TheNewsGuru

Tag: EU

  • Britain’s Theresa May asks EU to delay Brexit until June 30

    UK Prime Minister Theresa May has written to European Council President Donald Tusk to request to delay the UK‘s departure from the European Union by three months.

    The UK is currently due to leave on March 29, but the British parliament has twice rejected May’s divorce deal with the EU, prompting concerns that the UK could exit the bloc without a deal.

    On Monday, Speaker of the House John Bercow made a surprise decision to not allow a third “meaningful vote” on May’s Brexit plan, forcing the prime minister to seek an extension to allow time to revamp the deal.

    Addressing MPs on Wednesday, May said she does not want a long extension that would potentially involve the UK taking part in elections to the European Parliament in late May, as doing so would fail to honour the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

    In her letter to Tusk, May said she would seek to delay the UK’s departure until June 30. Last week, British MPs voted in favour of a short extension to the deadline.

    May wrote that she remained confident that British MPs would ratify the Brexit deal she negotiated with the bloc.

    “But this clearly will not be completed before March 29,” she added.

    May blamed Bercow and Parliament for failing to agree on a deal, saying Parliament had “indulged itself enough” on Brexit.

    According to reports, May’s decision to seek a shorter delay also followed “heavy pressure” from pro-Brexit MPs in her party.

    “If she’d gone to the EU and asked for a long extension, as indeed she’d said she was going to, she faced multiple resignations from her own cabinet,” Hull said.

    Later on Wednesday, Shadow Brexit Minister Keir Starmer applied for an emergency debate in parliament on May’s decision to request the three-month delay, Bercow said.

    Labour Party MP Starmer said the UK should use any delay to allow parliament to break the current impasse over Brexit, telling parliament he thought the responsible approach would be for May to “seek an extension to prevent no deal and provide time for parliament to find a majority for a different approach”.

    The debate is scheduled for Wednesday evening and could last up to three hours.

    The pound fell following May’s announcement, losing nearly one percent of its value on the day.

     

  • EU to pool, network its cybersecurity expertise

    The European Union (EU) is stepping up its capacity to protect Europe against ever-increasing cyber threats by creating a new structure to pool and network its expertise in cybersecurity research, technology and industrial development.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the Council’s Permanent Representatives Committee on Wednesday granted the Romanian presidency a mandate to start talks with the European Parliament on establishing a top knowledge base for cybersecurity called the European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Centre and setting up a Network of National Coordination Centres.

    Together, these structures will help secure the digital single market and increase the EU’s autonomy in the area of cybersecurity.

    “It is in the EU’s strategic interest to ensure we have the capacities and capabilities needed to protect our networks and digital services.

    “Structured pooling and sharing of research capacities and rolling out of innovative cybersecurity solutions will give a real push to the competitiveness of the EU’s cybersecurity industry in relation to global players,” said Alexandru Petrescu, Minister for Communications and Information Society of Romania, President of the Council.

    The Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Centre will enhance the coordination of research and innovation in the field of cybersecurity.

    It will also be the EU’s main instrument to pool investment in cybersecurity research, technology and industrial development.

    The Cybersecurity Competence Network will consist of National Coordination Centres designated by member states.

    The national centres will either possess or have access to technological expertise in cybersecurity, for example in areas such as cryptography, intrusion detection or human aspects of security.

    The Centre, in cooperation with the Network, will act as an implementation mechanism for cybersecurity-related financial support from the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes.

    Together, they will help increase the competitiveness of the EU’s cybersecurity industry and turn cybersecurity into a competitive advantage for other EU industries.

    Funding for these centres will be provided mainly from the Digital Europe and Horizon Europe programmes, with the possibility of voluntary contributions by member states.

    The proposal also creates a third structure, a Cybersecurity Competence Community, to bring together the main stakeholders to enhance and spread cybersecurity expertise across the EU.

    Its members will include, among others, industry, academic and non-profit research organisations, public entities dealing with operational and technical matters, and, where relevant, actors from other sectors facing cybersecurity challenges.

    The Centre will be established for the period of 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2029. After that it will be wound up, unless decided otherwise through a review of the relevant regulation.

