New technology improves capability to monitor exact locations in the body.
The idea of journeying inside the human body to solve health problems has been around at least since science fiction popularizations, but the approach to medicine has yet to become real.
Smart pills help diagnose gut disorders. Image credit: Researchers at Caltech
Now, researchers at Caltech have developed what they describe as GPS for smart pills, small enough to travel through the human body and help diagnose ailments. The smart pills can collect health data, record images and even deliver drugs as they pass through the gastrointestinal, or GI, tract.
However, a smart pill must know its location in the body to do its job well. “Wireless localization of smart pills and other tiny devices deep inside the body, with high accuracy, is very challenging,” says electrical engineer Azita Emami. “A low-cost solution could open new avenues in diagnosing and treating common medical conditions.”
Chemical and biomedical engineer Mikhail Shapiro says there are three possible ways to access locations inside the body to see what is going on.
“We can place something inside like a colonoscopy device, cut the body open, or you can swallow a little pill that makes the relevant measurements,” Shapiro says. “I think most people would choose the latter if it provides the performance needed to diagnose and treat them.”
Surgeon wearing a mask during surgery – illustrative photo. Image credit: NCI
Caltech researcher Saransh Sharma developed the smart-pill technology with Emami and Shapiro. It was tested in collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A paper describing the work appears in the journal Nature Electronics. The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The technology has been dubbed iMAG, short for Ingestible Microdevices for Anatomic-mapping of Gastrointestinal-tract. It is not the first implementation of a trackable smart pill, but its creators say it is the most accurate and easiest to follow.
Emami says monitoring digestive tract motility has commonly required a patient to drink multiple “markers” then be X-rayed later to see how far the markers have moved. “That doesn’t show dynamic movement, though,” she says. “What we are doing shows real-time movement, and there is the possibility that we could add drug delivery or sensing to the smart pill.”
Emami says previous attempts at real-time movement tracking of smart pills relied on what is known as radio frequency triangulation; the pill was essentially a radio beacon. Although RF triangulation works, it cannot pinpoint the location of a smart pill with a resolution better than a few centimeters, which is not accurate enough to pinpoint where a pill is sitting in the twists and turns of the intestines. The iMAG pill, however, has the potential to be located with submillimeter accuracy, Emami says.
“For indigenous peoples, the land, the forest, water, is life. We depend on the natural environment, and we care for our surroundings. Managing natural resources is a strong part of our way of life. For example, the way we use rotational farming, avoiding monocultures by planting several different many different types of crops on our farmland.
In indigenous cultures, we look at a woman’s kitchen. If she has a wide variety of native seeds, it means that she is hardworking, and a valuable member of the community! To us, this is a greater indicator of wealth than money.
Naw Ei Ei Min, Executive Council Member of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact.
I started out at the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, an organization representing 14 Asian countries, which advocates for indigenous peoples at the General Assembly. I decided to focus on the role that indigenous peoples play in protecting biodiversity.
When it comes to the environment, and issues related to biodiversity, our voices are stronger than ever before at the international level. At the UNFCCC (the UN body responsible for the UN Climate Conferences), there is now a local community and indigenous people platform.
This is a major achievement for indigenous peoples, providing a space for indigenous knowledge and means that we can take part in the decision-making process.
But those changes also need to extend to national, regional and community levels. Real change needs to happen on the ground. The complex way of negotiating international agreements sometimes does not fit with the way we communicate; there still needs to be more equity, in terms of our participation, and giving a voice to those of us who are concerned with climate change.
Climate action and climate justice
If the natural environment is destroyed, then so is our traditional way of life. Indigenous peoples are dealing with the effects of climate change on a daily basis, on the ground, on their lands and in their communities.
We are facing threats from climate change, and also from the continuous exploitation of natural resources. That’s why climate justice is so important. We need take the views of indigenous peoples into account, if we are to find lasting solutions to the crisis.”
Naw Ei Ei Min represents Asia at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She spoke to UN News during the 22nd session of the Forum, held at UN Headquarters between 17 and 28 April.
