European Union

A 27-year old man in Crete has admitted to the murder of a biologist from Dresden. He was 'aroused' when when he saw the woman jogging, he said, approached her, raped her three times and hid her body in a cave. Susanne Eaton was a US citizen, and in Crete for a conference. For commentators the case has a tragic relevance.

Rising crime rates in Sweden are also a growing burden on the country's healthcare system. The personal report of a Göteborgs-Posten columnist who had to wait for hours with her child for treatment at an A&E department because doctors had been called away to deal with the victims of three shoot-outs has triggered a debate in the opinion sections about how serious the situation really is.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is as of now on included in EDA’s 'Identifunding' online tool accessible via its European Funding Gateway for Defence. The tool, launched in March 2019, allows defence-interested stakeholders to identify on a personalised and tailored basis the precise EU funding schemes available for their specific defence-relevant projects.

The funding opportunities that are scanned through IdentiFunding include grants, loans and equity, including under the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR), the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), the EU Structural Funds, COSME, LIFE and Erasmus+.
 
The EIB has now agreed to add its project loans to the spectrum of more than 20 funding sources at European level that are scanned instantly by the ‘IdentiFunding’ tool based on a confidential and swift 10-minutes/10-answers process.

The above-mentioned EIB financing intervenes when the requested volume is higher than €7.5 million. These loans can cover up to 50% of the total cost for both public and private bodies for projects in line with EIB’s lending criteria and  priorities.

EDA and the EIB signed a cooperation agreement in February 2018 to support investments in defence research and development activities, with a view to strengthen the EIB’s support for RDI for dual-use technologies, cybersecurity and civilian security infrastructure.

The main aim of the IdentiFunding tool is to save budget, time and human resources usually required for defence stakeholders in order to identify whether their project and entities qualify for potential EU support. It is available to industry, Ministries of Defence (MoDs), Research-and-Technology-Organisations (RTOs) and academia.

More than 180 defence-interested entities from 26 EU Member States are already registered as ‘IdentiFunding’ users, e.g. MoDs, Armed Forces, National Defence Industry Associations (NDIAs), defence-related clusters, primes/large companies, mid-caps, Small-and-Medium-sized-Enterprises (SMEs), RTOs and universities.

EDA’s ‘IdentiFunding’ will be constantly updated to also include new funding opportunities arising under the EU’s upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, such as the European Defence Fund and the InvestEU Programme.
 
 

More information:

• EDA-EIB Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
• EDA SME corner
• EDA Industry Engagement Roadmap 2019

As Europe is facing a new heatwave this week, drought emergency measures will be back on the table. According to a study EU member states do a lot to worsen the impacts of drought.

As Boris Johns is set to take over as prime minister in Britain, the Irish deputy PM warns that simply because there is another occupant at 10 Downing Street, the realities of Brexit will not change.

While the battle with the European Commission over the rule of law rages on, PiS is discreetly trying to tweak electoral law in their favour.

Germany's new defence minister and CDU leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, plans to increase military spending to the Nato target of two-percent of GDP by 2024, which is also a frequent demand of US president Donald Trump. Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partners, the SPD said they would not allow Trump to dictate military spending, DW reported.

Police have arrested 25 people in the eastern Polish town of Bialystok Saturday after homophobic attacks on a city's first pride march, Euronews reported. Interior minister Elzbieta Witek said the "officers ensure security regardless of the ideas, values and beliefs proclaimed by citizens". LGBT rights have become an issue ahead of the October election with the ruling Law and Justice party depicting activists as a threat to traditional Polish values.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy's party scored some 42 percent in the parliamentary election, according to preliminary results on Monday. The pro-Kremlin opposition received the second-highest number of votes at 12.5 percent. The 41-year-old comedian-turned-president has appealed to voters by promising to negotiate a political solution to the eastern Ukrainian conflict, boost the economy and cracking down on corruption. It is yet unclear what sort of coalition could govern.

Europe’s support in Hong Kong is needed to “urge Beijing to accept requests from the Hong Kong people,” leading activist Joshua Wong has told EURACTIV, as violence took hold of the city yesterday (21 July) with armed mobs attacking residents, protesters and journalists.

EU interior ministers gather in Paris on Monday to try to bridge European divisions over migration, and find a temporary solution for the relocation of asylum seekers disembarked in Italian ports. Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini is demanding equal distribution of arrivals across EU ports, but he will not attend the informal meeting.

Ursula von der Leyen has great plans for environmental protection. Some of her ideas have long been propagated by France, but have been ignored by Germany so far. Can the new European Commission President change that? EURACTIV Germany reports.

Boris Johnson, favored to become Britain’s new prime minister, said on Sunday (21 July) the country could agree a free trade deal to leave the EU that would remove the need for one of the more problematic parts of a previous agreement.

As the EU suffers from “enlargement fatigue”, perhaps the European Economic Area membership will prove a useful stepping stone for Georgia in its rightful quest to join the Union, writes Fraser Cameron.

Humanitarian group SOS Méditerranée said Sunday (21 July) it has relaunched rescue efforts off Libya seven months after it abandoned operations using its ship Aquarius and despite a refusal by European ports to accept the migrants.

Britain was weighing its next moves in the Gulf tanker crisis on Sunday (21 July), with few good options apparent as a recording emerged showing that the Iranian military defied a British warship when it boarded and seized a ship three days ago.