    The EU also has a European Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), which will be upgraded into a permanent EU Agency for Cybersecurity when the draft Cybersecurity Act is formally adopted this spring.

    The activities of the new European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Centre will be complementary to ENISA’s tasks without duplicating any of them.

    Negotiations between the Council and the European Parliament to agree on the final text will kick off today.

     

  • U.S. citizens will need a visa to travel to Europe beginning in 2021

    U.S. citizens will need a visa to travel to Europe beginning in 2021

    United States citizens will be required to have a visa if they travel to Europe, beginning from 2021, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) announced on Sunday.

    “The visa will be valid for three years, and will allow a holder to enter the country “as many times as necessary,’’ ETIAS added.

    Currently, U.S. citizens may travel to Europe for up to 90 days without a visa.

    “Like many other countries, the decision to require a visa comes in an effort to improve security and avoid any further problems with illegal immigration and terrorism.

    “The requirement includes the European Schengen-zone, a group of 26 countries, 22 of which are members of the European Union,’’ it said.

    When enrolling in ETIAS, a person’s passport must be valid for three months after the intended stay.

    Passports over 10 years old may not be accepted as valid forms of documentation for travel.

    Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland are just a few of the countries affected by the new mandate.

    ETIAS is a border control system created by the European Commission, which works to secure borders around the EU.

    Report says a full list of countries that will require a visa from U.S. citizens is available on the ETIAS website.

     

  • Theresa May faces heavy Brexit defeat in parliament, eurosceptics warn

    Theresa May’s Brexit deal faces a heavy defeat in parliament on Tuesday, the leaders of two major eurosceptic factions in parliament said on Sunday.

    According to parliament May has so far secured no major changes from the European Union.

    Just 19 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, May’s is scrambling, so far unsuccessfully, to secure last-minute changes to an EU exit agreement before a vote on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal.

    If she fails, lawmakers are expected to force May to seek a delay to Brexit that some fear could see the 2016 decision to leave the bloc reversed.

    Others argued that without a delay Britain faces chaos if it leaves without a deal on March 29.

    Nigel Dodds, the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up May’s minority government, and Steve Baker, a leading figure in the large eurosceptic faction of her Conservative party, warned “the political situation is grim’’.

    “An unchanged withdrawal agreement will be defeated firmly by a size able proportion of Conservatives and the DUP if it is again presented to the Commons,” they wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

    The Sunday Times said May was battling to save her job as aides were considering persuading her to offer to resign in a bid to get the deal approved.

    The newspaper also said cabinet ministers have spoken about whether to insist she goes as early as this week.

    Parliament rejected May’s deal by a record margin in January, prompting the British leader to return to Brussels in search of changes to address the so-called Irish backstop, an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

    Many British lawmakers object to the policy on the grounds that it could leave Britain subject to EU rules indefinitely and cleave Northern Ireland away from the rest of the country.

    But, May’s attempts to get the clause rewritten have so far failed to yield any result, with EU negotiators unwilling to meet her demands, and Britain rejecting a compromise offer.

    Britain’s opposition Labour Party should support staying in the EU if there is a second referendum, the party’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, said on Sunday.

    “If there’s a public vote that would operate as a lock, if you like, on any deal that Theresa May get through. If that is the position, then in my view, the default ought to be ‘remain’’ Starmer told Sky News.

    However, Starmer said the party would not be seeking to secure support in parliament for a second referendum on Tuesday.

     

  • Google says EU new copyright directive is one step forward, two steps back

    Google says EU new copyright directive is one step forward, two steps back

    Google has said the European Union (EU) new copyright directive is one step forward and two steps back.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Google’s SVP of Global Affairs, Kent Walker made this known in a blog post on Sunday.

    European lawmakers recently agreed on a final text of a new copyright directive, and many voices, including consumer associations, creators, small publishers, academics and startups have shared their concerns about the outcome.

    “Having studied the final text, we agree that the directive would not help, but rather hold back, Europe’s creative and digital economy.

