Comunicare

As reported in the previous edition, the European Commission has confirmed the amendment of the State Aid Temporary Framework that will extend it to 30 June 2021 and broaden its scope to include State aid to help businesses cover their fixed costs up to a threshold of €3 million per undertaking. This is a major […]

The European Commission is consulting Member States on a draft proposal that would prolong the State Aid Temporary Framework adopted on 19 March to allow for relief measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis until 30 June 2021. The draft would also extend the scope of the framework by enabling Member States to contribute to […]

The European Commission has approved the repurposing of €1,2 billion in Cohesion policy funding in Spain which will be used to cushion the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis on the country’s economy. The funds will support SMEs contributing to boost the healthcare sector and develop the ITC sector. A similar modification of €550 million […]

On 22 September, EU Member States reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining a functioning Schengen zone and Internal Market. The previous week, Single Market Commissioner Thierry Breton had warned that “unilateral restrictions on the free movement of goods and services would not be acceptable and would seriously hamper our collective recovery.” Freight traffic should keep flowing […]

The Commission has begun testing a new interoperability service for national coronavirus tracking apps. Test runs were launched between the backend servers of the official apps from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Latvia, and the newly established gateway server that is to facilitate the data exchanges. The European Parliament has requested to […]

Three-quarters of consumers (71%) are confident about returning to stores. That is what comes out of a study conducted by the Censuswide Institute that surveyed more than 8.000 consumers in four major markets – the UK, US, China and France. The study also reveals that although nearly half (49%) of global consumers believe they could […]

On 19 August EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan participated in a golf event at a hotel in Galway, together with 80 people, including many politicians. This was in breach with the COVID measures imposed by the Irish Government. This resulted in a media storm, the so-called “Golfgate”, that lead Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Dara Calleary, to […]

Following talks with pharmaceutical producers AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson, the European Commission has also concluded exploratory talks with CureVac and Moderna to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19. The Commission will have a contractual framework in place for the initial purchase of up to 300 million doses on behalf of all EU Member States, to […]

The EU’s €100 billion furlough scheme SURE has received loan requests totalling €91 billion so far. The largest shares of claims come from Italy (€28 billion) and Spain (€20 billion). Other claimants are Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. (Source: POLITICO) In its latest […]