The General Assembly designated 22 April as International Mother Earth Day through a resolution adopted in 2009.
The United Nations celebrates this observance through the Harmony with Nature initiative, a platform for global sustainable development that celebrates annually an interactive dialogue on International Mother Earth Day.
Topics include methods for promoting a holistic approach to harmony with nature, and an exchange of national experiences regarding criteria and indicators to measure sustainable development in harmony with nature.
In a parchment on which the work of an early medieval author was written, scientists found a description of a meteoroscope – a unique instrument of an ancient astronomer, which until now was known only from indirect sources.
An article has been published in the journal Archive of History of Exact Sciences, the authors of which examine an 8th-century manuscript discovered in the Abbey of Bobbio in northern Italy. This manuscript contains the Latin text of the “Etymologies” of the early medieval scholar and one of the Church Fathers – Isidore of Seville.
The manuscript was discovered as early as the 19th century, when researching the scriptorium of the abbey. Several hundred manuscripts dating from the Early Middle Ages have been found there. It is believed that this scriptorium is described in Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose. The collection is now housed in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. The 8th century manuscript is, of course, an extremely valuable historical monument. But the authors of the new work claim that the book is actually even older and more valuable. Examination of the pages has shown that at least some of them are palimpsests. This is what they call manuscripts written on parchment that has already been used. During the Dark Ages, parchment was very expensive and the monks who worked in the scriptorium invented various methods to allow it to be reused.
Fifteen palimpsests were found under Isidore of Seville’s text, which had previously been used for three Greek scientific texts: a text with an unknown author on mathematical mechanics and a catoptric (a section on optics) known as the Fragmentum Mathematicum Bobiense (three leaves), Ptolemy’s treatise “Analema” (six leaves) and an astronomical text that was hitherto unidentified and almost completely unread (six leaves). Using multispectral imaging methods, the scientists were able to reveal the hidden ink and examine the text, accompanied by a number of illustrations. They claim that this manuscript belongs to the ancient Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. In addition, the manuscript is unique, there are no other copies.
Ptolemy, who lived in the 2nd century in Roman Egypt (mainly in Alexandria), was one of the most significant scholars of Hellenism and Rome. As an astronomer he had no equal either in his lifetime or for many centuries afterwards. His monograph Almagest (originally titled Syntaxis Mathematica) is an almost complete collection of astronomical knowledge about Greece and the Near East.
Another Roman scholar, Pope of Alexandria (the years of his life are unknown, presumably III-IV century), wrote quite detailed commentaries on the Almagest, from which it is clear that Ptolemy’s work has not reached us in its entirety. For example, Papp mentions the meteoroscope, an ancient instrument designed to determine the distance to celestial bodies, a variant of the armillary sphere. The authors of the new study claim to have found in the palimpsest exactly that part of Ptolemy’s manuscript in which he describes the device of the meteoroscope. This device was a complex assembly of nine metal rings connected in a special way.
According to scientists, it can be used to solve a variety of problems, such as determining the latitude in degrees from the Equator, the exact date of the solstice or equinox, or the apparent position of the planet in the sky. Its diameter was about half a meter. The device of the meteoroscope, the research says, is described in such detail that you can go with this text to a good metal worker and he will assemble the instrument. At the same time, there are practically no recommendations on how to conduct astronomical observations. The latter is very strange for Ptolemy – the rest of his works demonstrate the pedantry of the ancient scientist.
But researchers have no doubts about the authorship: Ptolemy had a very characteristic style and vocabulary. The authors of the work hope to find a continuation of the manuscript in possible palimpsests in other manuscripts from the collection of the Bobbio Abbey scriptorium. The ancient parchment may have been divided into pages and used by several scribes working on different manuscripts.
Photo: A much older text Alexander Jones et al is hidden under a copy of a work by Isidore of Seville.
It is made of a flexible and stretchable polymer containing embedded electronics and medication
Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have developed a “smart” wound dressing that supports tissue regeneration and controls the healing process, reports the site of the educational institution.
