, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210208IPR97326/
Eurozone To Recover Slowly Amid Tight Containment Measures: EU
The euro area economy is forecast to recover at a slower-than-expected pace this year, as the resurgence of the Covid-19 infections, together with more contagious variants of the virus forced many economies to tighten containment measures, the European Commission said in its interim Winter forecast, released Thursday.
The currency bloc is expected to grow 3.8 percent this year, instead of 4.2 percent projected in the autumn forecast. However, the outlook for 2022 was lifted to 3.8 percent from 3 percent citing the start of mass vaccination campaigns.
“Today’s forecast provides real hope at a time of great uncertainty for us all,” Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President for an Economy that Works for People said. “The solid expected pick-up of growth in the second half of this year shows very clearly that we are turning the corner in overcoming this crisis.”
The EU cautioned that projections are subject to significant uncertainty and elevated risks, predominately linked to the evolution of the pandemic and the success of vaccination campaigns.
The economic impact of the pandemic remains uneven across member states and the speed of the recovery was also projected to vary significantly.
Germany’s real GDP is forecast to rebound by 3.2 percent in 2021, returning to its pre-crisis level at the turn of the year. In 2022, the economy should continue growing by 3.1 percent, the EU said.
France’s real GDP is projected to expand by 5.5 percent in 2021 and by 4.4 percent in 2022.
Italy’s GDP is projected to expand by 3.4 percent in 2021. Real output is set to grow at almost similar pace in 2022 on the back of the momentum gained in the second half of this year on the back of continued recovery of the services sector.
Spain‘s GDP is forecast to grow by 5.6 percent in 2021. In 2022, driven by the tourism recovery, the region is set to expand 5.3 percent.
The European Union is forecast to rebound 3.7 percent this year, before advancing 3.9 percent in 2022.
Inflation in the euro area is expected to be slightly higher in 2021 compared to last autumn, but to remain subdued despite a temporary boost from base effects, EU said.
Inflation is seen at 1.4 percent in 2021, up from the prior forecast of 1.1 percent. As supply side adjusts and base effects taper out, inflation is projected to moderate to 1.3 percent in 2022, which was unchanged from the prior forecast.
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UK, EU meeting in bid to calm post-Brexit trade turbulence
UK Brexit minister Michael Gove and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic are meeting in London later Thursday to try to smooth out the problems, but few expect a quick resolution.
LONDON: Breaking up is proving hard to do for Britain and the European Union, whose divorce deal is in choppy waters just six weeks after the UK made its economic split from the bloc.
UK Brexit minister Michael Gove and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic are meeting in London later Thursday to try to smooth out the problems, but few expect a quick resolution.
The turbulence centers on Northern Ireland, whose complex status has been one of the trickiest issues in the UK-EU divorce.
Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief negotiator during years of Brexit talks, said both sides “must be conscious of their responsibilities” to Northern Ireland.
“The situation has never been easy in Ireland and everything is complex,” he said at a European business summit on Thursday.
“I recommend personally to everybody on both sides to be responsible and take care.” Since Britain left the EU’s economic structures on Dec.31, goods moving between the UK and the bloc have faced customs and veterinary checks under the terms of a new trade deal.
Checks have also been imposed on some British goods going to Northern Ireland because it shares a border with EU member-state Ireland.
Those checks have unsettled the delicate political balance in Northern Ireland, a part of the U.K. where some people identify as British and some as Irish.
The new measures are designed to prevent a hard border being imposed between Ireland and the north — something that could undermine the Irish peace process — but they are opposed by pro-British Unionists, who say they drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Northern Ireland authorities halted veterinary checks and withdrew border staff from ports for several days this month after threatening graffiti appeared referring to port workers as targets.
The sensitivity of Northern Ireland’s status was underscored earlier this month when the EU briefly threatened to ban shipments of coronavirus vaccines to Northern Ireland amid a dispute with Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.
That would have drawn a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland — exactly what the Brexit trade deal was crafted to avoid.
The EU quickly dropped the idea after British, Irish and Northern Ireland politicians expressed alarm.
But Britain has seized on the gaffe to accuse the EU of undermining the Brexit divorce agreement.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Jamie Davies, said the bloc’s move had caused “shock and anger” in Northern Ireland.
He said there was a need “to take urgent steps to restore confidence as a result.” The U.K. wants the EU to take a more light-touch approach to border checks, which have already led to shortages and delays in getting some goods to Northern Ireland.
Britain has asked for short-term grace periods that have delayed imposition of full red tape on supermarket supplies, parcels and medicines extended until at least 2023.
