In a plenary debate with Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in Strasbourg today, the Socialists and Democrats ask why the recovery and resilience plans of Hungary and Poland have not been approved, and call on him to ensure EU funds are properly spent. The Socialists and Democrats insist that European money must be used to rebuild Europe after the pandemic, not tear European values down..

Eider Gardiazabal MEP, S&D spokeswoman on budget, said:

Brussels, 6 October 2021 – FEDIOL releases its first monitoring of responsible soy up to the year 2020. The exercise is based on the voluntary reporting of FEDIOL’s member companies. It assesses the volumes of FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines’ compliant soybeans bought and sold as meal or oil in the EU by FEDIOL’s member companies. The monitoring shows that 43% of the soy processed in 2020 was compliant with one of the schemes benchmarked according to FEFAC SSGs. This is a 79% increase as compared to the 2016 volume.

Milan, 04 October 2021 – Manufacturing production rose again in the second quarter of 2021. The latest CECIMO data suggests that European Machine Tool production should reach 22 billion euro in 2021, with an annual growth rate of around 9.4%. While the outlook for 2021 and 2022 is positive, the growth in the global Machine Tool Industry remains influenced by various disruptive factors. At the same time, the world Machine Tool production is expected to reach a level of about 68.6 billion euros.

No one is safe until everyone is safe. This was supposed to be the lesson we drew from the Covid-19 pandemic, especially towards developing countries and low income countries, which have been unable to afford and access vaccines. Reality, unfortunately, looks different.

So far, less than 4% of African citizens have been vaccinated. The World Health Organisation’s target of 10% by October, only managed by 15 countries in Africa, was reached as of 1 October.