In most cases, when someone cuts, scrapes, burns, or gets another wound, the body takes care of itself and heals itself. However, diseases such as diabetes can interfere with the healing process and lead to wounds that do not heal and can become infected and fester.
These chronic wounds are not only debilitating for the people who suffer from them, but also a burden on healthcare systems.
A smart dressing developed by specialists from the California Institute of Technology could make the treatment of such wounds easier, more effective and cheaper.
The “smart” bandage is made of a flexible and stretchable polymer containing embedded electronics and medication. Inside it are sensors that monitor the patient’s condition (temperature, inflammation, presence of infection).
The dressing can be connected to a smartphone or computer to transmit real-time data on the condition of the wound. It can also release antibiotics and apply a weak electric field to stimulate its healing.
The developers note that tests with animal models have yielded promising results. Their next goal is to perfect the technology and test the “smart” bandage on humans.
In a research partnership between King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah (KAU) and King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah (KAUH), scientists have conducted a first-of-its-kind study in the Kingdom that compares stem cells derived from a unique cohort of Saudi Klinefelter patients with a group of North American and European descent.
A teratoma is an embryonal tumor developing from pluripotent stem cells. In the laboratory, KAUST scientists use the Teratoma formation assay to prove that the patient-derived iPSCs are truly pluripotent. Image credit: KAUST
Klinefelter is a chromosomal disease characterized by an extra chromosome X in the cells of males. Frequent clinical features of the syndrome are infertility, intellectual disability, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, and one out of every six hundred Saudi males are affected.
However, the MENA population is largely underrepresented when studying the impact of the genomic background on disease susceptibility and prognosis. The majority of studies involving the use of iPSCs have been performed using North American and European patients.
The KAUST-KAU-HAUH study addresses this gap using a “patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPSC)-based disease modeling study to understand the molecular basis of Klinefelter syndrome. By using skin, blood, hair or urine-derived cell samples with the iPSC approach, it is possible to bring the patient’s cells back to the embryonic state in which they developed, and use them to model the onset and progression of diseases “in a dish.”
“The Kingdom is benefitting from the world-class collaboration between our three leading research entities,” said Vice President for ResearchPierre Magistretti, Distinguished Professor and director of the KAUST Smart-Health Initiative. “The iPSC technology is revolutionizing the study of the molecular mechanisms of diseases as it provides a way to work on human cells derived from patients.”
Magistretti added that the platform for iPSC that KAUST scientists have developed allow for unique collaborations with clinical centers such as KAU KAUH and with the support of KAUST KAUST Smart-Health Initiative Initiative.
The results from this first joint Saudi study demonstrate the existence of a subset of genes residing on the X chromosome, whose dysregulation specifically characterizes Klinefelter syndrome, regardless of the geographical area of origin, ethnicity and genetic makeup.
“This Saudi iPSC cohort will serve as an ideal cellular platform to explore further work into chromosomal diseases,” said Antonio Adamo, assistant professor and principal investigator in the Stem Cell and Diseases Laboratory at KAUST.
“For example, modeling neurodevelopment and anatomical changes affecting grey and white matters, features typically observed in Klinefelter Syndrome would be particularly interesting.”
This cellular platform will be used to generate the so-called “mini-brains,” three-dimensional cultures of patient-derived cells resembling the human brain that can be used to study the molecular mechanisms underlying the neurodevelopmental features of the disease. The findings yield an in vitro model suitable for developing personalized medicine applications.
MEPs passed a new law anti-deforestation, with rules aimed at protecting climate and biodiversity. They oblige companies to ensure that products sold in the EU have not led to deforestation and forest degradation.
The law will apply to cattle and commodities such as cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy, wood, rubber, charcoal and printed matter. Also added are products made from relevant commodities such as chocolate, furniture, leather.
There are also additional requirements related to human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.
The text does not impose bans on countries or goods, but companies will only be allowed to sell products in the EU if the supplier of the product concerned has submitted a due diligence declaration confirming that the product does not come from land that has been subject to deforestation and that its production has not led to the degradation of forests, including irreplaceable virgin forests, after 31 December 2020.
