Milo Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and its allies.

The protesters gathered in front of parliament, waved Montenegrin flags and carried banners reading “We want an election” and “We are numerous, for Montenegro, for EU”.

The rally was the second of its kind this month.

The turmoil in Montenegro worsened after a Church-backed coalition inflicted a historic defeat on the DPS in 2020 elections.

This year has seen two governments collapse.

In August, Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic’s pro-Western minority government failed to survive a no-confidence motion in parliament.

It followed weeks of political tension after the government signed a controversial deal with the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) providing a regulatory framework for the hundreds of SPC-owned churches, monasteries and other properties.

Djukanovic, the architect of Montenegro’s independence, and some of his fellow countrymen accuse the SPC of serving Serbia’s interests.

In September, Djukanovic sought an early election and rejected a demand by a group of parties led by the pro-Russian Democratic Front to name former top diplomat Miodrag Lekic prime minister-designate.

The crisis escalated earlier this month when the lawmakers amended a law reducing presidential powers in a bid to force Djukanovic to appoint Lekic.

But Djukanovic labelled the legislation non-constitutional and said lawmakers should vote on it again.

Meanwhile the country’s constitutional court — which could usually rule on the matter — is not functioning since MPs cannot agree on its composition, which is also fuelling the crisis.

Montenegro is a NATO member and a candidate to join the European Union.

The country of 620,000 people proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2006.

But a third of its population identify as Serbs and some believe Montenegro should not be a separate country.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/enlargement/news/djukanovic-supporters-rally-in-montenegro-calling-for-early-election/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9715&pnespid=tel.FD8WJawe3P3Gvyi7AZfUtUu3VJBlK_inzvU59Bdmgjw8ldWqsJK6li0K0ismfuQgd4enuw

"

"Critical and strategic: graphite in search of the right investment conditions

This article is part of our special report The EU’s critical raw materials act.

What is your industry’s contribution to Europe’s economy?

Juan Antonio Aranzabal is the President of the European Carbon and Graphite Assoc"

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"iation.

Processed and refined carbon-based advanced materials, either from natural or synthetic graphite are turned into carbon and graphite products, mainly for industrial applications and are key in the production of many sectors in the EU, such as the steel, aluminum, ferro-alloy, silicon, phosphate, renewable energy, semiconductor, battery and fuel cell, construction and defense industries.

Particularly with regard to synthetic graphite till lately we still had a competitive and highly efficient sector in Europe, providing Europe’s industrial base, but also exporting in some market segments. Major investments in natural graphite extraction, but also into extension of synthetic graphite production were in the pipeline to satisfy the predicted growing demand from all graphite markets.

How do you judge the sustainability of Europe’s graphite production?

As one of the synthetic graphite electrode manufacturers I can say that we are an essential part of the EU’s circular economy and contribute to the decarbonization process since we are a key factor in the steel recycling route. Steel recycling via the Electric Arc Furnace route saves up to 90% of the emissions caused by the classical Blast Furnace route.

The Industrial Emissions Directive’s BREF (Best Available Reference Technologies) that apply to the permits in our industry are frequently reviewed and allow for minimal emissions to reduce to the strictest minimum any impact on the environment.

We provide many products for the remelting and recycling of other metals.

Batteries and fuel cells are the future for our e-mobility and energy storage. Many of our products contribute to the twin transition of the EU’s Green Deal by providing material solutions for many new technologies and thus also enabling other industrial sectors to achieve their transitions and ambitious goals.

From this view point I would say that the EU is the perfect place to manufacture synthetic graphite for all its applications but also for our electrodes due to the high respect to the environment.

We, as an industry should have a bright future in Europe since we perfectly fit with the EU’s climate change strategy.

What is your biggest challenge in Europe?

Unfortunately, we have strong headwinds that jeopardize our future. We are an energy intensive industry, needing both, gas and electricity in our process. The electricity we consume is in most cases and locations already coming from renewables, so already green. Regarding gas, our biggest efforts go into reduction of consumption and investment into future consumption of green hydrogen when available. Thus, reducing our carbon footprint wherever possible.

As e

"The big tech world is in crisis – and that might be a good thing

A year ago, shares in Meta Platforms, Inc., owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, were trading at almost $350. Now, they are valued at less than $115. While this resulted in thousands of layoffs, could there be a silver lining as"

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Smooth Radio Malta is Malta’s number one digital radio station, playing Your Relaxing Favourites - Smooth provides a ‘clutter free’ mix, appealing to a core 35-59 audience offering soft adult contemporary classics. We operate a playlist of popular tracks which is updated on a regular basis. https://smooth.com.mt/listen/

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"ks Christophe Carugati.

