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The EU has the world's largest carbon-pricing system, the emissions trading system (ETS). Emissions pricing can encourage industrial decarbonisation, but it also risks carbon leakage, whereby EU companies move their production abroad. To date, the EU has mitigated this risk through free allocations to certain industries, but with rising climate ambition and higher carbon prices, the Commission is now seeking to phase out free allocations. A new carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) would also ...

On 14 July 2021, the European Commission presented a package of proposals to equip the EU's climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % by 2030, compared with 1990 levels – the 'fit for 55' package. The package includes a proposal to revise the 2014 directive on alternative fuels infrastructure and turn it into a regulation. In the draft regulation, the Commission proposes binding targets for electric vehicle charging points and ...

This EPRS paper analyses progress made in carrying through the policy agenda set by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and her College of Commissioners when they took office in December 2019. It looks in particular at the state of play with respect to delivery of the agenda's six key priorities, as we enter the final year running up to the 2024 European elections. The von der Leyen Commission – either on taking office or more recently – has announced a total of 597 planned ...

Public financing of enterprises, which has been on the rise globally, can have a distortive effect on competitive markets. In response to this trend, in May 2021 the European Commission published a proposal for a regulation to tackle foreign subsidies with a distortive effect on the EU single market. It would enable the Commission to investigate subsidies granted by non-EU public authorities to companies operating on the single market, and to apply countervailing measures, should these subsidies ...

The effective management of the EU's external borders is a prerequisite for creating the EU area of freedom, security and justice. In response to an unprecedented influx of refugees and immigrants into Europe in the 2015-2016 period, the EU took steps to strengthen the management of its external borders, and to reform the common European asylum system. Several major challenges have affected the EU's external borders in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed Member States to adopt extraordinary ...

In most countries in the European Union (EU) and in the rest of the world, debt is treated more favourably from a tax perspective than equity, with interest payments on loans generally being tax deductible. In contrast, costs related to equity financing, such as dividends, are mostly non-tax deductible. This unequal treatment of debt and equity leads to a bias towards debt in businesses' investment decisions and can lead to high levels of indebtedness in the EU corporate sector. On 11 May 2022, to ...

People from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds face discrimination and its consequences on a daily basis, but the exact scale of the problem is hard to gauge owing to a lack of data and general under-reporting of racist incidents. The coronavirus pandemic saw a major increase in reports of racist and xenophobic incidents, and the crisis it triggered had a disproportionately large negative effect on racial and ethnic minority groups, in the form of higher death and infection rates. Although, since ...

Among the highlights of the March I plenary session was a debate on the conclusions of the special European Council meeting of 9 February and the preparation of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023, with Charles Michel, the President of the European Council. Members also debated the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank and its implications for European financial stability, a common EU response to save lives at sea, the need to ensure transparency and accountability in the light of alleged ...

The current Machinery Directive (Directive 2006/42/EC) was designed to allow the free movement of machinery within the internal market, while ensuring a high level of user health and safety. To reduce the occurrence of accidents, it promotes the inherently safe design and construction of machinery, and proper installation and maintenance. On 21 April 2021, the Commission put forward a proposal for a regulation on machinery products, as part of a wider 'artificial intelligence package'. The need for ...

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 ...