As requested by the European Parliament, companies will also have to certify that the products comply with the relevant legislation of the country of production, including in the field of human rights, as well as that the rights of the affected indigenous population are respected, reports the press center of the EP. The European Parliament also provided a broader definition of forest degradation, which includes the conversion of primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into forest plantations or other forested land.
Through an objective and transparent assessment, the European Commission will classify countries or parts of them into risk categories – high, standard or low risk, within 18 months of the entry into force of this regulation. Products from low-risk countries will be subject to a simplified due diligence procedure. The share of operator checks depends on the country’s risk level – 9% for high-risk countries, 3% for standard-risk countries and 1% for low-risk countries.
Competent EU authorities will have access to relevant information provided by companies, such as geolocation coordinates, and will carry out checks using satellite tracking tools and DNA analysis to verify where products come from. Penalties for non-compliance should be proportionate and dissuasive. The maximum fine must represent at least 4% of the total annual EU turnover of the offending operator or trader. The new law was passed with 552 votes in favor, 44 against and 43 abstentions.
Cryptocurrency has become a popular means of gaining passive income. Some may view its volatility as a negative factor, while others benefit from ever-changing market prices, gaining substantial profits. This article focuses on everything you need to invest in crypto. You will also learn about the benefits and risks involved with crypto investments.
A crypto wallet. This is the extra solution mentioned at the beginning of this article section. You must choose a crypto wallet to buy and store digital money. Experts suggest using cold wallets to store significant volumes of crypto and benefit from hot wallets for daily operations.
A cryptocurrency exchange. A crypto exchange is a website where you may buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency. WhiteBIT, Binance, and Kraken are among the popular and reliable exchanges. These exchanges store crypto in cold wallets for funds.
A payment method. To buy digital currency on an exchange, you need a payment method, such as a credit or debit card, bank account, e-wallet, or crypto wallet, if you already have cryptocurrency.
Identification and verification. Before you may buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrency, most exchanges require identification and verification of your account. This is a measure that prevents fraud. Moreover, it’s a precaution to ensure compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules.
Knowledge and research. Cryptocurrency is complex and volatile, and it is critical to conduct an extensive study before investing in any digital currency. It’s vital to understand the dangers and rewards of investing in crypto and the technology that powers it. You should understand the rate of cryptocurrency used on exchanges, its liquidity, factors that affect its price, etc.
Note: the regulations for investing in cryptocurrencies may differ based on your location. Before investing in cryptocurrencies, it is crucial to review local legislation and laws. Moreover, be aware of cryptocurrency exchange rates.
Because cryptocurrency rates for exchange determine the relative worth of different digital currencies, they can impact cryptocurrency investing. If the exchange rate of a cryptocurrency you possess rises, so will the value of your investment. If the exchange rate falls, the value of your investment falls.
Everyone remembers the success of Bitcoin when its value increased from cents to thousands of dollars. That’s one advantage of investing in crypto: high returns. However, investing in crypto also has disadvantages. Let’s first list the pros:
Accessibility. Because cryptocurrency is available online, it is accessible to anybody with an Internet connection.
High returns when you invest successfully. Cryptocurrency has the potential for enormous profits, with some investors earning more than 1,000% returns in a short period.
Diversification. Investing in cryptocurrencies can help diversify an investment portfolio. Because crypto is not directly linked to typical investment options such as stocks or bonds, it might provide investors with a unique opportunity to diversify their holdings.
Decentralization. Digital currency is decentralized, which means it is not controlled by any government or financial organization. Such a feature may appeal to investors who are skeptical of traditional banking institutions.
Despite all these excellent benefits, investing in crypto is a huge risk. Overall, investing in anything is a risk, but crypto can be even more dangerous because of its volatility. Let’s see what are the cons that you should be aware of:
Lack of regulation. Digital money is barely regulated, so it’s vulnerable to fraud. Before investing, investors must use caution and research the coin or token.
Volatility. Cryptocurrency prices fluctuate in short periods, making the entire market volatile. This makes forecasting market patterns difficult and can result in big losses for investors.
Security risks. Cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets can be hacked, leading to huge losses.