The EU says some economic friction is the inevitable outcome of Britain’s decision to leave the bloc’s single market and customs union, and insists the Northern Ireland Protocol can’t be significantly renegotiated.
In a letter to Gove before their meeting, Sefcovic pointed to “shortcomings” in Britain’s implementation of the agreement, saying border facilities were fully up and running and only limited checks were taking place.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged both sides to “dial down the rhetoric.” “There are bound to be teething issues and teething problems,” he told Irish broadcaster RTE.
UK will not be a ‘rule-taker’, Andrew Bailey tells EU
Andrew Bailey has accused the European Union of holding the UK to standards it would “not agree to be held to itself” and said the UK would not be a post-Brexit “rule-taker”.
The EU has yet to grant “equivalence” status to the UK, instead demanding UK banks continue to comply with standards set in Brussels. The bloc has said it wanted to wait and see how far the UK’s new rules diverged from its own before agreeing to recognise them.
But the Bank of England governor noted in his Mansion House speech on Wednesday (10 February) that this was in contrast to all other countries the bloc has agreed trade deals with.
BoE governor Bailey ‘quite angry’ at some findings in the report on LCF scandal – reports
“The EU has argued it must better understand how the UK intends to amend or alter the rules going forwards,” Bailey said. “This is a standard that the EU holds no other country to and would, I suspect, not agree to be held to itself.”
The governor said there were two ways of interpreting the EU’s stance, “neither of which stands up to scrutiny”. The first was that the EU believes rules should never change, which he described as “unrealistic, dangerous and inconsistent”.
The second was that the EU would only grant equivalence if the UK agreed to change its rules whenever the EU did. This, Bailey countered, was “rule-taking, pure and simple”.
“It is not acceptable when UK rules govern a system ten times the size of the UK GDP and is not the test up to now to assess equivalence.”
The governor suggested that a common framework of global standards ought to be enough for both sides, noting that “less than this was enough when Canada, the US, Australia, Hong Kong and Brazil were all deemed equivalent”.
Bailey warned the UK, though, that the City must relinquish some control over its standards and rules, should the financial services industry want to agree a deal with its continental counterparts.
Real estate managers face greatest ESG challenge in taxonomy compliance
“The alternative of narrow domestic control is illusory – it would jeopardise achieving the very things we want, safe open markets, and likewise open economies. Above all, these bodies enable us to build the trust that enables our financial systems to stay open,” he said.
“But, we do not for a moment believe that we can maintain the arrangements we have without change. As the world around us changes, so too do we have to adapt how we achieve these public goods.
“Also, we do not participate in these global institutions with the intention to water them down, misguidedly because we think this would preserve some notion of our competitiveness as a nation. The UK could not be a global financial centre for long if we did.”
EU says it is ready to work with Biden administration to settle trade disputes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The European Union on Thursday acknowledged a move by the new U.S. government to refrain from imposing additional tariffs on EU goods in a long-running dispute over aircraft tariffs, and said it was ready to work to resolve trade disputes.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Thursday said it had agreed with U.S. industry that it was unnecessary to revise existing tariffs on European goods at this time, refraining from changes that would have been possible during a periodic review.
The move came a day after USTR said it looked forward to working with European allies to resolve a 16-year-long battle over subsidies provided to Europe’s Airbus and its U.S. rival Boeing Co.
Asked about Thursday’s decision, an EU spokesman said, “The EU is ready to engage with the new U.S. administration on the basis of the EU-US agenda for global change we adopted on December 2. Our aim is to find solutions to our ongoing trade disputes, including on Airbus/Boeing.”
The American Italian Food Coalition, which represents more than 450 Italian companies, manufacturers and trade groups, said the move would give both sides time to work out a solution.
“The Biden Administration appropriately hit the pause button on another carousel round of tariffs,” it said.
Officials from the EU and Britain are keen to work out a deal with the administration of President Joe Biden, but talks are on ice until Biden’s pick as top trade negotiator, Katherine Tai, is confirmed in her job by the U.S. Senate. That could take several more weeks, with a confirmation hearing not yet scheduled.
Envoys from Britain and the European Union on Monday stressed their willingness to resolve the aircraft subsidies dispute.
EU Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis said Brussels had proposed a six-month suspension of tariffs on both sides to allow for negotiations. Britain, which is no longer part of the EU but is part of the Airbus consortium, has said it is also willing to lift tariffs, possibly unilaterally, as a goodwill gesture.
Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Leslie Adler
Netflix Inks Development Deal for Brian Jacques’ ‘Redwall’ Book Series
Another day, another important Netflix deal to report (often, more than one, and the day is still young…) The streaming giant has just inked a rights deal with Penguin Random House Children’s UK to develop a feature film and series based on Brian Jacques’ “Redwall” book series. Jacques’ tales chronicling the adventures of the heroic animals that inhabit the forest haven of Redwall Abbey have sold in excess of 30 million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. The deal marks the first time that the film rights to the entire book series have been held by the same company, and the first time a feature film of any of Jacques’ works will be made.
A feature film based on the first book in the series, Redwall, is currently in development with writer Patrick McHale (Over the Garden Wall, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), as well as an event series based on the character of Martin the Warrior.
“We couldn’t be more delighted to announce this deal,” says Ben Horslen, Fiction Publisher, Penguin Random House Children’s. “These perennially popular stories have been etched onto the hearts of millions of readers, and we are thrilled to partner with Netflix to bring those beloved characters on screen for families worldwide to enjoy.”
Alan Ingram, representative of The Redwall Abbey Company (owner of Jacques’ intellectual property), added, “Brian often travelled the globe to tell his Redwall stories to young audiences, more often than not at their schools. Brian would have been very happy to see that Netflix shares his joy and desire to bring his stories to life as a new universe of films, series and potentially much more for audiences of all ages to enjoy. We are very excited to embark on this new endeavour with Netflix and Penguin Random House UK.”
Redwall joins Netflix’s growing original slate of animated features which includes Sergio Pablos’ Academy Award-nominated Klaus, Kris Pearn’s The Willoughbys, and Glen Keane’s Over the Moon. Features recently announced and in production include the upcoming comedy Back to the Outback, directed by Clare Knight and Harry Cripps; Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Adventure; Chris Williams’ The Sea Beast; Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild; Nora Twomey’s My Father’s Dragon; Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio; Wendy Rogers’ The Magician’s Elephant; Minkyu Lee’s The Witch Boy; and an Aardman Chicken Run sequel.
Netflix has also just acquired worldwide rights, outside of China, for The Mitchells vs. The Machines, a new animated comedy from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, producers of the Oscar-winning animated feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The film, which up until recently had been renamed Connected, was originally slated for an October 23, 2020 release, which was then unset; with the new deal, reportedly worth more than $100 million, the feature will premiere later in 2021.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
New statement by BIC underscores moral dimensions of technology
BIC NEW YORK — A new statement by the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) on the role of digital technologies in the advancement of civilization has been presented to the 59th session of the UN Commission for Social Development, which concludes 17 February.
“Humanity is in a period of unprecedented transition,” reads the BIC statement, titled Reflections of Our Values: Digital Technologies and a Just Transition. “Possibilities are opening for marked social change to redefine collective values and underlying assumptions. This is especially evident in the realm of digital technologies.”
The statement highlights the growing consensus that digital technologies are not implicitly neutral, as has become clearer in recent years. “Technological innovation,” it reads, “much like the prevalent development paradigm, is deeply influenced by materialistic underpinnings.”
The statement was at the heart of discussions on Wednesday at an online side event during the Commission, co-hosted by the BIC together with the government of the United Arab Emirates and the NGO Committee for Social Development.
Titled “Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Dimensions of the Virtual World,” the event drew more than 100 diplomats, policy makers and civil society actors who explored a range of ethical questions such as how artificial intelligence (AI) can address the needs of diverse local communities, and how innovation and regulation can work hand in hand to advance the common good.
Soraya Bagheri, BIC representative and moderator of the event, said, “Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence hold great potential to channel the human spirit to address humanity’s most pressing challenges.”
Speaking of the moral implications of technology, Ms. Bagheri continued, “One challenge we are facing today is that the speed of technological progress has outpaced the ability to reflect.” She highlighted further the need for greater participation of the human family in critical questions concerning humanity’s future, such as how AI and other digital technologies are developed.
Another panelist, Hamad Khatir, Director of International Partnership with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of the Interior, echoed this sentiment, saying, “Inclusivity is a must in designing any software. … The risk of AI being designed only to serve a certain part of the world or part of society is a real possibility… that needs to be clearly assessed against criteria that place human progress at the center of all our goals.”
Eline Chivot, Senior Adviser on Digital Policy for the European People’s Party, commented on the need for common principles in this area, stating: “[principles] give flexibility to apply a code that we can all agree on and we collectively adhere to. A sort of moral compass.”
Drawing on the concepts from the BIC statement, Douglas Allen, a professor at the University of Denver and member of the Bahá’í community, spoke about how a just digital future would allow the benefits of productivity and technology to be widely shared, greatly contributing to eliminating extremes of poverty and wealth and “the perception of a zero-sum world.”
A recording of the side event can be found here.