Christophe Carugati is an affiliate fellow at Bruegel.

For those who believed that the multi-billion-dollar tech giants are too big to fail, this seems unthinkable. It is devasting for talented workers at all levels of seniority who must find new jobs. So, what’s gone wrong, and what will happen next?

In 2020, the real world stopped living. The COVID-19 pandemic forced people to shift their work and social lives from offline to online. For big tech, this was a big boost. The major big tech companies reached the highest levels of market capitalisation in tech history and hired and invested significantly.

The pandemic has not ended, but most lockdown and social distancing measures have. Most people have readjusted back from the virtual to the real world, leaving big tech companies exposed as they overestimated the growth of online activities.

They assumed wrongly that people would move into the virtual world and stay there, but this has not been the case. The International Monetary Fund, for instance, found that online spending rose from 10.3% before the pandemic in 2019 to 14.9% in 2020 during the pandemic but then decreased to 12.2% in 2021 after the lifting of restrictions. Big tech has thus been forced to adjust its growth expectations.

But the return to normal is not the only bad news from the perspective of Meta and other companies. Like the rest of the economy, big tech has felt the effect of a succession of shocks. Galloping inflation, rising energy prices and disrupted global supply chains have been sad news for households, especially those with the lowest incomes, and businesses, which in some cases, have had no choice but to shut up shop.

Tech companies also suffer. They face increasing costs and lower demand in their primary business operations, such as advertising for Meta, which lost 4% of its revenue in the last quarter. And central banks have raised interest rates, hitting the tech industry, which had come to rely on colossal amounts of low-cost money.

Regulation is another significant shock. In Europe and elsewhere, legislators are starting to regulate the tech industry. The main reasons are to temper the impressive market power of some digital giants and to tackle the social harms occurring online, from hate speech to trade in counterfeit goods.

The goal is to tame the “digital Wild West”, as Thierry Breton, the Frenchman in charge of the European Union internal market, put it. This will cost the tech industry, which will have to change its business operations, including the lucrative data practices relied on by most advertising-funded business models, such as Meta’s.

With slower growth, less

"Agrifood Brief: When the EU gives you lemons

Proudly presenting the first Green Partnership under the EU Green Deal with Morocco during a visit to Rabat on 18 October, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans was all smiles.

With it, the European Commission approved a €115 million programme to s"

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"upport the development of agricultural and forestry sectors in Morocco – or ‘Terre-Verte’.

The programme seeks to boost the ecological transition of these sectors in Morocco while creating “decent work opportunities”, according to the Commission’s statement.

“The support to Moroccan agriculture and forestry provided through this programme shows that the EU is on Morocco’s side in the fight against the climate and biodiversity crises,” Timmermans said at the back of the presentation of ‘Terre-Verte’.

But it seems almost no one other than the Commission was anywhere near as excited about it.

For most of Europe, news of the multi-million euro programme seemed to slip under the radar, but there was one notable exception: Spanish stakeholders were not best pleased with the news, and you don’t have to look too hard to figure out why.

The two neighbouring fruit-producing powerhouses rely heavily on the same trading partner for agri-food exports: the EU. The chances are that many of the fruits in your kitchen (if you are in Europe) are likely to have come from one of the two countries.

Morocco’s and Spain’s food baskets are both filled with oranges, mandarins, lemons, watermelons, or avocados. Given that the countries’ coastlines are a mere 15 kilometres from each other, it is to understand why,

On the back of the Commission’s announcement, there was one (predictably) vocal detractor – the Spanish far-right, Vox – who, together with Andalucia region’s section of Spain’s largest agricultural lobby, Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos (COAG), consider the EU’s programme an ‘attack’ on and a ‘betrayal’ of the Spanish agriculture sector.

But the criticism didn’t stop there.

While Clara Aguilera, Spanish MEP and coordinator for the socialist group (S&D in the European Parliament’s agriculture committee (AGRI), called these accusations an ‘overstatement’, she told EURACTIV she wasn’t a fan of the EU executive’s plans either.

The lawmaker said she understands “the EU’s position in maintaining relations with Morocco”, but at the same time she could not back this kind of financial support, given that “public funding to the Spanish agricultural sector has already been shrinking for years”.

“Morocco should be able to fund their own agricultural sector,” Aguilera said, stressing the need to instead “increase CAP funding to support Spanish farmers and help Moroccan agriculture through sharing knowledge and innovative practices”.

Meanwhile, there’s also criticism on the Moroccan side of things.