Limited acceptance. There is only a small range of cryptos accepted by various institutions and governments. Other digital currencies may be less accepted, leading to lower liquidity and risks of losing profit when unable to sell currency at any given time.
The main thing to keep in mind is to do research before investing in crypto. You should be aware of risks when buying crypto.
It’s clear what you need to invest in crypto, but how does the process work? You can invest in cryptocurrencies by using the following options:
Cryptocurrency exchanges. These are online marketplaces where you may buy and sell cryptocurrency.
Peer-to-peer trading. Using these trading systems, you may exchange numerous cryptocurrencies directly with other users.
Crypto ATMs. In some countries, you can buy crypto with cash at crypto ATMs.
Investing in digital money can be rewarding, but it’s vital to do so with caution. Ensure you understand the risks and benefits, that you do your research, and that you diversify investments. By following these guidelines, you can reduce the risk while potentially reaping the benefits of investing in crypto.
The 1957 Founding Treaty of Rome empowered the European Commission, as guardian of the Treaty, to take infringement proceedings against Member States for perceived violation of their Treaty obligations. It further provided that where the Court of Justice established a failure to fulfil an obligation, the Member State responsible had to take the necessary measures to comply with the Court’s judgement.
Perhaps because of the optimism that surrounded the agreement of the historic Treaty, the signatories did not foresee the need for further measures to ensure that the Member States respected the rulings of the Court of Justice. Experience was to prove that such optimism was mistaken and that additional measures were in fact necessary. Hence, in the Treaty of Maastricht a new provision was introduced to enable the Commission to take follow-on enforcement cases for non-implementation of earlier infringement rulings, and the Court to impose pecuniary penalties on Member States where it deemed the Commission had proven its case.
These measures, particularly when taken in tandem, would seem adequate to remedy breaches of EU law. That the Commission would have to revert to the first stage and begin fresh infringement proceedings for the non-implementation of a second-stage enforcement ruling was not foreseen in the arrangements. Yet, this is precisely what has happened in the case of the long-running discrimination against foreign language lecturers(Lettori)in Italian universities, with all of the attendant human costs involved.
Italy, A Test Case of the Efficacy of Infringement Proceedings against a Most Intransigent Member State 12Italy, A Test Case of the Efficacy of Infringement Proceedings against a Most Intransigent Member State 13
The circumstances which have given rise to this anomalous state of affairs were described in earlier articles in The European Times. In brief, in 2006 the Commission won enforcement case C-119/04, which it had taken against Italy for non-implementation of a 2001 infringement ruling of the Court of Justice. In its turn the initial infringement case was taken for non-implementation of the 2 Allué rulings of the Court, the first of which dates back to 1989.
In the high-profile Case C-119/04 the Commission had called for the imposition of daily fines of €309,750 on Italy for its continuing discrimination against the Lettori. Italy introduced a last-minute 2004 law awarding the Lettori a reconstruction of career from the date of first employment with reference to the parameter of part-time researcher or better parameters. Holding that the terms of the law could, if properly implemented, remedy the discrimination, the Court waived the recommended fines.
In follow-on correspondence with the Commission in the immediate aftermath of the 2006 ruling, Italy assured the Commission that the terms of the 2004 law were being, and would continue to be, fully applied. On the basis of these “firm assurances”, then Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Vladimír Špidla, announced in a press release of 2007 that the Commission was closing its infringement case against Italy.
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The worth of these “firm assurances” was proven by a subsequent Commission decision to open a pilot procedure (a mechanism introduced to resolve disputes amicably with member states and prevent recourse to infringement proceedings) against Italy in 2011. As over the ensuing ten years this diplomatic procedure markedly failed to achieve its purpose, the Commission opened full infringement proceedings against Italy in September 2021 for the non-implementation of the 2006 enforcement ruling.