Getting resources to projects that matter – almost US$ 3 million raise from the Global Fund. How WHO/Europe helped these countries
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
WHO/Europe is helping Member States to be more successful at securing support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by staging mock reviews of their funding applications. The process has led to 9 countries and territories obtaining approval in principle for just under US$ 3 million of funding to prevent and treat these diseases.
The 9 countries and territories are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. With the exception of Kosovo, all are on the list of 18 high-priority countries for TB control in the WHO European Region, which together bear 85% of the TB burden and 99% of the multi-drug resistant TB burden.
The Global Fund is a driving force behind major grants to fight TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria, and to strengthen health systems. It raises and invests more than US$ 4 billion per year.
In the mock review process, countries present their proposals to a panel of experts and WHO technical staff. The development of the applications is led by a country coordination mechanism with key national stakeholders and development partners.
Like other country partners, Dr Yana Terleeva, Head of the TB Diagnosis and Treatment Coordination Department of the Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, found the process extremely helpful. The stakes are high, with the Global Fund investing substantial sums to accelerate Ukraine’s efforts to implement an integrated, patient-centred model of TB and HIV care.
“The mock technical peer review provided us with an opportunity to work closely with technical experts to make the funding proposal technically sound and evidence-based,” she explains. “It also helped us refine the proposal to be sure it meets donor expectations, taking into consideration country needs and contexts. Another added benefit of the exercise is that it also contributes to national capacity-building and development.”
The technical peer review (TPR) sets high standards for countries, and Dr Terleeva acknowledges its influence on TB strategy. “The TPR has high expectations from countries in terms of prioritization of cost-effective and efficient interventions in funding proposals, provision of rationale for selected areas, and expected outcomes,” she continues.
“The TPR also strongly encourages countries to implement effective, innovative approaches in line with the latest WHO recommendations adapted to the country’s epidemiological context. Thus, the mock review assists countries to meet those expectations and to focus on the right strategic direction for their next steps in the TB response.”
According to the Global Fund’s Ms Sandra Irbe, Senior Fund Portfolio Manager for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the mock review process has improved efficiency and taken some of the stress out of the application process.
“Having WHO experts reviewing before submission is valuable for preventing strategic mishaps,” she explains. “The experts can help guide people towards what they need to do to be successful. If the proposal is not in good shape when it reaches the Global Fund, the technical panel has to send back the application and ask them to review – it makes the process very heavy and stressful. Thanks to the mock review process, by the time the application reaches the Global Fund it is technically sound. This avoids wasting everyone’s time. It’s a critical step, especially since everything runs to tight deadlines.”
* All references to Kosovo in this article should be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
Viewpoint: The Horizon Papers and the need for fair play in EU research
Call them “The Horizon Papers”: For the past few weeks, Science|Business has been publishing European Commission documents leaked to us concerning Horizon Europe, the next EU R&D programme. I want to explain why, and why it should matter to anybody who cares about progress in science and technology.
Read The Horizon PapersScience|Business is publishing here all the draft Horizon Europe work programmes available to us. You can read them here. Or, if you have additional ones, you can send them to [email protected] (anonymously, if you wish.) |
First, the short version: For several months, thousands of pages of draft planning documents have been leaking out of the Commission, spelling out how it will spend its research budget over the next seven years. We think the Commission should simply publish them: even though succeeding drafts will change, they can still help researchers plan ahead.
But Commission officials won’t do it. So we are publishing the papers ourselves.
Now, the longer version – and bear with me, please. This isn’t a little fuss over some unreadable legal texts. It’s about the fairness, and efficiency, of the EU’s public research and innovation. In the longer term, it could affect how we get new vaccines, slow climate change or reduce social inequalities in Europe. And in the short term, it certainly affects which universities and companies get the money, and which do not.
The Papers and the Papers
Calling them “The Horizon Papers” is admittedly cheeky of us: Unlike the more famous US Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War, there’s nothing in these documents that’s secret – or at least, nothing that should be. These are thousands of pages of draft texts, which the Commission intends to finalise and publish in a few months, as it gets ready to start spending the Horizon money.
For the most part, they are drafts of the so-called work programmes with which the Commission plans and explains how it will spend the money. They fill in the many blanks in the programme’s authorising legislation – the key details a would-be grantee needs to know when planning to seek funding. For instance, the European Innovation Council work programme spells out how it will spend its €1.5 billion budget for 2021 – important for hundreds of small tech companies. The “widening” work programme signals what the Commission will do with €3.3 billion to promote east-west research collaboration. Also leaked is the standard grant contract and application template.
