Global World

 As the world sees tectonic shifts, the European Union must raise to new and unprecedented challenges to ensure our competitiveness and security. The events of the last weeks make that clearer than ever. Our Union needs to be more independent, more autonomous, and more able to defend itself against any threats. In the first 100 days of its mandate, the von der Leyen Commission has already made important steps towards those goals. The Commission launched many initiatives to boost the EU’s competitiveness, strengthen its defence capabilities, and increase its level of preparedness. For the months and years ahead, we will once again need to shift gears to crisis mode. This Commission stands ready to answer these new challenges with exceptional actions at unprecedented scale, scope and speed. Make Europe more competitive • The Competitiveness Compass provides a roadmap to boost Europe’s competitiveness and secure its prosperity. • The Clean Industrial Deal and the Action Plan for Affor...

The Schuman Declaration was presented by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950.  It proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, whose members would pool coal and steel production. The ECSC (founding members: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) was the first of a series of supranational European institutions that would ultimately become today's "European Union".:  On 5 May 1949, at the signing of the Statute of the Council of Europe in London, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman calls for a revival of the European spirit and hails the dawn of new political cooperation in Europe. There have been - and still are - learned disputes as to the geographical bounds of Europe. But Europe cannot possibly wait for definition, for the end of that controversy; she does, in fact, define her own bounds by the will of her peoples. 🔗 https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-...

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2023/956 as regards simplifying and strengthening the carbon border adjustment mechanism       The European Union has set itself the legal objective of becoming a climate-neutral and climate resilient continent by 2050 as enshrined in Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 on the [European Climate Law1.] These binding goals were specified in the Communications on the European Green Deal2 and on A Strong Social Europe for Just Transitions3, in which the Commission set the ambition to upgrade Europe’s social market economy to achieve a just transition to sustainability. In his report on ‘The Future of European Competitiveness’, Mario Draghi emphasised the need for Europe to create a regulatory landscape which facilitates competitiveness and resilience.4 In the Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal, EU Heads of State and Government called for ‘a simplification re...

● Brussels, 12 February 2025 The Commission has adopted its 2025 work programme, outlining its ambition to boost competitiveness, enhance security, and bolster economic resilience in the EU. It builds on the commitments set out in the Political Guidelines and the mission letters sent by President von der Leyen. The work programme focuses on the flagship initiatives the Commission will take in the first year of its mandate, responding to the issues that matter most to Europeans. It reflects the need for more opportunities, innovation, and growth for our citizens and businesses, ultimately fostering a more secure and prosperous EU. The newly proposed initiatives are laid out in a dedicated annex together with the evaluations and fitness checks announced today. A Communication on Implementation and Simplification accompanies the work programme. It sets out how the Commission plans, over the next five years, to make implementation of EU rules easier in practice, and to reduce administrativ...

The European Union is the second largest economy in the world and the largest trader of manufactured goods and services. European firms already showed their agility in responding to trade shocks in 2022 and 2023 by investing in resilience and digital tracking, increasing inventories and diversifying suppliers. This served as a test for the new wave of trade shocks. • Europe is a research powerhouse. It issues 24% more research publications than the United States, according to the Nature Index. This is an indicator of the strength of Europe’s research base and an asset to exploit for more industrial and service applications. • European firms are positioned to exploit the opportunity presented by the integration of AI into industrial and service processes. So far, AI investments have largely focused on two basic components: infrastructure, such as data centres, and models. Both are highly energy intensive, while the latest developments suggest their use is becoming a commodity. Progress ...

Water security is no longer a distant concern – it’s a critical issue across Europe. Pollution and overconsumption are threatening our water resources, and over three-quarters of Europeans demand stronger action from the EU. National efforts are falling short, and existing policies lack the depth and coordination needed to tackle these growing challenges.Confronting these challenges head-on, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has taken a lead in advocating for a comprehensive EU water strategy. In 2023, we launched the EU Blue Deal – the first major call for a unified EU water policy. This ground-breaking initiative not only identifies Europe’s water issues but also delivers a clear and concrete roadmap for tackling them. We propose a holistic and strategic approach, featuring 15 principles and 21 actions to address the social, economic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions of water management. The solutions are clear: reduce, reuse, recycle water, cut pollution, an...

As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the principle of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which recognizes the right of states to govern their territories without external interference; and the principle of national sovereignty, which recognizes the right of national communities to govern themselves. National sovereignty in turn is based on the moral-philosophical principle of popular sovereignty, according to which states belong to their peoples. The latter principle implies that legitimate rule of a state requires some sort of consent by the people. That requirement does not mean, however, that all nation-states are democratic. Indeed, many authoritarian rulers have presented themselves—both to the outside world of states and internally to the people under their rule—as ruling in the name of a sovereign nation. Although France after the French Revolution (1787–99) is often cited as the first nation-state, some scholars consi...

Europe has been worrying about slowing growth since the start of this century. Various strategies to raise growth rates have come and gone, but the trend has remained unchanged. Across different metrics, a wide gap in GDP has opened up between the EU and the US, driven mainly by a more pronounced slowdown in productivity growth in Europe. Europe’s households have paid the price in foregone living standards. On a per capita basis, real disposable income has grown almost twice as much in the US as in the EU since 2000. For most of this period, slowing growth has been seen as an inconvenience but not a calamity. Europe’s exporters managed to capture market shares in faster growing parts of the world, especially Asia. Many more women entered the workforce, lifting the labour contribution to growth. And, after the crises of 2008 to 2012, unemployment steadily fell across Europe, helping to reduce inequality and maintain social welfare. The EU also benefitted from a favourable global environ...

The German and French governments both formally announced their support for a proposed "Eurostack" initiative on 9 April - though they offered few specifics, setting the stage for potentially tough negotiations ahead. The Eurostack initiative seeks to de-risk the continent on its over-reliance on US technologies in building a sovereign European tech infrastructure—from semiconductors and cloud services to platforms, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI)—spanning the entire value chain. We are supporting the Eurostack initiative, reads the German centre-right and centreleft coalition document published on 9 April. "Yes, we support" the development of European solutions, the cabinet of French AI and Digital Minister Clara Chappaz told Euractiv in an official response to Germany's backing of the Eurostack initiative, adding that the French and German administrations are in contact to build a joint roadmap. This joint backing will undoubtedly create a posit...