If the assurances given back in 2007 as to compliance with the 2006 Court ruling were at odds with the duty of loyal cooperation placed upon Member States in their dealings with the Commission, then Italy’s conduct over the course of the present infringement proceedings for the implementation of that ruling is equally so. In its September 2021 press release announcing the opening of the infringement proceedings, the Commission gave Italy two months to take measures to comply with the 2006 Court of Justice ruling. Despite been given a significant additional grace period, Italy did not take adequate measures. Moving to the reasoned opinion stage in January 2022, the Commission in its second press release of the proceedings cautioned Italy that it now had 2 months within which to pay the settlements due to Lettori to avoid eventual referral of the case to the Court of Justice.
Four months after their demonstration last December, Lettori gathered again on Thursday outside the offices of Minister for Universities, Anna Maria Bernini to protest against the fact that the settlements called for in the reasoned opinion had not been made. Situated on the left bank of the Tiber, the Minister’s offices are within easy walking distance of the Campidoglio on the right bank. As FLC CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union, pointedly noted in its recent open letter to Minister Bernini, this is the venue where the right to parity of treatment was enshrined as a provision of the historic Treaty of Rome.
Placing the right to parity of treatment in the context of the overall rights of European citizens, the Commission states that the right “is perhaps the most important right under community law, and an essential element of European citizenship”. A hypothetical Commission official present outside the Minister for Universities office on Thursday would have observed a gathering of Lettori from all the Member States of the EU, protesting that this right is being withheld them. The fact sheets distributed by these Letttori would have briefed the official on how the discrimination persists despite 4 clear-cut parity of pay rulings of the Court of Justice in the line of jurisprudence that runs from the seminal Allué ruling of 1989. Consequently, none of the Lettori present at the protest has ever worked under the parity of treatment conditions that should be automatic under the Treaty.
In infringement proceedings complainants, though not technically party to the proceedings, can contribute to the Commission case files and depositions. Complainant, Asso.CEL.L, a “La Sapienza” of Rome based labour association, with the assistance of Italy’s largest trade union, FLC CGIL, conducted a nationwide Census of the beneficiaries of the 2006 enforcement ruling, their length of service, and the parameters of part-time researcher or better parameter appropriate for the reconstructions of careers. From this data bank an efficient organization could make the settlements due to the Lettori in a matter of weeks.
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Exchanges between Member States and the Commission are confidential in infringement proceedings. Consequently, the Lettori do not know how Italy proposes to react to the Commission ultimatum to pay the settlements due under the 2006 law. Intelligence gleamed from local university administrations suggests that the Italian authorities will try to value the settlements on the basis of the controversial Gelmini law of 2011.
The Gelmini law, enacted five years after the Court of Justice ruling, purports to interpret that same ruling. Aside from the audacity of legislating to interpret a ruling of the pinnacle institution of the European Union, the Gelmini reading of the ruling is at variance with the rulings handed down by local Italian courts in the interval between the Court of Justice sentence and the date of enactment of Gelmini itself. While these local court rulings awarded the Lettori plaintiffs an uninterrupted reconstruction of career from the date of first employment, the Gelmini law limits the reconstruction to the years prior to 1995- a limit nowhere prescribed in the Court sentence. Another glaring defect of the law is that its terms cannot arithmetically provide for the eventual more favourable parameters of the 2006 ruling.
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Should Italy propose to apply the terms of the Gelmini law, this could be the catalyst to cause the Commission to refer the case to the Court of Justice. Reaction to this prospect was mixed among the protesters outside Minister Bernini’s offices. While some Lettori would welcome an eventual Court interpretation of how Gelmini had interpreted the 2006 ruling of the Court, others pointed to the fact that this would prolong the infringement proceedings by a possible further two years.
Kurt Rollin, a former lecturer at “La Sapienza” University of Rome, is Asso.CEL.L representative for retired Lettori. Speaking outside Minister Bernini’s office he said:
“The Commission holds that parity of treatment is the most important right under the Treaty. Yet as the record shows Italy has withheld this right from Lettori for decades. In the interests of European citizenry existing institutional arrangements need to be changed so that intransigent Member States cannot ignore Treaty rights indefinitely.”
An area larger than the EU was lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020 - Photo by Evan Nitschke
To fight climate change, biodiversity loss and global deforestation, the new law obliges companies to ensure products sold in the EU have not led to deforestation and forest degradation.
