EU financial services: digital perspectives

Views: 52Most productive EU-wide attention to digital-type financial services dates back to consultations on fin-tech in 2017 devoted to facilitating a more competitive and innovative European financial sector. Then around 2021, the central banks digital currency, CBDC has become a hot issue: several central banks around the world were considering options of adopting virtual currencies. […]

Support for CO2 capture and storage: Swedish example

Views: 49The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a €3 billion Swedish scheme to support carbon capture and storage, CCS aimed at reducing carbon dioxide, CO2 released during the combustion or processing of biomass (so-called biogenic CO2). The measure will contribute to the achievement of Sweden’s climate targets and the EU’s strategic […]

European “digital decade”: strengthening the EU-wide digital transformation

Views: 72European Commission has published the second report on the State of the Digital Decade, providing a comprehensive overview of the progress towards achieving the digital objectives and targets set for 2030. The 2024-report is accompanied by an analysis of the EU member states’ “digital decade strategic roadmaps” detailing the planned national measures, actions and […]

European science/research and innovation performance in 2024

Views: 67Recently published the 2024 edition of the Science, Research and Innovation (R&I) Performance report, SRIP-24 has shown that over the past two decades the EU increased investments in R&I which contributed to the EU’s competitiveness in green technologies and, specifically, in the overall EU-wide high quality research. However, the challenges remain and the EU […]

Boosting cooperation among European higher education providers: new funding

Views: 49Recent Commission’s Erasmus+ call for the European Universities in 2024 provides additional support to alliances of higher education institutions. According to this call, 14 new alliances of higher education in Europe uniting 50 previously selected alliances will receive up to €14.4 million each over a period of four years. The 2024 Erasmus+ call was […]

Combining “green deal”, climate and environment issues: feasible options

Views: 44Two European Commissioners commented on the recent Council’s outcomes and acknowledged its conclusions on some vital issues, such as green deal, climate mitigation and the new EU-wide environmental action program. General opinion is that the conclusions have been timely and satisfactory efforts in the right direction.  

Emission trading system in Europe: support for the member states

Views: 72The European Union has disbursed about €3 billion via the Modernisation Fund in order to finance about forty energy developing projects in 10 EU member states. These investments will support the modernisation of energy systems, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the energy, industry and transport sectors, and improving energy efficiency.  

European annual budget: priorities for 2025

Views: 78The Commission has proposed an annual EU budget of about €200 billion for 2025; besides, it will be complemented by approximately €72 billion of disbursements under the NextGenerationEU program. This substantial financial envelope is aimed at supporting the EU member states actions in meeting their political-economy’s priorities while integrating the changes agreed in the […]

Skilled workforce for net-zero development: European educational priorities

Views: 62EU strategic net-zero technologies manufacturing capacity is expected to reach about 40 percent of the member states’ deployment needs by 2030. European Net-Zero Industry Act foresees the creation of several “net-zero academies” focusing on specific technologies in order to ensure that the net-zero sectors in the states are having sufficient skilled workforce.  

Artificial intelligence and data-driven innovation: new rules

Views: 86Making more public datasets available for reuse is the new aspect in the EU digital regulations. The so-called “high-value datasets” are already containing information on six thematic areas laid out in the Open Data Directive (effective from mid-2019): i.e. geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and mobility issues. Besides, the Implementing Regulation […]