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EU lawmakers signed a regulation on ensuring a level playing field for sustainable air transport, otherwise referred to as the ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation, on 18 October 2023. It was published in the Official Journal on 31 October 2023 and will apply from 1 January 2024. However, Articles 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 will apply from 1 January 2025. The new regulation is a part of a legislative package to make the EU's climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse ...

New technologies come with new risks, and the impact of cyber-attacks through digital products has increased dramatically in recent years. Consumers are increasingly falling victim to security flaws linked to digital products such as baby monitors, robo-vacuum cleaners, Wi-Fi routers and alarm systems. For businesses, the importance of ensuring that digital products in the supply chain are secure has become pivotal, considering three in five vendors have already lost money owing to product security ...

On 14 July 2021, the European Commission adopted the 'fit for 55' package with a view to adapting existing EU climate and energy legislation to meet the EU objective of a minimum 55 % reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, as required under the European Climate Law. The 'fit for 55' package includes a recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), aligning its provisions to the -55 % GHG target. The recast EED as proposed by the Commission required Member States to almost double their ...

In July 2021, the European Commission put forward the 'fit for 55' package of legislative proposals, aimed at ensuring the success of the European Green Deal. The FuelEU Maritime regulation is one of these proposals and, together with four other proposals, it seeks to steer the EU maritime sector towards decarbonisation. To support the uptake of sustainable maritime fuels, the Commission proposes to limit the carbon intensity of the energy used on board ships. Accordingly, the proposal sets a fuel ...

On 14 September 2022, the Commission proposed a regulation to ban products made using forced labour, including child labour, on the European Union (EU) internal market. The proposal covers all products made available on the EU market, whether made in the EU for domestic consumption and for export, or imported. It covers products of any type, including their components, from all sectors and industries. EU Member States would be in charge of enforcing its provisions, and their national authorities ...

The Commission put forward its proposal for a regulation establishing the European defence industry reinforcement through common procurement act (EDIRPA) on 19 July 2022. The key goals were to address the EU's most urgent and critical defence capability gaps and incentivise the EU Member States to procure defence products jointly. On 27 June, the co-legislators reached a political agreement on EDIRPA. Parliament adopted the EDIRPA Regulation on 12 September and the Council followed suit on 9 October ...

States must treat asylum-seekers and refugees according to the appropriate standards laid down in human rights and refugee law. The 2015 migration crisis revealed wide divergences in the level of reception conditions provided by Member States, which have persisted until today. While some are facing problems in ensuring adequate and dignified treatment of applicants, in others the standards of reception provided are more generous. This has led to secondary movements of asylum-seekers and refugees, ...

On 30 March 2023, the European Commission presented a proposal for a directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods. The proposed directive aims to mitigate current patterns of business and consumption, marked by frequent and premature replacement and discarding of goods. The proposal seeks to save costs for consumers and facilitate the development of a resource-efficient circular economy. The proposed directive would apply to the repair of goods within and outside the legal guarantee. In ...

Value added tax (VAT) is one of the key revenue raisers in national budgets, accounting on average for almost a fifth of all tax revenue collected in the EU. Yet, sizeable amounts of VAT revenue are lost to fraud. Moreover, VAT rules place a considerable administrative burden on businesses. Therefore, to help strengthen the fight against VAT fraud and reduce this burden, the European Commission tabled a three-part proposal for a directive on VAT in the digital age, on 8 December 2022. The proposal ...

The rise of e-commerce has required the system of value-added tax (VAT) to adapt and ensure that the rules allow for a smooth and fraud-proof transaction between customer and seller. The major overhaul of the VAT rules for e-commerce in 2021 introduced a series of important simplifications for businesses, such as the creation of an import one-stop shop (IOSS). The IOSS allows businesses to declare and remit VAT on all their business-to-consumer (B2C) distance sales of imported goods across the EU ...