While no country or commodity will be banned, companies will only be allowed to sell products in the EU if the supplier of the product has issued a so-called “due diligence” statement confirming that the product does not come from deforested land or has led to forest degradation, including of irreplaceable primary forests, after 31 December 2020.
As requested by Parliament, companies will also have to verify that these products comply with relevant legislation of the country of production, including on human rights, and that the rights of affected indigenous people have been respected.
Products covered
The products covered by the new legislation are: cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm-oil, soya and wood, including products that contain, have been fed with or have been made using these commodities (such as leather, chocolate and furniture), as in the original Commission proposal. During the negotiations, MEPs successfully added rubber, charcoal, printed paper products and a number of palm oil derivatives.
Parliament also secured a wider definition of forest degradation that includes the conversion of primary forests or naturally regenerating forests into plantation forests or into other wooded land.
Risk-based controls
The Commission will classify countries, or parts thereof, as low-, standard- or high-risk based through an objective and transparent assessment within 18 months of this regulation entering into force. Products from low-risk countries will be subject to a simplified due diligence procedure. The proportion of checks is performed on operators according to the country’s risk level: 9% for high-risk countries, 3% for standard-risk and 1% for low-risk.
The competent EU authorities will have access to relevant information provided by the companies, such as geolocation coordinates, and conduct checks with the help of satellite monitoring tools and DNA analysis to check where products come from.
Penalties for non-compliance shall be proportionate and dissuasive and the maximum fine must be at least 4% of the total annual turnover in the EU of the non-compliant operator or trader.
The new law was adopted with 552 votes to 44 and 43 abstentions.
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After the vote, rapporteur Christophe Hansen (EPP, LU) said: “Until today, our supermarket shelves have all too often been filled with products covered in the ashes of burned-down rainforests and irreversibly destroyed ecosystems and which had wiped out the livelihoods of indigenous people. All too often, this happened without consumers knowing about it. I am relieved that European consumers can now rest assured that they will no longer be unwittingly complicit in deforestation when they eat their bar of chocolate or enjoy a well-deserved coffee. The new law is not only key in our fight against climate change and biodiversity loss, but should also break the deadlock preventing us from deepening trade relations with countries that share our environmental values and ambitions.”
Next steps
The text now also has to be formally endorsed by Council. It will then be published in the EU Official Journal and enter into force 20 days later.
The Bureau’s decision on Former Members revises the existing rules, dating from 1999, on the access rights
Following the endorsement by Parliament’s Group leaders of the reform plan proposed by President Metsola, the Bureau adopted first implementing decision revising the rules for Former Members of the European Parliament and held a first discussion on revised rules on access to Parliament’s premises.
It introduces among other things a cooling off period for former Members of 6 months following the end of their mandate. During this period, former Members shall not engage in lobbying or representational activities with the European Parliament. After this period, if former Members decide to engage in lobbying or representational activities with the European Parliament, they will have to register in the Transparency Register. Consequently, they will not be entitled to the access rights and facilities provided to them as former members.
The Bureau also discussed revised rules on access to Parliament’s premises codifying existing provisions to ensure legal clarity and better implementation including the type of badges and the categories of users.
The Bureau will be dealing in the coming weeks with other aspects of this first set of measures like the participation of interest representatives in events held in Parliament or the revision of the internal rules on whistleblowing.
In parallel, the implementation of a number of measures that require changes to the Parliaments Rules of Procedure is ongoing. Debates in the committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) have started.
To accompany all the actions mentioned above, Parliament will run regular awareness-raising campaigns on obligations for MEPs and staff.
Background
This first set of reforms aims at strengthening the Parliament’s integrity, independence and accountability, while protecting the free mandate of Members. Other medium and long-term measures will be discussed in the special Committee responsible established in February plenary (ING2). In addition, general modernisation of EP’s ways of working are considered in a wider reform process, launched by the Conference of Presidents in January 2023 on legislative, budgetary, scrutiny, plenary and external dimensions of Parliament’s work.