Why does any of this matter? If you’re in a big company or university, with the resources to choose among priorities, these funding roadmaps help you plan ahead: to strengthen a research team in a particular field, or start assembling a new research consortium that will be well-placed to apply for the money. Given that your odds of success at winning a grant were under 12% in the old programme, and could well be lower in the new one, more time to plan can push up your odds. Further, some researchers use the information to lobby for their pet projects to be written into the final plan.
But these documents aren’t yet publicly available. The Commission has not yet published them. Instead, they are circulating privately by email and online post, haphazardly (if you Google, you can find some of these already posted on university or association websites, some open and some closed). That means that those researchers who know the system and have the right contacts can read them now – and indeed, have been doing so all through last year as one draft succeeded another. And – would it surprise you? – those with the best contacts are typically at multinationals or rich northern universities. This is the “oligarchic” research system that was singled out, in a superb European Parliament study in 2018, as one of the reasons why researchers in poorer, remote institutions win so few Horizon grants.
Plug or print
What’s the problem? Why doesn’t the Commission either plug the leaks, or publish the drafts itself?
Plugging is virtually impossible. There are hundreds of officials and experts around the EU who are part of the planning process. Many of the leaks come not from Brussels, but from the member state capitals – where officials recognise the importance of the drafts and sometimes pass them to contacts; the member states have a vested interest in ensuring that their teams win. And anyway, there’s no obvious legal tool with which to stop the leaks. This isn’t classified information, with legal penalties for loose lips.
So why not publish? In part, the Commission is institutionally shy of publishing draft documents, because it knows the member states want to argue about the details privately, cutting deals: I’ll back your agenda if you back mine. Backroom deals don’t happen on a public website. Further, the long wrangling last year over the EU budget means Horizon Europe isn’t yet ready to start (notwithstanding the Commission’s fancy “launch” event on 2 February ). There are a lot of legal steps to be completed, including a final, confirmatory vote in the European Parliament. Until that’s done, the Commission is legally shy of publishing any details.
And so, we at Science|Business decided to do something about it ourselves. Through Mr Google and our own contacts, our core news team – Goda Naujokaitytė, Florin Zubaşcu, Éanna Kelly, Nuala Moran, Maximilien Guelette and myself – have been gathering as many of these draft documents as possible, writing summaries and publishing as soon as possible, no thanks to the Commission. In fact, a Commission spokesman, when asked about these papers, responded: “we don’t comment on leaked documents.” Mille grazie. (In fact, some Commission officials agree with us, and have been referring researchers to our Website to read the documents there. Thank you.)
So what?
But, you may ask, why all this fuss? Why do I care?
As a journalist – first for the Wall Street Journal and now for Science|Business – I have been following EU Framework Programmes since their start in 1984. This leakage is not new: I have seen it repeatedly (and yes, journalists like leaks; but we also like fairness.) In 2013, a similar parade of leaks attended the start of Horizon 2020, and we published some of the work programmes then. But this year, it’s on a bigger scale. It is now systemic. And that’s dangerous. If the impression grows that Horizon Europe is a game rigged for the well-connected, it risks being undermined.
And there is a broader issue here: the future of science. I believe in EU research programmes, and in most public research programmes around the world.
Science is a force for good, and somebody needs to pay for it. With matters of public interest – pandemics, climate change, social inequalities – better the government foot some of the bill and steer research for the public good, rather than leave it solely to private entities and private interests. A timely example: the COVID-19 vaccines we now hail simply would not exist today if the European Commission, the German and Spanish governments (to name two with strong coronavirus labs), the US National Institutes of Health and other public bodies had not paid the lab bills year after year, with no obvious prospect of immediate return.
But to sustain such successes, public research programmes need popular support. They can’t appear to be rigged games. And so they must be transparent. Horizon Europe must not only be, but be seen to be, fair and open to the best and brightest. We urge the Commission to fix this systemic, absurd problem before it’s too late.
Migrants: EU launches new agenda for Med worth 7 bn
Goal to relaunch economy for security and slow migration
BRUSSELS – The European Union has proposed a new agenda for the Mediterranean with a seven-billion-euro plan to stimulate the economy of Mediterranean partner countries in recovery from the Covid crisis, as well as face political instability and slow the causes of the push on irregular migration, aiming at a green transition as well as young people and women.
Investments in the 10 countries of the southern partnership (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia) will be financed by the EU’s new Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), which will allocate up to seven billion euros for the 2021-2027 EU budget period.
The funds could mobilise up to 30 billion euros in private and public investment in the region in the next decade.
“Europe wants to contribute directly to a long-term vision of prosperity and stability of the region, especially in the social and economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis,” said EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi.
He said new investments in the Brussels programme aim to restore security in the area – “the greatest challenge that has arisen since the Arab Spring” – and fight “irregular migration”.