    “We support updating copyright rules for this digital age, recognize the value of content that creators and rights holders produce and care deeply about journalism.

    “We all share a belief in the social value of knowledge and content, and when publishers and creators succeed, we succeed,” Walker stated.

    According to Google, the latest text improves the version adopted by the European Parliament in September 2018.

    “Take Article 13. Platforms making a good-faith effort to help rights holders identify and protect works should not face liability for every piece of content a user uploads, especially when neither the rights-holder nor the platform specifically knows who actually owns that content. The final text includes language that recognizes that principle.

    “At the same time, the directive creates vague, untested requirements, which are likely to result in online services over-blocking content to limit legal risk. And services like YouTube accepting content uploads with unclear, partial, or disputed copyright information could still face legal threats.

    “The text needs to be clearer to reduce legal uncertainty about how rights holders should cooperate to identify their content—giving platforms reference files, as well as copyright notices with key information (like URLs) to facilitate identifying and removing infringing content, while not removing legitimate material.

    “Article 13 could impact a large number of platforms, big and small, many of them European. Some may not be able to bear these risks. This would be bad for creators and users, who will see online services wrongly block content simply because they need to err on the side of caution and reduce legal risks.

    “Then there’s Article 11. Again, we’ve seen improvements to earlier versions of the text. We’ve always said the copyright directive should give all publishers the right to control their own business models, making it possible for them to waive the need for a formal commercial license for their content. And it seems that the directive gives publishers the freedom to grant free licenses, which makes it easier for publishers of all sizes to make money from getting more readers.

    “Yet this latest version hurts small and emerging publishers, and limits consumer access to a diversity of news sources. Under the directive, showing anything beyond mere facts, hyperlinks and “individual words and very short extracts” will be restricted. This narrow approach will create uncertainty, and again may lead online services to restrict how much information from press publishers they show to consumers. Cutting the length of snippets will make it harder for consumers to discover news content and reduce overall traffic to news publishers, as shown by one of our recent search experiments.

    “Finally, while we share the directive’s goal of promoting quality journalism, the directive’s definition of what counts as a “press publisher” could well be interpreted too broadly, including anything from travel guides to recipe websites – diluting any benefits for those who gather and distribute the kinds of news most central to the democratic process.

    “We recognize and appreciate the progress in the text of the directive, but we remain concerned about unintended consequences that may hurt Europe’s creative economy for decades to come. The details matter, so we urge policy makers to take these concerns into consideration ahead of the decisive vote and in the implementation phase that follows,” Google argued.

     

  • EU urges Facebook, Google, Twitter to fight disinformation as European elections approach

    As the electoral campaigns ahead of the crucial European Parliamentary elections will start in March, the EU need to see more progress on the commitments made by Facebook, Google and Twitter to fight disinformation, it said.

    The online platforms, signatories of EU’s Code of Practice against disinformation, failed to provide enough details showing that new policies and tools are being deployed timely and with sufficient resources inside the Union, read the statement.

    To defend the integrity of the European Parliament elections in May, the pan-Europe body demands these three online platforms to report monthly on their actions.

    But the latest submitted reports “provide too little information on the actual results of the measures already taken,” said the statement.

    “We urge Facebook, Google and Twitter to do more across all Member States to help ensure the integrity of the European Parliament elections in May 2019.

    “We also encourage platforms to strengthen their cooperation with fact-checkers and academic researchers to detect disinformation campaigns and make fact-checked content more visible and widespread,” said the statement.

    The monitoring of the Code of Practice is part of the Action Plan against disinformation that the EU adopted in December 2018 to build up capabilities and strengthen cooperation between member states.

    And also the code was part of plan against EU institutions to proactively address the threats posed by disinformation.

    The European Parliament elections are expected to be held between May 23 and May 26, 2019.

    Amid growing populism inside Europe, the elections are expected to change the EU’s political dynamics.

     

  • EU countries endorse copyright reforms targeted at Google, Facebook

    European Union countries on Wednesday supported an overhaul of the Union’s copyright rules which would force Facebook and Google to pay publishers for news snippets.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the copyright reforms would also force the two internet giants to filter out copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram.

