Brussels Briefing
The Socialist candidate and current president of the European Parliament, German MEP Martin Schulz (pictured) has had the stage all to himself in his campaign to become the next Commission president.
But fellow countryman Martin Selmayr is promising to make it a proper US-style campaign having taken over as director of the “Juncker for President” campaign, pushing the veteran centre-right EPP politician and former Luxembourg prime minister for the job.
Mr Selmayr headed up the office of high-profile Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding for the past five years. Now he has organised a campaign trail starting in Germany before moving onto France and Belgium in his campaign bus.
Always colourful in heading up the Euro finance ministers, delivering pithy comments and often unexpected views, his TV debate with Mr Schulz on French TV during the week promises to be lively.
The average EU citizen uses 200 plastic bags a year — going as high as 466 per person in Poland and Portugal and as low as four in Denmark and Finland.
The result is that nearly 100bn plastic bags are used each year, most being dumped and finding their way into the environment including the sea where they cause devastation.
Europe’s local governments, represented in the Brussels-based Committee of the Regions, wants the commission to beef up plans to ban all single-use bags by 2020, and charge for multi-use bags that would be used to help with clean-up.
Italy is the only country that bans non-biodegradable carrier bags while Ireland, Belgium and Denmark have a voluntary charge.
DIVINE ROLE: A website, www.The EuropeExperience .eu, has been launched by a range of Catholic and other christian groups to encourage people to vote in next months’s European elections.
They are decidedly pro-EU, with the French and German bodies behind the initiative saying that European citizens must not leave Europe to populist and anti-European forces but also need to take action on justified criticism.
In nine languages, the site will also allow bodies like Caritas to highlight their policy proposals in various EU sectors which they hope will also influence candidates running for the European Parliament.
The latest figures for airport traffic suggest that political storms are good for business, with Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, having a 30% increase in flights, while Moscow recorded an 11% increase.
But the biggest increases were at smaller Ryanair airports, with Vatry, France increasing by 76% while Bournemouth and Lithuania’s Kaunas were up by around 43%.
This compared to an average 4% increase in EU airports generally, according to ACI, which represents more than 450 airports in 44 European countries.
The new German government has agreed to introduce a minimum wage across the board but the draft suggests it will do little to increase pay for many.
Wages are lower than they were in 1990 helping to explain Germany’s competitiveness.
The new minimum will be €8.50 an hour, but the long-term unemployed may be paid less for their first six months in a new job.
This opens the way for employers to take on those out of work for more than a year at a very low wage, and firing them once the six months is up, warn some of the country’s trade unions.
A campaign that could end funding for organisations that provide maternal health services, including family planning and pre-natal healthcare, in the world’s poorest countries will be launched in Brussels during the week.
The One of Us organisation, that has successfully campaigned for similar rules in the US, wants to collect one million signatures to get the European Commission to introduce it to Europe.
Any body providing family planning services, human embryonic stem cell research and abortion related services would have their funding cut says Eoghan Walsh of the German DSW foundation that aims to campaign against the initiative.
Anybody who sweated through the terror of being loose in space, at the mercy of every piece of whirling debris captured in the film Gravity, will appreciate a new initiative from the European Commission.
The film depicted the growing number of satellites and debris in the space surrounding our planet, making collision a serious threat to what has become essential infrastructure back on earth.
Many countries have information on the stuff and the €210m worth of damage a year being caused up there.
The Commission wants to gather and co-ordinate this intelligence to avoid collisions.
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