Hanan Bourokba from ‘Femmes Rurales’ – a Moroccan association for the development of the rural world – isn’t exactly thrilled about t

"Bulgaria fears being left behind for Schengen, de-coupled from Romania

The negative attitude of the Netherlands and similar stance from Sweden could result in the de-coupling of Bulgaria and Romania in terms of their Schengen membership, EURACTIV Bulgaria learned from sources in Sofia and European "

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"institutions.

Those close to the matter say it seems increasingly likely that in December, EU leaders will support the admission of Croatia and Romania while Bulgaria will remain on the sidelines, which would be a huge political blow for Sofia.

The political process is further driven by the apathy of the parties represented in the parliament, which are mainly concerned with rewriting the country’s electoral law, along with a lack of a stable government in Sofia and upcoming elections.

The leading Bulgarian parties seem to have no interest in the caretaker government scoring a major political success such as Schengen membership, which proved to be an unattainable task for three regular governments of Boyko Borisov, EURACTIV sources said.

Schengen membership would be a political asset for the caretaker government of President Rumen Radev, which is also perceived as a problem by the Bulgarian Socialist Party, whose leader Kornelia Ninova is in conflict with Radev.

The big European political families have no one to give a political gift to in Sofia because of the political crisis and the lack of a regular cabinet.

On 16 November, the European Commission called for Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria to be admitted to Schengen without delay.

Bulgaria and Romania fulfilled the membership criteria several years ago, even before Croatia joined the EU in 2013. However, Schengen enlargement is decided by the consensus of its members, and such has not been achieved at the moment.

On 18 October, MEPs once again called for the admission of Bulgaria and Romania, stressing that free movement is at the core of the European project.

But on 20 October, the Dutch Parliament passed a resolution stating that the Netherlands should oppose the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen border-free area.

On 8 December, EU justice and home affairs ministers will vote on the Schengen accession of the three countries.

Dutch parliament votes against Bulgaria and Romania joining Schengen

The Dutch Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday (20 October) stating that the Netherlands should oppose the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen border-free area.

Bulgarian progress

Reports from recent expert inspections have shown that Bulgaria has implemented robust border management with surveillance and systematic checks of the external borders. The country is said to have the necessary structures to ensure respect for fundamental rights by guaranteeing access to international protection.

Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson announced that an additional inspection mission was in place in the three countries from Tuesday after the Dutch parlia

"Hungary committed to the values on which the EU is founded

The conditionality procedure was conceived as a preventive tool to protect the financial interests of the EU but if it is turned into a political sanctioning mechanism, the whole exercise will become a collective failure, writes Judit Varga"

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Judit Varga is the justice minister of Hungary.

In the past few months, the Hungarian government has been engaged in an intensive dialogue with the European Commission in the framework of the conditionality procedure. It has not been easy, to say the least, as there’s a great deal of mistrust on both sides, but we have made huge progress.

As a result, the Hungarian government proposed a comprehensive package of significant remedial measures to protect the Union’s financial interests further. The measures aim to make public procurement more transparent and competitive, reinforcing the legal and institutional framework for fighting fraud and corruption and strengthening audit and control processes and conflict of interest rules.

On September 18, 2022, the conditionality procedure entered a new phase. In its decision, the Commission recognised that the proposed remedial measures, taken together, would, in principle, be capable of addressing the issues that prompted the launch of the conditionality procedure, provided that all the measures are correctly and effectively implemented.

Since then, our objective has been to implement those remedial measures in consultation with the Commission.

An Integrity Authority has been established to intervene in all cases where competent authorities have not taken the necessary steps to prevent, detect and correct fraud, conflicts of interest, corruption and other irregularities that have or may have an effect on the implementation of EU financial support. The Board of the Authority has been elected, and its provisional infrastructure is already in place.

An Anti-Corruption Task Force has also been convened. The Task Force is chaired by the chair of the Integrity Authority and operates with the participation of an equal number of governmental and non-governmental actors.

We amended the Code of Criminal Procedure and established a procedure concerning special criminal offences related to the exercise of public authority and the management of the public property. Judicial review is now available for decisions of the prosecution or the investigating authority to dismiss a criminal report or terminate criminal proceedings. Based on the review, an investigating judge will have the authority to order the commencement or the continuation of criminal proceedings. Ultimately, the procedure opens the right to file an indictment in a court of justice.

We clarified that asset management foundations that operate in the public interest fall under the scope of public procurement obligations and adopted legislation to ensure full compliance with the EU Financial Regulation regarding conflict of interest rules.