Views: 58Taxation issues concerning residential property are among most vital for citizens: housing is the main asset for most households, it plays an important role for the middle class, with owner-occupied housing representing on average 60% of middle-class wealth. Unprecedented growth in house prices over the last three decades has made access to the housing […]
Category: Modern EU
European projects in innovative energy and clean technology
Views: 40Under the third round of awards under the Innovation Fund, the EU invests over €1.8 billion in 17 large-scale innovative clean-tech projects. Grants will help bringing breakthrough technologies to the market in energy-intensive industries, hydrogen, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage infrastructure, as well as in manufacturing key components for energy storage and renewables. […]
Hydrogen energy through innovative technologies: new Commission’s plan
Views: 52For the first time ever, the EU made public a European hydrogen initiative (called IPCEI Hy2Tech) along the Union’s projects of “common European interest”. It is aimed at developing innovative technologies for the hydrogen value chain to decarbonise industrial processes and mobility. In the project’s development and first industrial deployment of breakthrough hydrogen technologies […]
Modernising the EU-wide higher education (part II)
Views: 47The second part deals with the EU-wide cooperative efforts in higher education. Present national education policy is critically vital for perspective national development and sustainable growth. But education sector is almost fully in the hands of national governance, according to the division of competence between the states and the EU institutions. The latter can […]
Modernising European higher education (part I)
Views: 64The EU provides states with both advice and support for high quality and inclusive education. These efforts are aimed at giving students urgently needed knowledge and skills for adequate response to new challenges affected by globalisation and technological change. These challenges are to be incorporated into national education policies in order to tackle the […]
European Payments Initiative: learning from previous mistakes
Views: 60The European Payments Initiative, EPI was initially meant to develop joint payments frameworks rather than searching for a balancing instrument in interoperability of heterogeneous domestic solutions. However, the EPI has been under severe scrutiny since the opt-out of several European banks. The EPI could still play a vital role in stimulating EU’s payment system […]
Czech Presidency in the Council: delivering the EU’s common priorities
Views: 41Three main topics are in the Czech’s Presidency complex motto: “Europe as a task: Rethink, Rebuild, Repower”. To implement the motto’s idea, the Czech Republic has five main priorities during the Council Presidency: ramification of Russia-Ukraine war, energy security, strengthening defense/cybersecurity, resilience of the European economy and democratic values. The overall Presidency’s idea, however, […]
EU “taxonomy”: measures in clean transition and sustainability
Views: 16One of the EU’s main present objectives is to reach climate neutrality in the member states; hence, appropriate and complex political and legal means shall be taken by national governance in order to decouple from external use of fossil fuels and reduce pollution in the European accelerated “clean transition”. Taxonomy, as a new EU […]
Perspective EU’s energy transition: plans and realities
Views: 38To achieve energy targets and the continent’s climate neutrality strategy by 2050, the EU adopted its first energy transition plan which defines actions aimed at ensuring the delivery on the net-zero ambition. During last decade several EU-wide measures were introduced to make the states’ energy strategies competitive, secure and sustainable in a fast-changing global […]
Minimum wage in Europe: crediting social-democrats’ initiatives
Views: 41Expected deal among EU institutions on a minimum wage directive represents a key milestone in a decade-long social-democrat’s fight for fair wages. The directive is aimed at better wages for Europe’s lowest paid workers and will help millions of low paid workers EU-wide at a time when citizens contend with climbing living costs and […]