    A majority of EU diplomats agreed to the revamp while Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland refused to back the deal and two other EU countries abstained.

    Negotiators from the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission sealed a deal last week, two years after the EU executive proposed changes to protect the bloc’s cultural heritage and ensure that publishers, broadcasters and artists are remunerated fairly.

    Romania, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a tweet that the copyright agreement had been approved by the EU Council.

    The dissenting countries said the proposed changes could hinder innovation and hurt the bloc’s competitiveness in the digital market.

    “We regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies,” they said in a joint statement.

    The next step in the process is a vote by a committee of lawmakers next week followed by a parliamentary vote either next month or early April before the changes can become law.

    The revamp would require Google and other online platforms to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online.

    Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and other sharing platforms will have to install upload filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.

    Google, which has lobbied against both features and has even suggested that it might pull Google News from Europe, said last week it would study the text before deciding on its next steps.

     

  • Twitter launches political ad tracking tools in Europe ahead of key EU polls

    Twitter on Tuesday rolled out tools in Europe which would make it easier for voters to identify political campaign ads tied to crucial European Parliament elections in May amidst fears of Russian disinformation campaigns and threats of regulatory action.

    Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have come under pressure to do more to combat fake news and the spread
    of extremism and propaganda online.

    The EU is concerned about Russia’s role. Russia has repeatedly denied any such actions.

    Twitter said its political campaigning ads policy, introduced during the U.S. midterm elections, will also be launched
    in India and Australia, both of which are also heading to the polls.

    In essence it means that anyone can view ads put on Twitter endorsing a party or a candidate on its Ads Transparency
    Centre, with details on billing information, ad spending and demographic targeting data.

    The ads will be available indefinitely.

    A visual label and disclaimer information on promoted content will allow users to identify political campaign ads and
    who paid for them.

    “Our political campaigning ads policy is being expanded to cover #EUElections2019, providing the general public
    with an additional layer of insight into, who is running a political campaign ad on Twitter,” the company said in a blog post.

    It said candidates or organisations will have to go through a certification process with proof of identity before they can
    run political campaigning ads on its site.

    This policy will kick off on March 11.

     

  • Creative industries to benefit from EU online copyright reform

    The creative industries will benefit from online copyright reform as the European Union (EU) is set to rewrite its two-decades-old copyright rules.

    The online copyright reform will force Google and Facebook to share revenue with the creative industries and remove copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram.

    Negotiators from the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission clinched a deal after day-long negotiations.

    The commission, the EU’s executive body, launched the debate two years ago, saying the rules needed to be overhauled to protect the bloc’s cultural heritage and make sure that publishers, broadcasters and artists are remunerated fairly.

    “Agreement reached on #copyright! Europeans will finally have modern copyright rules fit for digital age with real benefits for everyone: guaranteed rights for users, fair remuneration for creators, clarity of rules for platforms,” EU digital chief Andrus Ansip said in a tweet.

    Under the new rules, Google and other online platforms will have to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online.

    Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and other sharing platforms will be required to install upload filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.

    Google, which has lobbied intensively against both features and even suggested that it may pull Google News from Europe, said it would study the text before deciding on its next steps.

    “Copyright reform needs to benefit everyone – including European creators and consumers, small publishers and platforms … The details will matter,” the company said in a tweet.

     

  • EU adds Nigeria, Saudi to dirty-money blacklist

    Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Panama are among the countries added by the European Commission (EU) to blacklisted nations for posing threats because of lax controls on terrorism financing and money laundering.

    The listing of the countries is part of a crackdown against money laundering after several scandals hit banks in European Union (EU) in recent months.

    But the development has triggered criticism from several EU states. They are worried about their economic relations with the listed states, notably, Saudi Arabia.

    The criteria used to blacklist countries include low sanctions against money laundering and terrorism financing, insufficient cooperation with the EU on the matter and lack of transparency over the beneficial owners of companies and trusts.

    Five of the listed countries are already included on a separate EU blacklist of tax havens. They are: Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago and the three United States (U.S.) territories of American Samoa, Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands.