The Socialists and Democrats call on the member states to agree on a legal basis to allow the confiscation of Russian public assets frozen by EU sanctions for the purpose of the reconstruction of Ukraine. This call is a priority for our group in the negotiations on the Ukraine Facility - a new instrument intended to provide 50 billion euros of financial support for Ukraine over the 2024-2027 period. The European Parliament is voting its position on this today in the plenary.
Brussels, 17 October 2023_ Eurochild published its first report on Child Poverty, which provides an overview of the situation on the ground in Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, and Malta bringing children’s voices into the conversation.
The Socialists and Democrats stand in support of the mobilisation of existing EU funds for high-tech industry and call for an additional €13bn to preserve European competitiveness in global markets while creating high-quality jobs for citizens. This will be possible with the establishment of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) – a proposal the European Commission made in June this year.
Tonight, the European Parliament’s committees on international trade (INTA) and internal market and consumer protection (IMCO) will jointly vote on the European Parliament mandate to start the negotiations with the Council on the new law to ban products made with forced labour from the EU market. This is a long-awaited key demand and policy proposal for the S&Ds in this legislature. We are pushing to ensure it is concluded before the end of the EP mandate.
Brussels, 13 October 2023 – The EU-US Summit planned for 20 October in Washington should pave the way for a global solution to tackle the two existential challenges facing the steel industry worldwide: non-market excess capacity and carbon intensity. Only a strong, international binding agreement can adequately respond to a new global context where government-fuelled, carbon-intensive excess capacity has reached 600 million tonnes, urges the European Steel Association.
13 October 2023: The Energy Storage Global Conference (ESGC) 2023 was organised by the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) on 10-12 October in Brussels, Belgium. The conference gathered almost 400 energy storage stakeholders and covered energy storage policy, market, and technology topics.
The SESA - Smart Energy Solutions for Africa project, coordinated by ICLEI Europe and funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, held its second regional event and policy dialogue in Accra (Ghana) from 9 - 13 October.
Directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods: EUREFAS welcomes the recognition of a “universal right to repair” by the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee
The European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) welcomes the overwhelming adoption of MEP Glavak’s report on Common Rules Promoting Repair by the Environment Committee and salutes the addition of a new article referencing “consumers’ universal right to repair”.
